[barry-cotter]

The Simpsons have nothing on post WWII tv shows like I Love Lucy, Leave It To Beaver etc. When there were very few tv channels and after when some tv shows played on repeat forever anytime the networks needed something to fill a slot you’d get something close to saturation of knowledge of characters and situations. Even for wildly popular series like GoT this will never happen again. The consolidated audience isn’t there. For a brief post war moment there was accidentally a TV canon.

[statuehectic]

If we're talking globally though, I don't think anything has ever had (or will ever have again) the global saturation of The Simpsons. I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver never had international success and existed at a time when TV wasn't as globally popular. Even within the US, Leave it to Beaver never broke into the Nielsen Top 30. Meanwhile in many countries, The Simpsons got the treatment you're talking about. I grew up in Australia, where at least 7 episodes of The Simpsons have aired in primetime per week for almost 30 years, and for half that time most people only had 3 commercial channels. I just checked the TV guide, and it's running from 6:30 PM to 9 PM tonight on network TV and airing 6 episodes throughout the day on cable. If you're under 45, The Simpsons saturated popular culture during your youth, and the same is true for friends and colleagues from around the world. 40 year old Mexicans and 4 year old New Zealanders know the same show in a way that was never true for Lucy or Beaver.

[ravenstine]

Granted, I didn't grow up with Leave It To Beaver, but I don't get the sense that it had a lasting cultural impact in the same way as I Love Lucy. It seemed like by the 90's everyone viewed the show as cringe, and the few who quote it don't do so in a way that was endearing.