The Complete Simpsons Bibliography
Compiled and Maintained by Bruce Gomes Sr.
Revision 11.31 - 27 Jun 2010
c. 1989 - 2010 by Bruce Gomes Sr.
Send Email to bruce@snpp.com
Part 1 >>
First and foremost, let me explain what this isn't. It
isn't just a bibliography that just lists articles that reference
The Simpsons; wherever we can and wherever it's worth doing
we quote from each article. Moreover, over 200 full articles have
been transcribed; small ones are included right in the bibliography, and
larger ones we link to. We're also adding new ones every day,
including older ones that were never transcribed and newer ones as they
are printed.
This list was originally "Chapter 5 - Hot Off the Press" of "The
Simpsons Tome", a work previously distributed in hard copy and on
floppies. Since some of the other chapters largely duplicated the
superior efforts of others I am working to incorporate additional
information I have into lists maintained by others and releasing other
chapters as separate lists. This work was started in December of
1989, two weeks before the first episode, when I first heard The
Simpsons were going to get their own show.
As a Simpsons fanatic I could never get enough of The Simpsons.
To satiate my Simpsons hunger therefore I turned to magazines and
newspapers. With so few episodes broadcast the first season I then
turned to merchandise once that appeared, and I started to index that
too.
Since The Simpsons name sells all newspaper and magazine
publishers have wanted at various times to cash in on them. Therefore
I frequently found (and continue to find) The Simpsons on the
cover of magazines, even when little or nothing inside was relative to
The Simpsons. In this list I document all the covers and
articles on The Simpsons or on Matt Groening, all the comics
and political cartoons about The Simpsons, and all other major
external references to The Simpsons not detailed on lists
maintained by others. Note that covers are included both in the main
body of this document with all the articles and in a separate
covers list at the end.
In this bibliography I'm attempting to document every cover and every
article about The Simpsons and Matt Groening. I've also
included articles by Matt Groening himself, regardless of subject. A
far more difficult and impossible task would be to attempt to document
every REFERENCE to The Simpsons (not that it stops us from
trying). When The Simpsons were the "latest craze" practically
every single newspaper and magazine writer made at least a passing
reference. For example, in a Crain's New York (a business publication)
article about Bank Of New York it mentions that today's customers are
more likely to be like Bart Simpson. In William Safire's On
Language column in the November 25, 1990 issue of The New York Times
Magazine he references another article in the Detroit Free Press about
'attitude', indicating that "Bart Simpson has too much". A passing
reference to Bart is made by Eric Idle (of Monty Python fame) in an
article written for the New York Times (also Nov 25 1990). Some
references to The Simpsons are not indexed if they're truly
irrelevant.
Note that the magazine 'Simpsons Illustrated' is documented elsewhere,
and all Simpsons comics are documented elsewhere on the archive right
here!
Books on The Simpsons
are also documented elsewhere on the archive, right
here!
Books that reference The Simpsons are listed herein.
I also limit this listing to printed material and television shows that
reference The Simpsons; it does not include Simpson music videos
(listed with the regular episodes), Simpsons albums and videos, which
are listed
here!
and games, which are listed
here!
It is not our objective to document Futurama articles
here, but we've never yet seen a Futurama article that didn't
reference The Simpsons. Likewise, we've never seen a
Futurama article that didn't reference Matt Groening, so yes,
every Futurama article we've found is also invariably documented
here. While we were at it we went ahead and documented Futurama
covers in a separate list. First Futurama references appear in
1998, and you naturally see a great number of Futurama covers and
articles in 1999, the year Futurama debuted.
Two publications stand out as having had extremely frequent references
to The Simpsons. The first and obvious one is TV Guide. TV
Guide, of course, references The Simpsons every week in the
listings. In the index below I include mentions beyond the standard
listings, i.e., articles, mentions in articles, recommended viewing,
and yes, even advertisements. In TV Guide we even index the crossword
puzzle questions, and answers, although the questions are so simple
they insult the intelligence of any fan.
Entertainment Weekly, particularly for the first two seasons, also
referenced The Simpsons in every issue. Entertainment Weekly also
gives ratings, and frequently recommended The Simpsons every week
as a show to watch. Simpsons was listed as the #1 show for the weeks of
June 29, 1990, July 6, 1990 and Oct. 26, 1990, for example.
Entertainment Weekly also listed the Billboard charts, with Simpsons
Sing the Blues on the charts over a dozen weeks across January -
March of 1991. The Simpsons Do The Bartman was also the
number one video in the country on the MTV video charts; at the end of
March, Deep, Deep Trouble won second place in a weekend video
marathon call-in vote, also on MTV.
