Groening Pains
By Daily Bruin Staff
Nov. 27, 2000 9:00 p.m.
 UCLA Performing Arts Creator of "The Simpsons,"
Matt Groening speaks at Royce Hall Thursday, Nov.
30, in "An Evening with Matt Groening."
By Laura Morgan
Daily Bruin Contributor
“The Simpsons” isn’t a typical television
show. Even 12 years after its premiere, the brain child of comedic
genius Matt Groening, continues to push the envelope.
Groening will speak on his various creative enterprises,
including “Life In Hell,” “Futurama,” and
“The Simpsons,” in Royce Hall Thursday. The event will
feature selected video clips from past seasons, show highlights,
out-takes from overseas episodes and behind-the-scenes looks at
“Futurama” and “The Simpsons.” The evening
will conclude with questions from the audience.
“The Simpsons” became the longest running prime time
animated series in television history in February 1997, and is now
in its 12th season.
“I always knew the show would be a smash hit because it
goes against mainstream television,” Groening said in a
recent phone interview.
Groening’s premonition has proved true. The show earned a
Peabody award as well as 15 Emmy awards, and spawned a licensing
and merchandising empire.
Groening grew up in Portland, Ore., the third of five children.
Aside from his cartoonist/filmmaker father, Groening’s two
biggest influences were “Peanuts” creator Charles
Schulz and underground cartoonist Robert Crumb.
Groening attended Evergreen State College in Washington, where
he studied philosophy while practicing his animation.
“Evergreen was the perfect place for a cartoonist because
there were no grades,” Groening said.
Groening received his big break in 1987 when James L. Brooks,
creator of “The Tracey Ullman Show,” approached him to
create a few animated shorts to fit in between the comedic
sketches. Groening went to work creating a new set of characters, a
family known as the Simpsons. The cast included Homer, Marge, Lisa,
and Maggie, named after Groening’s own family members, and
Bart, an anagram for brat.
According to Groening, however, the characters do not actually
parallel his family.
“My family does not have yellow skin,” he said.
After becoming a hit on “The Tracey Ullman Show,”
“The Simpsons” was turned into a half-hour animated
series, with its first episode, a Christmas special, airing on Dec.
17, 1989.
When asked who his favorite character is, Groening replied,
“I love Homer, of course, but I also like a lot of the minor
characters, like Apu and the Comic Store Guy.”
“The Simpsons” is set in the town of Springfield,
but the state that it is located in has never been revealed to
viewers.
“It’s a state of mind,” Groening said about
the unknown location of Springfield.
However, the town name has a deeper meaning than one might
suspect.
“I watched “˜Father Knows Best’ when I was a
kid,” Groening said. “The show took place in
Springfield and I used to think that meant it was in Oregon. Later,
I found out that just about every state has a
Springfield.”
“I picked the name so that everyone might feel the same
relation to the Springfield in “˜The Simpsons’ that I
felt to the Springfield in “˜Father Knows Best,'”
Groening continued.
The Simpsons’ Springfield is a town where nuclear
meltdowns and three-eyed fish are common occurrences, while, in
“Father Knows Best,” Springfield was a picture-perfect
utopia.
“Springfield is a pretty name for a town with many
problems,” Groening said.
In the spring of 1999, Groening and fellow
“Simpsons” writer David Cohen, premiered their newest
creation “Futurama,” a science fiction animated cartoon
set a thousand years in the future in the city of New York.
“Futurama” follows the adventures of Fry, a pizza
delivery boy who gets cryogenically frozen on New Year’s Eve,
in the year 1999, and then wakes up in the distant future.
Groening explained why he and Cohen chose to explore the science
fiction genre.
“We both honored the conventions of sci-fi and also made
fun of its absurdities,” he said.
But Groening is not a complete sci-fi buff.
“I have yet to sit through an episode of “˜Star
Trek,'” he said.
Besides keeping up with the demands of a weekly show, Groening
still produces his weekly strip “Life In Hell” and
meets with the Bongo team, a team from the Bongo Comics Group that
he formed in 1993. Although it sounds like a huge work load,
Groening doesn’t work alone.
“I work with a lot of really brilliant people and they do
a fantastic job,” Groening said.
TV: Matt Groening appears in Royce Hall on Nov.
30, at 8 p.m. Tickets are available for $25, $20, $15, and $9 (for
UCLA students with valid I.D.) at the UCLA Central Ticket Office.
For more information call (310) 825-2101.
