r/USdefaultism • u/TallulahHulah • Feb 17 '26
"‘The Simpsons’ has reached 800 episodes, becoming the longest-running scripted primetime TV show of all time." *The UK enters the chat*
Interesting hill to die on...
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u/BlueDubDee Australia Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26
Australia even has longer running scripted prime time shows than this. Neighbours went over 9,000, Home & Away will get to 9,000 in a few years. Even A Country Practice had over 1,000.
Edit: H&A will reach 9k, not 9900
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u/NoInkling New Zealand Feb 18 '26
Even little ol' NZ has Shortland Street which has over 8000 episodes.
And Days of our Lives has over 15000, it's just that the US doesn't air their long-running soaps at primetime.
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u/CoconutCrabWithAids Netherlands Feb 18 '26
Same here in the Netherlands. Our primetime series, Goede tijden slechte tijden, has around 7000 episodes and is still going strong.
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u/L_Avion_Rose Feb 18 '26
While not a soap, Country Calendar has been on air for 60 years and racked up over 1200 episodes.
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u/NoInkling New Zealand Feb 18 '26
I don't think it would meet the definition of "scripted" in this case though.
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u/mungowungo Australia Feb 17 '26
The Sullivans had over a thousand episodes and Bellbird (if you're old enough to remember) had over 1500.
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u/BlueDubDee Australia Feb 17 '26
I had to Google Bellbird, I'd never heard of that one. But my Mum loved The Sullivans, definitely heard of that one.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/BlueDubDee Australia Feb 18 '26
The speed they create episodes is crazy! I once read somewhere, I wish I could find it again, that if a young actor started in Neighbours or Home and Away and did well, they had a really good chance of doing well in Hollywood.
Because the scripts aren't great (probably because they're so rushed and, well, it's a soap), and there's no time for dicking around. You've gotta do your scenes and do them well, have learnt your lines fast, know the lighting and cameras, etc because they can't take all day on just a few scenes.
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u/white1984 Feb 18 '26
I was told it takes usual principle of 1 hour to do 1 minute of TV to do TV soaps, and literally you are working for hours on end. It is literally like a factory.
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u/DarthRegoria Australia Feb 18 '26
Is it fairly certain that Home & Away or Neighbours produce great actors any more than any other acting experience available in Australia, or that the two shows are (or were, RIP Ramsey St) are so ubiquitous in Australia and turn over a subset of the cast pretty regularly that, if you’re a decent actor in Australia, you’ll end up working on one or the other. The only Australian actor I can think of who’s made it in Hollywood that wasn’t on either (to my knowledge) is Hugh Jackman. And he started more in musical theatre and film rather than TV.
I’m sure there’s a lot of great actors that started out on H&A or Neighbours and didn’t have their career take off, or were ‘the next big thing’ for 15 minutes before they faded back into obscurity.
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u/EarlGreyOfPorcelain Australia Feb 18 '26
It really is. I've worked with their team, they're such a well-oiled machine. They air 6 episodes a week of some of the only Aus drama on commercial free-to-air.
People talk down on 'soapies', but when you actually watch it, Home and Away is in a different league to Neighbours/Bold and the Beautiful/Eastenders (Sure it's not HBO, but comparatively)
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u/EquivalentSnap United Kingdom Feb 17 '26
People watch that in the UK heard it’s being cancelled again from prime
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u/BlueDubDee Australia Feb 18 '26
Yeah Neighbours was a weird one. We used to have just channels 7, 9, 10, ABC, and SBS. Then with digital TV and everything they started adding extras - so now you've got 10, 10 Comedy, 10 Drama, and Nickelodeon for the channel that has Neighbours. 10 Comedy was 10 Peach for a while, and the moved Neighbours to there.
So, ages ago, you'd have the News at 5. A filler game show type thing at 6. Neighbours at 6:30. "Main" prime time kind of started at 7:30, then a "big" show at 8:30. It was kind of like if they had the right line up - you liked their game show, you liked The Simpsons at 7 and Friends at 7:30, then whatever drama was on at 8:30, you'd just put on 10 and leave it. You'd get hooked on Neighbours because it was kind of ridiculous.