In light of the frequent mentions, I first list all "TV Guide" references
(that's the U.S. publication; TV Guide Canada shares it's name and
not much else, and is a separate publication), then all Entertainment Weekly
references followed by all other publications in date order.
There are also many references to specific Simpsons merchandise that
are not entirely listed below. Specifically, both Advance Comics
magazine and Previews magazine give advance notice of every comic and
include references to videos, trading cards and other merchandise. The
various video game / computer games magazines often reference the
Simpsons' games. These are listed below whenever an exceptional mention
is made, such as an individual article, or particularly when The
Simpsons are on the cover and/or are a cover story. This is somewhat
subjective, so I always err on the side of inclusion; if you know of
something not indexed below, don't assume I decided not to include it;
please advise!
Note that most of what appears below CANNOT be found in the 'Reader's
Guide to Periodical Literature'. I spend a lot of time scanning
newsstands and have always kept an eye out for Simpsons references. I
checked various types of online magazine cross-references but
nonetheless I found so many by pure chance that I wonder what I may
have missed.
Since fellow workers, friends and family also know of my Simpsons
searches I was often contacted with leads in the direction of certain
publications and pointers to new merchandise (fellow workers had a hint
by way of the six-foot Bart Simpson in my office..). I am forever
indebted to them.
There were also a number of amateur X-Rated drawings distributed by
photocopy which are not listed anywhere at this point. Not because of
their lewdness, but due to the general stupidity and lack of humour.
Not that I still don't collect them, of course.
Some of the strict bibliographical formats don't work particularly well,
and almost assume everything is part of a formal article. With TV Guide
in particular we almost ignore the traditional format in favour of one
that allows for a better arrangement of the information. Note that all
the information from a strict bibliographical format is nonetheless
included. When quoting material I correct obvious typos from the
original but otherwise leave unaltered any non-standard spelling,
grammar, etc.
Over the course of the past twenty years I've slowly expanded what I supply for
each entry so some are missing details that you'll find in later
entries. Better articles are now always fully transcribed if relevant
or quoted at length so we're going back and transcribing them. Feel free
to email me for any special requests!
We continue to add in foreign publications with each update, and
we're sure missing a lot of good entries. We're assuming we'll reach
the point of getting to a detailed index of publications in each
country which we'll use to expand the number of foreign publicatons
that are included. We currently include some British, Canadian,
Australian, French, Italian, Dutch and Brazilian publications. Early
foreign covers we've seen referenced which we need information on
include;
- Avez-Vous La Simpsonite? (7 a' Paris, France)
- WowWow (Japan)
If you know of anything NOT indexed here, please advise!
Comments, corrections and suggestions are welcome!
Send Email to bruce@snpp.com
Hope you'll find something interesting here. As a personal philosophy
I strongly believe in a cooperative effort to build and maintain lists
like these and (more importantly) keeping them linked off a central
location where everyone can easily find them.
Special thanks to all those who built the archive and who currently work
to keep the files current, including Gary Goldberg, Jouni Paakkinen,
Brian Petersen, Dave Hall, Benjamin Robinson, Gavan McCormick, Don Del
Grande, James Cherry, Matthew Kurth and Ricardo Lafaurie Jr.
A word of thanks to Brendan Kehoe who originally built a bibliography
back in 1990 on this location, the age of which inspired me to come
forth with the list I've maintained for years.
This could not possibly ever hope to be complete without "a little help
from my friends". Special thanks who those who have contributed to
entries in the bibliography, directly or indirectly, including;
- Aaron Varhola, for posting the Yeardley Smith interviews
- Cappy Harrison, for posting the Ms. Magazine Lisa Simpson story
- Anne Ominous, for posting the Los Angeles Times, March 22, 1992 Nancy
Cartwright story
- A very good friend who insists on remaining anonymous, for giving me
the Simpson Dilbert cartoon, the article from The Web and now the
Scientific American reference.
- Vaclav Skarda, for the 1992 Guitar Player Presents article
- J. D. Baldwin, for posting the Washington Post Sep 24 1992 article
- Joe Speyer, for his observations on the Oct 5 1992 Wall Street Journal
article
- Jennie Gruber, for the People magazine Dec 30 1996 Hank Azaria
article
- Wayne Carrier, for the Winnipeg Free Press, Feb 1997 article
- Lee Maguire and Brian Petersen, for The Independent, Jun 22 1998 Ian
Maxtone-Graham article
- Rene Carlos, for the Chicago Tribune, Aug 24 1998, Nancy Cartwright
interview
- Rene Carlos, for the Art and Performance Magazine, Mar 1998 David
Silverman article
- An unknown lady on a subway train, who handed me her People magazine
after I expressed an interest in a Simpson article she was reading!
