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The Simpsons shorts is a series of one-minute shorts that ran on the variety show The Tracey Ullman Show for three seasons, before the characters spun off into their own half-hour prime time show called The Simpsons. The shorts were created by cartoonist Matt Groening in the lobby of James L. Brooks's office. He had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts, and had intended to present his Life in Hell series. When he realized that animating Life in Hell would require him to rescind publication rights for his life's work, Groening decided to go in another direction. He hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family, and named the characters after his own family. Bart was modeled after Groening's older brother, Mark, but given a different name which was chosen as an anagram of "brat."

The stories were written and storyboarded by Matt Groening. The family was crudely drawn, because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead they just traced over his drawings. The animation was produced domestically at Klasky Csupo, with Wesley Archer, David Silverman, and Bill Kopp being animators for the first season. After season one it was animated by Archer and Silverman. Georgie Peluse was the colorist and the person who decided to make the characters yellow...