They've Embiggened Us All for 18 years

Vanity Fair offers an Oral History of the Simpsons

Best part: Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch each offer their recollection of the same meeting. As expected, each of them are the heroes of their narrative:

Barry Diller: We were at a scheduling meeting, so there were about 15 people there, and we were figuring out what to put up against Cosby on Thursday nights at eight o'clock. Cosby had been the biggest thing on TV for God knows how many years. Rupert leaned over and whispered to me, "What about The Simpsons?" And I stood up and went over to the board and moved the little magnet that said "Simpsons" to Thursday night at eight. And it took a solid minute before someone said, "You know what? That could work." And it was a big deal, little Bart Simpson going up against big Bill Cosby. So it was a dragon-slayer story.

Rupert Murdoch: We were sitting down with Barry, reviewing the schedule. We look at it and I said, "We gotta be more aggressive … Let's put it up against Cosby. Cosby must be coming to the end of his run—he's been there forever." And everybody in the room was horrified and sort of laughed at me. Except Barry Diller, who said, "No, let's think about this."

Bonus item: Thanks to the Internet, the DNA of the Simpsons is now only a click away. Here's an except of Army Man, a magazine put out by many of the future Simpsons writers back in the early 80’s.