 Was billed by FOX as the series 300th episode because it was  considered to be the 300th episode produced. However, FOX does not  count the Christmas Special pilot towards that total. So  technically, it was actually the 301st. FOX was very adamant about  airing the "300th" episode on the same day as the Daytona 500 auto  race, which is one of the biggest ratings draws of the year for the  network, so they pushed the air date back to February 16th. So when  the episode finally did air, it was actually the 302nd to do so  (Christmas special included), even though FOX was hyping it up as  #300. To further add to the confusion, all previous milestone  episodes (100th, 138th, 200th, 250th) were based on airing order  rather than production order, and with the Christmas special  included.