It's official: "The Simpsons" will reach 20 seasons and tie "Gunsmoke"

It's official: 'The Simpsons' to tie one on with 'Gunsmoke'

"The Simpsons" has been renewed for a 20th season, tying it with "Gunsmoke" as the longest-running series in primetime history. Who'd have thought, right? Of course, "The Simpsons" is still an infant compared to shows like "As The World Turns" (52 years), "Guiding Light" (56 years) or "Meet The Press" (61 years). Here's Fox's official announcement about "The Simpsons."

FOX has ordered an historic 20th season of THE SIMPSONS, which will tie the series with "Gunsmoke" as the longest-running series in the history of primetime television. THE SIMPSONS airs Sundays (8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT) on FOX.

Created by executive producer Matt Groening, THE SIMPSONS is the longest-running primetime animated series in history and the longest- running comedy series currently on television. In 2007, THE SIMPSONS celebrated an unprecedented 400 episodes, and the long-awaited "The Simpsons Movie" was released in July and has grossed $526 million worldwide to date. Additionally, "The Simpsons Ride" opened in May at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL, and Hollywood, CA.

The critically praised series has been bestowed with numerous honors, including a Peabody Award, 23 Emmy Awards, 23 Annie Awards, four Genesis Awards, nine International Monitor Awards and seven Environmental Media Awards. THE SIMPSONS holds the Guinness Book of World Records titles for Longest-Running Primetime Animated Television Series and Most Guest Stars Featured in a Television Series. Recognized as a pop culture icon, Homer Simpson's annoyed grunt - "D'oh!" - is an official word in the Oxford English Dictionary, and THE SIMPSONS has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. With record- breaking retail sales, THE SIMPSONS reigns as one of the best-selling TV DVD properties of all time.

THE SIMPSONS is a Gracie Films Production in association with 20th Century Fox Television. James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, and Al Jean are the executive producers. Film Roman is the animation house.

And let's hope that the 20th season will be it's last.

And don't forget that at least with Gunsmoke they had 20 good seasons. Simpsons has like 5 seasons of good episodes and the rest suck.

Gunsmoke also did not have cast members getting $400,000 for just sitting on their asses. The Gunsmoke actors actually worked!

On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:17:31 -0700 (PDT), Ken Layton wrote:

And many of their seasons had 36+ episodes, then around season 7, the episodes were expanded to an hour long.

OFF Fan wrote in news:[email]:

On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:51:17 -0400, Wiseguy wrote:

Like Carl and Lenny?

OFF Fan wrote in news:[email]:

And TVLand doesn't show the B&W episodes so Gunsmoke has only 9 seasons of endlessly-rerun episodes.

"OFF Fan" wrote

And since we're talking non-comedies, don't forget 'The Bill', a British police drama / soap opera which has been running since 1984, beginning with one hour a week and quickly escalating to 3 half-hours a week, and now produces 2 one hour episodes a week, a tremendous schedule to keep up with given that much of it is shot on the streets of London with all the congestion problems and anti-terrorist precautions they must face.

Several players have been with the programme from the very first episode. May be seen on either BBC America or UKTV Gold, apparently. A big ratings scorer here in Australia too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bill

Move along there now...

Paul

Coronation Street has been on the air since 1960!

"Je�us" wrote

Good point.

If Ena Sharples was still going, she'd be older than Burns' mother!

Paul

Monty would no doubt classify her as 'MILF'.

I was going to ask you what that stood for, but Google told me first.

Moving right along...

Paul (I won't get to sleep tonight...)

Clowns will eat you if you do?