It was clear from the early promos that this episode wasn't going to be special in any meaningful sense. It was just a regular old Simpsons episode, which happened to drop into the "500th episode" slot in the series' run. This seems like a puzzling waste of opportunity. Only four other shows in the history of television have gone for more than 500 episodes, and two of those shows are WWE wrestling so I'm not sure if they really count. 

 

It seems like it would have been right to mark this milestone with something a little different. I'm thinking of the "Behind the Music" episode, something meta, an episode that is ABOUT the show. It kind of makes me wonder if the show's creators actually care about the show at all, you know? We make an effort to mark the epic milestones of the things we care about. For grandpa's 100th birthday we don't just give him a cursory pat on the back and get on with our day.

1.

The first episode of The Simpsons aired on December 17, 1989. I was finishing my last year of high school. It aired on a Sunday night, which was family dinner night over at my stepmother's house. My stepbrother and I begged our parents to let us watch the show, because we had heard so much about it. 

 

Watching The Simpsons became part of our Sunday night ritual - for the next few months, anyway, after which my stepbrother and I left the state to attend college. 

 

My father still tries to get a laugh out of me by saying "D'oh!" even though I know for a fact he hasn't seen a single episode of the show in at least the last ten years. But it's part of our shared family history, and he's a dad, and that's the kind of silly-ass lame thing that dads do, even when you're almost 40.