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.

Netflix has launched in the UK with a catalogue of streaming movies and TV shows. On the surface that catalogue isn’t massively exciting, what with it not being particularly big or filled with a great amount of very new things.

But then most new things are shit, and quality doesn’t need company. For whatever reason, the current Netflix collection has plenty of ‘90s US independent movies (well, Miramax) and a few choice picks from United Artists and ‘70s New Hollywood.

The service is currently offering a 30 day free trial, so here are 30 things that I would describe as “amazing” without too much thought. That’s one a day! If you’re useless enough not to have seen any of them so far.

Documentary which goes inside the newsroom at one of the most venerable publishing institutions in the world, the New York Times. Director Andrew Rossi gained unprecedented access to America's pre-eminent news factory during one of its most tumultuous years, as the film follows its struggle to survive in a year where Wikileaks emerged as a household name and other newspapers folded. Led by people such as David Carr - a firebrand journalist and former crack addict - can the foot soldiers of this bastion of old media keep up with the torrent of information that is the world wide web?

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.

In The Godfather, Michael Corleone wants to leave his family business behind and find a normal life on his own terms. However, he is forced into the family business when an attempt has been made on his father’s life, as he is the only one qualified amongst his brothers and sister to continue the family business. Michael is practically the only one who looks after his father, helping to evade further attempts on Don Vito’s life while he is incapacitated in the hospital. He has a spouse that dies during his stay in Italy, and is unable to sustain a functional relationship with his girlfriend/wife Kay because of his devotion to family affairs.

The cast of Seinfeld was a well-oiled machine and still stands as one of TV’s all-time great ensembles, so it’s no surprise that it took a lot of playing around with different casting possibilities before Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld found their George, Elaine, and Kramer.

The wiki is called "TV Tropes" because TV is where we started. Over the course of a few years, our scope has crept out to include other media. Tropes transcend television. They reflect life. Since a lot of art, especially the popular arts, does its best to reflect life, tropes are likely to show up everywhere.

Those numbers are the chief benchmark of success for the corporation, as they are for every commercial broadcaster. But the BBC is not a commercial broadcaster. Of all the institutions we will be examining here in the months ahead, it is the most improbable; indeed its existence almost beggars belief. Here is a publicly owned corporation that does not always do the government’s bidding, indeed often irritates the hell out of it; and a nationalised industry that regularly beats its commercial opposition – outsmarting, out-innovating and even out-popularising them. Its endurance is a triumph for British culture and common sense. It is usual to say that Britain has the least worst tele vision in the world; watching the Ten, that seems like faint praise. This at least is the best.

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.

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.

I've had a rare weekend of telly. And instead of just lounging on the sofa (well, as well as just lounging on the sofa) I thought I'd see how the experience is changed by a slightly different sort of second screen. Not the usual twitter on iPad fiddling, but a little pico projector beaming Dextr next to the telly.

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?

This last one was the 100th episode of the show, and it went through some pretty serious revisions from pitch to final draft. This is a transcription of a conversation about that specific episode, edited for length and clarity. Also included are the original Story Pitch, Final Outline and First Draft from the writing process (which you can find explained in detail here).

As odd as it sounds, “edgy” these days seems to mean creating characters for kids that are unabashedly smart. Phineas and Ferb put their energy into building things—a lot of highly imaginative and complicated projects, actually—like their own backyard beach or a teleportation device that sends people to Mars. Phineas and Ferb’s world is wild and inventive, more like a Boing Boing post than a Saturday morning cartoon. In other words, they’re geeks. They just don’t know the word for it yet.

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 ...

RT @bengoldacre: Fascinating details from Max Clifford: on the world behind McKeith's curtains http://dlvr.it/9GH3F

Access to knowledge, for the first time in history, is largely unimpeded for the middle class. Without effort or expense, it's possible to become informed if you choose. For less than your cable TV bill, you can buy and read an important book every week. Share the buying with six friends and it costs far less than coffee.

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

In thirty-eight years, The Price is Right never had a contestant guess the exact value of prizes in the Showcase showdown. Until Terry Kniess outsmarted everyone — and changed everything.

Wow. Snuffleupagas's transition from Big Bird's imaginary friend to 'real' character was due to sexual abuse cases: http://bit.ly/bSAKex

RT @pitchinvasion: The terrible state of British World Cup punditry, by @twoht http://bit.ly/9bpgcB

RT @Zonal_Marking: This is a great read for any Brits frustrated with the punditry at this tournament - http://bit.ly/bWZki3

Honda 1 : Nike 0 - why the Write The Future ad doesn't cut it for me - http://bit.ly/cpmwCb #nike #honda
– Phil_Adams (Phil_Adams) http://twitter.com/Phil_Adams/statuses/14749513539

Treasure Island: How TV serials achieved the status of art http://j.mp/9MGKRd #television

"The QVC process is so finely calibrated that a producer watches call volume in real time; whenever it spikes, the host hears a voice in his or her ear: “Whatever you just said, say it again. It’s working.” The lessons are disseminated to other hosts, and to the product spokespeople, who must spend hours training before they may present their products on air."

David Simon, creator of The Wire, talks about his HBO productions, including his forthcoming New Orleans-set Treme.

"From the danger of highlights to celebrity undermining the team, that box in your living room could be shaping the sport's future."

"The critically acclaimed US television drama could not be made here. We have writing talent in abundance, but its output is controlled by a stifling monopoly—the BBC."

"American journalism is in trouble, and the problem is not just financial. My profession is in distress because for more than a decade it has been chasing the false idols of fame and fortune. While engaged in those pursuits, it forgot its readers and the need to produce a commercial product that appealed to its mass audience, which in turn drew advertisers and thus paid for it all. While most corporate owners were seeking increased earnings, higher stock prices, and bigger salaries, editors and reporters focused more on winning prizes or making television appearances."

How to optimise an HDTV for the living room, rather than the showroom.