THE SIMPSONS EPISODE GUIDE

Number of episodes: 13
The first series of full-length episodes, running from December 1989 to May 1990. Like the Tracey Ullman shorts which preceded the series, this Season is quite crudely animated. You may also notice that Homer's voice sounds quite different from later episodes - this is because Dan Castellaneta was trying to do a Walter Matthau impersonation when he did the voice. In later Seasons, the pitch of his voice was raised slightly. The episodes in Season One use a '7G' production code - Matt Groening chose this because Homer works in sector 7G at the Nuclear Plant.

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Number of episodes: 22
The second series (1990-1991) brought with it improved animation, funnier stories and a host of big-name guest stars, including Danny DeVito, Dustin Hoffman and James Earl Jones. All the classics are here: the first of the annual Treehouse of Horror specials; the discovery of Blinky, the mutant three-eyed fish; Homer almost making it over Springfield Gorge on Bart's skateboard; Homer believing he's going to die; the story of how Homer and Marge met; and of course, the introduction of Herb, Homer's half brother.

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Number of episodes: 24
The third series (1991-1992) is widely considered to be the start of "The Golden Years" of the show; by this time The Simpsons had well and truly established itself as a pop culture phenomenon. Again, improved animation and funnier plots helped it to become one of the most successful television programs of that year, with merchandise selling like crazy. Now the show was not just for kids, as is the impression you get from the first two Seasons - this was the start of the multi-layered humour and storylines that makes all the great Simpsons episodes so good. Among the many classics, we see Homer get committed to a mental institution for wearing a pink shirt (with the guest voice of Michael Jackson); a new drink called the 'Flaming Moe' take Springfield by storm; Mr. Burns selling the power plant to Germans; the story of Homer & Marge's marriage and Bart's birth; and Homer managing a beautiful country singer (one of his many lifelong dreams).

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Number of episodes: 22
While the first three Seasons saw episodes mostly revolving around Bart, in Season Four (1992-1993) we saw a lot more of Homer, proving that the show was no longer "just a kids program". This Season has more classics than you can count on your fingers and toes (unless you're from Spittle County and have a couple extra). There's the kids' nightmarish trip to Kamp Krusty; Marge's performance in the New Orleans-bashing "A Streetcar Named Desire" which caused uproar in said city; Homer skipping church and meeting God in a dream (notice that God has five fingers); The story of Lisa's birth, and each of the kids' first words; Homer giving up deer, uh, beer, for a month; and of course the first (and best) clip show. An excellent set of episodes.

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Number of episodes: 22
This is undoubtedly my favourite Season ever. Simpsons-mania was still prominent and showed no signs of stopping. Season Five (1993-1994) carried on the trend of Season Four with witty, multi-layered jokes, but also introduced more character-based episodes: we hear the story of how Homer, Barney, Apu and Principal Skinner became Bigger Than Jesus for five and a half weeks singing barbershop; Apu living with the Simpsons after losing his job; Sideshow Bob make a welcome return in a parody of Cape Fear cleverly titled...Cape Feare; and no less than three major appearances of Mr. Burns. This year starts Homer's "dumbening" - you can really tell the writers consciously made him stupider - but it works quite well here. This Season also marks the show's 100th episode, Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song, which has the blackboard gag "I Will Not Celebrate Meaningless Milestones".

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Number of episodes: 25
Season Six (1994-1995), along with the previous two Seasons, are probably the most quotable in the show's history. Here's where it really shows: you can't go through this list and find an episode that doesn't have at least half a dozen hilarious quotes in it. This could easily be the "parody Season": from Hitchcock's "Rear Window" in Bart of Darkness to Kubrick's "The Shining" in Treehouse of Horror V to "101 Dalmations" in Two Dozen and One Greyhounds and various other short skits, the show rewarded movie lovers more than ever. And of course, one of the defining moments in Simpsons history was the first of a two-part murder mystery, Who Shot Mr. Burns?, a great parody of Dallas' "Who Shot J.R.?" episode.

