Sazae-san is one of the longest running anime in Japan, starting in 1969 (that's 20 years before The Simpsons aired in America, for reference). Its comic started 20 years before that(1946).
I guess you could compare it to Peanuts(Charlie Brown) whose comic started just a few years after(1950) and got an OVA just about every year from 1965 (sometimes twice a year as holiday releases) until 2003 when it started slowing down to every few years.
Despite the gap Peanuts is still very nostalgic for a lot of people and a household name. That's pretty much how Sazae-san is for the Japanese.
Source: Another manga I read, Google, my JP exchange student sibling.