The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical portrait of the lifestyle of people living in the heartland of America, through the lives of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Set in the fictional town of Springfield, The Simpsons humorously satirizes American culture and society, the human condition, and television itself from many angles. Matt Groening conceived the image of the Simpsons family for a short animated series for producer James L. Brooks. Groening named the family members after his own family members, with his own name replaced by "Bart". On April 19, 1987, the short series became part of The Tracy Ullman Show. After three seasons, The Simpsons was converted to a half-hour prime-time slot and became one of Fox's early successes. Since its first broadcast on December 17, 1989, The Simpsons has aired 20 seasons and 441 episodes. The 18th season finale aired on May 20, 2007, marking the 400th episode of the show. 2007 also marked the show's 20th anniversary. The Simpsons Movie was released worldwide on July 26 and July 27, 2007, and has grossed approximately $525.3 million to date. The 20th season began airing on September 28, 2008. Since its inception as a television series, The Simpsons has won numerous awards, including 24 Emmy Awards, 26 Annie Awards, and a Peabody Award. The December 31, 1999 issue of Time magazine named it the best television show of the 20th century. On January 14, 2000, The Simpsons received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As the longest-running sitcom and animated program in American history, The Simpsons has had a great influence on popular culture: for example, Homer Simpson's annoyed mutter "D'oh!" is included in the English dictionary; the show has also influenced many adult-oriented animated sitcoms. The Simpsons are a typical family living in Springfield, a small town in the American "heartland". [46] The father, Homer, works as a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant - a position that is inconsistent with his careless and jester-like personality. His wife, Marge Simpson, is a typical American housewife and mother. They have three children: the eldest son, Bart, who is ten years old, is a troublemaker; the precocious daughter, Lisa, who is eight years old, is an activist; and the youngest daughter, Maggie, is a baby who can hardly speak and can only communicate by sucking on a pacifier. The family has a dog named Santa's Helper and a cat named Snowball II. Both pets have played central roles in several episodes of the cartoon. Despite many important annual events such as holidays and birthdays, the Simpsons have not aged due to the passage of real time, and their appearance is no different from when they appeared in the late 1980s. The Simpsons has many eccentric secondary characters: co-workers, teachers, relatives and friends, local celebrities. Groening originally intended these characters to appear only once, to serve as joke makers or to fill some functions needed by the town. However, most of these characters were later retained and their images were expanded, and many of them even became the central characters of several episodes of animation. According to Matt Groening, the animation adopted the concept of using a large number of supporting characters to create programs from the comedy show "Second City Television". (Excerpt from