Today's Variety reports that Fox has renewed two of its long-running Sunday night animated series.  The Simpsons, which leads all Sunday night broadcasts in the highly-coveted 18-49 demographic, gets a two year extension, which means that the show should make it through at least 16 seasons, which will make it the longest running sitcom in TV history (although The Simpsons' total of 360 episodes after 16 seasons is still well behind The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet's 435 shows in 14 seasons).  King of the Hill, which has been on Fox for seven years, got a one-year extension, though it appears that it will change time slots from its current post-Simpsons spot to the less desirable pre-Simpsons slot (where shows are often pre-empted by sporting events).

 

Simpsons merchandise, such as the excellent Simpsons comics from Bongo and  Inkworks' Simpsons trading cards, continue to mirror the long-lived popularity of the series, although the long-running Playmates Simpsons Toys may have 'jumped the shark' to some extent around Series #10.  Playmates has done a good job of keeping The Simpsons toys fresh by adding in new versions of the major characters, but exceptionally long-running toy series like The Simpsons or the original Playmates Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures eventually hit a wall of 'collector fatigue' brought on by lack of storage and display space -- and this kind of problem can have more of an effect in specialty stores that cater to collectors than it does in the mass market, where new potential audience of kids starts watching The Simpsons every year.

 

Meanwhile King of the Hill merchandise, which started off slow as a Texas drawl, has grown to include its first series of action figures, which just arrived from Toycom during this year (King of the Hill's seventh season on the air).  Both The Simpsons and King of the Hill are also in widespread syndication around the country, which raises their visibility considerably.