Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire

"This might be the miracle that saves the Simpsons' Christmas"

- Bart Simpson

Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire is the first episode of Season 1 and the first episode of The Simpsons. It first aired on December 17, 1989. The title of the episode is a parody of the festive song, "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire". Fox considers the episode to be a special, so it was one of two episodes from the first season to be nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Series. It lost to to "Life on the Fast Lane". It was also nominated for Outstanding Editing for a Miniseries or Special.

It's a not-so-merry Christmas for the Simpsons, when Mr. Burns decides to cut the Christmas bonuses and Marge has to spend the family's Christmas savings to erase a tattoo Bart thought would make a great Christmas present. In order to hide the fact that he did not get the bonus, Homer takes a second job as a mall Santa.

Plot
Homer, Marge, and Maggie attend Bart and Lisa's Christmas show at Springfield Elementary School. At home, Marge asks the children what they want for Christmas and Bart asks for a tattoo. When Marge, Bart, and Lisa go Christmas shopping the next day, Bart sneaks away and starts getting a tattoo at The Happy Sailor Tattoo Parlor reading "Mother". Discovering this, Marge interrupts the process at "Moth" and immediately takes him to a laser removal clinic and spends the family's Christmas money getting Bart's tattoo removed. Meanwhile, at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Homer learns that he will not be getting a Christmas bonus. When Homer returns home and hears about the loss of the Christmas money, he decides not to tell Marge his own very bad news.

Instead, he does the shopping himself, buying cheap presents from a variety store which sells nothing over $5. At Moe's Tavern, Homer meets Barney dressed in a Santa outfit. On Barney's advice, he secretly takes a job as a mall Santa. Bart discovers this secret after he rips off Homer's fake beard on a dare by his friend Milhouse, but agrees not to tell the rest of the family. Homer receives his paycheck and is dismayed to see that after deductions it is only for $13. Barney, who has received a check for the same amount, suggests betting it at the dog track. With encouragement from Bart, Homer agrees to gamble the paycheck and takes Bart with him to the track.

Although Barney recommended they bet on a dog named Whirlwind, Homer decides to bet on a last-second entrant named Santa's Little Helper, believing it to be a sign. As Homer being a mall Santa, this would be a tasteful pun. Santa's Little Helper, however, comes in dead last and his owner abandons him. The dog follows Homer and Bart, who eventually decide to keep him. When they return home, Homer plans to tell the family about his misfortune, but they think he brought the dog as a gift and everyone has a merry Christmas.

During the ending credits, the family sings "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", but Bart adds rude lyrics, so Homer strangles him.

Production
Fox was very nervous about the show because they were unsure that they could sustain the audience's attention for the duration of the episode. In the end, they gambled by asking FOX for 13 full-length episodes. The series was originally planned to premiere in the fall of 1989, but due to major problems with the animation of "Some Enchanted Evening" (the first Simpsons episode produced), the series instead began on December 17, 1989 with this episode. "Some Enchanted Evening" instead aired as the season finale.

There is an urben legand that says the reson why Some Enchanted Evening was not aired in fall as planned is because there was a scene where the kids were watching a tv show in which a bear decapitated a Happy Little Elf, and drank its blood.

The episode, being the first to air, lacked the now famous opening sequence which was later added in the second episode when Groening thought of the idea of a longer opening sequence resulting in less animation.

The "santas of many lands" portion of the Christmas pageant is based on Matt Groening's experience in the second grade when he did a report on Christmas in Russia. Groening also used that reference in his strip "Life in Hell" when he spoofed himself as a young man, being told that it is too bad his grandmother is from Russia, because Christmas is against the law there. Also, Matt Groening claims that this episode has been incorrectly credited with creating the "alternate version" of Jingle Bells.

David Silverman directed this episode, although Rich Moore storyboarded it and designed Flanders. Several of the scenes were laid out by Eric Stefani, brother of Gwen Stefani. In this episode, Barney had yellow hair which was the same color as his skin, but that was later dropped because of the belief that only the Simpson family should have such hair.

Matt Groening was going to do a 30 minute special based on the Tracey Ullman shorts; that probably evolved in this episode. This was revealed in the book 'Planet Simpson'.

Release
This episode was released on VHS by FOX Home Video in 1991. The VHS release was titled "The Simpsons Christmas Special". It was later released on VHS and DVD in Christmas with the Simpsons in 2001, and then eventually released in 2001 in the Season One boxset.

Reception
The episode was nominated for two Emmy Awards in 1990: "Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming less than One Hour)" and "Outstanding Editing for a Miniseries or Special." Because "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" is considered to be a separate special, The Simpsons was nominated twice in the Animated Program category; the episode would lose to fellow The Simpsons episode "Life on the Fast Lane".