Simpsons season premiere tonight

For the past ten years (as long as I can remember) we've had to wait until November (aka fall sweeps) for the season premiere of the Simpsons-in fact, usually the Treehouse of Horror episode is the first new one aired, though not technically considered the "season premiere." However, this year the first episode of the season is in early September-tonight in fact.

Why is this? Is Fox rewarding the Simpsons's long-time fans by not making them wait until November sweeps for new 'sodes?

hahahahahahahahahaha

Everyone laugh at the funny joke. I'll be right back with the real reason. Which is: today is the first week of the NFL regular season, and thus the premiere for the new NBC "Sunday Night Football" featuring John Madden. Since NBC's re-entry into broadcasting football is squarely aimed at Fox's dominance on Sunday nights in the highly valued 18-35 male demographic, Fox is reminding everyone who's the real big dog on Sunday nights. (At least with the guys-ABC rules the fairer sex with their chickotastic double play of Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives.)

Anyhoo, this CNN article describes tonight's episode thusly:

Sunday's season opener (8 p.m. EDT) revolves around Homer's brush with mob life and includes Joe Mantegna as Springfield's big boss Fat Tony and Michael Imperioli and Joe Pantoliano of "The Sopranos."

The article also has some news about other forthcoming episodes, including one I hadn't heard about yet, a parody of Fox's "24":

In a September 17 episode with the White Stripes rock band, Bart is injured by a tiger that Lisa rescued and organizes a benefit concert to help pay for an operation on his drumming arm.

The landmark 400th half-hour, due to air next May, is a spoof of Fox's "24" that's titled "24 Minutes" and features the drama's Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub as their characters.

Also tonight are season premieres of "Family Guy" and "American Dad" for those of you who like that sort of thing. (Okay, I like Family Guy-I'm not a snob.)

I'm moderately optimistic about the episode tonight-usually the 'sodes featuring Fat Tony are good ones, and it's hard to go wrong with the Simpsons doing the Sopranos (which they've parodies once previously-can you name the episode?) Sure, the Simpsons hasn't really been at the top of their game the past three or fours years, but as Hans Sprungfeld might have said, "a sense of hope embiggens even the smallest man."