For Fans of The Simpsons

The years 1991 to 1997 produced a run of episodes that has not been matched by any comedy series before or since. The writing room was stacked with Harvard graduates who had read everything and were willing to bury a Pynchon reference inside a joke about Duff Beer. The emotional core was still intact. Homer and Marge felt real. The ratio of satire to sentiment was perfect. Anyone who wants to understand what peak Simpsons looks like should start with Marge vs. the Monorail and not stop until the credits of You Only Move Twice.

Where The Simpsons uses Springfield as a funhouse mirror, King of the Hill uses Arlen, Texas, as a near-documentary. Hank Hill is not a buffoon; he is a man with a genuine code of decency trying to hold on to it as the world changes around him. The comedy comes from sincerity, not absurdity. Fans of Springfield who have not spent time with Hank are missing the other half of the argument about what animated family comedy can do.

Most licensed games from the early 2000s were cashgrabs with nothing to say. Hit and Run was different. It understood that Springfield's appeal is density: every corner has a joke, every NPC has a line, the world rewards exploration. The team rebuilt the town from scratch and staffed it with the actual writers and cast. It remains the template for what a licensed open-world game can be when the people making it actually care about the source.