On Feb. 20, 1992, more American homes tuned into The Simpsons than they did The Cosby Show or the Winter Olympics from Albertville, France. A foul-mouthed cartoon on a fourth-place network bested the Huxtables and the world's best amateur athletes. Fox over NBC and CBS—its first-ever victory in prime time. New over old.

Rushmore is a film about obsession, and the relationship between Max and Bloom is the driving force behind the drama, going from love to hate, and back again. One is a 15-year-old boy, the other a 50-year-old man, but for the entirety of the film it's unclear who is the adult, particularly when they're competing for the affection of Ms Cross. At one point Max fills Bloom's hotel room with bees, to which Bloom responds by repeatedly driving over his love rival's bicycle, only to later find the brake cables on his Bentley cut. All this to win the heart of a recently widowed woman still struggling to cope with her loss. Incidentally, when you see Ms Cross teaching an art class, wearing an oversized man's shirt turned backwards and covered in flecks of paint, you understand the lengths to which they will go for her.

John Swartzwelder is the J. D. Salinger of comedy writing. The prolific Simpsons writer (he's written 59 episodes of The Simpsons, far more than any other writer, even when the show is quickly approaching five hundred episodes) is as well known to his fans for his eccentricities as his writing.

He was allowed to send his scripts in from home because the other writers couldn't stand his chain-smoking. When he could no longer smoke in restaurants, he bought his favorite booth from his favorite diner and had it installed in his home.

Swartzwelder's final Simpsons was in 2003, and since then he has written a novel a year, all self-published, when realistically, he could barge into any publishing house and declare “I've written 20% of all Simpsons episodes” and be handed a contract. I read all eight of Swartzwelder's novels in a row and have put my impressions together here, hopefully in a way that's slightly less absurdist than Swartzwelder's prose.

It turns out there is a way to judge how much you love a TV show, to calculate how much you really know about said show over other equally-obsessed fans. And no, I’m not talking about Scene-It. I’m referring to Classic Simpsons Trivia Night, held recently at Brooklyn’s Berry Park bar.

The film legend discusses books that have resonated with him, from JD Salinger to Elia Kazan and beyond.

Charles Schulz's Peanuts comics often conceal the existential despair of their world with a closing joke at the characters' expense. With the last panel omitted, despair pervades all.

Mainstream recognition has been a long time coming for 46-year-old New Yorker Jonathan Ames. For two decades he has been a fixture of the downtown semi-underground literary scene, carving a name for himself with wildly confessional essays. One of his most famous has the title, "I Shit My Pants in the South of France", the subject matter of which is self-explanatory, and he once had a one-man off-off Broadway show called Oedipussy. He has been the archetype of a certain kind of outrageous New York artist who puts their extremist life on full display to the world.

If in your particular medium an audience is used to a simple plotline or maybe one or two stories, see if you can get eight in there, and find a way that they somehow intertwine. Also, it’s important that you have a lot of anxiety when they don’t intertwine, sufficient to deprive yourself of sleep so that you are miserable during the production of the show – but then upon completion of the show, you’re guaranteed to be miserable, because nobody will watch it.

The movie depends heavily on Broderick’s charm as an actor, on his mix of too careful enunciation, direct address to the camera, and pale pink pubescence in the shower. In the opening scene, director John Hughes takes a rather large risk: Ferris lies to his parents with large calf eyes, giggling and lapsing into baby talk. What kind of movie hero consciously presents himself as infantile and duplicitous? What kind of movie hero begins by seducing his parents?

Do all or even most of these gags connect with a viewer under 25 who isn't a 20th century pop culture junkie? I doubt it. Granted, some of the jokes were inside even for 1992-93 -- "The Great Gabbo" and the Eastern bloc cartoon "Worker and Parasite," for instance. But most weren't. They referred to things that were current or that felt that way, thanks to syndication or shared childhood viewing experiences. Circa 2011 that's no longer the case. "Krusty Gets Kancelled" is one of the greatest of all "Simpsons" episodes, but if it were a poem, it would need to have nearly as many footnotes as "The Waste Land" -- and the further away from its original air date we get, the truer that's going to be.

So how much of Jim Davidson is in Eddie Pierce? Davidson says Pierce is more from the Bernard Manning school of comedy. "I have never classed myself as a racist comedian," he says. "Bernard didn't understand racism – I do. For Bernard, if a joke made people laugh that was enough. He didn't think a joke could have consequences. I'm not like that. I talk about racist issues and I make fun of black people but I've never wanted to make it racist."

It is an honor to be invited as a guest voice on The Simpsons. Only after you’ve “made it” in some way within your chosen field will this gesture be extended. Athletes, actors, artists, and architects alike have been written in as guests over the 22-season run of the show, all contributing to its Guinness Book world record for Most Guest Stars. Only a fraction of these people, however, have been asked back a second time. In that regard, Phil Hartman is in an elite class with Albert Brooks, Jon Lovitz, Kelsey Grammer, and Joe Mantegna as frequent guests. (Coincidentally, this is also my Murderer’s Row dream-cast for a Glengarry Glen Ross stage revival.) As a frequent-frequent guest, though, Phil Hartman was in a class all his own: he was featured in 52 episodes over a period of eight years. To this day, that’s over a tenth of the total output of a show that also holds the world record for Longest-Running Sitcom of all time.

