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| Birth Name(s) : Matt Groening |
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Full Matt Groening Biography
Matthew Abram Groening (born February 15, 1954 in Portland, Oregon; his family name is pronounced 'greɪnɪŋ', rhymes with raining) is an American cartoonist (Life in Hell) and the Emmy Award-winning creator of the animated series The Simpsons and Futurama.
Groening grew up in Portland, Oregon, the middle child of five children. His mother, Margaret, was once a teacher, and his father, Homer, was a filmmaker, advertiser, writer and cartoonist.
From 1972 to 1977, Groening attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a progressive 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 biggest inspiration."
Groening described life in Los Angeles to his friends in the form of a self-published comic book entitled 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 distributed the comic book in the book corner of Licorice Pizza, a record store in which he worked. 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 of that year.
Groening gained employment at the Los Angeles Reader, a newly formed alternative newspaper, delivering papers, typesetting, editing and answering phones. He showed his cartoons to the editor, James Vowell, who was impressed and eventually gave him a spot in the paper. Life in Hell made its official debut as a comic strip in the Reader on April 25, 1980.
Life in Hell became popular almost immediately. In November 1984, Deborah Caplan, Groening's then-girlfriend and co-worker at the Reader, offered to publish "Love is Hell", a series of relationship-themed Life in Hell strips, in book form. Released a month later, the book was an underground success, selling 22,000 copies in its first two printings. Work is Hell soon followed, also published by Caplan.
Soon afterward, Caplan and Groening left the Reader and put together the Life in Hell Co., which handled merchandising for Life in Hell. Groening also started a syndicate, Acme Features Syndicate, which syndicated Life in Hell, Lynda Barry and John Callahan, but now only syndicates Life in Hell. Life in Hell is still 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.
Groening storyboarded and scripted every short (now known as The Simpsons shorts), which were then animated by a team including David Silverman and Wes Archer, both of whom would later become directors on the series. The shorts premiered on The Tracey Ullman show on April 19, 1987.
Although The Tracey Ullman Show was not a big hit, the popularity of the shorts led to a half-hour spin-off in 1989. The series quickly became a worldwide phenomenon, to the surprise of many. Groening said: "Nobody thought The Simpsons was going to be a big hit. It snuck up on everybody."
Although Groening has pitched a number of spin-offs of The Simpsons, those attempts have been unsuccessful. 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. Groening has also pitched "Young Homer" and a spin-off about the non-Simpsons citizens of Springfield.
In 1995, Groening got into 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 claimed that he feared 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 possible implication that he had created or produced The Critic. He requested his name be taken off the episode.
The name "Wiggum" for police chief Clancy Wiggum is 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, Quimby and Kearney. Despite common fan belief that Sideshow Bob Terwilliger was named after SW Terwilliger Boulevard in Portland, he was actually named after the character Dr. Terwilliker from the film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.
Matt Groening has been nominated for 25 Emmy awards and has won ten: nine for The Simpsons and one for Futurama. 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.
Groening and Deborah 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, Groening was in a six-year commitment with dating expert Lauren Frances. |
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