Podcasts

YR via RSS

For Educators
Teach Youth Radio
Curriculum

Youth Programs
CORE
Outreach

Matt Groening Signed My Stapler

An interview with the creator of The Simpsons, Futurama, and Life in Hell.

By Victor Vazquez and Margarita Rossi

I was standing around idly at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco, a convention for alternative comics and magazines, when I noticed there was a big hullabaloo around the chubby, 40ish-looking bearded comic nerd next to me. I looked over to see that this bearded man was none other than Matt Groening, creator of one of the longest-running and possibly most popular animated series ever: The Simpsons.

Knowing Groening's minicomic roots (Life in Hell), I pulled my own minicomic, Boy With a Fish For a Head, from my pocket and handed it to him. I was hoping to tug at his heartstrings and form some sort of comradeship through mutual interests.

As he pocketed the comic, I looked around frantically for something for him to sign and found, in my very own hand, the stapler I had been using to staple my minicomics. I handed it to him with a Sharpie and asked him if he might please sign it. It was only then that I remembered to ask him if he was interested in doing an interview.

Matt Groening: So what are you gonna ask? What's this gonna be about?

Youth Radio: Actually it's gonna be an exposé.

MG: Okay.

YR: No, I'll just ask three, four questions.

MG: Sure.

YR: So I'll start off with kind of a big question: do you feel that your creation has maintained its integrity despite the fact that it's got really mainstream?

MG: I'm assuming you're talking about…

YR: The Simpsons.

MG: Has The Simpsons maintained its integrity over the years? Well, the fact is it's a commercial enterprise to begin with. It's a TV show that I don't own, 20th Century Fox does. I am at A.P.E., Alternative Press Expo 2002 , this is where I started, doing alternative comic zines. I wanted to invade the mainstream and in order to invade the mainstream there are some compromises you have to make and that's the nature of commercial television. Yeah, we sell heavily frosted sugary snack treats with The Simpsons on the box, but we also try to do some occasionally subversive social commentary and y'know, I'm glad that The Simpsons is on the air rather than some other crappy TV show

YR: So how much of it is really yours? Do you even write stuff for it anymore or is Futurama more of your baby?

MG: The Simpsons is a collaborative effort and has been since the very beginning of the show. A huge number of people work on it, a staff of more than a dozen writers and then of course hundreds of animators and people who do the music and all the rest. So what I try to do is stick my nose in and say, "Well I don't think Homer would really say that, I don't think he'd do this," and occasionally I toss in a joke here and there. But I would say these days the credit for the show goes to the people in the trenches who are working on it day in and day out.

YR: So what's your favorite character?

MG: I guess I like Apu a lot because he's probably the most optimistic character on the show other than Ralph Wiggum. And he's named after Apu from the Satyajit Ray trilogy -- great classic movies which I am a huge, huge fan of. No one ever asks, no one ever notices, but that's where that comes from. I hope it didn't kill Satyajit Ray when he saw it.

YR: Two or three years ago, I saw Life in Hell in the [San Francisco] Examiner. Were those reruns or do you still do the strip?

MG: Oh these questions! Yes I still do it every week. I did one yesterday. I do it every week. I've done it every week for 22 years.

YR: Where can I get a hold of some of those strips? Are you gonna put them in a book again?

MG: I haven't put out a book for two or three years. I got distracted by TV but now that you mention it, I'm gonna do another book.

YR: Hey, you should dedicate it to me!

MG: I'm going to. Who are you?

YR: Victor.

MG: Okay, Victor. Victor is Hell.

YR: Alright back to Futurama again. Is it the same sort of situation as The Simpsons? Do you have more creative control with that or what's the deal?

MG: Y'know it's a collaborative effort, it's a bunch of really great people. I work with David Cohen and a bunch of great actors, a bunch of great writers, and in Futurama's case I'd say that even more credit goes to the animators at Rough Draft studios who do a fantastic job of making it — I think — the best TV show, as far as the look of it in animation in TV history. So I'm really proud of it and I get to brag about it. I try to be modest about the stuff that I do, but the stuff that I get to brag about is the stuff that other people do and these animators are unbelievable.

YR: What do you think about the new cartoon network shows like Dexter's Laboratory and Genndy Tartakovsky's stuff?

MG: Is that Samurai Jack? It's fantastic that these cartoons now are coming out. When I was a kid cartoons on television were vile, they were just the worst kind of cookie cutter assembly line factory stuff. It was all the same garbage over and over again and now there are all these great cartoons on the Cartoon Network and on Nickelodeon and MTV and they're creator driven and they look like nothing else. Ren and Stimpy and Beavis and Butthead and all the ones that are happening now, they're fantastic.

YR: Do you even know how many youth are really affected by The Simpsons and Futurama? How do you feel about it? Do you think it's cool or is it just kind of creepy?

MG: It's fantastic. That's the whole point. The whole point of my work is to try to show the audience that there's an alternative to the rest of the stuff being offered to them in entertainment and if there's a message behind the Simpsons and Futurama and Life in Hell it's that the authorities don't always have your best interests in mind. I think things are a little bit looser than when I was a kid, but when I was a kid I felt very squelched and controlled. It made me a lot happier when I started reading books that questioned authority, like Catcher in the Rye and Catch 22, and started being aware of the counter culture and what I've tried to do is provide a counter culture to kids who are even too young to read. It makes me happy to make kids laugh and annoy the hell out of teachers and principals — and there's some hip teachers and principals these days too.

YR: Yes, indeed.

MG: If they like The Simpsons, then they're hip.

— Victor Vazquez and Margarita Rossi are interns at Youth Radio.