Simpsons Movie Another Milestone

James Lipton, clad in a blue suit, tie and shirt, perched in his chair atop the Inside the Actors Studio stage and prepared to ask questions he had posed to actors like Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman.

Lipton peered through his glasses as he came to his fifth question.

"What sound or noise do you love," he said, "Homer?"

"The sound of Marge sleeping," the man replied in a familiar voice, " ’cause she doesn’t know what I’m doing."

The man was actor Dan Castellaneta, best known for portraying the voice behind Homer Simpson and about a dozen other characters on the longest running sitcom in TV history — The Simpsons.

The appearance of the show’s cast in 2003 on the well-known interview series was just another example of The Simpsons’ unalterable place in society, and this weekend Matt Groening, creator of the animated series, and other contributors to the show further imprinted their place in American pop culture history with the release of The Simpsons Movie.

In its 18-year run, Groening’s conception has won more than 80 awards and honors and been nominated for about twice that many. The primary voice performers now make about $400,000 each per episode and popping in as a character on a Simpsons episode can be a career landmark for almost any star.

The list of celebrities who have appeared on the show reads like a Who’s Who of the celebrity world.

Aerosmith hung out at Moe’s Tavern; James Taylor sang a song in space to Homer; The Ramones told Mr. Burns happy birthday; Spinal Tap crashed its bus; Johnny Cash voiced a coyote; Paul McCartney helped Lisa stick with vegetarianism; Ringo Starr got painted by Marge; George Harrison directed Homer to a pile of brownies; and Michael Jackson played a white guy.

But those are just the singers.

The list of other icons who visited The Simpsons — like Mel Gibson, Phil Hartman, the cast of Cheers, Jon Lovitz, Mark Hamill, James Earl Jones, Elizabeth Taylor, Ron Howard, Leonard Nimoy, Glenn Close and Dustin Hoffman — seems endless.

But the fact that few, if any, animated creations compare to the Simpsons’ success and ingenuity is a trademark of the brand.

"Part of its uniqueness is uniqueness," said University of California, Los Angeles, film professor Jerry Katzman. "There is no competition. It’s uniquely successful as prime-time animation.

"There have been so few animated shows that have even tried to work."

Katzman said the show’s success is based on its ability to reflect any societal events or trends in its own well-manufactured way. "The writing is by the very top writers who could be writing for scripted shows as well as animated."

America’s favorite cartoon family is everywhere.

The show gets more Google search results than Desperate Housewives, CSI, Grey’s Anatomy and The Sopranos combined, and an Amazon search, just under the books category, returns almost 90,000 results.

The Internet contains too many enthusiast sites to count, Wikipedia has hundreds of in-depth episode summaries and hordes of fans can quote lines that date back to the early 1990s.

And who hasn’t repeated, or at least heard, a line or word from The Simpsons?

In fact, Homer’s most famous saying, "d’oh!" became so common that the Oxford English Dictionary included it in 2001. It’s defined as "expressing frustration at the realization that things have turned out badly or not as planned, or that one has just said or done something foolish."

Another recent crossover from Groening’s fictional world into reality was the conversion of 11 real-life 7-Elevens temporarily into Kwik-E-Marts, a chain of convenience stores in The Simpsons. The show’s primary store is owned by character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, an Indian immigrant.

The fictional store’s staples, like sugar-loaded "Buzz Cola," the Slurpee-like "Squishee" and the pastry Homer sold his soul for — "doooooughnuts" — can be found at any of the re-named 7-Elevens.

The movie recently had its world premiere in Springfield, Vt., which shares the same town name with the fictional place — no state is ever named — where the show takes place.

There, Groening probably best summed up his feelings and those of millions of fans worldwide about the movie with a quote from his most famous character:

‘As Homer would say: ‘Woo-hoo!’ "