200 hours of your life?

I guess I can thank Trinity school for instiling in me a great sense of wonder; wait, instilling in me, or beating it out of me? forcing me to sit in a biology classroom smelling of fermaldehyde (and farts... trinity kids...) and just wonder about things and write them down when i couldnt think of anything and all i wanted to do was go eat...perhaps it supressed me... but i digress. I wonder, is digressing just wondering, on a tangent thought?

In any case, I was wondering how many people in the world have seen every episode of the Simpsons ever? Yes, all of them. 397 episodes, ~200hours of your life.

The thing is, i have probably only seen 5 percent of all the simpsons episodes. I missed out.

Did you know, that for a brief period of time, South Bend, IN (my alma mater)(literally... well figuratively) was the largest city in the country that did not have a local FOX affiliate.

Thats right my friends, there was a time when many of us in the lower income demographics did not have cable television, leaving us at the mercy radio waves (tv waves?) being transmitted through the air from towers to antenna (or coat hangers... come on, every family that grew up without cable had at least one television with a coat hanger some how jerry rigged to the back as a replacement for an antenna).

So we only had ABC, NBC, and CBS as networks with local affiliates broadcasting. FOX was a distant dream... a magical channel. To us non cable kids, FOX was like cable, one of those channels that must just be amazing all the time because only "rich" people had it.

Every once in a while, my dad would acquire(Ithis was before eBay existed) one of those huge, metal, airport style antenna to be attached to our roof, and then sent through "cables" through the roof into the house to be connected to the back of the television... like we actually hade cable tv... almost. It was it was like throwing a rope to someone is drowning, but instead of making it all the way to the drowner, it could only reach halfway... so then our rope just started shouting at the drowing victim. Our Televisions "cable" was trying to make it from the back of our television all the way to the magical cable tv depository from where (whence?) all the mystical mysterious channels emerged (henceforth?).

With those antennae, life was grand. We were able to pick up channel 9 (WGN) from Chicago fairly well, and this, while not having the alure of actual cable, did provide a nice option. and sometimes, if the weather was just right, you could pick up traces of a statick FOX 32 from Chicago... but it was really only just enough to hold it front of our faces that we didnt have it.


It was not until the mid 1990's that our local ABC affiliate (WSJV 28, for those of you playing at home) jumped ship and picked up FOX; there was a brief period when we did not have a local ABC, then very soon channel 58 showed up and moved us completely into the modern era: a city with all 4 networks broadcasting locally;

funny thing is to think about cities in the USA that still don't have all 4 networks ... south bend really is a medium sized town.
(I almost said "ironically enough", but decided "no, that is not irony at all", see previous posting here() that I have not reposted here yet from older version of aaronking.org website)


So, as a result, I did not have access to watch the simpsons really much at all when it first aired in 1989. I saw all the hype, all the Bart Simpson Tshirts saying "eat my shorts" and other such colofor euphamisims. by the time i finally got cable, i felt like it was too late to jump on (this was pre- TV shows on DVD) and catch up, and i was busy, and blah blah blah i really never felt the urge to start watching the simpsons.

and so for 20 years of my life this show has been airing, meaning it must be popular, meaning it must be smart... and as i have inevitable seen a handfule of episodes here and there, I know they have made some brilliant episodes. See here() for example, and episode where they explored a brilliant model of the universe with a homer caper gone awry....

So it made me wonder, "wow, i wish i would have been watching this show all along." I wonder how many people in the world have seen absolutley every simpsons episode ever? ___ hours!!! !!! years of your life!!!. I further wonder, of all the people who have in fact seen every episode of the simpsons ever, how many saw them new each season as they happened, and how many came in sometime in the middle, but went back and caught up with all of them via syndication or the DVDs?

To come in now, basically having seen none, one would have to watch simpsons like it was their job. If it were their job in fact, assume 40 hours a week watching the simpsons. it would take 5 weeks, and i jsut dont have that time to spare!

now, I will admit that my claim to as a youth was that I had seen every episode of Seinfeld ever. I came in sometime during the third season, becoming completely enamored with the style of humor, and promptly used syndicated episodes to catch up on all the earlier episodes. I even set the vcr to record them every day. I stil, somewhere in a closet have a box of the entire collection. I had every episode but one (the one where they all went to the opera and geore looked ridiculous in a tuxedo), on VHS.... i wish i could just trade them for the DVD's...

thank you trinity for my sense of wonder...
works cited:
http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/simpsons/100521