Matt Groening
- This article is about the crew member. For the character, see Matt Groening (character).
Matt Groening
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Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening (born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, producer, animator, author, musician, comedian, and voice actor. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell and television series' The Simpsons, Futurama and Disenchantment. Groening made his first professional cartoon sale of Life in Hell to the avant-garde Wet magazine in 1978. The cartoon is still carried in 250 weekly newspapers. He was also interviewed in The Simpsons: Celebrity Friends, The Simpsons: Mischief & Mayhem, The Simpsons: Access All Areas, The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice!, The Simpsons: America's First Family, and The Simpsons: A Culture Show. He will also appear in The Simpsons Take the Bowl.[1]
Contents
- 1 History
- 2 Biography
- 3 Credits
- 3.1 Created by / Developer / Executive producer / Character designer / Creative consultant
- 3.2 Created by
- 3.3 Written by
- 3.4 Produced by
- 3.5 Executive producer
- 3.6 Producer
- 3.7 Characters created by
- 3.8 Creative consultant
- 3.9 Very special thanks to
- 3.10 Comics
- 3.11 Contributing writer
- 3.12 Contributing artist
- 3.13 Writer
- 3.14 Publisher
- 3.15 For The Simpsons
- 3.16 Parody lyrics by
- 3.17 Hans Zimmer would like to thank
- 3.18 Thanks to
- 3.19 Interviewee
- 3.20 Commentary
- 4 See also
- 5 External links
- 6 References
History[edit]
Life in Hell caught the attention of James L. Brooks. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of working in animation for 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 and came up with a cartoon family, the Simpsons, and named the members after his own parents and sisters — while Bart was an anagram of the word brat. The shorts would be spun off into their own series: The Simpsons, which has since aired more than 450 episodes in 21 seasons. In 1997, Groening got together with David X. Cohen and developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000, which premiered in 1999. After four years on the air, the show was canceled by Fox in 2003, but Comedy Central commissioned 16 new episodes from four direct-to-DVD movies. In June 2009, Comedy Central ordered 26 new episodes of Futurama, to be aired over two seasons. His advice to beginning cartoonists is to not care about what other people think and just try to make yourself laugh. He said that if he did not think up the Simpsons, he would probably be in a tire shop, drawing doodles of his boss on the break room wall.
Groening has won 11 Primetime Emmy Awards, ten for The Simpsons and one for Futurama as well as a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004. In 2002, he won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for his work on Life in Hell. In some Simpsons Comics, he gives himself a fake title, such as "Big Daddy" (Taming Your Wild Child), "Cartoonist Gone Wild" (Bart's Beard), and "Former Heartthrob" (Faking the Band).
Groening has voiced himself on a few occasions, "My Big Fat Geek Wedding", The Simpsons Game and "Homer the Whopper". He also voiced a soccer announcer in "Holidays of Future Passed".[2]
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Groening was born on February 15, 1954 in Portland, Oregon. He grew up in Portland, and attended Ainsworth Elementary School, and Lincoln High School. He was the middle child of five children. His Norwegian mother, Margaret Wiggum, was once a teacher, and his German father, Homer Philip Groening, was a filmmaker, advertiser, writer and cartoonist. Homer, born in Main Centre, Saskatchewan, Canada, grew up in a Mennonite, Plautdietsch-speaking family. Matt's grandfather Abram Groening was a professor at Tabor College, a Mennonite Brethren liberal arts college in Hillsboro, Kansas before moving to Albany College (now known as Lewis and Clark College) in Oregon in 1930.
From 1972 to 1977, Groening attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a liberal school which he described as "a hippie college, with no grades or required classes, that drew every weirdo in the Northwest." He served as the editor of the campus newspaper, The Cooper Point Journal, for which he also wrote articles and drew cartoons. He befriended fellow cartoonist Lynda Barry after discovering that she had written a fan letter to Joseph Heller, one of Groening's favorite authors, and had gotten a reply back. Groening has credited Barry with being "probably [his] biggest inspiration." He has also cited the Disney animated film One Hundred and One Dalmatians as what got him interested in cartoons.
Futurama[edit]
After spending a few years researching science fiction, Groening got together with Simpsons writer/producer David X. Cohen (still known as David S. Cohen at the time) in 1997 and developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000. By the time they pitched the series to Fox in April 1998, Groening and Cohen had composed many characters and storylines; Groening claimed they had gone "overboard" in their discussions. Groening described trying to get the show on the air as "by far the worst experience of [his] grown-up life." The show premiered on March 28, 1999. Groening's sole writing credit for the show was the premiere episode, "Space Pilot 3000", co-written with Cohen.