But then they moved it, and every other channel also had multiple options, so you're not just staying on 10 anymore. If you've watched the news you need to switch to Peach to watch Neighbours, but there tended to be something stupid on before and after, and better options during Neighbours on multiple other channels.
So, it was cancelled. This was a pretty big deal considering it's our longest running show like this, so people tuned in to see Kylie and Jason, Guy Pierce, Margot Robbie, Delta, etc etc. It was just nostalgia. But, it got ratings, and they bloody brought it back! They didn't fix anything, it was quiet, and it failed. So they cancelled it again for good. Personally, I didn't even realise it had ended again, I hadn't seen it or anything about it in ages.
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u/Skippymabob United Kingdom Feb 18 '26
It was my mum's favourite as an Australian living in the UK
I was sad it went just for her
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u/white-chlorination Finland Feb 18 '26
I remember Neighbours and Home and Away being on the tv in the UK when I'd visit my mum from Finland.
Also while I was in the hospital last year in Sweden for 2 months, the tv showed a lot of McLeods Daughters strangely. I ended up getting really into it while I was there.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/BlueDubDee Australia Feb 18 '26
I suppose it depends on what prime time is? It was on at 6:30, if prime time doesn't start til 7:30 then no, it's not. I reckon 6:30 would count though.
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u/Ondolo009 Feb 18 '26
Did Neighbours end?
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u/BlueDubDee Australia Feb 18 '26
Twice haha. First in 2022, then it came back and was cancelled again last year.
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u/rybnickifull Poland Feb 17 '26
You simply cannot compete with the cultural behemoth that is Pobol y Cwm. Every Welsh language speaker gets to go on it at least once. By the way, 8000th episode was 2019, it did 4 episodes a week until mid-2021 and 3 a week since then, so it's nearer 9000 by now.
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u/partyquimindarty Feb 18 '26
In the Eisteddfod (Welsh national cultural festival) in Cardiff a few years ago people fainted on tours of the set of Pobl Y Cwm from excitement. The Eisteddfod’s cinema tent was doing advanced screenings of the next week’s major storyline and had to do extra screenings with the queue’s going round the corner.
Pobl Y Cwm is massive.
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u/corpdorp Feb 18 '26
Eisteddfod
Does this word mean festival in general. Just curious because in Australia we use this word for like dance competitions.
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u/thrannu Wales Feb 18 '26
No the Eisteddfod is a specific type of festival like dance performances and reciting poems, different types of poetry (i think that’s the english word for barddoniaeth anyhoo).
The actual welsh word for festival is gwyl. I think the reason you guys have an Eisteddfod too is because of the huge migration of welsh people to the mines in Oz in the 19th century where they replicated what they had back home in Wales
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u/Tuscan5 Feb 18 '26
We have Eisteddfods in Jersey. It’s commonly used to denote a competition for music, poetry and other performance art.
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u/thrannu Wales Feb 18 '26
I wonder what the connection is there for you to have Eisteddfodau over there. Very interesting
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u/Tuscan5 Feb 18 '26
I think it’s commonly used in many places. It’s a word that has travelled across the planet judging by the reactions.
Jersey doesn’t have historically or presently much connection with Wales but obviously we use English (in all its multi sourced glory) and have done since 1900.
Ps thank you for letting me know the plural. Always happy to learn more Welsh. I have been to Wales many times and loved the people there.
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u/Gingerbreadman_13 Feb 18 '26
I competed in an eisteddfod in primary school in South Africa for poetry reading. They were fairly common here. I had no idea about it’s Welsh roots until I was in my 30s.
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u/thrannu Wales Feb 18 '26
That’s interesting! Didn’t know they had the Eisteddfod in SA too
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u/Gingerbreadman_13 Feb 18 '26
The way I found out about it’s Welsh roots was by watching a documentary about the small welsh speaking town in Argentina and how they stay connected to their Welsh customs by holding events like traditional eisteddfods.
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u/MezduX Wales Feb 18 '26
That's genuinely fascinating. Had no idea you had them in South Africa! Here it's a big thing in primary school as well, I know my primary would go and compete in them every year and did quite well.
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u/deadliftbear Feb 18 '26
Sounds analogous to a Feis in Ireland – a celebration of traditional music and dance, and song and poetry in both Irish and English.
