Matt Groening

Matt Groening (Matt says it rhymes with "Complaining") got his start writing a comic strip called "Life in Hell" in 1977. In 1980, the strip was picked up by The Los Angeles Reader, where Matt worked delivering papers and doing minor editing. In 1982, the editor gave Matt his own column, supposedly rock and roll themed, but rarely actually about rock and roll. In an attempt to add more music news to the column, Matt often wrote reviews of bands he made up, only to apologize the next week, admitting the lie. Although each time, he swore he'd never do it again, he usually did. Finally, he was asked to write a humour column instead.

In 1985, James L. Brooks contacted Matt to work in animation, creating "bumpers" for the Tracy Ullman Show. Brooks originally wanted to use the Life in Hell characters, but Matt didn't want to sign over the rights. He designed the look of the Simpsons in fifteen minutes.

The Simpsons premiered on the Tracy Ullman Show in 1987, and became popular enough to create their own spin-off (which has survived much longer than the Tracy Ullman show). He now serves as the Creative Consultant on the Simpsons.

After researching science-fiction for a few years, Matt got together with

David S. Cohen to develop Futurama. The show was a mild success, but ratings were poor thanks entirely to Fox's poor scheduling of the program when it was shown on the channel. While Futurama was never officially cancelled, Fox decided not to buy the fifth season and the program fell apart soon after.

Later, Comedy Central officially announced that they have ordered 4 new Direct-to-DVD Movies of the series and that the movies will air on Comedy Central in sixteen 22-minute episodes sometime at the beginning of 2008. All four of the movies have been released, and have been shown on Comedy Central.

Trivia

 * He is also in a rock band, called the Rock Bottom Remainders. Members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount Jr., Stephen King, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, and Greg Iles.
 * Matt is left-handed, as are many of the characters he designs.
 * He and David X. Cohen were show runners for the entire series.
 * Matt is on almost every DVD Episode commentary. In the commentary of "A Leela of Her Own", he gets a phone call in the intro and doesn't return.
 * His jarred head appears in the Audience Scene in Into the Wild Green Yonder.