The Simpsons: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Season 1
9. Once, Twice, Three Times A Simpson
As previously mentioned, The Simpsons was originally a series of shorts devised as a way to lead into and out of commercial breaks on The Tracey Ullman Show.
These original shorts lasted only a minute and ran for three seasons before morphing into its own series.
Transitioning from one-minute shorts to a full commercial half-hour is no easy feat and the top brass at Fox were very much aware of this.
They originally asked the show's creators for each episode to be comprised of three seven-minute shorts, keeping to the original format seen on Ullman.
Four full-length specials were proposed, but the network were keen to give audiences time to adjust to this new layout of the show.
However, as we'll see later on, The Simpsons writers rarely gave much thought to what Fox had to say.
Instead, they pressed on and asked the network for 13 full length episodes.
Fox took the gamble and thank God they did, otherwise the first season of The Simpsons could have looked very different indeed.
Well, it already looks quite different from the rest of the show, but you know what we mean.