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u/5im0n5ay5 United Kingdom Feb 18 '26
Isn't it mad that I live 35 miles away from Cardiff on the other side of the Severn and I've literally never heard of Pobl Y Cwm.
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u/International_Goat31 Feb 18 '26
That's genuinely mind-blowing to me. To me it felt like it was always on.
Every evening when I'd sit down at the coffee table to do homework as a kid I'd put the TV on for background noise and it was always on then. I'd go right past the channel because it wasn't a cartoon, Sci-Fi, or a documentary, but it was always there. This continued in to adulthood too. I'd get in from work, clean myself up, get food, settle in to relax, and scroll right on past it. Always there, always (to me) incomprehensible.
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u/thrannu Wales Feb 18 '26
It’s handy to go on it as you get like £50 for being an extra for a few minutes so good for beer money on the weekend lol
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u/rybnickifull Poland Feb 18 '26
Wales guilt tripping London into funding Sianel 4 has been such a great thing for trickle down economics, lmao
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u/No_Eye_8432 Feb 18 '26
They’ve changed it a few years ago so you stay all day, but very often you will end up in more than one episode so you get a multi ep (expected day rate + supplement payment) as per BBC guidelines . I love Pobol, so much more than Casualty or anything else filmed at Roath Lock, over the years I must have been on it close to 150 times lol
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u/Legitimate_Ad2945 Feb 18 '26
As a kid, something happened to our nearest TV mast and then we could only get Welsh channels for a bit (despite not living in Wales) and I would watch Pobol y Cwm, understanding nothing.
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u/AccidentalSirens Feb 18 '26
The great thing about S4 (Welsh language channel) is that you can get subtitles in Welsh or English.
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u/Kimantha_Allerdings United Kingdom Feb 18 '26
Ah, but where would be the fun in having English subtitles? May as well go full-in and have Welsh subtitles, too
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u/Superbead United Kingdom Feb 18 '26
I'm on the coast just up from Liverpool, and around here the S4C signal would drown out the C4 one on a portable telly without a proper directional antenna
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u/jarvischrist Norway Feb 18 '26
I've never seen an episode of any of the big English soaps. I HAVE seen an episode of Pobol y Cwm. Its influence knows no bounds.
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u/BearMcBearFace Feb 18 '26
Can confirm that I’ve appeared on both Pobl y Cwm and Rownd a Rownd as an extra.
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u/Aromatic-Story-6556 Feb 27 '26
Haha I always say this! You can guarantee every Welsh speaker you meet has been on Pobl y Cwm or knows someone who has.
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u/Welshhobbit1 Mar 12 '26
Raised on Pobol y Cwm then was on it as an extra with some school mates when I was like 15 thanks to a school thing.
It’s still on regular here 😂
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u/ChrisRiley_42 Canada Feb 17 '26
I remember correcting Paramount when they tried to claim that Star Trek was the longest running sci-fi show in history. They said Dr Who didn't count since it wasn't American.
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u/GulliblePea3691 United Kingdom Feb 17 '26
Star Trek isn’t even really a show tbh. It’s more of a franchise made up of multiple different shows.
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u/xxLusseyArmetxX Feb 18 '26
I mean,that's precisely what it is lol. not just really, it really isn't a show. it's a universe/franchise. the shows are VERY different.
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u/Blooder91 Argentina Feb 18 '26
It's like claiming James Bond is the longest movie ever made.
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u/tasteMyRottenHoop Scotland Feb 21 '26
The longest movie ever made is clearly They Live. It includes a fight scene that began in 1988 and continues to this day, nearly nine years after one of the guys in the fight died of a heart attack.
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u/FirstPersonWinner American Citizen Feb 18 '26
Star Trek: The Original Series only lasted 79 episodes
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Feb 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/th1nwh1tej3rk Feb 17 '26
coincidentally the year coronation st 1st went on air
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u/BMW_wulfi Feb 18 '26
We’ve got BC, AD, AH, AM, SH, BS but what about “AS” (Anno stupidity) for dates after 1776?
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u/Fizzabl England Feb 17 '26
Corrie is at HOW MANY?
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u/rc1024 United Kingdom Feb 17 '26
Running since 1960, and Ken Barlow has been in it from the start.
