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
Mike O'Meara Show Gary Owens, the announcer for the TV show "Laugh-In", whose resonant timbre is similar to Buzz's delivery (Gary Burbank, a Cincinnati radio personality, adopted his on-air name for the same reason; Buzz and Gary are in no way related). As Gary Owens would open every episode of "Laugh-In" by saying "And now, from beautiful downtown Burbank", a reference to Burbank, California, where the show was shot, Mike suggested Elston's last name be "Burbank". This joke was reinforced as Don and Mike spent many years opening their program with the phrase "from beautiful toothless Fairfax", a reference to Fairfax, Virginia, home