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On Aug. 17, 1992, President George H.W. Bush addressed a cheering crowd in Houston, where the GOP was gathering for the Republican National Convention.

The culture wars were already raging back then. (Murphy Brown was pregnant, and single.) So the beleaguered incumbent decided to throw some red meat to his supporters. "We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family," the president declared, "to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons!"

Within six months, however, Bush was out of office, and "The Simpsons" was still on the air.

And this year - 15 summers later - another beleaguered Bush is in office, and "The Simpsons" is still on the air, making the Bushes and the Simpsons two of America's most resilient families.

Fox's perennially popular cartoon sitcom premiered in 1989, the same year the first President Bush took office. But while the country took an eight-year break from the Bushes, the Simpsons have stayed on continuously for almost two decades now. Over time the show has morphed from infiltrator to institution. The series aired its 400th episode in May, and its 19th season will premiere Sept. 23 on Fox. Old episodes are broadcast endlessly. And this Friday marks the release of the family's first feature film, "The Simpsons Movie," an 87-minute farce about an environmental crisis in Springfield, the show's fictional setting.

And just like other long-running hits, from Jack Benny to "Jeopardy!," the secret of "The Simpsons"' success lies in its broad appeal.

Jerry Sweeton, a 34-year-old engineering technician from Attleboro, grew up in a rural part of East Texas with a single television station that didn't carry "The Simpsons," so he couldn't watch the show during its first few seasons. Sweeton started watching as a college student in 1992, and he's never stopped.

"When I wasn't attending class, I was watching 'The Simpsons,'" he recalled. Sweeton watches two episodes a night when he can, and often finds he can recite the dialogue in old episodes from memory.

What keeps him watching? "The subtleties," he explained. "Each episode, particularly in the early seasons . . . hid something, made an inside joke or included drawings that really made you think and laugh out loud later, after you'd finished watching it."

By comparison, city resident Dan Grenier discovered "The Simpsons" in elementary school, not college. "I started watching 'The Simpsons' when my mom said that I should not watch 'The Simpsons,'" he said, laughing. "I liked it in terms of the fact that it was a cartoon."

Now Grenier is 21, around the same age as Sweeton was when he became a fan, and he's still watching. "I was probably drawn in as a younger person by the slapstick," he explained, "but I stayed for the satire."

Then there's 7-year-old Megan Patch, another fan from Attleboro. A second-grader at Willett Elementary School, she only became a fan in the past year.

"It's funny," Megan said simply, adding: "It's my favorite show."

The series has also built a loyal following among people who appreciate its streak of subtle - and sometimes not-so-subtle - social and intellectual commentary. After all, not every show counts Gore Vidal, Tom Wolfe, and Stephen Sondheim among its guest stars.

Attleboro's Murray Unitarian Universalist Church, for example, used "The Simpsons" to launch a popular discussion series that examines the deeper meaning of American pop culture.

"It's about taking something that's very popular and mining it for religious and philosophical ideas," Nan Loggains, the church's director of religious education, said of the series last winter.

That's exactly what Aeon Skoble was thinking when he and his colleagues published "The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'Oh! of Homer" in 2001, a book of essays with titles like "Thus Spake Bart: On Nietzsche and the Virtues of Being Bad" and "Simpsonian Sexual Politics." Now in its 25th printing, the book has sold 250,000 copies.

Skoble, an associate professor of philosophy at Bridgewater State College, said the book is a bit like "The Gospel According to Peanuts," Robert Short's 1965 bestseller examining the theology of Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Not every cartoon can stand up to that sort of analysis, he said, but "The Simpsons" can.

"It's written at many different levels," he said. "There is the crude slapstick, but there's also lots of other things going on - self-referential humor, allusions to other parts of pop culture, and high culture. It's the sort of show that really rewards that kind of scrutiny."

Skoble added, "It's not so much that we think 'The Simpsons' is every bit as important as Plato. Rather, it's a matter of using a popular culture item like 'The Simpsons' to get people interested in philosophy and thinking about classical questions. It's more a matter of outreach than dumbing down."

So, how do fans think "The Simpsons" will work on the big screen?

Megan Patch is excited - she'll be there opening night. Indeed, Megan is so excited that she and her dad, Brian, took a trip to Springfield, Vt., where the movie will have its premiere.

Older fans are reserving judgment.

"I am skeptical," said Sweeton. "I have been really disappointed in the show's writing the last few seasons." He does hold out some hope, though: "Who knows? Maybe they were saving all the good stuff for the movie."

Dan Grenier echoed Sweeton. "I'm definitely going to see the movie," he said. On the other hand, "I'm not going to wait in any lines to see it."

Grenier said that deep down, "The Simpsons" has a pretty universal theme: "At its base, with all the fart jokes aside, it really is essentially a show about a family who loves each other."

There'll always be an audience for that.

(Fart jokes, too.)

TED NESI is a Sun Chronicle staff writer. He can be reached at tnesi@thesunchronicle.com.