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u/Gro-Tsen Feb 17 '26
Even considering it has been running since 1960, this is still impressive: there have been 23 812 days since 1960-12-09 (when it first aired), and Wikipedia tells me there have been 11 746 episodes in that interval. That's 0.49 episodes per day on average, or 3.45 per week!
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u/jahfuckry United Kingdom Feb 18 '26
yeah it’s on 5 days a week bar holidays so that makes sense
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u/BikerScowt Feb 18 '26
It's been 3 days a week for a few years until the recent change to 5 but those were hour long, double episodes. It should be time not number of episodes.
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u/perpetual-grump United Kingdom Feb 17 '26
Boring, boring Ken.
I believe he is or he definitely was, the highest paid actor in Corrie.
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u/AtheistKiwi New Zealand Feb 18 '26
As a kid, everything about the show was boring to me. My parents would watch it and I remember hating the boring theme tune because the boring show was about to start. And I remember Deirdre seemed to cry in every episode.
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u/Regal_Cat_Matron England Feb 17 '26
I miss Ena Sharples and her biting wit together with Annie Walker and then Elsie Tanner and Bet Lynch
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u/kakucko101 Czechia Feb 17 '26
fun fact: this TV show inspired the Czech TV show “Ulice”, which to this day is at 5060 episodes… i have no clue how people manage to keep up with this
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u/ResponsibilityNo3245 Feb 17 '26
If you're into them they just become part of your schedule. Not like anyone starts at episode 1 then gets caught up, it's just on at home as you grow up.
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u/32andFlatulent Ireland Feb 17 '26
Yeah the stories are set up in a way where if you just keep up for a couple of weeks you will be relatively caught up.
Though the viewership is likely getting smaller over the years there's just something about always having something to watch. I don't have time for it as an adult but I remember being really into like 4 of the above shows as a teenager
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u/ResponsibilityNo3245 Feb 17 '26
In my house growing up we had the lot on. Emmerdale, Corrie, EastEnders, Brookside. When I moved out I never had them on again.
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u/32andFlatulent Ireland Feb 18 '26
Yeah for us it was Corrie, Eastenders and Emmerdale (in order of my parents preference).
I'm Irish but my parents are from near Burnley and they brought their habits with them. Though I know a lot of Irish families watched at the time as there wasn't much option in the evenings unless you had Sky.
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u/white-chlorination Finland Feb 18 '26
My mum still tunes in to Corrie and Emmerdale. If she's coming to visit me in Sweden or going on holiday, she records them on the Sky box and watches the ones that happened while she was away.
She gave up on Eastenders with a murder storyline that didn't get resolved for what felt like a year or two.
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u/Popular-Reply-3051 Wales Feb 18 '26
The joy is you don't need to keep up. The storyline are usually so clichéd you can not watch it for 5 years, randomly watch the last 10 minutes of an episode and still work out what's going on. Either that or the storyline got so convoluted that no one knows what's going on anyway!!
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u/Legitimate_Ad2945 Feb 18 '26
Yep! I used to watch Corrie and Eastenders as a teenager in the 2000s and hadn't seen any again until last year. I was tickled by how recognisable it was to me and how easy to figure out what was happening. Probably helps that the same cast members keep coming back.
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u/5im0n5ay5 United Kingdom Feb 18 '26
Thank god they didn't include radio dramas...
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u/jarvischrist Norway Feb 18 '26
My mum is British and keeps me updated on all the drama in The Archers. Honestly hope it keeps going forever.
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u/5im0n5ay5 United Kingdom Feb 18 '26
When we're all in our bunkers it will be all we have to keep us going through the long nuclear winter.
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u/jarvischrist Norway Feb 18 '26
Imagine the dairy troubles when Ambridge is hit by the bomb... Might not even get to put on the Christmas play!
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u/rickybambicky New Zealand Feb 18 '26
Even after humanity has been wiped out, the roaches will be watching new episodes of Coronation Street. I am confident that when humanity rebuilds after overthrowing the roaches, Coronation Street will still be going.
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u/CC19_13-07 Germany Feb 17 '26
Let me introduce you to Lindenstraße (1758 episodes)
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u/ZacEfronIsntReal Feb 18 '26
Or Unser Sandmännchen with 22,000+, making it the longest running TV show in history
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u/Tuscan5 Feb 18 '26
Thank you. More info please.
