The Simpsons

Character design

The Simpsons appeared in a series of shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show from 1987 to 1989. In these shorts, their designs gradually changed from crudely drawn to having a lot more polish. On both the back cover and the character profiles in this game, it is obvious that the five characters are based on the shorts that aired during the 1989 season of The Tracey Ullman Show. Since then, their designs have improved even more throughout the course of the half-hour The Simpsons show.

Characters peculiarities

• Bart wears a blue shirt in the game, which is also the case on various T-shirts and merchandising items. He does not wear a blue shirt on the TV show however.
• The bow in Maggie's hair switches between blue and pink during the game.
• Barney's hair colour is yellow, the same colour as his skin. He appeared this way on a few early episodes of The Simpsons and has since been drawn with brown hair instead.
• Smithers has a dark color-scheme for his hair and skin. This is not an accident, but based on a single episode of The Simpsons, Homer's Oddysey in which he appears like this but has since been given lighter skin and darker hair. He is also a lot more villainous here than he has ever been on the show.

Plot

At the time of this game's initial release, the show was in its infancy, with only two production seasons from which to borrow situations and plot elements. This explains, among other differences, why Lisa does not mind eating meat to restore health, and why Sideshow Bob acts as an ally, rather than an adversary, to the playable characters.

Rabbits

The rabbit-like characters often seen in the game are Binky (the two-eared rabbit) and Bongo (the one-eared one), two of the characters from Matt Groening's Life In Hell, a newspaper comic strip.

Information also contributed by Fangusu and WildKard.