Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/22/12
 

Figured this would be a pretty cool discussion.

Tonight, Fox is airing the pilots of Married with Children and Simpsons starting at 7 with a 2 hour retrospective airing from 8-10.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

theyre showing the 500th episode of the Simpsons. Not the pilot

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

My channel guide says "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

My guide has S01/E01 listed for both shows. SHould be a fun trip down memory lane.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

I wonder if anyone here actually saw the pilot on original air date. Must feel like an eternity ago now.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

I remember watching, and yes it feels like it was a lifetime ago. I also remember talking about how FOX will never last.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

its funny comparing something low brow today (2.5 men) to Married. and Married is still more un PC even today

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

One of the Canadian channels aired this earlier...pretty interesting stuff. Gabrielle Cateris still looks the same, Calista Flockhart looks good, Jason Priestley looks haggard. Too bad they only got the 70s Show and In Living Color casts together, would have liked to see Duchovny & Anderson together especially.

I forgot how many awful awful awful reality shows Fox had. Forgot Monica Lewinsky even hosted one.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

I am pretty sure I did, but I would've only been about 10 years old. I only remember getting into the Simpsons because my older sister liked the Tracy Ullman show and talked about the Simpsons shorts on there.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

:lol: at showing Firefly. Fuck you Fox!

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

Yeah I was a tot then and though I did get into The Simpsons early-mid 90's, I didn't see it from the very beginning.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

I got a nerd boner during the Sci-Fi section. Watching the X-Files stuff made me wanna get out all my dvd sets and watch them again.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

I was planning on rewatching the entire run of 24 (via Amazon Prime) this summer when I don't have as many new things on TV to watch, but damn those clips make me want to start doing it sooner.

And I remember watching the first Simpsons episode. I probably still have it on a VHS tape somewhere.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

That was great :up:

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

I remember watching both The Simpsons and MwC pilots on their original air dates. How many crap shows has Fox had since then that have been completely forgotten, while two of their first shows are now classics? And one STILL making new episodes!

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

I didn't know this was on and tuned in late. Missed the MwC feature. :(

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

Whither Arsenio?

http://youritlist.com/wp-content/upl...08/arsenio.jpg

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

I think I was in sixth grade. My parents watched the Tracey Ullman show, and I waited through the sketches to catch the Simpsons shorts. I was super excited when they announced they were making a series, and I watched and (for a while) recorded every episode as it aired.

I've seen every episode since, and between VHS, DVD and syndication, I've seen many from the first few seasons about dozen times each.

Yeah, it's been a long ride. :)

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

We couldn't pick up FOX on our TV, but my grandmother next door could get it on her's, so I remember going next door to her house to catch the Tracy Ullman Show (just for The Simpson shorts) and Comic Strip Live. I remember how excited I was a year later when I saw a commercial on TV advertising FULL LENGTH episodes of The Simpsons.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

I was very, very young but I vageuly remember watching The Simpsons pilot with my dad. I didn't get to watch Married... with Children until I was a little older because of the adult humor. Both wow, 25 years is a long time.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

And Fox took down a lot of great INDEPENDENT TV stations in the process, and brought The Bug to American TV. (Ironically on HD they now keep the picture clean but add in logos of individual stations- I've heard that's all controlled on the network end.) I do have their very first show on tape, which was The Late Show with Joan Rivers. I taped their first night of prime-time where they ran Married With Children and Tracey Ullman three times in a row, with the same commercials each time, but taped over it later because I was too depressed about seeing my uncut prime-time movies going away. I did like a few of their shows, but quit watching once the stupid Fox logo started showing up in the corner, then all the other networks thought it was such a great idea that they joined in. (Somewhere I still have a tape with the last Simpsons episode I ever watched which had a gag completely RUINED by the Fox logo- if I ever dig it out I'll post it. I had written to Fox complaining about this when it started too, they never replied but I did get a letter from The Simpsons staff thanking me because they hated it too.)

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

Sacramento's KTXL TV-40, before it became Fox 40- I had wanted to work there way back when, glad I didn't now. I was shocked to hear that they were picking up the Fox network when there were two smaller independent stations that had much crappier programming and could have used it more (they later got UPN and WB) :

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They also got on KTVU in San Francisco- didn't know what station in that area was getting Fox til Joan Rivers aired that night:

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In the interest of fairness I'll post the first-ever Fox network ID that appeared during the Joan Rivers show- it was called FBC (Fox Broadcasting Company) at the time. Have to dig the tape out.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

I'm disappointed that they aired the syndicated version of the MWC pilot. I understand that modern runtimes for shows are about 3-5 minutes less now, but it would have been nice to see the show as it aired 25 years ago. I guess that's what DVD is for (well, seasons 1-3 anyway).

It's amazing just how much of today's comedies owe to Married...With Children. In a sea of shows like Growing Pains and Family Ties, there really was nothing like it. Sure, you could draw the comparisons to All In The Family, as in many ways MWC was that show for the 80s.

As for The Simpsons, what can you say about that show that hasn't already been said? Just amazing how far animation on TV has come in 22+ years. I mean this episode was only a step above the saturday morning toons of the day (in looks, not in overall quality).

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

KTXL is my local Fox affiliate. If I watched local news, they were the station since Donna Cordova is such a MILF. When they canned her and brought in Stefani Cruz and some guy I stopped watching.

Re: Fox - 25th Anniversary Special (Married/Simpson Pilots, 2 Hour Retrospective) 4/2
 

It was great to see the MWC and Simpsons pilots re-airing and I loved seeing a lot of things I'd forgotten about or haven't seen in a while (like New York Undercover) on FOX again.