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Number of episodes: 25
Yet more classic episodes in this, The Simpsons' seventh Season (1995-1996). After a summer of waiting, we finally find out who shot Mr. Burns...it turns out it was the baby. This year's Treehouse of Horror episode was quite special - it featured 3D animation of Homer, as he stumbles upon a mysterious world behind the bookcase. Also in this Season, Bart sells his soul to Milhouse for five bucks; Homer gains 60 pounds to qualify as disabled; the show celebrates it's 138th episode; Bart takes a road trip using a fake ID; former President George Bush moves in across the street from the Simpsons; and Homer is reunited with his mother in a very touching episode.

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Number of episodes: 25
Described as the "last of the Golden Era" by some fans, Season Eight (1996-1997) is again full of memorable and quotable episodes. The show's success thus far brought with it more big-name guest stars: Albert Brooks plays an evil super-villain who happens to be Homer's new boss; Rodney Dangerfield voices Mr. Burns' oafish son; Jonny Cash is a spirit guide (in the form of a coyote) for Homer after he eats Guatemalan insanity peppers; David Duchovony and Gillian Anderson reprise their roles as Mulder and Scully in a great X-Files crossover episode; and Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce, brothers in the sitcom Frasier, play Bob and Cecil Terwilliger in the sixth outing - and imprisonment - for the great Sideshow Bob.

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Number of episodes: 25
Season Nine (1997-1998) brought us a new Executive Producer, Mike Scully, who has been referred to, as "the guy who started The Simpsons' decline". Bitter sentiments of Internet fans aside, there was undeniably a change in style from this Season. Episodes feel very sitcom-like, almost as if there was supposed to be a laugh track in the background. Whether this change was good or bad is debatable - but another thing that's certain is there are still many quality episodes here. We see Homer buying a handgun to apparently protect his family; the school children stranded on an island, a la Lord of the Flies; Lisa believing she is going through a process of "dumbening"; Bart befriending Ralph Wiggum; and another milestone episode - the 200th - in which Homer runs for Sanitation Commissioner. Just for completeness, among the bad eggs are Skinner being revealed to be an imposter (they must have been eating rotisserie chicken when they came up with that one); Homer being a jerk as Bart's football coach; and a clip show with no real story.

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Number of episodes: 23
To quote Matt Groening from The Simpsons Forever book: "Time has a way of slogging on". And so we come to the tenth year (1998-1999) of The Simpsons' brilliant comedy - and who could have predicted that at this point we were only what will probably be halfway through The Simpsons' life-span? It must be celebrated that a show can remain consistently funny for so long - or so they tell us. This and subsequent Seasons have divided fans - some liked the new style, some were appalled at Homer's new "jerkass" qualities and the crazy plotlines. In fact, this Season could be the most Homer-centric to date - it seems that Homer is always the centre of attention in any scene where he appears. I tend to sit on the fence here in regards to episode quality. There are a few clunkers: Homer running from a kidney transplant operation (twice!); Homer and Ned marrying two floozies in Vegas; a whole episode written around guest stars Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger and Ron Howard; and a Superbowl-themed episode that just didn't go anywhere spring to mind. But most of this Season's episodes are actually just as funny as Seasons that preceded it: Bart taking care of birds eggs, which hatch into lizards; a great Treehouse of Horror starring Jerry Springer; Homer becoming Mayor Quimby's bodyguard; Marge being arrested for road rage; and Lisa joining Mensa are just a few of the highlights. A final note: production codes in this Season changed from their old format (1F, 2F, etc) to a new one - AABF - as part of a standardization of codes for Fox shows. The first letter in this case denotes the Season - and so this format technically allows for another 26 Seasons, up to Season 35... who knows if it'll happen? (!)

