The Simpsons

"Except for start-date gifts, my rule was that important gifts shouldn’t be disposable: no champagne, no muffin baskets. Instead, rare first editions from Heritage books, ancient Greek coins, paintings and prints, even the occasional car—sturdy, thoughtful presents that would last. If a client was paying us $500,000 a year in commissions, and we spent $5,000 on a gift for him or her, it didn’t hurt us much and it made the client feel fabulous. Our gifts office spent more than $500,000 a year, and generated a ton of good will (though we did send one writer for The Simpsons the same Weber grill on three separate occasions). Every Christmas we gave Tiffany key rings or the like to the secretaries of our favorite executives, and we messengered over $500 to $1,000 to our favorite restaurant owners and maître d’s, those who’d made us seem more important at the beginning than we actually were—Ronnie,"

"The result was *The Tracey Ullman Show,* a sketch and music variety series that turned out to be far too highbrow for Fox. But inside it were these little animated one- or two-minute interstitials about a family called the Simpsons. Short though they were, Brooks and his co-creator, Matt Groening, thought they could make a half-hour series. It was expensive—a huge gamble. But more than any other show, it built Fox. *The Simpsons* is probably the longest-running, most successful show in the history of television. Ironically, we scheduled it directly opposite that number one series, *The Cosby Show,* and we beat it that first night out. That cemented Fox Broadcasting firmly as the fourth network."