This is what The Simpsons looked like 30 years ago… and you’ll be amazed by how different it is

THE Simpsons celebrates 30 years on the air this week – but what did TV’s most recognisable cartoon family look like back when they first hit our screens?

The half-hour long popular sitcom debuted in December 1989.

Since then it’s gone from strength to strength, using its popularity to poke fun at politics, celebrities and other cartoons.

We recently told how it’s predicted shocking real life events, such as the rise to power of Donald Trump, the Ebola virus and the horse meat scandal.

It even foresaw Lady Gaga’s epic Super Bowl half time performance in February five years before it happened.

Two years before the show hit the screens as we know it, the Simpson family appeared on variety programme The Tracey Ullman Show in bite-sized sketches, with many lasting less than a minute.

In these early days, The Simpsons was still very much still finding its feet.

The animation was crude and the voices much less polished than what we’re used to.

The humour was also more basic, in part due to the compact nature of the shorts.

Back then The Simpsons creator Matt Groening submitted rough sketches, assuming they would be cleaned up in production.

But they weren’t — and his crude drawings made it all the way to TV.

In the very first Simpsons sketch, which made its debut on April 19, 1987 during an episode of The Tracey Ullman Show, Homer and Marge do their best to tuck in Bart, Lisa and Maggie for the night.

But their soothing words and bedtime stories don’t go as planned, and the couple end up sharing their bed with their terrified kids.

Few expected that this charming, squabbling family would go on to become the focus of one of the most successful TV shows of all time.

Now, 30 years later, The Simpsons is both the longest-running American sitcom and the longest-running American cartoon ever.

To mark this momentous milestone, here are 19 things you never knew about The Simpsons… even if you’re a superfan.