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
Big in Japan (phrase) Big in Japan (phrase) Big in Japan is an expression historically used to describe western based musical groups who achieve success in Japan but not necessarily in other parts of the world. The phrase began to appear on several major Japanese foreign-rock magazines, especially the "Music Life" magazine, in the late 1970s, and in most cases, the "big in Japan" artists became popular in Japan due to being featured by "Music Life". The concept predated the phrase; Neil Sedaka made it big in Japan with "One Way Ticket" before breaking through in his native United States, while Jimmy Osmond, typically