Movie-A-Day #109: The Simpsons Movie (2007).

Matt Groening’s “The Simpsons” debuted on this day in 1987 as a series of short interstitial cartoons on “The Tracey Ullman Show.” Not a bad step up for the guy whose main career was drawing the wonderful “Life in Hell” comic strip. But it turns out there would be more to come, much more. Two-and-a-half years later “The Simpsons” was spun off and expanded to a half-hour sitcom, and since then it as become the longest running animated series and the longest-running prime time show in American television history. And it even spawned “The Simpsons Movie.” And it’s not over yet. “The Simpsons” may well be the definitive American television series.