The Simpsons were conceived in 15 minutes in an office reception. Matt Groening was the cartoonist of the comic strip Life in Hell, that caught attention to the producer James L. Brooks. He wanted to add a cartoons section to the program The Tracey Ullman Show on FOX TV channel. Groening finished conceiving The Simpsons while he was waiting to present his ideas to the producer. After appearing as a short in The Tracey Ullman Show, The Simpsons became independent and it began to present as a cartoon of half an hour long, transmitting in primetime instead of the weekend.
Set in Springfield (United States) and with a highly satirical tone of many facets of the stereotype lifestyle of United States (including beer, fast food, television, and organized religion), The Simpsons has been a massive success since then and it has had a massive popular following and critics of the then United States President, George H. Bush. Critics also showed interest in the program because of the appearance of celebrities and a lot of satire about contemporary and classic films, as well as subtle visual jokes showing a great appreciation for the sophistication of the audience. The cartoon has also special episodes like "Halloween Special", "World trips" (Brazil, Japan, Australia, England, Africa, etc.), "Christmas Episodes" and others. With this cartoon becames apparent the advantage of using cartoons for a sitcom, for the amount of secondary actors and stages, that a TV serie with real characters could not allow itself.
The basic framework of the cartoon focuses on the Simpson family, especially in Bart, Homer, Lisa, Marge and Maggie.
Although in the chapters the passage of time can be seen (through events like Christmas and birthdays, or references to specific years) the characters never get older and they always are the same age.
The Simpson family as they first appeared in The Tracey Ullman Show
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