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Matthew Abram Groening (born February 15, 1954 in Portland, Oregon; his family name is pronounced , rhyming with gaining and raining) is an Emmy-winning American cartoonist and the creator of the American animated television series The Simpsons [1] 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.

Early life

The middle child of five children, Groening grew up in Portland, Oregon. His mother, Margaret, was once a teacher. His late father, Homer, was a filmmaker, advertising man, writer and cartoonist - “the kinds of cartoons that had guys standing in bars making disparaging comments,” according to Groening in a 1993 online Q&A [2].

He attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a progressive school which he called "a hippie college, with no grades or required classes, that drew every creative weirdo in the Northwest" [3]. There he was the Editor-in-Chief of the campus newspaper (The Cooper Point Journal). In the weekly publication he regularly applied his writing skills, and started applying his drawing skills in occasional comic strips. He became friends with Lynda Barry after discovering she had written a fan letter to Joseph Heller, one of Matt’s favorite authors, and had gotten a reply back .

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.

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.

In 1982, the editor of the Reader gave Matt his own weekly rock ‘n’ roll column, "Sound Mix". However, the column would rarely be about rock ‘n’ roll, as he would instead write more about his life and childhood, his pet peeves, and even things he found in the street. “I think the people who ran the Reader felt so guilty about how little they were paying people that they let them write about whatever they wanted”, Matt later reflected. In an effort to add more rock to the column, he would often simply make up stuff, writing reviews of fictional bands and non-existent records. The following week, he would confess to fabricating everything in the previous column, then swear that everything in the new column was true. Finally, he was asked to give up the "music" column and perhaps write a humor column under a different title.

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, who had been shown the strip by fellow producer Polly Platt [4]. In 1985, Brooks 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. Fearing the loss of ownership rights, Groening decided to create something new. Reportedly, he designed the look of the Simpson family in only fifteen minutes.

Groening storyboarded and scripted every short, which were then animated by a team including David Silverman and Wes Archer, both of whom would later become directors on the series [5].

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, he 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 Phil Hartman (who provided Troy’s voice), but this, too, was scrapped.

In 1995, Groening 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”, and was concerned about the 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 named the main Simpson characters after members of his own family: his parents, Homer and Margaret (Marge or Marjorie in full), and his younger sisters, Lisa and Margaret (Maggie). As for himself, he decided it was a bit too obvious to name a character after himself and chose the name "Bart" (an anagram of brat). The last name of the family, according to commentary on the Season 2 DVD, came from the fact that "Simpson" means "son of a simpleton". However, he stresses that aside from some of the sibling rivalry, his family is nothing like the Simpsons. In the Nathanael West novel and subsequent movie, The Day of the Locust, the main character shares the name of Homer Simpson, but Groening also admits in the commentary that it is a coincidence.

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 own father's dad, leaving it to other writers to choose a name. The writers named the character Abraham, which by coincidence turned out to be the name of Groening's grandfather. Homer and Abraham are also the names of Groening's two sons.

The name “Wiggum” for police chief Clancy Wiggum was Groening's mother's maiden name. The names of a few other characters were taken from major street names in Groening's hometown of Portland, Oregon, including 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 Emmy-winning show was a moderate 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 and Teletoon 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 new episodes to be aired in 2008.

Other

In 1994, he formed Bongo Comics Group (named after the character Bongo from Life in Hell) with Steve Vance, Cindy Vance and Bill Morrison, which publishes Simpsons and Futurama comics (including a two-part comic special entitled Futurama Simpsons Infinitely Secret Crossover Crisis, a fictional crossover between the two), as well as a few original titles. The goal with Bongo is to "[try] to bring humor into the fairly grim comic book market". Matt also formed Zongo Comics in 1995, an imprint of Bongo that publishes comics for more mature readers, which included seven issues of friend Gary Panter's "Jimbo" comics and one issue of Mary Fleener's Fleener.

Groening has released a large number of books with HarperCollins publishers.

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 Goldmark, and Greg Iles.

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

Groening has also provided voicework for several films, including Tales of the Rat Fink, a 2006 documentary about Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, and Hair High, a 2004 Bill Plympton film.

Awards

He has received the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for 2003, and was nominated for the same award in 2000. [6]

Personal life

Groening and Caplan married in 1986 and had two sons together, Homer (who goes by “Will”) and Abe, both of whom Groening occasionally portrays as rabbits in “Life in Hell”. The couple divorced in 1999 after thirteen years of marriage. Following this, he was in a six-year commitment with dating expert Lauren Frances [7].

Television writing credits

Matt Groening is credited with writing or co-writing the following episodes:

• The Simpsons: "Some Enchanted Evening", "The Telltale Head", "Colonel Homer", "22 Short Films About Springfield".
• 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 Brethren 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.
• 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 badly enough that Elfman responded with an irate letter to the editor [8]. 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, Apu, and Moe Szyslak; however, there are episodes where they appear to be right handed.
• Several of his characters have the middle initial 'J', including Bartholomew J. Simpson, Homer J. Simpson, Abraham J. Simpson, Chester J. Lampwick, Phillip J. Fry, and Hubert J. Farnsworth. 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. However, he did not include this in later drawings as he decided it would be too distracting for those who were aware of it. 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 misspells his autograph with "Greoning" for "annoying" fans.
• His sister, Lisa (who is now a high school teacher), 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. [9]

References

External links

• Groening's official website (has been under construction for some time)
• Interview with Matt Groening - The A.V. Club
• Matt Groening's Portland from the Portland Tribune
• Groening's Bio at Rock Bottom Remainders' website
• OlyBlog, Evergroove Trivia pt. 99 Matt as student and newspaper editor at The Evergreen State College

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