Simpsons’ book is weighty matter

By Steve Johnson

Chicago Tribune

It is a doorstop, a cornerstone, the foundation piece in a great wall of geekdom.

It is the Internet in convenient book form, shamelessly bidding to land on holiday gift lists.

It is pop-culture arcania, embiggened.

The new “Simpsons World: The Ultimate Episode Guide [Seasons 1-20]” ($150) compiles facts about America’s longest-running TV family with a vengeance: 1,200 pages and almost 9 pounds distilled from more than 8,000 minutes of creamy television goodness.

What’s the name of the town recycling center on the enduring Fox series? Uriah’s Heap. Who was Sideshow Bob’s cellmate? Snake. What was the first blackboard gag? “I will not waste chalk.”

You could craft a similar joke about this episode-by-episode compendium, arguing that, here, it’s ink being wasted, and on a program whose moment has passed. But “The Simpsons” is still exceptionally well-crafted comedy, even if it long ago lost the excitement of being new. And a book retains, still, that sense of authority, especially when it is a book officially sanctioned. The amateur efforts online — notably The Simpsons Archive (snpp.com/episodeguide.html) and epguides.com/simpsons — offer similar detail but with more of a home-brewed feel, and some peter out in later seasons.