Matt Groening: The Simpsons Creator and TV Icon Celebrates 70th Birthday

2024-02-15 21:01:36

Matt Groening: The “Simpsons” creator celebrates his 70th birthday today.Image: keystone

Creative genius Matt Groening not only created “The Simpsons” but also other series. The creator of Homer and Co. will be 70 years old on February 15th.

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The American Matt Groening, who celebrates his 70th birthday on February 15th, made television history with the cult series “The Simpsons”. Together with his co-series creators, James L. Brooks, who was 13 years older than him, and Sam Simon, who died in 2015, Groening brought the characters Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge and Maggie to the then underchallenged, intelligent TV audience towards the end of the 1980s Experience absurd adventures in the fictional and yet very American small town of Springfield.

“The Simpsons” and other series made Groening quite rich. Last year, the comic author landed in fifth place on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-earning entertainers, along with “Simpsons” co-producer James L. Brooks. His fortune is estimated at 523 million francs.

Start mit dem Underground-Comic «Life in Hell»

Groening grew up in the northwest of the United States. His father Homer Groening, who died in 1996 and after whom he named the “Simpsons” father, was also a filmmaker and comic artist. His son attended Evergreen State College in the US Washingtonin Groening’s own words, “a hippie college with no grades or required courses that attracted every freak in the Northwest.”

The young creatives then followed suit The Angels. It was there that Groening’s first successful comic strip, “Life in Hell,” was created, which, first published in 1978, was to run for over 30 years and by the end of its life could be found in 250 weekly newspapers. Although the “Life in Hell” characters, such as Bart Simpson’s predecessor, the rabbit Bongo, are still white instead of yellow, they already have numerous other visual characteristics of the later Simpsons, such as the oversized googly eyes.

Matt Groening creates “The Simpsons”

Groening’s comic strip came to the attention of film producer, author, director and three-time Oscar winner James L. Brooks in the mid-1980s. He originally wanted to bring “Life in Hell” to television, but its creator Matt Groening realized – literally at the last second, according to legend – that the Fox television channel, on which “The Simpsons” was to be broadcast, would get the rights to the characters .

Groening came up with the well-known “Simpsons” main characters in their place. Short clips on the “Tracey Ullman Show” became the iconic series “The Simpsons,” of which over 760 episodes have been broadcast to date. “The Simpsons” is the longest-running animated series, sitcom and scripted evening series in U.S. television history. The program has received 36 Emmy Awards to date.

“The Simpsons” by Matt Groening: Maggie, Marge, Lisa, Homer and Bart (from left to right)Image: AP/Fox

Inventor Groening said about his creation in the early 1990s: “To be honest, the whole ‘Simpsons’ project was a project to see how far I could go in the mainstream.”

«Futurama» und «Disenchantment»

In fact, Groening was heavily involved in the series, especially in the early years of “The Simpsons” and also provided the basic idea for the “Simpsons” movie of 2007. Since then, numerous authors and showrunners have overseen the popular animated program, whose biggest problem lies in the Over the past 20 years, it seems to still be developing ideas that haven’t been seen on the show before.

Matt Groening turned to new projects throughout the 1990s. Together with “Simpsons” author David X. Cohen, he created the extremely popular sci-fi animated series “Futurama,” which is still in production with interruptions. Launched on the streaming service in 2018 Netflix the fantasy animated series “Disenchantment”, which had 50 episodes in 5 seasons by September last year.

Groening himself has received a total of 13 Emmy Awards in his long and successful career. In 2012 he received a star on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame.

More about The Simpsons:

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A best of by Homer Simpson

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