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He also plays the drums in the all-author rock and roll band The Rock Bottom Remainders (although he is listed as the cowbell player), whose other members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount Jr., Stephen King, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Sam Barry and Greg Iles. [82], In 1994, Groening formed Bongo Comics (named after the character Bongo from Life in Hell[83]) with Steve Vance, Cindy Vance and Bill Morrison, which publishes comic books based on The Simpsons and Futurama (including Futurama Simpsons Infinitely Secret Crossover Crisis, a crossover between the two), as well as a few original titles. (2002). A few years earlier they had set up their own syndicate, ACME Features, to distribute the strip. In 1994, Matt Groening started the comic book publishing company named Bongo Comics. Homer Groening (born 1991) "Bart is like what would happen if Eddie Haskell got his own show," he said. "[17] The Simpsons was co-developed by Groening, Brooks, and Sam Simon, a writer-producer with whom Brooks had worked on previous projects. The shorts were spun off into their own series, The Simpsons, which has since aired 742 episodes. ", Not that Fox isn't grateful: "If you go back 10 years ago, we didn't have a lot of successful shows on the air," 20th Century Fox Television co-president Gary Newman told Daily Variety in January 2000, about nine months after the debut of "Futurama." They divorced in 1999 and Groening . Work is Hell soon followed, also published by Caplan. (Statements like these, of course, set off fits of right-wing apoplexy, much to the amusement and delight of everyone else. He was also given the responsibility of handling the papers music column for a short period. His sister Lisa does not play the saxophone. Groening is a guy who lunches with Rupert Murdoch and finds him congenial. Groening also collectively donated to the Democratic senatorial campaign committee and to the Senate campaigns of Barbara Boxer (California), Dianne Feinstein (California), Paul Simon (Illinois), Ted Kennedy (Massachusetts), Carl Levin (Michigan), Hillary Clinton (New York), Harvey Gantt (North Carolina), Howard Metzenbaum (Ohio), and Tom Bruggere (Oregon). The series, Disenchantment, was ordered by Netflix on July 25, 2017. He won the Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Television Production for his animated series The Simpsons during three consecutive years i.e. '", Sharing one inane series of meetings, he told the magazine, "I said, 'Look, I told you "Futurama" is not going to be bland and boring like "The Jetsons." "If there's a message that runs through the show," he told The New York Times in 2001, well after he had become wealthy and influential beyond his wildest dreams, "it's that maybe the authorities don't have your best interests at heart. [39], Life in Hell caught the attention of Hollywood writer-director-producer and Gracie Films founder James L. Brooks, who had been shown the strip by fellow producer Polly Platt. [71] He has had several cameo appearances in the show, with a speaking role in the episode "My Big Fat Geek Wedding". Groening is estimated to be worth US$ 500 million. "[19] The show premiered on March 28, 1999. His television series titled Futurama also earned him the Annie Award for Best General Audience Animated TV/Broadcast Production in the years 2010 and 2014, while his other work The Simpsons won the award in this category in the years 2011, 2012 and 2015. In 1987, Groening married fellow Weekly staffer Deborah Caplan. Matt Groening is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, and director. In 1997, he and retired Simpsons writer David X. Cohen developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000, which premiered in 1999, ran for four years on Fox, then picked up by Comedy Central for more seasons. Along with mailing the comics to friends and family back in Portland, he attempted to sell his stapled-together books from his record store. [41] Groening conceived of the idea for the Simpsons in the lobby of James L. Brooks's office and hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family: Homer, the overweight father; Marge, the slim mother; Bart, the bratty oldest child; Lisa, the intelligent middle child; and Maggie, the baby. He was an English major and a World War II vet. Born Matthew Abram Groening on 15th February, 1954 in Portland, Oregon, he is famous for Creator of The Simpsons, Futurama and Life In Hell. His work The Simpsons grabbed the Annie Award in the Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Television Program category for the year 1999. [65] The names of a few other characters were taken from major street names in Groening's hometown of Portland, Oregon, including Flanders, Lovejoy, Powell, Quimby and Kearney. He winds up working for an intergalactic delivery service, with a crew of misfits including Leela, the ship's one-eyed alien captain and Bender, a corrupt, vice-addled, disgruntled robot. In 1994, Groening and other Simpsons producers pitched a live-action spin-off about Krusty the Clown (with Dan Castellaneta playing the lead role), but were unsuccessful in getting it off the ground. In 2012, a 3-D short film based on The Simpsons was released with the title The Longest Daycare. From teachers who forced him to rip up his cartoons in front of the class, to the petty tyranny of bosses ("I was told that I would never get a job in the Pacific Northwest in journalism after my disgraceful stewardship of the Cooper Point Journal," Groening told the graduating class in a commencement address at his alma mater, Evergreen State College. In the early days of "The Simpsons," Mr. Groening used to preside over all aspects of production, from scripts to story boards to voice-overs to animation. His mission, Groening has said, was to create a sofa-centric sitcom about a typical American family and turn it upside down in retaliation for all the bad TV he watched as a kid. Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (2008) They have a son, Nathaniel, and twin daughters, Luna and India. Yet Groening's DNA is all over the show, from the characters named after the streets of his hometown (Flanders, Lovejoy, etc. Ark3n 7 yr. ago. I Thought I Told You to Shut Up!! He casts himself as the avenging underdog tilting at windmills, but, in the end, he always returns the conquering hero. The daily task of writing the show is left to a team of writers, whom he calls his "Harvard-grad-brainiac-bastard-eggheads." But for now, at least, it continues to thrive; it is consistently the most-watched show in its time slot, Thursday at 8 P.M., and is Fox's No. He ran for student body president on the "Teens for Decency" ("If You're Against Decency, What Are You For?") In the mid-1980s, he moved to Los Angeles and started drawing a comic strip named Life in Hell, whi . Groening decided that this would be too distracting though, and redesigned the ear to look normal. "[42] Simon eventually left the show in 1993 over creative differences. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. "But I don't consider 'The Simpsons' a compromise in any way. In 1987, Groening married fellow Weekly staffer Deborah Caplan. A fan of science fiction, he had been thinking about creating a show about the future for some time. They divorced in 1999, after 13 years of marriage.Following this, Groening was in a six-year commitment with dating expert Lauren Frances. He currently serves at The Simpsons as an executive producer and creative consultant. In 1973, he moved to LA and sold his comic strip Life in Hell to the LA weekly. The animated shorts that Groening created were The Simpsons (1989). It was thanks to Brooks' reputation that "The Simpsons" was granted a level of autonomy not normally given to television shows -- especially one as risky as "The Simpsons" seemed at the time. "Teachers, principals, clergymen, politicians -- for the Simpsons, they're all goofballs, and I think that's a great message for kids." She is the author of "Do You Love Me or Am I Just Paranoid?" "Of course, those are all true. Then Fox moved "Futurama" to Tuesday night, and audiences fell to about 8 million. Published a month later, the book was an underground success, selling 22,000 copies in its first two printings. Unlike most shows, which he finds sluggish, "The Simpsons" is written to move at a manic pace. Deborah Caplan (m.1986, d.1999) Agustina Picasso (m.2011) Children: Abe Groening, Homer Groening, Nathaniel Philip Picasso Groening, India Mia Groening, Venus Ruth Groening, Luna Margaret Groening, Sol . One of his first employers was an aging B-movie director who needed help both getting around and writing his memoirs. The weekly comic strip chronicles the miseries of Bongo, the one-eared rabbit, as well as those of Akbar and Jeff, the lovelorn look-alikes. Later, Groening attended Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., which was known for its extremely liberal (no grades, no core requirements) liberal arts program. Before proceeding to the informational portion of this essay, please take a moment to complete the following questionnaire: 1) Are you disillusioned? In 2013, the couple had a son named . She was Groenings long-time girlfriend before she married him in 2011. Therefore, Groening has accumulated a decent fortune over the years. [15] At the end of its run, Life in Hell was carried in 250 weekly newspapers and has been anthologized in a series of books, including School is Hell, Childhood is Hell, The Big Book of Hell, and The Huge Book of Hell. It's my foundation,"[37] the June 16, 2012 strip marked Life in Hell's conclusion. Executive producer and show runner Mike Scully once told the New Yorker, "People are always asking why 'The Simpsons' is still so good after all these years, and, at the risk of pissing off all the other writers, I think I'd have to say that the main reason is probably George." [107] He received a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004. (2006). And the idea of creating a show on his own appealed to him. He made a name exploring his own alienation and a fortune exposing the absurdities and hypocrisies of our culture, and nowadays, Groening is as powerful an insider as they come. Nowadays, you can't throw a rock at a TV set without hitting an irreverent animated social satire. He made his first professional cartoon sale of Life in Hell to the avant-garde magazine Wet in 1978. Matt Groening. platform, and regretted his victory immediately. . . Tales of the Rat Fink (2006) as Finkster Groenings estimated net worth is $600 million. The team included what is now the Klasky Csupo animation house. Reader hired sales rep Deborah Caplan, who observed that the Life in Hell strips were "a major selling point" of the paper. But that's not my point of view.". [12] Although Groening previously stated, "I'll never give up the comic strip. The pilot episode of "Futurama" was scheduled to air in the coveted slot between "The Simpsons" and "The X-Files" on Sunday night, and was watched by 19 million viewers. In the mid-1980s, he moved to Los Angeles and started drawing a comic strip named "Life in Hell", which eventually became published in the newspaper where he worked. "The excuse was that the networks never let you get away with anything," he said. When he and former "Simpsons" show runner David X. Cohen (now the show runner on "Futurama") first approached Fox with the new idea, the network went into instant paroxysms of ecstasy. The show, according to Groening, was "buried." Fearing the loss of ownership rights, Groening created a new set of characters, the Simpson family. (2015) He married Deborah Caplan 1986 . In 2011, he married artist Augustina Picasso, with whom he had been in a relationship for four years. There is not much information about Mark. His father, Homer Philip Groening, was a writer, filmmaker and advertiser and his mother, Margaret Ruth, was a teacher. The couple also welcomes daughters Luna Margaret and India Mia born in 2015. The strip continued to be published in the LA Weekly until 2009, when they were unable to pay Matt Groening anymore. 