It's a Simpsons Summer

by Juli Cragg Hilliard, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 5/16/2007

This Sunday, May 20, brings the historic 400th episode of The Simpsons, making it the longest-lived sitcom ever. "It puts them in the pantheon of American television," religion journalist and Simpsons expert Mark Pinsky told RBL. "I think it just passed Ozzie and Harriet and it's closing in on Gunsmoke."

Add to that the July 27 worldwide opening of The Simpsons Movie and the June 1 release of the new, expanded edition of Pinsky's The Gospel According to The Simpsons (Westminster John Knox, 2001), and it's shaping up to be a summer with Simpsons sizzle. Universal Studios announced last month that its theme parks in Orlando, Fla., and Hollywood, Calif., would both add Simpsons-themed rides in spring 2008.

Orlando Sentinel reporter Pinsky—also the author of The Gospel According to Disney (2004) and A Jew Among the Evangelicals (2006) for WJK—says the ironic comedy of The Simpsons has had nearly the same worldwide cultural impact in its 18-year existence as the entire media empire of Disney in its 70 years.

There's the contribution to the lexicon of such expressions as "D'Oh" and "Don't have a cow, man!" A Bart Simpson float appears in the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. The show has inspired at least a half-dozen serious books. "And God knows how many academic papers," Pinsky said. "I have high school kids e-mail me from Australia."

The series continues to address sacred content in a sympathetic, favorable, central manner, he noted, and has "made it safe for subsequent animated series to deal with religion." Pinsky analyzes other shows in the new edition of The Gospel According to The Simpsons, which is twice as long as the original.

This article originally appeared in the May 16, 2007 issue of Religion BookLine. For more information about Religion BookLine, including a sample and subscription information, click here »

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