The Simpsons

Where would we be without The Simpsons? Not in a “what would pop culture be," or “would we have found the cure for cancer if we weren't sitting around watching The Simpsons,”  no. Focus. Where would Cracked, the world's first and only comedy website, be without The Simpsons? The comedy juggernaut has influenced [does quick tallying on fingers] roughly 97.4% of the writers here. We take life lessons from Lisa Simpson. We're a little jealous that Homer Simpson is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. We're more than jealous that they get to party with rock stars (real rock stars, not whiny Morrissey). We got suspended from school for wearing Bart Simpson shirts (okay, not really, our moms wouldn't buy us one, but we wanted to sound cool).

Obviously any show that's been running for over three decades is not without controversy. There are the hilarious ones, like when Bart Simpson caused a moral panic simply by existing or when Marge Simpson had to straighten out Barbara Bush. There are the difficult ones, like how the problem with Apu somehow got worse after The Problem With Apu. Springfield's most famous family shows us both the right and wrong ways to deal with controversy, a skill every comedian should know how to navigate. Cracked has chronicled and theorized about The Simpsons for [counts on fingers again] most of our existence, and we're not slowing down any time soon. Check out our research below: