Season 18

Season 18 was the eighteenth season of The Simpsons. It originally aired from September 10, 2006, with The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer, to May 20, 2007 with You Kent Always Say What You Want. You Kent Always Say What You Want was also the 400th episode as well as celebrating the 20th anniversary of the show. Al Jean served as the Showrunner, a position he has held since the thirteenth season.

This season had guest appearances from Metallica, Tom Wolfe, Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, Fran Drescher, The White Stripes, Kiefer Sutherland, Natalie Portman, Betty White, Eric Idle, Stephen Sondheim,, Meg Ryan.

Reception
Robert Canning of gave the season a 6.6 saying it was "Passable" and that "Now in its eighteenth season, The Simpsons continues to supply America with a decent half-hour of comedy every Sunday night. However, most long-time fans of the show agree that the last several years have seen the program in constant decline. Looking back at this particular season, there's little evidence to prove them wrong. Though we were treated with at least a few hilarious gems this year, the mediocre heavily outweighed the great."

Ratings
The season had with an average of 8.6 million watching Season 18.

Awards
At the, Alf Clausen and Michael Price won the award for "Best Music in an Animated Television Production" for "Yokel Chords" while Ian Maxtone-Graham and Billy Kimball won "Best Writing in an Animated Television Production" for "24 Minutes" Jeff Westbrook won a for "Kill Gil, Volumes I & II" while Matt Selman was nominated for "The Haw-Hawed Couple" and John Frink received a nomination for "Stop or My Dog Will Shoot!".