The Simpsons' eighth season originally aired between October 1996 and May 1997, beginning on October 27, 1996 with "Treehouse of Horror VII". The showrunners for the eighth production season were Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. The aired season contained two episodes which were hold-over episodes from season seven, which Oakley and Weinstein also ran. It also contained two episodes for which Al Jean and Mike Reiss were the show runners. Season eight won multiple awards, including two Emmy Awards: "Homer's Phobia" won for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or Less) in 1997, and Alf Clausen and Ken Keeler won for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics" with the song "We Put The Spring In Springfield" from the episode "Bart After Dark". Clausen also received an Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Music Direction" for "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious". "Brother from Another Series" was nominated for the Emmy for "Sound Mixing For a Comedy Series or a Special". The DVD box set was released in Region 1 on August 15, 2006, Region 2 on October 2, 2006, and Region 4 on September 27, 2006. The set was released in two different forms: a Maggie-shaped head to match the Homer and Marge shaped heads of the previous two sets and also a standard rectangular shaped box. Like the seventh season box set, both versions are separately available for sale.

The writing staff

Part of the writing staff of The Simpsons in 1992. Back row, left to right: Mike Mendel, Colin ABV Lewis (partial), Jeff Goldstein, Al Jean (partial), Conan O'Brien, Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein, Mike Reiss, Ken Tsumara, George Meyer, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti (partial), CJ Gibson and David M. Stern. Front row, left to right: Dee Capelli, Lona Williams and Leslie Richter.

"The Secret War of Lisa Simpson" is the season final of The Simpsons' eighth season, first aired by the Fox network on May 18, 1997 as the season finale. Bart gets sent to a military academy as punishment for bad behavior. While visiting the academy, Lisa sees that the students are academically challenged and she decides that she wants to attend as well. It was directed by Mike B. Anderson, written by Richard Appel and featured Willem Dafoe in a guest spot as the school's Commandant. The episode was mistakenly anticipated as being about Lisa launching "a legal battle" to enroll at the military school.

• ... that from 1995 to 2003, an Arkansas radio station now called KZTD shared its "KBBL" call sign with the fictional radio station on The Simpsons?

• ...that for The Simpsons Movie, Isla Fisher, Minnie Driver, Erin Brockovich, Edward Norton and Kelsey Grammer all had guest spots cut?

• ...that Bart Simpson's catchphrase "Eat My Shorts" was an ad-lib by Nancy Cartwright in one of the original table readings, harking back to an incident when she was at college?