Animated comedy The Simpsons celebrates the airing of its 500 th episode this weekend, and to mark the milestone, two hardcore fans of the show pulled off an appropriately long-running record attempt last Sunday.

Jeremiah Franco, 22, and Carin Shreve, 33, both from California (USA), set a new benchmark for the longest marathon watching television after absorbing consecutuive episodes of Bart and co.'s exploits for an incredible 86 hours and 37 minutes.

The attempt, which formed part of an competition hosted by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in Los Angeles, began with 100 participants watching the first episode of the show from 1989.

Under the record guidelines, participants were allowed to eat and drink throughout the challenge but not fall asleep.

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In an incredible display of coach potato skills that would surely have made legendary loafer Homer proud, both Jeremiah and Carin kept their eyes open long enough to see off the opposition and set the new record while also winning $10,000 in prize money.

The pair made it up to the 11th episode of the 11th season, meaning they sat through a total of 239 total episodes.

This beat the previous record for continuous TV watching by 31 minutes which was set in 2010 by Kevin Coon, Farris Hodo and Victor Lopez in Los Angeles who sat through the first five seasons of Kiefer Sutherland's action series 24.

The Simpsons marathon was attended by the show's creator Matt Groening and several cast members including Nancy Cartwright and Yeardley Smith.

The show holds a number of world records of its own, including the title for the longest running sitcom and the most searched for TV show on the internet.