It was a tough job, but someone had to do it. Was Deep Space Homer funnier than Homer Goes To College? Did I laugh more at Bart Vs Australia or Two Bad Neighbours? It proved almost impossible in certain cases and I’m already regretting leaving several memorable episodes out. The next challenge was then to try and actually rank them all in order. Season 10’s Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo almost made it purely for its Rashomon joke, but ultimately, that episode it lost out to more consistently funny outings. So many episodes have a particular line in them that make you want to include it solely for that one moment. In reality, it’s incredibly hard to pick and choose which ones make the cut. In theory, selecting fifty of the show’s best episodes from a choice of 552 shouldn’t be all that difficult. There’s more gold in those first 10 or 11 seasons than any other show can hope to achieve.

The beauty of The Simpsons though is that whenever you watch a newer episode that perhaps doesn’t tickle your fancy you can always go back to the vast catalogue of bona fide classics and be entertained all over again. Past this point the standard becomes a little more mixed, and recent seasons have been distinctly average at best. They’re consistently funny, all killer and no filler runs with barely a dud episode to be found between 1992-1998. Personal opinions may vary, but for me the show’s peak years were from season 4 through to 10. For so many of us, its quotes and catchphrases have permeated our everyday vernacular, from single words like “crisitunity” and “embiggen” to phrases “you don’t win friends with salad” and “everything’s coming up Milhouse.” It’s a true cultural phenomenon that’s influenced not just animation, but all areas of TV comedy and sitcom. Since its debut in 1989, across 552 episodes and 25 seasons, The Simpsons has become one of the most revered and beloved TV programmes of all time.

The simpsons season 30 episode guide