Matt Groening

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Matt Groening

Matthew Abram Groening (born February 15, 1954 in Portland, Oregon; his family name is pronounced /'greɪnɪŋ/, rhyming with gaining and raining, or as he likes to compare it to, complaing) is an American cartoonist and the creator of the American animated television series The Simpsons [link] and Futurama, as well as the comic strip Life in Hell. He currently serves as a creative consultant for The Simpsons, a position he has held for over seventeen years since the show's inception in 1989.

Career

In 1977, at the age of 23, Groening moved to Los Angeles to become a writer. However, on the way there, his car broke down in the fast lane of the Hollywood Freeway. He found work for a time as a chauffeur and "biographer" for an unsuccessful 88-year-old B-Western movie director. He described life in Los Angeles to his friends in the form of a comic book, and called it Life in Hell which was loosely inspired by a chapter entitled “How to Go to Hell” in Walter Kaufmann's book Critique of Religion and Philosophy.

A 1989 Apple Macintosh advertisement featuring Life in Hell characters, drawn by Matt Groening.

Groening started the comic in 1977 by photocopying and distributing it in the book corner of Licorice Pizza, the record store he was working in. He made his first professional cartoon sale to the avant-garde Wet magazine in 1978 (the strip, entitled “Forbidden Words”, appeared in the September/October issue), and by 1980 the strip had become so popular in the underground that it was picked up by the Los Angeles Reader, where he also delivered papers as well as some editing and paste-up.

Matt met his wife, Deborah Caplan, in 1980 at the Los Angeles Reader (they divorced in 1999). In late 1984, she published Groening’s first cartoon book, Love is Hell, which was a big underground success. Soon afterward, they left the Reader and put together the Life in Hell Co., which handled syndication and merchandise for Groening’s projects.

In the late 1980s, Groening drew several print advertisements for Apple Computer in the form of Life in Hell comic strips.[Matt Groening Apple Ad from 1989]

The strip is still carried in many weekly newspapers and has been anthologized in a series of books, including School is Hell, Childhood is Hell, Work is Hell, The Big Book of Hell and The Huge Book of Hell.

The Simpsons

Life in Hell caught the attention of Hollywood writer-producer and Gracie Films founder James L. Brooks. In 1985, he contacted Groening with the proposition of working in animation on an undefined future project. That project would turn out to be developing a series of short animation skits, called “bumpers”, to be featured on the FOX variety show The Tracey Ullman Show. Originally, Brooks wanted Groening to adapt his Life in Hell characters for the show. But not wanting to endanger his comic strip job if the animation job didn't work out, Groening decided to give them something new. Reportedly, he designed the look of the Simpson family in only fifteen minutes.

Matt storyboarded and scripted every short, which were then animated by David Silverman and Wes Archer, both of whom would later become directors on the series.

Premiering on the Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987, the shorts became very popular, which led to a half-hour spin-off in 1989. The series quickly became a worldwide phenomenon, to the surprise of many. Said Groening: “Nobody thought The Simpsons was going to be a big hit. It snuck up on everybody".

Sometime in the 1990s, Matt tried to pitch a live-action spin-off about Krusty the Clown, but was unsuccessful. He has also pitched “Young Homer” and a spin-off about the non-Simpsons citizens of Springfield. Supposedly, there were also plans for a live-action movie based off of the character Troy McClure, to be played by the late Phil Hartman (who provided Troy’s voice), but this, too, was scrapped.

In 1995, Matt got in a major disagreement with Brooks and other Simpsons producers over “A Star is Burns”, a crossover episode with The Critic, an animated show also produced by Brooks and staffed with many former Simpsons crew members. Groening feared that viewers would “see it as nothing but a pathetic attempt to advertise The Critic at the expense of The Simpsons”. He was also concerned about implication that he had created or produced The Critic. He requested his name be taken off the episode.

He has had several "cameos" in the show (an incomplete list can be found [here]), with a speaking role in the episode My Big Fat Geek Wedding.

He currently serves at The Simpsons as a creative consultant, as well as a writer and producer on the upcoming movie.

Simpsons character names

Groening also has an older brother and sister, Mark and Patty, but these siblings were left out of the main Simpson family. It is questionable whether Marge’s sister Patty’s name comes from Matt’s sister or if it is a coincidence. In a [1995 interview], he divulged that Mark “is the actual inspiration for Bart”.

Groening says he refused to name Homer's dad after his father's real dad, leaving it to other writers to name that character. They gave him the name of Abraham, which by coincidence turned out to be the name of Groening's grandfather.

The name “Wiggum” for the character of police chief Clancy Wiggum came from Groening's mother's maiden name.

Groening grew up in Portland, Oregon, and seems to have found names for some characters from major Portland street names such as Flanders, Lovejoy, Powell (as in Homer's half-brother Herb Powell), Quimby, Kearney (the bully), and Terwilliger (Sideshow Bob's last name).

Futurama

After spending a few years researching science fiction, Matt got together with Simpsons staff writer David X. Cohen (who was still known as David S. Cohen at the time) and developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000.

The show was a mild success but languished in the ratings. After four years on the air, the show was cancelled by 20th Century Fox. However, in a similar situation to Family Guy, strong DVD sales and very stable ratings on Cartoon Network have brought Futurama back to life, which is slated for four direct-to-DVD movies, as confirmed by Groening in an [interview with the Onion AV Club]. Comedy Central has also ordered 13 episodes to be aired in 2008.

Other

He is a member of the rock and roll band The Rock Bottom Remainders, whose members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount Jr., Stephen King, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, and Greg Iles.

In 2003, he curated the U.S. All Tomorrow's Parties music festival in Los Angeles.

Television writing credits

• The Simpsons: "Some Enchanted Evening", "The Telltale Head", "Colonel Homer", "22 Short Films About Springfield", possibly "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".
• Futurama: "Space Pilot 3000".

Trivia

• His father, a descendant of Russian Mennonites in Canada, spoke Plautdietsch as a child in Saskatchewan in the 1920s, but Matt never learned the language.
• He is also a descendant of the Krimmer Mennonite Brethern in Hillsboro, Kansas, where his great-grandfather's family settled when they immigrated.
• The family name Groening may be derived from Groningen (or Grun'n in the local dialect) which is a city and surrounding province in the north of the Netherlands. Due to his German-Norwegian heritage, it has also been claimed that Groening is an anglicisation of the Scandinavian Grønning.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}
• In college, Groening sometimes took notes in class in the form of comic strips.
• In one of his music reviews for the Los Angeles Reader, Groening panned musician Danny Elfman bad enough that Elfman responded with an irate letter to the editor. Elfman would later go on to do the theme for The Simpsons.

• Both Groening and his character Bart Simpson are left-handed. Other left-handed characters on The Simpsons include Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, and Moe Szyslak, the bartender.
• Several of his characters have the middle initial 'J', including Homer J. Simpson, Bart J. Simpson and Phillip J. Fry. Groening has said that this is a reference to Bullwinkle J. Moose.
• In some of Matt's original drawings of Homer Simpson, Homer's ear was shaped like a "G", and the hair above in the shape of an "M", spelling Groening's initials. Groening includes the initials when drawing autographed pictures of Homer for fans. On the Season 7 DVD animatic for "The Day the Violence Died", Groening revealed he often mispells his autograph with "Greoning" for "annoying" fans.
• His sister, Lisa, is married to Craig Bartlett, creator of Hey Arnold!. Before Hey Arnold! became a show, Arnold comic strips drawn by Bartlett appeared in the magazine Simpsons Illustrated in the early 1990s.
• He identifies as agnostic. [link]

Awards

References