The animated sitcom The Simpsons will premiere its 18th season on the U.S. television network Fox Sunday night, and now Fox—whose parent company, News Corp. aims to be an all-out empire in print, broadcast, film, and online media—is teasing the show’s premiere episode across a spate of the company’s highest-profile online sites, including MySpace, Fox.com, and igntv.com, as well as The Simpsons official site.
The irony here is that The Simpsons has been on the air longer than the World Wide Web has been outside a Swiss physic lab. The show is one of the longest running programs in television history, and while fans will debate whether the quality of the writing has waxed, waned, vacillated, gone downhill, or had a renaissance or two over the years, the enduring popularity of the Simpson clan and the show’s cast of (literally) about a hundred supporting characters have made a mark on popular culture probably only exceeded by the Star Trek franchise. (Which is also getting re-done. ‘nother story.)
Windows Media-capable visitors to Fox sites will be able to watch the first act of the premiere episode, along with bonus content and (of course) pre-roll advertising. We don’t want to give away any spoilers here, but we’ll just say that Otto’s beloved Grand Funk Railroad cassette meets an unkind fate.