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Number of episodes: 22
One thing that is apparent in these later Seasons is that while there are still great episodes, there are more and more bad ones - and in fact the gap seems to get bigger with each Season. Season Eleven (1999-2000) brought us more of the same humour as Seasons Nine and Ten, however here there were noticeably more wacky stories: the family relocate to a farm and conjure up "Tomacco", a cross between tomatoes and tobacco; Maggie miraculously saves Homer from drowning; fights with motorcycles; a mad chase with Teletubbies shooting lasers; jockey elves threatening Homer; and a Florida vacation that soon turns into a farcical running-from-the-law debacle. Something else I noticed about the "Scully years" is that the character designs were quite different from the older Seasons. Comparing the fourth and eleventh Seasons, it's easy to see that the characters generally look more "human", in that the classic Simpsons features (huge eyes, massive overbite) have been toned down. This is most apparent in Homer - in earlier episodes he always looked as though he had some kind of childlike innocence about him. Of course it was not all bad, and even the worst episodes had the classic elements we've all come to know and love.

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Number of episodes: 21
Season Twelve (2000-2001) was the fourth and final Season with Mike Scully as Executive Producer. Many fans see this as the worst Season to date, but that's up for debate. While the gap between good and bad episodes grew, the good far outweighs the bad. In this Season, Krusty discovers he has a daughter; Lisa becomes an eco-warrior; the children are trapped in the school and must spend the night under Skinner's authority; Homer goes on a hunger strike (the same episode in which the family visit Blockoland); Comic Book Guy has a heart attack in one of my all-time favourites; and a day in the life of the Simpsons is replayed from three different perspectives in what is regarded as a true modern classic. The Season Premiere marked the 250th episode, a record for a prime-time animated show. However, this and a few episodes fell way short of greatness. This was definitely the Season for bad endings; it's hard to find an episode here where the ending preserves some kind of humour or normality. The most notable example of this is the infamous "Surf's Up!" ending to The Great Money Caper, my least favourite episode ever (reading that sentence aloud in Comic Book Guy's voice really sells my point).

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Number of episodes: 22
Season Thirteen (2001-2002) marked a notable turnaround in episode quality for many fans. Mike Scully left, and was replaces as Executive Producer by Al Jean, a former EP with Mike Reiss in Seasons 3 and 4. Out were some of Homer's jerkass qualities, and in was a Homer in favour of self-improvement (though this didn't last long). This year marked the end of constant Homer episodes, and introduced some more character episodes - most notably, Marge-based episodes. My personal favourites here include Marge's crusade to ban sugar; Homer getting his jaw wired shut; the return of Artie Ziff; Bart's comic-strip-turned-internet-cartoon, Angry Dad, temporarily taking the world by storm; and Lisa posing as a college student (my favourite episode of the whole Jean era).

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Number of episodes: 22
Season Fourteen (2002-2003) can probably be best described as a rollercoaster of mediocrity. One thing that helped this year's bunch of episodes was a forward leap in animation quality - from the EABF episodes (surprisingly late in the Season due to an increasing number of holdover episodes), the show is now digitally coloured. However, even this did not make up for some of the tacky plots and joke-scarce scenes. The worst offenders: Marge gets breast implants (mistakenly, thank God) and in a later episode gets addicted to steroids; the family take part in a reality show, which in itself is a rollercoaster of confused plotting and bad jokes; Homer decides that Marge is hell-bent of causing him pain; and the kids try to help nature in the blandest episode to date. On the flipside, we see Lisa almost win the "Spell-ympics"; Homer takes over the power plant; Homer move in with two gay guys; and a Flanders-hating song (penned by who else but Homer?) take Springfield by storm; all of which will be remembered for a long while yet. This Season marked the show's 300th episode, with Strong Arms of the Ma - although Fox incorrectly promoted Barting Over as this milestone. The billed 300th episode, while not a candidate for "best episode ever" (or even best of the Season), showed us that there is still life left in this legendary show.

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Number of episodes: 22
(2003-2004)

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Number of episodes: 21
(2004-2005)

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Number of episodes: 22
(2005-2006)

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