The Simpsons shorts The Simpsons shorts The Simpsons shorts are an American animated TV series of 48 one-minute shorts that ran on the variety television program "The Tracey Ullman Show" for three seasons, before the characters spun off into "The Simpsons", their own half-hour prime-time show. It features Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The series was created by Matt Groening, who designed the Simpson family and wrote many of the shorts. The shorts first aired on April 19, 1987 starting with "Good Night". The final short to air was "TV Simpsons", originally airing on May 14, 1989. "The Simpsons" later debuted on
The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series Reddy", "Huckleberry Hound" and "Yogi Bear" all of which had bridge animation between the cartoons.) available at the time. For example, WGN-Channel 9 in Chicago ran the three segments in a half-hour timeslot under the name "Wally Gator". In New York, WPIX-TV originally used the segments for a local series, "Cartoon Zoo", featuring Milt Moss as host and "Zookeeper", with life-sized cutouts of the characters in "cages" as a backdrop. The package was originally syndicated by Screen Gems, the TV division of Columbia Pictures. The Hanna-Barbera studio was later purchased by Taft Broadcasting Company, which distributed the studio's product first