(v48n7 People Weekly, Aug 18, 1997, p118-119)
- An anonymous friend who pointed out not one but FIVE covers I was
missing. Now I have to get those too!
- Scott McLemee for writing in response to our comments about
his article here!
- Benjamin Robinson for sending me multiple "mentions-in-passing"
which are more significant than he realizes!
- Benjamin Robinson for repeated TV references which demonstrate the
degree to which The Simpsons have become
woven into our cultural heritage
- Benjamin Robinson for taking the time to note and type out all the
references from the book Microserfs!
- Andrew A. Gill who waited forever for me to add various great
entries he supplied that I was missing!
- Jim Williams from
Springfield USA and Sarge Morton for finding and notifying us
about the US Weekly May 22 2000 article "Homer's Odyssey".
- Major thanks to Dave Sweatt and Jordan Eisenberg for their
Futurama Chronicles
web site and all the material they've provided for us.
- Kevin Holman, for supplying the Simpson reference in the "Woe is I"
book on grammar.
- Mark Williams, for the Jan 8 2001 reference in Time magazine to
our favorite family.
- Anne R, for passing on another "Weird Al" Yankovic reference!
- Ruth and Tony Musso, for giving me a prized part of my Simpson collection
- Barbara McCord, for never failing to remember the Simpson fan in her midst
and for alerting me to and passing on various references
- Helene Schechter, for giving me the Nov 20 2000 issue of Time magazine
containing a reference to our favorite family
- Helene Schechter, for giving me the Mar 15 2001 issue of New Jersey
Jewish News with the great Krusty the Clown article
- Helene Schechter, for giving me the May/June issue of Modern Maturity!
- Peter Scarpinato, a southpaw and a great guy, for passing on the
Simpsons reference in the Left-Hander's 2001 Desk Calendar
- Krystyna Mesjasz-Oltarzewski, for translating Simpsons magazines from
Polish to English!
- A very special thanks to Traci Wacha for all the "cover alerts!" and
articles she has pointed out and continues to point out, despite my
being a little slow in responding!
- The multiple used magazine stores in New York City, wherein you
can browse through thousands of issues searching for previously
undocumented Simpson references!
- To all the wonderful people who have contributed to the bibliography
whose information I dutifully recorded and whose names I then forgot to
put into this section!
Credit may go to others, butt the misteaks are all myne. Those with
eagle eyes and a better sense of spelling and (Kelsey) grammer than I
who've found my stupid errors and more importantly took the time to
write include....
You're Name Here!
I'm a fanatic about ensuring all my links work, checking those that
go to other sites with every release. (Don't you hate when you go
check out some cool site and half the links are broken?#%@..)
Currently it's a manual process for me. Come to think of it, if
someone doesn't hurry up and advertise shareware that checks links for
developers I'm going to write my own...
- Revision 11.18 - 10 Feb 2010 1300K (Total!)
- This document is now twenty years old!!!!
Continuing to apply updates as they come in, includes updates from
older but recently acquired publications. Still catching up on older updates and
that massive revision is still pending!
- Revision 11.00 - 01 Aug 2009 1200K (Total!)
- Afraid the events of 9/11 took me away from home for a month
(I was there, and although many of us made it away,
my brother didn't), and after that continued to work seven days
a week until the following Spring. So I wasn't able to return to
working on the archive until mid-2002, and even then it took months to catch up on all
my other files, and until now to resume work on the bibliography. I've added
a bunch of Simpsons covers and articles since that date, and back filled others,
but this is being updated at this time more to let everyone know that it is
actively being updated, and several massive revisions are coming!
This document is approaching it's 20th Birthday!
- Revision 10.15 - 01 Dec 2001 1099K (Total!)
- Added new material from Jul 18th to mid-August and went on vacation. Returned from
vacation September 10th but virtually no work on bibliography since then. I don't know
how to condense the story without being misleading, but suffice it to say that I was next
to the WTC on September 11th and I've been involved in recovery efforts since then -
I didn't get back home until October 12th. Lost family and friends that infamous day.
Still working seven days a week recoverying the company I work for, hoping to get back to this
"full time" in 2002. Meanwhile though I'll still be adding things - albeit not every day.
- Revision 10.12 - 17 Jul 2001 1093K (Total!)
- Adding new work as it pours in. Lot's of 2001 material added. Mass
addition of archived material now scheduled for August!
- All TV Guides to date for 2001 now recorded. Well, most of them.
Also keeping Entertainment Weekly section up to date.
- Spell checked section 8 where much of the new material was added - sure
glad I did!
Revision 9.70 - 21 Jan 2001 951K (Total!)
