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" Since I was there in the very beginning, I know the history of the characters. So, I make comments about the tone and sometimes remind the writers that we've done that before. "
Matt Groening
Beginning
Done
History
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" Sometimes people try to read into my strip and find out what my state of mind is. And I can say if I'm in a good mood, generally the comic strip starts out in a good mood, but the punchline is very negative and sour. "
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" Science fiction and comedy are generally a pretty bumpy mix. "
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" We've got a bunch of new writers now who tell me they grew up watching The Simpsons. It's bizarre, and they're writing some very funny stuff. "
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" 'The Simpsons' obviously is a huge success, and Fox has nothing to do with its success, with its creative success, and as a result they don't really like the show. They don't like 'The Simpsons' at Fox. "
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" You've got to embrace the future. You can whine about it, but you've got to embrace it. "
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" Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun. "
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" There's always room out there for the hand-drawn image. I personally like the imperfection of hand drawing as opposed to the slick look of computer animation. But you can do good stuff either way. The Pixar movies are amazing in what they do, but there's plenty of independent animators who are doing really amazing things as well. "
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" A lot of our writers, like Conan O'Brien, moved on to other things. "
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" 'The Simpsons' from the very beginning was based on our memories of brash '60s sitcoms - you had a main title theme that was bombastic and grabbed your attention - and when you look at TV shows of the 1970s and '80s, things got very mild and toned down and... obsequious. "
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" I've conducted an experiment on my kids. Instead of denying them access to media, I've encouraged it. They read comic books, play Nintendo and watch way too much TV. "
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" With Charlie Brown, it was about loneliness and isolation. I always thought that the thing about Charlie Brown and those characters was the absence of the parents. Half the strip was about who wasn't there. The parents were never in the picture. "
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" One of the things I would like to do is make up stories that I would have enjoyed when I was a kid. So, if I'm thinking about an audience, it's usually a younger version of myself. "
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" One of the great things about the Internet is that you can read what everybody has to say about everything. It is fascinating to me, the critiques about humor by people who have no sense of humor. "
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" Donuts. Is there anything they can't do? "
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" When The Simpsons came around, there really was nothing else like it on TV. It's hard to imagine, but when Fox first took the plunge with it, it was considered controversial to put animation on prime time. "
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" I went to Bali, and I was in a small village, and somebody who was with me showed a woman a little figurine of Bart and asked: 'Do you know who this is?' And she said: 'Mickey Mouse.' "
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" In 'Futurama,' the skin color is no longer yellow. They have actually evolved to cartoon skin tone. But they still have four fingers. "
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" Our solution on 'The Simpsons' is to do jokes that people who have an education, or some frame of reference, can get. And for the ones who don't, it doesn't matter, because we have Homer banging his head and saying, 'D'oh!' "
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" I went through a phase where people would introduce me at parties as a cartoonist, and everybody felt sorry for me. 'Oh, Matt's a cartoonist.' Then people further feeling sorry for me would ask me to draw Garfield. Because I'm a cartoonist, draw Snoopy or Garfield or something. "
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Sorry
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" I basically drew my own family. My father's name is Homer. My mother's name is Margaret. I have a sister Lisa and another sister Maggie, so I drew all of them. I was going to name the main character Matt, but I didn't think it would go over well in a pitch meeting, so I changed the name to Bart. "
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" I may be biting off more than I can chew, but with 'The Simpsons' and with 'Futurama,' what I'm trying to do in the guise of light entertainment, if this is possible - is nudge people, jostle them a little, wake them up to some of the ways in which we're being manipulated and exploited. "
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" Cartooning is for people who can't quite draw and can't quite write. You combine the two half-talents and come up with a career. "
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" Well, most grown-ups forget what it was like to be a kid. I vowed that I would never forget. "
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" Eat my shorts! "
Matt Groening
Eat
Shorts
" With animation, because you can draw anything and do anything and have the characters do whatever you want, the tendency is to be very loose with the boundaries and the rules. "
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Boundaries
" My father was a really sharp cartoonist and filmmaker. He used to tape-record the family surreptitiously, either while we were driving around or at dinner, and in 1963 he and I made up a story about a brother and a sister, Lisa and Matt, having an adventure out in the woods with animals. "
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" I think there is a certain charm to the hand drawn image that I like. My problem with CGI is that it's so rich in texture that my eyes actually get tired. Everything is in focus down to the littlest leaf. "
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" I grew up completely overwhelmed by TV, and part of the reason why I have gone into television is as a way to justify to myself all those wasted hours of watching TV as a kid. I can now look back and say, 'Oh, that was research.' "
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" I was always frightened by taverns. They just seemed like very unpleasant places to go. "
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" I loved literary science fiction. In fact, as a kid, when I was reading science fiction, I thought 'I can't wait for the future when the special effects are good' to represent what was in these books by Arthur C. Clarke, Alfred Bester, Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, Jack Vance. "
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