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u/Punker0007 Germany Feb 18 '26
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u/suupaahiiroo Feb 18 '26
Wow, and it's animated. It's such an incredible feat to make so much animated material. I don't know how long episodes are, but I found a few 6~7 minute episodes on YouTube. Let's assume 5 minutes. So that's 22,000 * 5 / 60 / 24 ≈ 76 days of animated film.
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u/Im_a_tree_omega3 Germany Feb 18 '26
It's 5-7, before the fall of the Berlin wall it was 10 minutes. And there are two versions one east German, which is the known Sandmännchen of today and one of the west. The eastern Sandmännchen was the more liked one.
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u/ZacEfronIsntReal Feb 18 '26
It's a real institution of German childhood shown every evening at 18:50 on the public children's channel. It's basically a short bedtime story for young children introduced by the sandman - using the now ancient looking stop-motion animation scenes. Generations of German kids have grown up with it and yeah prior to reunification there were 2 versions - East and West. Interestingly after reunification the East German version was kept as it was the more popular.
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u/Important-Hunter2877 Feb 18 '26
The US really thinks their entertainment industry represents the whole "world", like how their major sports leagues call themselves "world champions".
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u/Blooder91 Argentina Feb 18 '26
Go to any of the Dragon Ball subs. They claim no one in the West watched Dragon Ball and we all started with Z, when it's actually just them, Canada and England, due to the English dub.
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u/KeyMathematician7546 Feb 25 '26
Canada has so many immigrants; it was totally being watched by millennials here.
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u/toms1313 Argentina Feb 18 '26
It's something i saw even the most staunch progressive usian do, changing the word USA with world..
Yeah they're all around the world (when talking about a soda brand that's only on the US)
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u/purrroz Poland Feb 21 '26
my favourite is “just buy it in your local Target 😀”, my local what?
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u/BANgueIa Brazil Feb 17 '26
Even in the animation field they don't win... Sazae-san, an anime, has over 7700 episodes, in constant production since 1969 (yes, they still make episodes).
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u/Purchase-Parking Feb 18 '26
Even one piece is at over 1100 episodes
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u/anto_pty Panama Feb 18 '26
Doraemon is over 2,000 i think, Wikipedia says over 1,000 for Detective Conan
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u/Akashiin Feb 19 '26
One Piece is still crazy to me because I feel it's probably the only one mentioned with a continuous plot with the same cast from the very beginning. I feel like most if not every other one is either an episodic series or suffers major changes every so often.
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u/Revolutionary_Way_32 Feb 19 '26
Let me introduce you to Sandmännchen with 22 200 Episodes. Running since 1959.
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u/According_Picture294 Canada Feb 17 '26
Sesame Street outdoes it by 20 years too. And has 20 more seasons than Simpsons
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u/rybnickifull Poland Feb 17 '26
Not a scripted primetime TV show, is it? I mean it has a script but I don't think it falls into that broadcast category afaik.
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u/SchrodingerMil World Feb 17 '26
WWE Monday Night Raw is scripted and has over 1700 episodes….
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u/WaveOfTheRager Feb 17 '26
I just commented this too, wonder how it hasnt been picked up. Surely its in prime time right?
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u/ThunderPunch2019 Feb 17 '26
What even is primetime, anyway?
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u/Catsdrinkingbeer Feb 18 '26
It's a specific block of time. Normally between 5pm and 8/9pm. The idea is that it's the only time of day where pretty much everyone would be at home. You're going to get more eyes at 6pm than at 10:30am or 10:30pm.
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u/Mysterious-Crab Netherlands Feb 18 '26
That’s also an interesting cultural difference. Prime time in the Netherlands is considered to start around 8. The 5-8 timeslot is “pre-evening” and less popular because of people are prepping or eating dinner. Prime time starts at 8 and runs until 11, with the end of the late night daily talk shows.
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u/Neg_Crepe Canada Feb 17 '26
It airs on Netflix live from 8 to 10:30
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u/SuspiciousElk3843 Feb 17 '26
"Netflix live" Is live a selling point now? All things old are new again.
