After 429 episodes and 20 years on television, "The Simpsons," the American staple of animated sitcoms, has revamped its opening sequence for the show's HD premiere.

There's plenty of devilish little details to be found in the new opening sequence for the Simpsons obsessive, although the basic storyline remains the same - Bart's is in trouble again, writing on the blackboard, except this time Bart's writing "HDTV is worth every cent," and there's a picture of Homer dressed as an astronaut on the wall:



When the bell rings, Bart launches off the school steps on his skateboard, as usual - but this time he lands on Barney:



Homer leaves the nuclear plant with a radioactive plutonium bar, as usual, except this time when he throws it out the window it's caught by Otto the bus driver, who promptly eats it:



Lisa plays an especially upbeat tune on her sax as she leaves music class - before popping her head back in the door.  Marge goes shopping with Maggie, which turns to a different angle of Maggie getting scanned at the grocery store (which the more fervent fans will notice exactly doubles the amount already on the register display, bringing it to $486.52).



After the swipe:



Maggie also comes cart-to-cart with her arch nemesis, Gerald the unibrow baby:



The updates don't stop there, either; new angles, twists and cuts are scattered throughout, making for an entirely new intro that's been long overdue. We see plenty of new additions to the sidewalk as Bart skates by including Apu's octuplets, Crazy Cat Lady, The Rich Texan, and Sideshow Bob, who hacks at him with a machete.



Drew Mackie of Back of the Cereal Box blog pulled off the brilliant maneuver of capturing shots of the super-fast panoramic sweep that occurs directly between Marge and Maggie’s simultaneous horn-honking and their arrival home. In the shot, the camera pans away from Marge’s car and over a Springfield panorama, featuring various characters on the show. It’s impossible to single out more than one character with the naked eye, but thanks to Drew we don't have to drive ourselves crazy trying to freeze frame it ourselves.

A comparison of the old and the new:



Ralph Wiggum's building a sand castle on the grave of Frank Grimes, Burns and Smithers are replaced by Lenny and Carl at the nuclear plant and Blinky the three-eyed fish and Spiderpig make appearances as well. Fat Tony and his guys are dumping a body over by the school bus, and, if you look off in the background, God and the devil appear to be bickering about something:



Sunday's version was especially long, due to the fact that the family all made their way home only to find that their couch had escaped - so naturally they set out after it, through San Francisco, the forest, the canals of Venice, India and even space:



When they return home, The Simpsons’ family television is replaced with its upscale, flat-screen cousin hanging from the wall:



It eventually falls and smashes to the ground, however, leaving only sparking bare wires. In all likelihood, the couch part of the ending will be changing every week as usual - but this one was especially funny.