I don’t understand why TV shows or web comics or etc. make a big deal out of making it to 100 episodes.
The Colbert Report had a big celebration for their 100th episode. Of course, the show is on four times a week, with some weeks of vacation. It only takes 25 weeks (~half a year) with no vacations to get to 100 episodes.
Most TV series have about 22 episodes per season, with one episode a week (with a few weeks off here and there). That means you have to make it to Season 5 to make it to the magic number. Julia Loius-Dreyfus noted NBC’s ambivalence to Seinfeld by giving cast members a paperweight with the words “100th episode” in celebration for reaching that milestone. At that time Seinfeld was quickly rising in ratings. A nice gesture, but little effort.
You could be South Park and wait until the 7th Season before hitting 100 episodes because they only have 14 episodes per season and their backwards method of showing seven episodes from March-May and then again to October-December.
Or, you could be like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and have five episodes in the 1st Season and 47 episodes in Season 3! Almost one episode per week for a year (five weeks without a new episode). Damn!
If the season is a long running series like The Simpsons, reaching 100 episodes was soooooo long ago. They are going to be celebrating 500 episodes next season. Holy Crap. I think they even made fun of this notion of celebrating episode milestones by having an episode celebrating 138 Episodes.
For web comics, it might be hard to do something special for your 100th comic if you have storylines. You can’t just interrupt the story for a fourth-wall-breaking celebration. You could arrange for something big to happen if you are forward thinking enough. Like The Colbert Report most web comics are done semi-daily, so hitting 100 can be done in the first year.
Printed comics are a different story. Being published seven days a week, you can hit 100 in 14 weeks, or three and a half months. You have to suck really hard to be cancelled that quickly. Usually, how old they are or how many newspapers they are printed in is the measure of success. With the decline of the newspaper industry, the latter is becoming less prestigious. I doubt any comics will be drawn by their original creator for 100 years straight.
When it comes to Nation-States, being 100 years old isn’t that big of a deal. When you look at countries like England (or the United Kingdom), getting to 100 seems easy. The Romanov dynasty of Russia lasted a little over 300 years! Modern countries like Russia, Germany, France, India, and China have been politically organized for less than 100 years, but their history goes back much longer. I’m pretty sure China should be celebrating 4000 years right now.
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