Matt Groening

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Matt Groening (1954) started off in 1977 as a underground cartoonist, best known for his comic strip Life in Hell. Influenced by Peanuts, Underground Comics and cult artists like Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and The Fugs the comic is perhaps Groening's most personal work. Its central characters are two gay little men called Akbar and Jeff and a white rabbit family. The cartoons already poked fun at topics that Groening would later attack in his animated shows: politics, religion, school, family, work, relationships and modern society in general. The comic became a cult success and by the mid 1980s Groening was approached by James L Brooks to make an animated TV adaptation of "Life In Hell". Initially Groening agreed, until he learned that he would lose the rights to the comic strip. So instead, he came up with a totally new concept, which became The Simpsons.

The Simpsons started off in 1987 as extremely short cartoons used as bumpers before and after commercials during the Tracey Ullman Show. Despite being crudely animated and a lot of Early Installment Weirdness the segments caught on with the American public. By 1989 Groening got the chance to turn the series into a full length prime time animated series, something that hadn't been done since The Flintstones in the 1960s. The show quickly became a critically lauded mainstream success, especially thanks to Breakout Character Bart Simpson. It became the first prime time cartoon series since The Flintstones to become popular both with children and adults. Its clever satire, edgy subversiveness, hilarious gags and beyond all that recognizable emotional depth were praised. Its cult success paved the way for other adult cartoon series such as Beavis and Butthead, South Park and Family Guy. Yet, the show wasn't without its critics. Especially in the early years many parents and educators complained about certain scenes they deemed to be offensive or unsuitable for children. Even president George HW Bush attacked the series during the 1992 Republican National Convention by claiming that "the American family should be a lot more like The Waltons and a lot less like The Simpsons." Only a week later The Simpsons reacted by letting Bart say: "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're all praying for an end to the depression too." Coincidence or not, but Bush lot the elections later that year.

The Simpsons continued its succesful run and is still on television to this day, despite claims that the show isn't as good as it used to be. In 1999 Groening launched another animated series , Futurama, around a totally different concept. Set in the far future, "Futurama", mostly spoofs every science fiction or future dystopia concept in a similar satirical way like The Simpsons. The program never reached the same amount of immediate popularity that The Simpsons did and was thus cancelled by FOX until Comedy Central revived the series a few years later. Still, its audience keeps growing and will probably be Vindicated By History later.

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Works of Matt Groening:

• Life in Hell
• The Simpsons
• Futurama

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Tropes used in his works:

• Ambiguously Gay: Akbar and Jeff in Life in Hell, Smithers, Lenny and Carl in The Simpsons.
• Amusing Injuries
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Always parodied.
• Art Evolution: Groening has never been a great artist from a technical point of view. He can only draw people with bug-like eyeballs and huge overbites. The early Simpsons cartoons look very ugly because his animators used to trace his own drawings instead of modefying them. In time the Simpsons' art became impressively better, though "Life in Hell" hasn't evolved that much.
• Artistic License
• Art Shift: Also done regularly.
• Author Appeal: A lot of the stuff referenced in his shows is semi-autobiographical. Little winks to his childhood friends and his own personal favorite artists from all kinds of culture.
• Bad Present
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Happens regularly in The Simpsons
  • In "Futurama" a fictional alien language is used in backgrounds so that fans can decipher it.
• Biting the Hand Humor: Especially the FOX Company.
• Black Comedy
• Boarding School of Horrors: "Life in Hell" even has a volume called "School is Hell".
  • Also a prominent theme in The Simpsons.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Happens occasionally.
• Brick Joke
• Butt Monkey
• Catch Phrase
• Children Are Innocent: Partly subverted.
• Corrupt Church: Religion, philosophers and people trying to get rich by selling cheap truths are a frequent target.
• Corrupt Politician: Always corrupt or not to be trusted.
• Crap Saccharine World
• Crapsack World
• Credits Gag
• Darker and Edgier:
  • "Life in Hell" handled themes that most mainstream cartoon strips never tackled with.
  • "The Simpsons" went in the air at a time when most TV animation was aimed at children and thus very safe and formulaic. It immediately attracted attention because of its subversive content, often featuring themes that you wouldn't see or hear in mainstream animation.
• Dead Baby Comedy
• Denser and Wackier: Both "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" evolved to this point.
• Deranged Animation: Not as much in style, but certain plots and scenes are really off the wall.
  • The Itchy and Scratchy Show is probably the most deranged Groening's work ever got.
• Desperately Looking for A Purpose In Life: A theme in his entire work.
• Early Installment Weirdness:
  • The early "Life in Hell" cartoons had a different tone. It features the rabbit Binky bickering about all of his life's problems. Only when Groening changed him into a victim of society the cartoon became succesful.
  • The early "Simpsons" are hardly recognizable at all. Their physical designs were very ugly, the animation was amateuristic and many jokes were still very cartoonish and generic. It did have an edginess and subversions, but only in the second season did the satirical component finally start to blossom.
• Eccentric Townsfolk
• Executive Meddling: Groening's artistic vision often clashes with the executives of Fox. Still, there aren't that many scenes in both The Simpsons or Life in Hell that have been censored. Most of Fox's complaints are ignored. Groening has always been lucky that The Simpsons was so succesful, so the show was never Screwed By the Network, a fate that the less popular Futurama did have to cope with.
• Four-Fingered Hands
• Free-Range Children: Both in "Life in Hell" and "The Simpsons" the children are far more mature than their respectable ages;
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Very good with this!!
• Halfway Plot Switch
• Hidden Depths: To a lot of people "Life in Hell", "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" appear to be just your typical cartoon series, but they are far more mature than one would expect from a children's medium.
• Humans Are Bastards
• Humans Are Morons
• Hypocritical Humor
• Ignored Epiphany
• Kids Are Cruel
• Loads and Loads of Characters
• Long Runner: All of his three best known series are still in syndication, whether this is good or not.
• Medium Awareness: In both "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" a lot of jokes are made about television and animation clichés and conventions.
• Moral Dilemma
• Moral Dissonance: Trying to do the good thing is usually avoided by his characters. And even when they try to there's always a chance that their efforts won't be rewarded in the way that they would want to. They even fail more often than they win.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: In his entire work Groening shows the darker side of The American Dream.
• Parental Bonus
• Police Are Useless
• Pun-Based Title
• Quest for Identity
• Reference Overdosed
• Rule of Funny
• Running Gag: Several!
• Sadist Show
• Scary Amoral Religion: The absurdities and inconsistencies of religion, the people who preach it and those who practice it are a frequent target.
• Scenery Porn: A lot of comedy and hidden messages can be found in the background of a scene. Some of them can only be spotted when freeze framing the video.
• Shout-Out: Several!
• Sphere Eyes
• Take That: His work pokes fun at everybody, from all kinds of the political, economical, cultural and sociological spectrum.
• Take That, Audience!
• Write Who You Know:
  • Several names of characters in The Simpsons were derived from streetnames in Groening's hometown Portland, Oregon: Terwilliger, Lovejoy, Flanders, Kearney, Van Houten, Quimby, Burnside,... There is even an Evergreen Terrace!
  • Other names were burrowed from family members (Homer, Marge, Lisa, Maggie, Patty), friends (Dolph) or characters from TV shows he used to watch (Krusty was based on TV clown Rusty Nails, for instance)