User:WaltK/The Simpsons (franchise)

The Simpsons is an American animated television series and multimedia franchise created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company.

The sitcom focuses on the titular, dysfunctional American family, consisting of the dimwitted father Homer, his ever-exasperated wife Marge, and their three children, the mischievous Bart, the gifted prodigy Lisa, and the voiceless infant Maggie, as they attempt to navigate daily life in their hometown of Springfield, inhabited by a giant extended cast of eccentric characters.

The characters originally began life in 1987 through a series of animated shorts on the American variety show, The Tracey Ullman Show, with their popularity leading a fully fledged television series.

The show's first episode,, premiered in the United States on 17 December 1989, a mere week and a half after Doctor Who's classic run concluded on UK television.

The show continues to run to this day: it is the longest-running American animated series, the longest-running American sitcom, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series. It is currently the thirty-third longest-running television series of all time, coming in six places behind Doctor Who itself.

Crossovers
The DWU officially crossed over with the series in the massive crossover toys-to-life video game, LEGO Dimensions, with the two franchises being one the many to be represented in the game from launch.

more to come

References in the DWU
The show's first reference within the DWU came within the pages of the 1991 Doctor Who Magazine comic strip, Party Animals where, among the guests to attend Bonjaxx's birthday party on Maruthea was an individual who greatly resembled Bart Simpson.

The 1996 novel, GodEngine, contained a less explicit nod to the show, in the form of the two 23rd century Martian colonies of Springfield and Shelbyville, in reference to the family's hometown and its neighbouring town with which it has a fierce rivalry.

The 1997 novel, Vampire Science, contained two references, both coming courtesy of Sam Jones. At one point, Sam tells her teacher that her role model is Lisa Simpson. At another point, confrontation with a vampire prompts Sam to utter the exclamation first coined and popularised by Homer Simpson: "D'oh!"

In 2004's novel, The Tomorrow Windows, Martin and Trix MacMillan were said to have drank tea from Simpsons mugs. Two stories released in 2008 contained nods to catchphrases famously uttered by the show's characters: in the audio story, Cuddlesome, the titular toys could be heard uttering two phrases commonly uttered by Bart Simpson: "Ay Caramba!" and "Eat my shorts!" A month later, the television story, Planet of the Ood, saw another utterance of Homer Simpson's famous "D'oh!" exclamation, as a voice setting for one of the Ood sold by Ood Operations.

Twenty-four years after the instance in Party Animals, another DWM strip saw the appearance of another Bart Simpson lookalike being eaten by Rigellan Hyper-Kraken.

DWU references on The Simpsons
to be added

Television channels
In its native United States, The Simpsons airs on the Fox network. In 1996, the Doctor Who television movie had its US premiere on the network.

In the United Kingdom, after seven years of only being viewable on cable and satellite television, the BBC obtained the terrestrial broadcasting rights to The Simpsons in 1996, when it first began airing on BBC1, before moving to, and becoming a popular mainstay on BBC2, until the rights were relinquished to Channel 4 in 2004.