THE SIMPSONS ARCHIVE
FAQS, GUIDES & LISTS

The Complete Simpsons Bibliography

Compiled and Maintained by Bruce Gomes Sr.
Revision 12.14 - 5 August 2013
c. 1989 - 2013 by Bruce Gomes Sr.
Send Email to bruce@simpsonsarchive.com

Part 1 >>

Table of Contents



Introduction and Background

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 here! 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@simpsonsarchive.com

Thanks

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!


Borrrrring Revision History

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 12.14 - 5 August 2013 1360K (Total!)
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 11.78 - 25 November 2011 1330K (Total!)
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 11.62 - 04 May 2011 1320K (Total!)
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 11.53 - 13 Jan 2011 1310K (Total!)
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 11.38 - 13 Sep 2010 1300K (Total!)
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 11.18 - 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.
Part 1 >> Got certified?
Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional

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Last updated on August 5, 2013 by Bruce Gomes (bruce@simpsonsarchive.com)