Simpsons Creator Matt Groening's Favorite Episodes Make Perfect Sense

Matt Groening has had an undeniably outstanding career, creating some very notable mature-themed cartoons like "Futurama" and "Disenchantment." But his biggest claim to fame is, without a doubt, "The Simpsons," which has released over 30 seasons since its debut in the late '80s, earning an impressive 35 Emmys in the process.

The critically acclaimed animated sitcom has been making viewers laugh for an extraordinary amount of time on the small screen. It has heavily influenced many big-name titles on TV since its arrival (via CNN). Groening's iconic creation has stood the test of time, and Erik Adams from The A.V. Club has designated "The Simpsons" as "television's crowning achievement regardless of format." There is no debating that the show has been a constant hit with viewers, and there are so many excellent episodes to enjoy over and over again. Each episode features some hilarious antics with all sorts of unique characters engaging in side-splitting shenanigans with some heartfelt moments thrown in every now and again.

Out of all the entertaining personalities from Springfield that enter the frame in every entry, Groening's favorite "Simpsons" character is Lisa Simpson, who has had her fair share of memorable moments throughout the course of the series. Regarding the creator's favorite episodes, his choices and reasoning, while they may be unexpected, make an awful lot of sense.

After "The Simpsons" broke the record for the longest-running animated sitcom in terms of the number of episodes, Matt Groening sat down for an interview with the Guinness World Records, where he discussed how proud he was and if he had a favorite entry out of the over 700 that have been released. "Ah, I like a lot of the very early episodes, particularly ones with Lisa. When Lisa first meets Bleeding Gums Murphy, her saxophone mentor, I was amazed that the show could actually be moving, given how garish the characters were drawn." The character designs in the early days are a far departure from what they look like over three decades later, but despite their unique look, home audiences still responded to the characters in a meaningful way, which meant a lot to the creator.

In Entertainment Weekly's 1990 review of "The Simpsons," Ken Tucker believed that the character's design was one of the many reasons the series resonated so well with fans. He described the show as "the American family at its most complicated, drawn as simple cartoons. It's this neat paradox that makes millions of people turn away from the three big networks on Sunday nights to concentrate on 'The Simpsons.'"

When Groening was developing the early entries he loves so much, he most assuredly never would have imagined the show would make it into the record books, and it makes perfect sense that he would choose the chapters that established "The Simpsons" as everyone's favorite TV family.