", Groening himself has always made the deal. From his friends at the "alternative" newspapers like The Village Voice that run his comic strip, Mr. Groening gets a fair amount of flak, he says, about "selling out." Before proceeding to the informational portion of this essay, please take a moment to complete the following questionnaire: 1) Are you disillusioned? And for a guy whose career has been dedicated to skewering television, crass commercialism, "evil billionaire tyrants" (how boss Rupert Murdoch described himself in a cameo on "The Simpsons") and brainless consumers, Groening sure does love his merchandise. The team included what is now the Klasky Csupo animation house. Futurama (1999-2013) Matt Groening married Deborah Caplan in 1986. [109], He was awarded the Inkpot Award in 1988. But mainly, he is Matt Groening. They have a son, Nathaniel, and twin daughters, Luna and India. Matt Groening The Simpsons, Bio, Wiki, Age, Wife, Life In Hell, and Net After that, he married actress Augustina Picasso in 2011, after a four-year relationship. He made his first professional cartoon sale to the avant-garde Wet magazine in 1978. Matt and Deborah married in 1986, and had 2 sons Homer (who goes by Will) and Abe, both who Matt portrays as rabbits in Life in Hell. Matt Groening Futurama [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. [19][72] 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. 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. [94] On June 16, 2018, he became the father of twins for a second time when his wife gave birth to Sol Matthew and Venus Ruth, announced via Instagram. "When I was a kid, my friends and I used to put on puppet shows, make comic books, and I decided that's what I wanted to do, to play in every medium," he said. Groening is married to his wife Agustina Picasso an Argentine artist. [28][29], Groening described life in Los Angeles to his friends in the form of the self-published comic book Life in Hell, which was loosely inspired by the chapter "How to Go to Hell" in Walter Kaufmann's book Critique of Religion and Philosophy. Let us look in detail into Groenings family tree. 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. [78], On February 9, 2022, the series was revived at Hulu, set for a 2023 release. The details may vary, but the story, like most of the stories Groening tells about the defining moments in his life, reads like a fairy tale. Groening and Deborah divorced in 1999. "But I thought I would have a little bit more leeway since I made Fox so much money with 'The Simpsons. She is the author of "Do You Love Me or Am I Just Paranoid?" Groening's rough-and-tumble early days in Tinseltown provided endless fodder for a comic he titled Life in Hell, featuring the anthropomorphic rabbit Binky. [71] He has had several cameo appearances in the show, with a speaking role in the episode "My Big Fat Geek Wedding". 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). [38] After Groening ended the strip, the Center for Cartoon Studies commissioned a poster that was presented to Groening in honor of his work. At 39, Mr. Groening still observes many of the customs of the youthful counterculture where he got his start: his hair is longish, his attire runs toward T-shirts and sneakers, and instead of business cards he hands out his phone number on little bits of torn paper. He studied at Evergreen State College and edited the campus newspaper. Netflix has also renewed the series for twenty additional episodes, which are expected to start in ten-episode batches in 2020 and 2021. And I said, 'I think it's Elroy.' There is not much information about Mark. The /s signifies sarcasm. "Do people who don't have cockroaches and can afford their rent, are they happier?" "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 feared that he would have to give up his ownership rights, and that the show would fail and take down his comic strip with it. 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. Matt Groening - Ethnicity of Celebs | EthniCelebs.com To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. [15] Life in Hell made its official debut as a comic strip in the Reader on April 25, 1980. AT WORK WITH: Matt Groening; The Fun of Being Bart's Real Dad, https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/25/garden/at-work-with-matt-groening-the-fun-of-being-bart-s-real-dad.html. 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." Associated Press articles: Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. He is 68 years old. Matt and Deborah separated in 1999. When Comedy Central began negotiating for the rights to air Futurama reruns, Fox suggested that there was a possibility of also creating new episodes. We're calling everybody's bluff. They divorced in 1999, after 13 years of marriage.Following this, Groening was in a six-year commitment with dating expert Lauren Frances. [60] Groening said his goal in creating the show was to offer the audience an alternative to what he called "the mainstream trash" that they were watching. He also enjoyed a happy home life, with his dad, Homer, mom, Margaret, and four siblings, including younger sisters Lisa and Maggie. By coincidence, they chose "Abraham", unaware that it was the name of Groening's grandfather. Growing up in Portland, Ore., he did well in school, but was frequently hauled down to the principal's office for smart-aleck conduct, like drawing cartoons. As Groening told Spin magazine. Clerks: The Animated Series (2000-2002) Groening and Simon, however, did not get along[59] and were often in conflict over the show;[26] Groening once described their relationship as "very contentious. Matt and Deborah separated in 1999. Groening is estimated to be worth US$ 500 million. By his own description, Mr. Groening behaved as a child much as Bart Simpson would if only he had more scholastic aptitude. In 2013, the couple had a son named . The book became a success with over 20000 copies being sold in its initial two printings. By now, though, the damage, such as it is, has clearly been done: the show has entered the very pop culture it pokes so much fun at. The couple has two sons, Homer and Abe. He simply shrugs and buys more computer games, like the electronic ant farm that once caught his fancy. And it's not going to be dark and drippy like "Blade Runner." In 2002, Groening received the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award due to his work on Life in Hell. Matt Groening is well known for his cartoon characters, comic strips and animated television series. