Tag: matt groening

“With the 300th episode of The Simpsons airing tonight, the show’s co-creator and executive producer Matt Groening is taking a moment to look into his cartoon past. Remember when the school principal commonly thrashed students with a wooden paddle? And the shop teacher kept his class under control by zapping them with the room’s electric generator? And when the boy started to cry, he was made to stand in the corner – in the garbage can?

“The opportunity to watch the creators of a simple cartoon family talk about their jobs brought more than 60 students to Morrill Hall on Wednesday night. “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening joined head writer Al Jean and cast members Yeardley Smith, Dan Castellaneta and Harry Shearer to speak about the show at the Museum of Television and Radio in Los Angeles. The panel discussion was carried live through a satellite broadcast inside Mueller Planetarium, Planetarium Coordinator Jack Dunn said.

“As he was in the process of being tossed off the Paramount Studios lot by overzealous guards in Hollywood in 1987, it never occurred to semi-starving cartoonist Matt Groening he would be a multi-millionaire cultural icon someday. But two years later the creator of The Simpsons was on his way to lots of fame and considerable riches. The reason why The Great American TV Show still works, according to its creator “is that the show is continually tinkered with, from the first draft of the script to the final touch in post-production. “Working hard, we make it work in the end,” Groening continues, shaking his shaggy head.

“It’s easy to accept Matt Groening is the kind of person who locks himself away in a room and creates life. Like the mad scientists of film, Groening certainly looks the part as he speaks passionately and protectively of the “family” he imagined, gave birth to with pen and paper and then unleashed on an unsuspecting world. But unlike the mad scientists, Groening has succeeded in taking over the planet with his creations.

The Simpsons may have rocked with the Stones and Paul McCartney, but when show creator Matt Groening was tapped to organize the upcoming All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Los Angeles, his musical tastes proved more esoteric. Groening’s initial list of bands for the latest in the ongoing series of underground music festivals includes: … And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, the Breeders, Wire, Yo La Tengo, the Fall, Neko Case and the Boredoms. The shows are slated for June 18 and 19 at UCLA’s Royce Hall and June 20-22 at three other as-yet-unannounced venues. Also scheduled to perform are: the Bangs, Blonde Redhead, DJ Coldcut, the Danielson Famile, Melt-Banana, Jah Wobble and the Melvins. Read More >>>