History of The Simpsons Simpson, Abraham Simpson, and Krusty the Clown. Homer's voice in the shorts is a loose impression of Walter Matthau, whereas it became more robust and humorous on the half-hour show, allowing Homer to cover a fuller range of emotions. Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, and Yeardley Smith performed the voices of Marge Simpson, Bart Simpson, and Lisa Simpson respectively. The crew began to string the clips together on tape to play for the show's live audience, and "The Simpsons" generated "the biggest laughs of the show" according to John Ortved, author of "". The writing staff of "Ullman" soon began to
History of The Simpsons "The Cosby Show" and averaged an 18.4 Nielsen rating and 29% of the audience. In the weeks ratings, it finished tied for eighth behind "The Cosby Show" which had an 18.5 rating. However, an estimated 33.6 million viewers watched the episode, making it the number one show in terms of actual viewers that week. At the time, it was the most watched episode in the history of the Fox Network. Ratings wise, new episodes of "The Cosby Show" beat "The Simpsons" every time during the second season and "The Simpsons" eventually fell out of the top 10. At the end