The infantile loser Fry, the rude jovial Homer, the notorious bully Bart - millions of people on our planet are watching the virtual life of these popular “cartoon” heroes. All of them were created by one person. We will tell you about him in this article.
Matt Groening: childhood and adolescence
"The Simpsons" and "Futurama" - in the modern world it is difficult to find a person who would not hear about these cult animated series. Their creator is Matt Groening. Who is this person? Where was he born, and how was his childhood spent? Let's figure it out!
The famous American animator Matt Groening was born February 25, 1954 in Portland (Oregon), in the family of an advertiser and a former teacher. Studied the future genius of animation does not matter. But already from school, he began to draw funny cartoons and funny cartoons, for which he often visited the director’s office.
After graduating from high school, Matt enrolled in Evergreen College (Evergreen State College), located in the town of Olympia in Washington state. However, according to the animator himself, this study did not bring him anything useful. However, while studying at college, Matt worked actively in the university newspaper as its editor in chief. There, by the way, he printed his first mini-comics.
After graduating from college, Matt Groening moved to Los Angeles. There he dreamed of becoming a writer, but everything turned out a little different for him.
Finding yourself and your first small successes
“Animation is a special activity that is ideal for those who really can neither write nor draw” (M. Greining).
In the period before his worldwide recognition, Matt changed many professions. In particular, he managed to work as a courier, journalist, driver, literary critic, dishwasher, seller of records. This period of his biography he called "life in Hell." Weighed down by prosaic and difficult everyday life in Los Angeles, Matt Groening begins to draw comics again. And calls them accordingly - Life in Hell.
The main character of the sketches from "hellish life" was an anthropomorphic rabbit named Binki. And he, apparently, was also a resident of the “damned” Los Angeles. Graining multiplied his drawings on a photocopy machine and distributed among friends and acquaintances. At first, his comics were only appreciated in very narrow, avant-garde circles. But two years later, they began to be published in the weekly Los Angeles Reader (however, for this Matt had to get a job in this publication).
By the way, working at the Los Angeles Reader, Groening met his future wife Deborah Kaplan (the marriage broke up in 1999). It was she who advised Matt to publish selected comics as a separate book. The collection was released in 1984 and sold in a huge circulation of 22 thousand copies. This was followed by other books - "School is Hell", "Work is HELL", "Big Book of Hell" and others. They can be purchased at bookstores today.
What happened next? And then there were the Simpsons!
Unprecedented success … yellow
The idea of the animated series, bringing in one billion dollars a year, was invented and designed by Matt in just half an hour! In 1985, the work of the beginning animator interested in the famous producer James Brooks. He invited Graining to his place and offered to work on small animation sketches for the Tracy Ullman entertainment show.
Matt Groening did not want to use characters from his Life in Hell for these sketches, for fear of losing the copyright to his comics. Therefore, literally on the go, he sketched on paper the Simpsons family - five yellow heroes with angular and rather ugly features. Brooks approved the idea. So the famous "The Simpsons" were born.
Matt Groening produced 48 issues as part of the Tracy Ullman Show. Looking at the early Simpsons is now quite funny, because they are not at all like modern and beloved by millions of heroes. Compare for yourself:
But even such "The Simpsons" were pretty well appreciated by the public. Therefore, in December 1989, the FOX television channel ventured to air 13 full-fledged half-hour episodes of the new animated series.
What you need to know about the Simpsons: the most interesting facts
The Simpsons is the longest animated series in television history with 28 seasons and over 600 episodes. Until today, it has been broadcast in more than a hundred countries around the world. In The Simpsons, in a rather tough form, absolutely everything is mocked, right down to modern television!
We have selected for you the most interesting facts about this animated series:
- Almost all the characters in the series are yellow.
- The heroes of the Simpsons do not age and look exactly the same as in the first season.
- Many neologisms gave the "Simpsons" to the English language. The most popular of them is the exclamation "Dow!".
- All characters in the animated series have four fingers (five - only with God).
- The production of one episode of The Simpsons takes 6 to 8 months.
- About 200 artists and animators are working on the series (half of them live in South Korea).
- The script for each new release is rewritten at least 12 times.
- Barbara Bush in 1990 called the series "the dumbest thing she has ever seen." True, then she apologized for her words.
- But the Vatican, on the contrary, described the stories of The Simpsons as quite realistic and reasonable.
- According to statistics, the average age of the Simpsons spectator is 30 years.
Matt Groening: Movies and Major Works (List)
In 1999, when Groening was at the peak of world fame, the FOX channel aired another creation of the animator - Futurama. This project, unlike the Simpsons, has already been completed (a total of seven seasons have been drawn and released). With the help of the animated series Futurama, Matt Groening realized his cherished childhood dream - he created an ideal and fantastic world of the future.
Recently it became known that Matt is preparing to release another product - an animated series for adults called "Disappointment." The premiere is scheduled for 2018.
All animated films and other works of Matt Graining are listed below:
- Life in Hell comic book series (1978-1984).
- The Simpsons (1987- …).
- Futurama (1999-2013).
- Disappointment (2018).