I’ve used the expression “Paki” on stage in the UK in an observation about words which are considered abusive abroad yet have little or no meaning whatsoever at home. A haemorrhoidal anguish blanketed the audience so heavily that it overrode the entire point and joke altogether. I was the only one who wasn’t squeamish, if only because I haven’t had a lifetime of people telling me that word was disparaging. Shortening Pakistani to “Paki” seems as normal to me as shortening “Timothy” to Tim” or Scientologist to “dipshit”.

There are 22 games based on The Simpsons. 22. That’s a lot, even by video game standards. By comparison, the long running South Park has had only four video game adaptations and the juggernaut Family Guy has had one. And explaining away the difference by claiming the latter franchises don’t have the same marketability or commercial base as The Simpsons is easily dismissed when you look at the sales of DVDs, posters, toys, t-shirts, and other goods licensed by the shows.

But there’s a difference between tragic, which can often be funny, and depressing. Allow me to present to you eight episodes of The Simpsons that made me shed a tear or two, often out of sadness and occasionally out of joy.

So don't view this as a definitive list of the best episodes. It's not meant to be! Instead, it's a collection of people talking about specific episodes that meant a lot to them. I know that there are dozens of episodes that have criminally been left out, and I had to stop myself from writing up more than one myself. But it's a testament to this show that there are just so many Best Episodes Ever, isn't it?

But Bart Simpson the character and Bart Simpson the hit television show character are two different animals, and in the first few years of The Simpsons, the latter threatened to take over. The marketing focus of the show fell almost entirely on Bart (or, at least, Homer reacting to Bart). “Eat my shorts!” became a catchphrase on the level of “Yeah, baby!”

However, the first several years of [Woody Allen's] career are rarely discussed. It is a fascinating period. Comedy devotees swear by the recordings of his stand-up act. At the time of his 1963 debut comedy record, Woody was a smart up-and-comer who'd already logged ten years in the business. But he was far from the personality we think of today.

There are, at least, 36 separate days shown in the movie including his multiple death scenes. There could be more, but it's hard to verify if some moments are simply later in the same day or an entirely different day. Additionally, in the scene where Bill Murray revealed he's a god, he stated, “I have been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned.” Of those the movie only showed electrocution, so that brings it to a base line of 42 accountable days. However, there were many days not shown. We know from the scene when Billy Murray and Andy MacDowell are throwing playing cards into a top hat that it would take, “Six months. Four to five hours a day, and you'd be an expert.” So, we have a bare minimum of six months.

Ten years ago, Esquire profiled several young professionals who, ten years before that, had graduated from Harvard Law School and thrown away their degrees. One of them was comedian Greg Giraldo, who died on Wednesday of a drug overdose. This is the obituary of his first life.

RT @tcarmody: I love Bill Oakley -- I think his & JW's years running The Simpsons (Seasons 7 & 8) are among the very best. http://j.mp/e ...

This book is perhaps the funniest book I have ever read. Stewart Lee has consistently been one of the funniest comedians in the country and his apparently arrogant yet always self-deprecating style has been brilliantly realised on the page. He shows a thoughtfulness and integrity that puts previous controversies about his work into context and also provides a fascinating peek behind the subjects of his stand-up set to reveal complexity, planning and yet more humour behind them.

A year ago, Todd Levin got the job of a lifetime—writing for 'The Tonight Show.' Nine months later, he was packing his desk. Now he recounts what it was really like: helping reboot a fifty-six-year-old franchise; watching his boss, Conan O'Brien, get screwed; and saying good-bye to the funniest late-night show to barely exist

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — A polar bear display for the zoo. Free towels at public swimming pools. A “drug-free Parliament by 2020.” Iceland’s Best Party, founded in December by a comedian, Jon Gnarr, to satirize his country’s political system, ran a campaign that was one big joke. Or was it?

RT @longformorg: Bill Murray grants @fierman a rare interview, explains philosophy of multiple retirements: http://bit.ly/dAhDmF (new @G ...

Super article on the great Bill Murray, from 1988: http://j.mp/aXUyyY

Comedian Harry Hill discusses his unusual paintings: "Being an artist is a higher calling than a comedian, because the comedian has to respond to his or her audience. In comedy I've had many jokes which I thought were really funny, but if the audience doesn't laugh, you end up having to drop them. An artist can do what he or she likes. You may not sell many paintings, but you're still an artist."

Steve Martin is responsible for so many great comic and musical moments, so it's a shame that a whole generation will remember him from some pretty execrable comedies from the previous decade. Nice feature that rounds up his many successes, including his semi-rebirth as a bluegrass plucker.