The 636th episode of The Simpsons drops tonight. How crazy is that? It is officially the longest running primetime scripted series! Ever.
A) I’ve never expected that back in the day when I first started watching but then nobody else did either.
2) It just reinforces we’re never gonna see this again. Nothing made in the last 5 or 10 years is gonna last this long or have this much impact.
And people online are doing that whole rating thing…there’s the narrative it should have wrapped years ago. Or this season was better or this writer is worse. It’s 636 episodes…that is impossible to rate. It is impossible to rate.
The Late Show with David Letterman? 4,263 episodes…it’s impossible to note all the changes, the different ideas…themes and memes; the evolution of the characters.
When you do that many episodes turkeys are inevitable…the bulk of the work has to be good or excellent or amazing. Superman just celebrated his 80th birthday…you think everything is outstanding work for 80 years?
Doctor Who is over 50 years old. Some of it is terrible. And yet some of it is do damn fresh.
This is how you succeed: outlast your haters and outlive your critics.
636 drops tonight.
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