Season 2

The second season originally aired from October 11, 1990 to July 11, 1991, starting with the episode "Bart Gets an "F"" and finishing with "Blood Feud". Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon were the show runners of the season, as they were for the previous season.

While "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish" was the first episode produced for the season, "Bart Gets an "F"" became the season premiere as Bart was the series' breakout character at the time and the producers wanted to debut with an episode centering on him.

The second season had two Emmy nominations, both of them for "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment." The episode also won the Emmy award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming less than One Hour) and was nominated for "Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy Series or a Special," which it did not win.

All 22 episodes of Season 2, including extras such as optional commentaries of all the episodes, were released on DVD on August 6, 2002 in Region 1, July 8, 2002 in Region 2 and September 2002 in Region 4.

History
"Bart Gets an "F"" was the first episode broadcast for the second season, although it was not the first produced (the first produced being "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish"). The change was due to the popularity of Bart Simpson and his status as the main character of The Simpsons at this point in the show's history. (Later, Homer would assume that status.) Another reason was that the producers wanted a Bart-centered episode as the season premiere. The Fox Network decided to switch The Simpsons timeslot to Thursday at 8:00 p.m. EST, to air at the same time as NBC's The Cosby Show. This competition led to the two shows being promoted as "Bill vs. Bart", referencing the main characters. While The Cosby Show earned slightly higher Nielsen ratings (an 18.5 rating compared to The Simpsons ' 18.4 for "Bart Gets an "F""). Fox's show, however, finished eighth in the weekly ratings, watched by an estimated 33.6 million viewers, making it the number one show in terms of actual viewers and surpassing The Cosby Show in terms of viewing numbers that week. "Bart Gets an "F"" became the network's highest rated broadcast until January 1, 1995 and The Simpsons ' highest rated episode of all time. "Three Men and a Comic Book" was the only episode from the second season to beat The Cosby Show by Nielson ratings, finishing 23rd in weekly ratings opposite a rerun of a Cosby episode, which finished 26th. At the end of the second season, The Simpsons finished 38th while The Cosby Show finished 5th. It would not be until Season 3's "Homer at the Bat" where The Simpsons would garner more viewers than The Cosby Show. The Simpsons would remain in a Thursday timeslot until being moved back to its original Sunday timeslot in the sixth season, where the show has remained ever since.

Season 2 also introduced a new opening sequence, one which would be used for many seasons. The new opening sequence was significantly remade compared to its predecessor; for example, including many recurring characters such as Lionel Hutz, Mayor Quimby and Troy McClure, who were introduced in this season but didn't appear in Season 1. Three versions of the new sequence were created, with different lengths: One which was 1 minute and 15 seconds long, another which was 45 seconds and one which was only 25 seconds, with parts cut to fit the shorter time frames. These versions were created to adapt to the length of an episode where some would be longer than others. That is, a short episode would have a long opening and vice versa to save or fill in time.

Episodes

 * Key
 * In the # column;
 * The first number refers to the order it aired during the entire series.
 * The second number refers to the episode number within its season.
 * The production code refers to the code assigned to the episode by the production team. The first two characters refer to the season the episode was made for: 7F for season two, 8F for season three. The second number is the order the episode was produced, not the airing order.

DVD Release
Season 2 was released on DVD by 20th Century Fox in Region 2 on July 8, 2002, Region 1 on August 6, 2002 and Region 4 on September 2002. While primarily consisting of the original 22 episodes, the DVD release features bonus material including deleted scenes, Animatics, and commentaries for every episode.