Santa's Little Helper event; however, their plan fails and a drunk shark that's discovered at the event becomes the new mascot instead. Santa's Little Helper gladly returns to the Simpson family. Santa's Little Helper's initial appearance on "The Simpsons" was in the first episode of the series, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", which aired on Dec. 17, 1989. Since then, he has become a recurring character. "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening told "TV Guide" in 2000 that "we [the staff] painted ourselves into a corner with our Christmas episode. Once we wrote the dog into the show, we were stuck with him."
The Simpsons their original format. In July 2017, all episodes were made available for purchase on the iTunes Store, in the United States. The popularity of "The Simpsons" has made it a billion-dollar merchandising industry. The title family and supporting characters appear on everything from T-shirts to posters. "The Simpsons" has been used as a theme for special editions of well-known board games, including Clue, Scrabble, Monopoly, Operation, and The Game of Life, as well as the trivia games What Would Homer Do? and Simpsons "Jeopardy!". Several card games such as trump cards and The Simpsons Trading Card Game have also been