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."
Media in The Simpsons no "Top Cat"!. Huckleberry Hound, Chief Wiggum, Yogi Bear? Andy Griffith, Edward G. Robinson, Art Carney!" The character Kent Brockman functions as "The Simpsons"s main character for news parodies. He was based on Los Angeles anchormen Hal Fishman and Jerry Dunphy, and modeled after anchorman Ted Koppel. Another influence on the character was "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Ted Baxter, played by Ted Knight. His role on "The Simpsons" is to host the news as the fictional television channel, Channel 6's anchorman. In addition to the news, he also hosts the programs "Eye on Springfield" and "Smartline". In most of