TV Show:The
Simpsons Starring:Matt
Groening Studio:FOX
Broadcasting Company Okay, The Simpsons has officially been on forever.
They’re going to hit their 400th episode this year, have a movie in theaters
this summer (The Simpsons Movie), and there’s no end in sight.
Matt Groening was a struggling cartoonist when he drew a few interstitial shorts
for The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987. Now he does his comic strips as a
hobby when he’s not ruling over his animation empire.
The Wave: If you’ve done 400, do
you figure you might as well go for five?
Matt Groening: Um… yeah. Why not? TW: Fans talk of the golden age, seasons three through eight or nine.
Now that you’re into season 18, haven’t there been other phases, maybe
a new renaissance?
MG: I don’t feel like I want to defend the
show to people who don’t like it, but I would say that the animation is
better, that we’re doing shows that I defy anybody to say that we’ve
already done. We’re coming up with, I think, ideas that are certainly surprising
to us. And the show still makes me laugh. That’s all I care about. I hope
that it makes other people laugh, too. And sadly, many of our fans have died;
they’ve gotten so old. But luckily, new ones are being born every day.
TW: At this point, do you have to keep
track of jokes you’ve already done so you don’t repeat?
MG: We have writers now who are so young that they
grew up watching the show, and they remind some of us who have been around longer
that we’ve already done a joke that somebody is pitching. And [voice actors]
Dan [Castellaneta] and Yeardley [Smith] also keep us honest because they remember
the lines that they’ve said.
TW: It used to be pretty much the Bart
show. At what point did Homer become more of the central character?
MG: Everybody loves Homer, and Homer’s the
easiest character to write for, because the consequences of his lousy decisions
are bigger, more drastic. With Bart, he may get expelled, but Homer may cause
a meltdown. And also, I think the writers can relate to Homer a little bit more.
We never called it a kids’ show. We said the show is for adults. When you’re
writing about kids, you have to be conscious that kids are watching, so we try
to walk that tightrope. Homer’s easier to write for.
TW: So is the movie a Homer movie?
MG: No, it’s the whole family. There’re
a lot of gags with Homer. It’s funnier to see Homer get smashed than just
about anybody.
TW: The Simpsons Movie won’t just
be like three episodes strung together, will it?
MG: We took a really long time to do The Simpsons
Movie and we are still tinkering with it. It is not three episodes. It is
not one big episode. We think, we hope, the fans will agree that it stands on
its own.
TW: How long is it?
MG: Ninety minutes, conventional feature length
movie. And we’re not padding it out with a lot of dancing penguins, either.
TW: Do you miss being able to throw in
Phil Hartman characters?
MG: You know, everybody misses Phil Hartman. He
was a great guy. He was so much fun. Every single line that we gave him, and this
probably applies to every job he’s ever had, he was able to get a laugh
with. He was so funny. And it was really a delight to see him enjoying himself,
but not in a Hollywood egotistical way, because he equally enjoyed everybody else’s
performances as well. We still miss him.
TW: Can you help but think of new Troy
McClures?
MG: We do. We go, “Oh, if only we could…”
TW: You’re a cartoonist. Do you feel
you’ve created your big work of art yet, or is it The Simpsons?
MG: As long as we’re having fun, I want to
continue working on The Simpsons. I love pop culture. I love working
in television. Back in the very beginning, back on The Tracey Ullman Show,
doing these little cartoons that started out 15 seconds long, I didn’t realize
the pervasive nature of the medium of television. Everybody sees television. And
just on The Tracey Ullman Show on the upstart FOX network, people were
seeing the show and were onboard with it, virtually from the very beginning. When
we show the clips from the show at the San Diego Comic-Con or at colleges, or
whatever, it’s just, for me, personally really thrilling to hear a big crowd
laugh at the same time. For me, personally, that’s part of it. Is that great
art? I don’t know, but it’s fun.
TW: How many Simpsons characters
are there now, between Disco Stu and the Cat Lady and all?
MG: There’re almost 500, I think, characters
over the course, and they’re all going to be in the movie. *This Article appeared in Volume 7, Issue 03 of The Wave Magazine.
