SOUTH PARK (SEASON 1)
The first season of the animated television series South Park aired on Comedy Central from August 13, 1997 to February 25, 1998.[1] The creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone wrote most of the season’s episodes; Dan Sterling, Philip Stark and David Goodman were credited with writing five episodes. The narrative revolves around four children—Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick—and their unusual experiences in the titular mountain town.
South Park originated from Parker and Stone’s 1992 animated short, The Spirit of Christmas (also known as Jesus vs. Frosty). The low-budget, crudely made film featured prototypes of South Park‘s main characters and was followed in 1995 by another short film of the same name, generally referred to as Jesus vs. Santa, which became popular and was widely shared over the Internet. The short’s popularity caused Parker and Stone to develop a series based on it, and the project was first considered for purchase by the Fox Broadcasting Company. Fox ultimately passed on the show, and Comedy Central signed on to produce the series instead. South Park debuted on August 13, 1997 on Comedy Central with an initial run of six episodes; due to its success, an additional seven episodes were quickly produced. The complete season was released on DVD on November 12, 2002.
The first season was a ratings success for Comedy Central. The Nielsen ratings rose from 1.3 to 6.4 from the first to the tenth episode. Several episodes received award nominations, including for a 1998 Emmy Award in the “Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour)” and a GLAAD Award in the “Outstanding TV – Individual Episode” category for the episode “Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride“. During the season, South Park won a CableACE Award for “Best Animated Series” and was nominated for a 1998 Annie Award in the “Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Primetime or Late Night Television Program”.
The show was a financial success for Comedy Central and helped the network transform into “a cable industry power almost overnight”.[2]
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THE SIMPSONS (SEASON 1)
The first season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons aired on Fox between December 17, 1989, and May 13, 1990. It premiered with the Christmas special “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire“. The executive producers for the first production season were Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon.[1]
The series was originally set to debut in fall 1989 with the episode “Some Enchanted Evening” (which was meant to introduce the main characters),[2] but during the first screening of the episode, the producers discovered that the animation was so poor that 70% of the episode needed to be redone.[3]
The producers considered aborting the series if the next episode turned out as bad, but it suffered from only easily fixable problems. The producers convinced Fox to move the debut to December 17, and aired “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” as the first episode of the series.[2] The first season won one Emmy Award, and received four additional nominations.[4] The DVD boxset was released on September 25, 2001, in Region 1 and September 24, 2001, in both Region 2 and Region 4.
With a total of 13 episodes, this is the shortest season of the show to date, and is the only season where Homer was halfway intelligent and at times was the voice of reason and where Dan Castellaneta voiced Homer in a loose Walter Matthau impression (as he had done in the shorts). Starting the next season, Homer would begin to adopt his more familiar voice and set a lower bar for intelligence.
This is also the only season to not have a Treehouse of Horror episode.
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FAMILY GUY (SEASON 1)
The first season of Family Guy aired on Fox from January 31 to May 16, 1999, and consisted of only seven episodes, making it the shortest season to date. The series follows the dysfunctional Griffin family—father Peter, mother Lois, daughter Meg, son Chris, son Stewie and their anthropomorphic dog Brian, all of whom reside in their hometown of Quahog, a fictional city in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The show features the voices of series creator Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green, and Lacey Chabert in the roles of the Griffin family. The executive producers for the first season were David Zuckerman and MacFarlane. It is also the only full season to feature Chabert, before she was replaced by Mila Kunis for the rest of the series’ run, starting with the season two episode “Da Boom“.
The series premiere, “Death Has a Shadow“, was broadcast directly after Super Bowl XXXIII and was watched by 22.01 million viewers.[1] The rest of the first season would then air between 11 April and 16 May 1999, with all of its episodes airing on Sundays;[2][3] following the first season, the show left Sunday nights, and would not return to airing on Sundays until 2005. The series received praise from most critics,[4] particularly “I Never Met the Dead Man” and “Brian: Portrait of a Dog“,[4][5] however some critics disliked the themes of the episodes. The Volume One DVD box set, including all seven episodes and the second season, was released in Region 1 on April 15, 2003, Region 2 on November 12, 2001, and Region 4 on October 20, 2003. The series has since been released in syndication.[6]
MacFarlane conceived the idea for Family Guy in 1995, while studying animation at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).[7] There, he created his thesis film The Life of Larry,[7] which his professor at RISD later submitted to Hanna-Barbera; this led to MacFarlane being hired by the company.[8] Executives at Fox saw the Larry shorts and contracted MacFarlane to create a series based on the characters entitled Family Guy. While working on the series, Larry and his dog Steve slowly evolved into Peter and Brian; the rest of the series characters were added later.[9]