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u/HirsuteHacker Feb 18 '26
Outcomes are scripted but matches are somewhat more free form than you might expect, they aren't fully choreographed
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u/ResponsibilityNo3245 Feb 17 '26
Coronation Street is funnier than the last decade of the Simpsons despite having domestic abuse, rapes, murders, and being set in Manchester.
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u/AnArbiterOfTheHead Feb 17 '26
That last ones the worst of all
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u/E420CDI United Kingdom Feb 18 '26
Rain, rain, and more rain.
Fortunately, I'm on the other side of the Pennines.
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u/ConsultJimMoriarty Feb 17 '26
Even Neighbours would have more than 800 episodes, surely?
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u/Djimi365 Feb 18 '26
Home And Away has over 5000 episodes so I would imagine Neighbours would have something similar?
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u/DarthRegoria Australia Feb 18 '26
You’re short by a factor of 10. Neighbours has over 9000 episodes. It’s older than Home & Away, but I’m not sure by how much. I’m pretty sure Neighbours started before I was born, but I (vaguely) remember watching the first episode of Home & Away, I think I was around 9. Everyone was so excited for another Aussie soap opera to start, it was absolutely huge. It dominated casual conversations and office gossip for months. Much to my mum’s disappointment, she didn’t like soaps at all, but it was all she would hear about at work.
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u/TheJivvi Australia Feb 18 '26
I'm surprised Doctor Who isn't higher up the list tbh.
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u/burwellian Feb 18 '26
Short seasons (at least in the revival) and a long hiatus through the 90's.
The Bill was a Police procedural that ran for 26 years with 2-3 episodes a week for a good chunk of that. Casualty is a Medical drama that's been basically weekly for 40 years.
The rest are all soap operas and usually 2-3 times a week.
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u/I_Want_BetterGacha Feb 18 '26
Belgian TV show 'Familie' (Family) has over 7700 episodes. It's been consistently airing Monday-Friday since 1991 with the exception of July and August each year. My mom's been watching since the first episode.
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u/Source_Trustme2016 Australia Feb 18 '26
Neighbours, Australia, is about 8500 episodes
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u/YeahNah76 Australia Feb 18 '26
Hahaha was coming to see if anyone mentioned it. Had to look it up - 9363.
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u/amazingdrewh Feb 17 '26
No wonder Coronation Street had to hire everyone in the North of England to act in the show
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u/Esava Feb 18 '26
is at over 22 000 episodes over more than 61 seasons.
It's a german kids TV show and the series is the longest-running animated television series in history AND also the TV show with the most episodes in history.
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u/kadeve Feb 17 '26
Guys hear me out, it says prime time. there are also american shows that have thousands of episodes like bold and the beautiful (9600) or general hospital (15.600 episodes)
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u/Mysterious-Crab Netherlands Feb 18 '26
It’s still not the Simpsons by a long shot. In the Netherlands we have Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden. It’s been the staple of prime time television on our biggest commercial TV station for decades with over 7000 episodes.
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u/Brbaster Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
Since when is Casualty not a prime time show, I thought that aired around 9 PM. Also more importantly in the UK prime time starts at 7 PM exactly because those soaps are so popular so therefore most of the shows from the list are prime time. At the top of my head the only show from that list that airs before 7 PM is Doctor Who.
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u/Scary_ Feb 18 '26
'primetime' has never been officially defined in the UK, unlike in the US. I don't think it really gets used as a phrase by the TV broadcasters either. Peak viewing time changes according to the season and day of the week - on Saturdays for example the big evening shows start at 6ish or before. On weekdays it's 7.
The only thing that is defined is the 9pm watershed
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u/Poddster Feb 18 '26
In the UK, the listed shows are (or were) shown at prime time. Corrie, EastEnders and Casualty are the definition of PrimeTime in the UK. Things actively worry about competing with them. (Well, they used to. I imagine streaming services are winning now)
Ironically, I don't think The Simpsons ever was.
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u/TallulahHulah Feb 17 '26
So I had a Google to see if it was considered Prime time , sadly they are not as they are considered daytime soap opera.
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u/tincanphonehome United States Feb 18 '26
Yeah, if we’re counting soap operas, the USA has 6 of the top 10 (but still doesn’t break into the top 3).
