the simpsons came to be by a humble man named Matt Groening.

Blinky the 3 eyed fish, straight from Lake Springfield

Created by cartoonist Matt Groening, The Simpsons began in 1987 as a cartoon short on the Tracey Ullman Show, a variety program on the Fox Broadcasting Company. Expanded to half an hour, it debuted as a Christmas special on December 17, 1989, and then began airing regularly in January 1990. With veteran television and film producer-director James Brooks as its executive producer, along with Groening and Sam Simon, the show was slow to gain an audience, but its popularity took off later in the year, and it helped establish the upstart Fox network as a major competitor on broadcast television.