2) Disappointed? He is starting to think about other projects, like developing a show starring the Simpsons' favorite entertainer, Krusty, the dissolute clown. From this and other joyless jobs, "Life in Hell" was born. The same year his direct-to-video film Futurama: Bender's Big Score earned him the Annie Award for Best Animated Home Entertainment. Many members of the Simpson family are named for members of his own family: Homer, Marge, Maggie, Lisa and Patty. I said, 'It's not going to be like "Blade Runner."' The Simpsons is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. He donned the role of an executive producer for animated films Futurama: Bender's Game (2007), Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (2008), Futurama: Bender's Game (2008), and Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder (2009). But when pressed, he concedes that he is not sure what makes his critique of Middle America so appealing to Middle Americans. "He was a deviant.". "What's happened is that mainstream culture has gotten so good at marketing pseudo-hipness that it overwhelms other choices that are out there.". Groening and Deborah divorced in 1999. Were it not for the clueless executives, the inane network decisions, the petty betrayals at the hands of people who benefit from his success, he might have stagnated by now. He also made appearances in episodes of television series The Pitts, Portlandia and Space Ghost Coast to Coast. The number was later limited to nine spikes, all of the same size. Some seven years after Binky and his one-eared son, Bongo, first began delving into their epic disaffection, and the heroically insecure (but enterprising) gay twins Akbar and Jeff opened the first of their reprobate money-making "huts," "The Simpsons," the first animated series to hit prime time in 20 years, made its television debut. Le fils de pre Homer Philip Groening et mre Margaret Ruth est comdien de stand-up, crivain & caricaturiste, anno 2023 clbre pour The Simpsons & Futurama. After marriage, he became step father to Augustina Picasso's daughter Camille. [95] In 2020, their daughter Nirvana was born. Groening was married to Deborah Caplan from 1986 to 1999. The world is full of literalists (Elmer Fudds, Mr. Groening would say). Groening started sending the comic back home to friends in Portland in lieu of doleful letters about his miserable life. He made his first professional cartoon sale to the avant-garde Wet magazine in 1978. Meanwhile, Groening was up to his old tricks of rocking the boat, writing silly reviews of bands based on their publicity photos and even making up phony acts to cover. he said in a Mother Jones interview. These days Mr. Groening, who lives in Venice, Calif., tries to stay home one morning a week to write "Life in Hell." When Comedy Central began negotiating for the rights to air Futurama reruns, Fox suggested that there was a possibility of also creating new episodes. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Since 1989, Groening take part in the television series The Simpsons which is the longest-running U.S. primetime-television series in history and the longest-running U.S. animated series and sitcom. Groening's position is an interesting one for a satirist to find himself in. Before, Groening was married to his first wife Deborah Caplan. "The Simpsons" premiered in 1990, and eventually became the most popular, most widely broadcast and one of the longest-running shows in television history. [15] Life in Hell made its official debut as a comic strip in the Reader on April 25, 1980. And judging from the success of "The Simpsons," what Americans hold most dear is disrespect itself. Mr. Groening describes "The Simpsons" as a decidedly perverse take on some of the most popular shows of his childhood, like "Leave It to Beaver." Upon seeing his work in the comic strip, producer and writer, James L Brooks, expressed his interest to involve Matt Groening in the creation of an animated series to run on comedy series The Tracy Ullman Show. Choosing Los Angeles because it was the place where a writer was most likely to be overpaid, Groening answered a "writer/chauffeur wanted" ad in the L.A. Times. Groening celebrates his birthday on February 15th, every year. In 2009 and 2010, Matt Groening was awarded with the Annie Award in the category Best Animated Home Entertainment for Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs and Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder respectively. Groening went on to the liberal Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where he butted heads with the more extreme countercultural types that populated the campus. However, he began doing a series of odd jobs while at the city. Life in Hell caught the attention of American producer James L. Brooks. His favorite artist is Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention and his favorite album is Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart (which was produced by Zappa). His sister Maggie is not mute. But before delirium set in, Groening spun a lingering bad mood and an "accidental" cartooning career into a billion-dollar print, broadcast, merchandising and licensing empire. After marriage, he became step father to Augustina Picassos daughter Camille. He went through what he described as "a series of lousy jobs," including being an extra in the television movie When Every Day Was the Fourth of July,[25] busing tables,[26] washing dishes at a nursing home, clerking at the Hollywood Licorice Pizza record store, landscaping in a sewage treatment plant,[27] and chauffeuring and ghostwriting for a retired Western director. The strip gained traction after a shift in tone, with Binky becoming less preachy and more of a victim of the cultural and social forces that browbeat dissidents into submission. "But I thought I would have a little bit more leeway since I made Fox so much money with 'The Simpsons. However, Groening had expressed a desire to continue the Futurama franchise in some form, including as a theatrical film. He ran for student body president on the Teens for Decency ticket, with the tongue-in-cheek slogan, "If you're against decency, then what are you for?"