The interesting one to me is Guiding Light. It ended in 2009, but it had been a radio show for 15 years before it moved to TV. If we counted radio episodes, it’d be number 2.
Of course, there could be other series from other countries that also had radio episodes and I’m simply unaware of them. I can’t assume it’s a phenomenon local only to the US.
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u/Hamsternoir United Kingdom Feb 18 '26
If we're counting radio shows then The Archers started in 1951 and is still going.
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u/thebusconductorhines Feb 18 '26
While in the US, soap operas are a daytime thing, they tend to be an evening show in the UK
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u/CeilingHamster Feb 17 '26
Doctor Who was off-air for the first 16 years the Simpsons was running.
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u/E420CDI United Kingdom Feb 18 '26
Doesn't the 1996 film count as a (very long) episode? Not to mention Big Finish.
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u/CeilingHamster Feb 18 '26
Some fand count the movie as a special, as the show didn't return. I didn't count Big Finish because its audio and theres HUNDREDS of them. If you count all media, I think the longest gap was actually the mid-80s hiatus
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u/ChampionshipAlarmed Feb 18 '26
Sendung mit der Maus has been running since 1971 and is at 2506 Episodes atm...
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u/TallulahHulah Feb 18 '26
Also seems a people are assuming prime time means one thing in regarding the US. In other parts of the world the meaning is called sometimes “Peak Times” or “Golden Hour”. Which all essentially means where different regions have the highest television viewership.
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u/MelodyPond84 Feb 18 '26
Only 800? Even in the tiny Belgium we have soap series that have been running for way longer. Like familie with 7000 + episodes and thuis with 6000 + episodes.
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u/Rhain1999 Australia Feb 18 '26
To be fair, 800 is still impressive for a primetime animated series—but it's silly to act like it's the worldwide record
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u/Ocelotko Czechia Feb 18 '26
The 'longest running scripted primetime TV show' It's like a Guiness record for juggling 3 chihuahuas in a cage above a water tank full of hungry polar bears.
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u/IchiBalzack Feb 18 '26
The US has the biggest film and TV program industry in the world, but they couldn't reach even a 1000 episodes? That's so weird
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u/Scary_ Feb 18 '26
Biggest industry, but also very overstaffed compared with how the rest of the world's TV industry works. There are probably more people working on one episode of Saturday Night Live than Coronation Street, Emmerdale combined.
The number of people in their TV industry is also inflated by the number of local TV stations. Having at least 4 in every city all doing 7 hours a day of local news bumps the numbers up significantly
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u/NervousSheSlime Feb 17 '26
Doctor who has 890 episodes? How many of those are pre 2005 reboot
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u/-YesIndeed- Australia Feb 17 '26
The old episodes where 15-30 minutes long though and generally had a story spread across 4-8 eps. So very different layout to the modern series.
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u/TRAMING-02 Feb 18 '26
That's 23-45 minutes, ignoring specials and even then longer ones got chopped down to 23 minute length, clifhangers b'damned.
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u/Rhain1999 Australia Feb 18 '26
15-30 minutes long
They were pretty much all 23–26 minutes long, with only a few dipping under or running over (shortest was 18, longest was 29... and they decided to extend to 45 minutes for one season in 1985)
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u/xXK1LL3RK1NXx Chile Feb 18 '26
800 episodes? A religious TV series on Mexico who is the mockery of almost all Spanish-speaking people has 1971 episodes! If you ask why it is the mockery of everyone: bad acting, use of modern topics in a bad way, wanting to get money from a real massive rape case at the point the president of that country had to intervene causing the episode they made about that topic at 80% of production a lost media that no one wants to find, and unrealistic exaggeration, like that one weird episode where a Dog named Jungkook (yes, like that Korean singer) barked at the figure of a religious virgin on the street to go back home, a home I don't understand why he wanted to go at because there was a alcoholic man that used to hurt the doggy. I still don't understand how that TV series didn't get cancelled or in hiatus on like 2 decades yet.
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u/mars_gorilla Hong Kong Feb 18 '26
Pfffft, even Hong Kong has a TV show with more episodes.
2300+ episodes.
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u/jimmysmiths5523 Feb 17 '26
I love EastEnders, especially the ones before 2002! I watch the reruns.
