the Simpsons

The Simpsons celebrated their 450th episode (or 20-year anniversary) this past weekend. I remember much of the fuss that was made of them early on. And I wasn't impressed. I recall that Bart got most of the attention - he seemed to me to be just some delinquent who rode a skateboard and said things like "Eat my shorts!" As with many things, the bigger the fuss that is made about something, the bigger the fad, the more my mind turns off. And I resisted watching the show.

I don't know what moved me to watch my first episode, but I finally did. Maybe it happened to be on and I was too lazy to turn the channel. It was an episode that painted a different picture of the family than I expected, particularly of Bart and Homer. It was the first episode with Santa's Little Helper, the dog that would become a member of the family.

I was actually touched by the interaction between Homer and Bart at the dog racing track where they were first made aware of Santa's Little Helper. I remember the way Homer looked at Bart as he pleaded with Bart to join him in rooting for Santa's Little Helper to win his race. And the look on Bart's face as he was moved enough by Homer's plea that the two of them ended up standing together at the side of the track and rooted for him to win. For a cartoon, it really was a wonderfully depicted moment of a father and son doing something together. Even though Santa's Little Helper ended up losing, the family ended up adopting him, which was a nice moment for them all. It's nice that my first real exposure to the show, my first episode, was such a positive one.