[1] It originally aired on Fox in the United States on April 19, 1987 and marks the first ever appearance of the Simpson family – Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie – on television.

[7] The family was crudely drawn, because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead they just traced over his drawings.

[14] After the short plays from start to finish in "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular", Troy McClure, who now has a look of disbelief on his face, as though he has never seen the clip before, covers his expression with an awkward laugh and insincerely comments 'They haven't changed a bit, have they', a comment on how the characters' appearance and personalities had altered from the shorts to the airing of that episode.

[16] Todd Doogan of The Digital Bits was sad that "only [one] of the original Tracey Ullman Show shorts" was featured on the first season DVD".

[20] Planet Simpson says "the drawing and animation were blatantly crude, thick-lined, and primary-colored" and that "the vignettes were far too short for anything as sophisticated as 'character development'".

It adds that the "central gag [of] kids finding ironic horror in bedtime platitudes" was very simplistic, and doubts many people even watched the airing of the short.

However, the book explains the significance of Good Night as "the first baby steps of an institution that would become one of the most-watched TV shows on earth and the most influential cultural enterprise of its time".