Simpsons debut on Tracey Ullman Show

1987

Matt Groening's animated family of yellow misfits first appeared as one-minute interstitials on The Tracey Ullman Show, crude sketches dashed off on a legal pad. Two years later they would get their own prime-time half-hour on Fox, reviving prime-time animation for adults and becoming the longest-running scripted show in American television history, outlasting every prediction of its demise. D'oh.