After four years on the air, the show was cancelled by Fox. In a similar situation as Family Guy, however, strong DVD sales and very stable ratings on Cartoon Network brought Futurama back to life. When Comedy Central began negotiating for the rights to air Futurama reruns, Fox suggested that there was a possibility of also creating new episodes. When Comedy Central committed to sixteen new episodes, it was decided that four straight-to-DVD films—Bender's Big Score (2007), The Beast with a Billion Backs (2008), Bender's Game (2008) and Into the Wild Green Yonder (2009)—would be produced. Since no new Futurama projects were in production, the movie Into the Wild Green Yonder was designed to stand as the Futurama series finale. However, Groening had expressed a desire to continue the Futurama franchise in some form, including as a theatrical film. In an interview with CNN, Groening said that "we have a great relationship with Comedy Central and we would love to do more episodes for them, but I don't know...We're having discussions and there is some enthusiasm but I can't tell if it's just me."
Awards[edit]
Groening has been nominated for 25 Emmy awards and has won eleven: ten for The Simpsons and one for Futurama in the "Outstanding Animated Program (for programming one hour or less)" category.
Groening received the 2002 National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award, and had been nominated for the same award in 2000. He received a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004.
Credits[edit]
Created by / Developer / Executive producer / Character designer / Creative consultant[edit]
Created by[edit]
Written by[edit]
Episode – "The Telltale Head" (with Al Jean, Mike Reiss and Sam Simon)
- Episode – "Colonel Homer"
- Episode – "22 Short Films About Springfield" (with Richard Appel, David S. Cohen, Jennifer Crittenden, Jonathan Collier, Greg Daniels, Brent Forrester, Rachel Pulido, Steve Tompkins and Josh Weinstein)
Special – The Longest Daycare - Special – Playdate with Destiny
Album – The Simpsons Sing the Blues ("Deep, Deep Trouble")- Album – The Yellow Album ("The Ten Commandments of Bart")
Produced by[edit]
Executive producer[edit]
Producer[edit]
Characters created by[edit]
Creative consultant[edit]
Very special thanks to[edit]
Comics[edit]
- Note: Each Simpsons Comics story features a credit for Matt Groening, in the vain of "created by", usually a humorous pun on the comic story.
Contributing writer[edit]
Contributing artist[edit]
Writer[edit]
Publisher[edit]
For The Simpsons[edit]
- Album – Songs in the Key of Springfield
- Album – Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons
- Album – The Simpsons: Testify
Parody lyrics by[edit]
Hans Zimmer would like to thank[edit]
Thanks to[edit]
Interviewee[edit]
Commentary[edit]
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
References[edit]
- Featured articles
- Active cast and crew
- Cast and crew
- Showrunners
- Writers
- Executive producers
- Character designers
- Season 15 guest stars
- The Simpsons Game guest stars
- Season 21 guest stars
- Guest stars
- Season 23 guest stars
- The Simpsons: America's First Family interviewees
- The Simpsons: A Culture Show interviewees
- Interviewees
- The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice! interviewees
- The Simpsons Take the Bowl performers
- Songwriters
- Music crew
- Outstanding Animated Program Emmy winning crew
- Recurring guest stars
- Self-voicing guest stars
- American guest stars
- Consultants
- Real-world book authors
- The Simpsons Game cast and crew
- The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants cast and crew
- The Simpsons: Bart's House of Weirdness cast and crew
- The Simpsons: Bartman Meets Radioactive Man cast and crew
- The Simpsons Cartoon Studio cast and crew
- The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield cast and crew
- The Simpsons Bowling cast and crew
- The Simpsons: Night of the Living Treehouse of Horror cast and crew
- The Simpsons Road Rage cast and crew
- The Simpsons Skateboarding cast and crew
- The Simpsons: Hit & Run cast and crew
- Itchy & Scratchy in Miniature Golf Madness cast and crew
- The Simpsons Sing the Blues crew
- Songs in the Key of Springfield crew
- The Yellow Album crew
- Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons crew
- The Simpsons Movie: The Music crew
- The Simpsons: Testify crew
- The Simpsons Ride cast and crew