- Adding new work as it pours in. Will soon start making the mass
addition of archived material!
- All TV Guides to date for 2000 now recorded. Most of 1999 too!
- Created a Year 2001 section. In December 2000 this document celebrated
it's 11th birthday!
- Corrected total size of previous revision...
Revision 8.96 - 15 Oct 2000 794K (Total!)
- Now also regularly updating the Entertainment Weekly section again
in addition to the TV Guide section, adding most Year 2000 issues to
date and working my way back through older issues.
- Adding additional material as it arrives. Still need to merge in
material from personal archive!
Revision 8.31 - 01 Jun 2000 731K (Total!)
- Adding significant Year 2000 and prior references that have
accumulated since the last revision.
- Corrected mistakes that somehow keep creeping into this document.
- Began updating TV Guide section with current material as the first
step in redoing the entire section.
Revision 8.00 - 02 May 2000 639K (Total!)
- In addition to some minor additions and corrections, the purpose
of this revision was to split it into manageable documents! Hopefully
this will help everyone see all sections. We are indebted to Jouni
Paakkinen for finally seeing to this task!
Revision 7.93 - 03 Apr 2000 630K.
- Added a Matt Groening Bibliography.
- Added a Year 2000 Section. Wow, started this in 1989.
- Adding the latest material. Saving mass additions of older
material until after we split this up into multiple documents!
Still it's growing too fast!
Revision 7.53 - 01 Dec 1999 568K.
- Adding the latest material and adding links to articles on the
archive. Saving mass additions of older material for the next update!
- Finally revised the Life in Hell section to add references from
newer volumes in the series!
- Added a Life in Hell Covers section!
- Added additional links to the list of
Simpsons Audio & Video Releases from the numerous audio and
video reviews referenced within
- Updated many 1989, 1990 and 1991 entries with missing information
and added some new 1989 entries.
Revision 7.22 - 12 Oct 1999 502K.
- Adding the latest material and adding links to articles on the
archive. Saving mass additions of older material for the next update!
- Switched Television References to Television and Radio References.
Revision 6.91 - 01 Sep 1999 462K.
- Added additional links to articles on archive. Wow, those
guys have been busy. Must have added 20 more links...
- Finally gave in and added entries for established online
publications that have significant articles (interviews or articles
specifically about The Simpsons).
- Merged in all material from November 1998.
- Correcting some more errors that crept into the last edition.
Revision 6.65 - 01 Aug 1999 390K.
- Adding new material and foreign material.
- Correcting some errors that crept into the last edition.
- Added links to other sections of the archive for comics, books,
albums and videos.
- Retested all non-episode links and corrected one offsite link that
moved.
Revision 6.45 - 01 Jul 1999 351K.
- Continuing to rapidly grow as we bring all sections up to date.
Still have lots more to add! (Will he ever catch up?)
- Added a Book Reference section!
- Effective with this revision we include city/state after the names
of newspapers to eliminate confusion over generic newspaper names.
- Added additional links to articles on archive
- Added 1999 Section
- Began merging in foreign magazines
- Added Futurama Covers section and discussion of
Futurama coverage
Revision 5.30 - 01 Oct 1998 268K.
- Growing rapidly as we continue bringing the magazine and newspaper
sections up to date! Still have lots more to add!
- Added some missing "Back to Table of Contents" pointers.
- Added a pointer down to the Revision History from the top!
- Corrected three more links to other SNPP material that's moved
- Ran through another spell check and found some painful errors.
Revision 5.00 - 01 Sep 1998 224K.
- Finally updating this on the archive again, and I've got tons of
stuff to add but I wanted to provide what I had thus far and update
my email address!
- Added new entries corresponding with 8th, 9th, 10th Season
- Added additional entries, particularly 1996, 1997, 1998 entries.
- Completed Entertainment Weekly section rewrite.
- Added Crossword Puzzle section! (when I should
have been adding all the other material I have...)
- Corrected HTML syntax errors.
- Corrected links to other SNPP material that's moved
- Removed links to stuff other sites have discarded
Revision 4.80 - 12 Aug 1996 179K.
- Rewrote Entertainment Weekly section through July 1991, standardized
entries into new format, added quotes, added additional references,
but still more work to accomplish.
- Finally added 1989 TV Guide references.
- Italicized instead of quoting certain proper names (Like TV shows)
- Added additional entries, particularly 1996 entries.
- Added additional pointers to WWW sites containing article text.
- Added UL tags to make Micro$oft Internet Explorer happy (blechhh!)
(All the other browsers handled this well)
Revision 4.71 - 10 Jul 1996 153K.
- HTMLized and placed on Simpsons Archive.
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