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. Soon, he was driving an 88-year-old movie director around by day and ghost-writing his autobiography by night while living upstairs from a nocturnal rock lover (whose ceiling light he eventually dislodged with a plunging cinderblock). His sister Maggie is not mute. Groening started sending the comic back home to friends in Portland in lieu of doleful letters about his miserable life. [8][9] Homer, born in Main Centre, Saskatchewan, Canada, grew up in a Plautdietsch-speaking family. Simon was also responsible for hiring the writing staff, who shaped the characters into what they are today. The goal of the company, she told Newsweek, was to "keep the machine of Matt going." Matt Groening - Freedom From Religion Foundation 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. [102], Groening has made a number of campaign contributions, all towards Democratic Party candidates and organizations. "And to be honest, the whole 'Simpsons' project was a project to see how far I could go in the mainstream. This one is a Cinderella story: humble beginings, the insidious discouragement of petty authority figures, the unexpected intervention by fairy godproducer James L. Brooks and the eventual (stormy) marriage to a wealthy potentate (Rupert Murdoch's Fox network). He also invited the off-the-wall submissions of campus cartoonists, finding himself inspired by the original works of fellow undergrad Lynda Barry. It is currently running in its 27th season. 2002, 2003 and 2004. 8) Does this fill you with shame and guilt and cheese puffs? But while he used to drive a beat-up Dodge Dart, he now drives a sleek new BMW. He is a man of above-average stature. [86] He guest-edited Da Capo Press's Best Music Writing 2003[87] and curated a US All Tomorrow's Parties music festival in 2003. In 1987, producers of the soon-to-be-launched sketch comedy program The Tracey Ullman Show, headed by the legendary James L. Brooks, contacted Groening about developing short animated cartoons to air between skits. ", Mr. Groening identifies closely with the oppressed children of America, sitting at their desks, waiting to cause trouble. ", 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." 2) Disappointed? In 2004. Abe Groening (born 1993) Images of "The Simpsons" have been licensed to sell everything from T-shirts to toys to potato chips to cheese, suggesting that mainstream culture has gotten pretty good at marketing genuine hipness as well. A few years earlier they had set up their own syndicate, ACME Features, to distribute the strip. For a man who has become famous on the strength of his dark musings, starting with "Life in Hell," his weekly comic strip, Mr. Groening (it rhymes with complaining, his publicist says) comes off in person as surprisingly benign: big, bearish and still a bit astonished to find his jokes getting so out of hand. Deborah Kaplan Entertainment - Director Why Famous: is an American screenwriter and film director Age: N/A Deborah Kaplan's Relationships (2) Matt Groening Arts - Other Why Famous: The Simpsons and Futurama In conversations over two days and several venues -- at a party at his friend Frank Zappa's house, over lunch at the Fox commissary and in his office -- he revealed a deep association with the adolescents who form the core audience of "The Simpsons." After graduating in 1977, Groening headed to Los Angeles with the idea of pursuing a writing career. Matt Groening was born on 15 February 1954, at Portland, in Oregon, USA. Groening won a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 14, 2012. [57] Another family member, Grampa Simpson, was introduced in the later shorts. Deborah Kaplan - IMDb The final episode aired on September 4, 2013. Groening is the brother-in-law of the creator of Hey Arnold !, Craig Barlett, who is married to his sister Lisa. Reader through an ever-shifting array of responsibilities that included reporter, distribution manager, punk rock critic and assistant editor. Its first ten episodes premiered on the streaming service in August 2018, with the remaining ten episodes of the initial order scheduled to air in September 2019. The number was later limited to nine spikes, all of the same size. During this time the show has done for animated cartoons what "thirtysomething" did for yuppies: proved that despite some annoying tendencies, they can be successful in prime time. "I showed it to the editor of the Los Angeles Reader," he once told an interviewer, "and he hired me immediately -- to deliver newspapers." In fact, when "Simpsons" writers wax elegaic, they tend to do so about George Meyer, a writer who first became involved with the show late in 1989, a few months before its Fox premiere. Reply. [14] Following his high school graduation in 1972,[15] Groening attended the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. "That there's no Jim Brooks around. Futurama: Benders Big Score (2007) Matt Groening - Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Matt Groening did not particularly like school, which is what originally turned him towards drawing. Creating 'The Simpsons:' How Matt Groening's Own Family - Biography He was born in Portland, Oregon, the middle of five children (older brother Mark and sister Patty were born in 1950 and 1952, while the younger sisters Lisa and Maggie in 1956 and 1958, respectively). Deborah is a publisher. "[46], Maggie Groening has co-written a few Simpsons books featuring her cartoon namesake.
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