The Simpsons has been an iconic animated television show since it first aired on 17 December 1989, after an initial run of sketches on the Tracey Ullman Show in 1987. After two decades and over 400 episodes, The Simpsons is the longest running situational comedy and has been rated as the most popular television show in history.1 It has reshaped American culture: with millions of individuals around the world who can identify characters, songs, and lines from the show, its influence cannot be overstated. The Simpson family consists of Homer (father), Marge (mother), Lisa (daughter), Bart (son) and Maggie (second daughter). They live in Springfield, a town somewhere in the United States. Homer works in the local nuclear power plant, Marge is a homemaker, Bart and Lisa attend Springfield Elementary School, and Maggie is a baby. Because the show is a cartoon, its primary target would traditionally be children, and although the show has adult overtones, most of its merchandising is directed at children. Anyone who has ever watched the show would have noticed the large number of regular characters as well as guest stars on the show who smoke cigarettes. Laramie is the name of a popular brand of cigarettes on The Simpsons, even though Laramie cigarettes have been out of production in the US since the 1950s. In the show, this cigarette company sponsors children’s beauty pageants and has a corporate mascot named Menthol Moose (a parody of Joe Camel, advertising mascot for Camel cigarettes) who can be seen at parades in Springfield. Is this just satire, or does the repetitive nature of characters smoking on The Simpsons have an influence on young children watching? The aim of this study was to determine the levels of smoking among characters from the show, assess variations in the levels of smoking in the show and determine the frequency of “negative” as well as “positive” instances of smoking on The Simpsons television show over an 18-year period.

Methods We included all 400 episodes in the first 18 seasons of The Simpsons (a season is 1 year of episodes, and there are about 22 episodes per season), which aired from 1989 until 2007. We recorded all instances of smoking (defined as any instance where smoking is mentioned or smoking was visible in any form) in these episodes. We used two methods for determining instances of smoking on the show: (i) we used the data on a public domain website2 that records all instances of smoking on The Simpsons television show (this website has been reported in previous studies3); and (ii) we watched the episodes and recorded instances of smoking on a standardised proforma. The correlation between the website data and our records was 0.96. The show is currently airing its 20th season, and by the end of this year, there will be a total of 443 episodes. We chose to limit our investigation to the first 18 seasons of The Simpsons because this corresponds to what was reported on the public domain website during our study period (January to October 2008).2 We developed a database that incorporated all instances of smoking from the website and our own records. Other data related to instances of smoking that were recorded in the database for analysis included: age of character (adult, child or adolescent, not applicable); sex of character (male, female, both sexes, not applicable); smoking impact (positive [supporting or reflecting smoking in a favourable way], negative [unsupportive of smoking or reflecting it in an unfavourable way], neutral [having neither positive nor negative connotations]); category of character (Simpson family members, young Springfieldians, guest stars, famous people, main characters [those who regularly appear in the show such as Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner and Mr Burns], other characters, background people and animals/non-humans); and references to smoking (Laramie references and other references). All data were coded by one of us (G D E). All characteristics are reported as mean and SD or odds ratio (OR) and confidence intervals for categorical data, and percentages for discrete characteristics. All P values calculated were two-tailed; the α level of significance was set at 0.05.

Results Frequency of smoking We recorded 795 instances of smoking or references to smoking in 400 episodes over 18 seasons of The Simpsons (mean instances, 44 per season; range, 12–66 per season). More than half of these instances (498; 63%) involved male characters, while 156 (20%) involved female characters. Only 16 (2%) involved both sexes, and there were 125 instances of smoking (16%) that involved non-gender characters (eg, animals). In terms of age, we observed 607 instances of smoking by adult characters (76%), and 63 (8%) by child or adolescent characters; the remaining 125 (16%) did not fit either age group. Box 1 shows a bimodal distribution in the variation in instances of or references to smoking by season, with peaks in Season 3 (1991–1992) and again in Seasons 14 (2002–2003) and 16 (2004–2005). The main characters in the show had the highest frequency of smoking (Box 2), being involved in 34% of all instances of smoking. This was followed by background people (17%) and then the Simpson family members (15%). Young people of Springfield were shown smoking in only 3% of all smoking instances in the show. Positive, negative or neutral impact of smoking Smoking was reflected in a positive way in 16 instances (2%), and in a negative way in 275 instances (35%). Most instances (504; 63%) were considered neutral in nature. An analysis for trend showed that there was no statistically significant change in the number of positive, negative or neutral instances of smoking on The Simpsons over the 18 years (P = 0.851). Instances of child or adolescent characters smoking were almost 45 times more likely to reflect smoking in a negative way than instances of adult characters smoking (OR, 44.93; 95% CI, 16.15–172.18). There were no differences between male and female characters in terms of the frequency of negatively depicted instances of smoking (OR, 1.09; 95% CI, 0.73–1.63).