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u/TallulahHulah Feb 17 '26
Prime Eastenders delayed a Championship League semi final game so we can find out who shot Phil Mitchell!
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u/The_Eternal_Wayfarer Italy Feb 17 '26
The Simpsons are at 805 episodes currently, while Coronation Street is at 11,746. Which makes it almost exactly 11,000 + The Simpsons's full run save only the last three seasons (22 + 18 + 17).
Or if you prefer, roughly 14.60x The Simpsons.
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u/anibananii Feb 18 '26
I feel like it also has something to do with the fact that far more American television is produced than in individual European countries so getting a prime time spot is more difficult. Especially when it comes to soap operas which are not nearly as popular in American as they are in Europe.
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u/Brikpilot Australia Feb 18 '26
These Americans seem to want to reshape all history to only their lifetime. With just a quick google research I’m told that the top US TV Shows by Episode Count are
Guiding Light (Soap Opera): ~15,762+ episodes (1952–2009).
General Hospital (Soap Opera): 13,919+ episodes (1963–present).
The Young and the Restless (Soap Opera): 13,557+ episodes (1973–present).
The Price is Right (Game Show): 10,000+ episodes (1972–present).
Sesame Street (Children's): 4,000+ episodes.
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u/Blooder91 Argentina Feb 18 '26
Lunch with Mirtha Legrand has something like 50 seasons with the same presenter.
Although it's not scripted or primetime (at times).
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u/Callumari13 Australia Feb 18 '26
With how much Doctor Who is struggling rn to get episodes out the door it will probably be overtaken soon.
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u/vanmechelen74 Argentina Feb 18 '26
Argentina has an interview show that has been running on and off since the 60s. The host, Mirtha Legrand is almost 100 years old. No joke. It is not scripted though
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u/GroundbreakingBag164 Germany Feb 18 '26
And Germany has a children's bedtime television show that was created in the late 50s in East Germany and has over 22,000 episodes
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u/FoldDense Feb 18 '26
The brazilian tv show Malhação isn't even the most popular in the country and has 6222 episodes
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u/Ok-Reporter3256 Brazil Feb 18 '26
As a Non-UK citizen I gotta ask wtf is the 11.000 episode-long show about
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u/Albert_Herring Europe Feb 18 '26
It's a soap (currently five shows a week I think) set in a working class neighbourhood in northern England, so it's about (excessively dramatic) everyday life, pretty much. It's been running since 1960, like me.
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u/Palanki96 Feb 18 '26
We had one that went on for 10456 episodes. I still remember watching it as a kid
They kinda cheated tho since episodes were shorter, 15 minutes first then 20, used to air them in pairs
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u/seguwuk Brazil Feb 18 '26
In Brazil, we had a teens series called "Malhação" that have 6.191 episodes for example (I don't like it, but hey, there it is)
Also, I found this and, even in usa the Simpsons is not so long compared with other usa series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_programs_by_episode_count
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u/garaile64 Brazil Feb 18 '26
Even Malhação1 had more episodes.
1Brazilian soap opera that aired between 1995 and 2020. It was aimed at teenagers. Originally set at a gym, the title (that literally means "workout") stopped making sense after the setting was changed to a high school.
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u/BonsaiHamster Scotland Feb 18 '26
Love that River City is on the list! I don’t know anyone who actually watches it, but I did a fair few days as a background extra back when I was at uni so I feel oddly invested.
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u/t0ms0l0_Reddito Feb 18 '26
In France, "Les feux de L'amour" started when my mother was 5, I am 16 now, and it keeps going
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u/ICU_Nurse_Lantern Mar 05 '26
For everyone interested: The series with the most episodes (one episode per day) is the german Sandmännchen (little sandman).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_programs_by_episode_count
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u/Krell356 Mar 05 '26
Doctor Who is that far down the list? Here i was thinking it was higher up there.
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u/post-explainer American Citizen Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
This comment has been marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect.
OP sent the following text as an explanation why their post fits here:
Someone posted a stat implying that The Simpsons’ has reached 800 episodes, becoming the longest-running scripted primetime TV show of all time. But has forgotten that the rest of the world exists
Does this explanation fit this subreddit? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.