The Simpsons opening sequence couch gag is shown, before the credits are displayed on a new widescreen flat panel television. Sometimes, the flat panel television falls to the floor and breaks, but unlike "Bart Gets a Z", the episode will begin then anyway. In the 500th episode, the opening sequence was a montage of all previous couch gags. Creator Matt Groening developed a lengthy opening sequence for the first season of "The Simpsons", in order to cut down on the animation necessary for each episode, but devised the two gags as compensation for the repeated material each week. In the first of the original
The Joe Schmo Show Gould learned the truth and received the $100,000 prize for which he was "competing," along with the two vacations and a new plasma TV. He later recorded commentary that was included in "Mo' Joe Schmo," a rebroadcast of the series. "The Joe Schmo Show" was released on DVD with additional and uncensored footage in 2004. Gould's plaintive cry, "What is going on?," delivered upon his discovery that the show was a fraud, became a popular catchphrase. Spike TV has since used the phrase at the end of the network's other original productions, some of them involving Gould himself. Some cast