MATT GROENING Biography - Other artists & entretainers

 
 

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MATT GROENING

Name: Matt Groening                                                                 
Born: 15 February 1954 Portland, Oregon, U.S.                                       
                                                                                   
Matthew Abram Groening (born February 15, 1954)                                     
is an American cartoonist, television producer and writer from Portland, Oregon.   
Groening is best known as the creator of The Simpsons. He is also the creator of   
Futurama and the author of the weekly comic strip Life in Hell. Groening           
distributed Life in Hell in the book corner of Licorice Pizza, a record store in   
which he worked. He made his first professional cartoon sale to the avant-garde     
Wet magazine in 1978. The cartoon is still carried in 250 weekly newspapers.       
                                                                                   
Life in Hell caught the attention of James L. Brooks. In 1985, Brooks contacted     
Groening with the proposition of working in animation for the FOX variety show     
The Tracey Ullman Show. Originally, Brooks wanted Groening to adapt his Life in     
Hell characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights, Groening       
decided to create something new and came up with a cartoon family, the Simpsons     
and named the members after his own parents and sisters — while Bart was an       
anagram of the word brat. The shorts would be spun off into their own series:       
The Simpsons, which has since aired over 400 episodes in 19 seasons. In 1997,       
Groening got together with David X. Cohen and developed Futurama, an animated       
series about life in the year 3000, which premiered in 1999. After four years on   
the air, the show was cancelled by Fox in 2003, but Comedy Central commissioned     
16 new episodes from 4 Direct-to-DVD Movies to be aired in 2008.                   
                                                                                   
Groening has won 10 Primetime Emmy Awards, nine for The Simpsons and one for       
Futurama as well as a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to         
comedy" in 2004. In 2002, he won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award       
for his work on Life in Hell.