Goodbye Springfield? Could the twentieth season of "The Simpsons" be the last?

As you might have heard, Fox only recently managed to get the voice cast of The Simpsons to agree to do another season, giving the show a record-breaking twentieth. However, Verne Gay of Newsday suspects this could be the series' swan song. The reason? Increasing costs -- especially with those increased voice cast salaries -- while ratings have been trending downwards.

After twenty years (twenty years? Aw, gee, once more I'm feeling like I should go join Abe in yelling at clouds), it's hard to imagine TV without new episodes of The Simpsons, especially considering all the great gay moments the TV series gave us.

Harvey Fiersten's super-assistant Karl

In 1990, we got our first gay Simpsons guest appearance when Harvey Fierstein appeared as Homer's secretary, Karl. Karl was a one-man Queer Eye crew, helping Homer pick out a suit, helps him speak before executives and generally helps his confidence. Karl also sacrifices himself to save Homer's job, kissing Homer before departing the series. In hindsight, the role was a pretty stereotypical, but at the time it broke new ground for animated series.

John Waters' kitsch dealer

Seven years later, Homer had to learn to accept an openly gay man when John Waters had a guest role as the owner of a kitschy collectibles store. When Homer realizes (long after the rest of the family) that the owner of "Cockamamie's" is gay, he begins to worry that exposure to homosexuality might turn Bart gay and works to make him lean towards heterosexuality again -- an effort that memorably leads to a trip to a gay steel mill.

Homer's gay roommates Grady and Julio

In 2003, Homer left Marge -- thinking she only married him because she was pregnant with Bart -- eventually sharing an apartment with two gay men in Springfield's gay district, with one of his roommates, Grady, being played by Scott Thompson. This time, Homer doesn't have any issues being around gay men -- not until Grady tries to kiss Homer.

Most recently, we saw The Simpsons take on gay marriage when Lisa Simpson suggests that the city begin blessing same-sex unions as a way to increase tourism to their town, eventually bringing Patty out of the closet when she finds a woman she wants to marry.

Of course, that's not all The Simpsons has given us in the past twenty years. For a long time we debated whether the effeminate, Malibu Stacey-collecting, Montgomery Burns-dottering Walon Smithers was gay -- with the question even appearing on the cover of Genre magazine. Later years also gave us the bromance between Lenny and Carl and the show has showed off its gay sensibility plenty of times -- like in the musical episode where becoming student body president turns Lisa into a little Evita Peron.

If this turns out to be The Simpsons' final season, I'll definitely miss its presence on the TV schedule, even if my reaction to an episode nowadays ranges from "disappointing and not very funny" to "funnier than my low expectations". It's become like that worn down couch that you can't get rid of just because you're so used to it being there. Then again, we'll always have reruns, potential movie sequels and all those lines we quote back at each other.