Cwabs!

The Making Of "Homer At The Bat," The Episode That Conquered Prime Time 20 Years Ago Tonight

On Feb. 20, 1992, more American homes tuned into The Simpsons than they did The Cosby Show or the Winter Olympics from Albertville, France. A foul-mouthed cartoon on a fourth-place network bested the Huxtables and the world’s best amateur athletes. Fox over NBC and CBS—its first-ever victory in prime time. New over old.

Why the shift? Well, the Olympic programming that night featured no marquee events, and Cosby was just two months away from ending its eight-season run. Meanwhile, The Simpsons, airing just its 52nd episode out of 500 (and counting), had put forth its most ambitious effort to date, an episode called “Homer at the Bat.” Months of work went into corralling nine baseball players, a cross-section of young stars and established veterans, to guest-star as members of a rec-league softball team.

Well Mr. Burns had done it
The power plant had won it
With Roger Clemmons, Clucking all the while
Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness made us smile
With Wade Boggs lay unconscious on the bar-room tile

We’re talking softball
From Maine to San Diego
We’re talking softball
Mattingly and Canseco
Ken Griffey’s grotesquely swollen jaw
Steve Sax and his run-in with the law
We’re talking Homer, Ozzie and the Straw

We’re talking softball
From Maine to San Diego
We’re talking softball
Mattingly and Canseco
Ken Griffey’s grotesquely swollen jaw
Steve Sax and his run-in with the law
We’re talking Homer, Ozzie and the Straw

(No news over the past couple of days has made me feel quite as old as knowing “Homer at the Bat” is twenty years old)
(via the-feature)