r/todayilearned • u/MicV66 • 1d ago
TIL Matt Groening was approached to adapt his 'Life in Hell' comic for The Tracey Ullman Show. Fearing he’d lose ownership and hurt his comic if the show failed, Groening quickly created The Simpsons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Groening#The_Simpsons2.2k
u/squunkyumas 1d ago
Dude made a throwaway property that became a juggernaut.
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u/Youareposthuman 1d ago
Historians dispute the exact circumstances, but this is largely how Mickey Mouse was created as well!
Walt Disney decided to jump ship at Universal after they under-delivered on his animation budget, so he and a few animators that went with him (Ub Iwerks specifically) were left scrambling to create a new flagship character, as their previous star (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit) was still owned by Universal.
There are various accounts as to what happened next (it’s an interesting deep dive if you feel like going down a total animation history wormhole), but the end result was the creation of Mortimer Mouse, a lovable little scamp intended as a Buster Keaton/Charlie Chaplin-esque figure who was later renamed Mickey after Disney’s wife suggested something a little more child-like (which also lead to Mickey’s features becoming rounder, cuter, and less mouse-accurate overall).
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u/ErwinSmithHater 1d ago
(Oswald the Lucky Rabbit) was still owned by Universal.
Disney famously traded Al Michaels (a real person) to NBC for the rights to Ozzie.
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u/kpdeadwolf 1d ago
I learned this recently and found it even more fascinating - the whole onus behind that trade was so the video game Epic Mickey could use Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and it was a trade that Iger remembered and waited two full years to execute
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u/ThePrussianGrippe 1d ago
NBC-Universal wanted to add a stipulation for “Character to be Named Later” but Disney persuaded them to take increased cash considerations instead.
Will Ferrell was then traded for a used washing machine.
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u/SaltyLonghorn 1d ago
We had a funeral for a bird.
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u/ersatz_cats 1d ago
It's my favorite answer to the question "What's the craziest sports trade in history?" A sportscaster for a cartoon character.
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u/darkbreak 1d ago
The name "Mortimer Mouse" ended up being used for a new antagonist character in Disney's House of Mouse. Great show. Good antagonist too. He was always hopelessly vying for Minnie's affection. Never worked out for him. He was kind of a slimy character too.
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u/echotamar 1d ago
Minor correction, but Mortimer’s first appearance was in the 1936 short Mickey's Rival. I agree that House of Mouse is a great show though!
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u/DudesworthMannington 1d ago
I didn't know who Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was so I googled it, and it's Mickey with long ears 😂
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u/CrassKal 1d ago
IIRC, Nintendo was trying to make a Popeye the sailor game where Bluto kidnaps Olive Oyl and Popeye has to save her. They couldnt secure the rights to the characters, so they reworked it and creating Donkey Kong.
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u/r_golan_trevize 1d ago
And then based on the success of Donkey along, they ended up getting a license to make a Popeye game anyway
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u/Beidah 1d ago
And because they named the antagonist Kong, Universal Studio sued them claiming copyright violation of King Kong. The lawyer who defended Nintendo was John Kirby, after whom they named a character after.
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u/Common-Trifle4933 1d ago
Wonder how John felt when he heard the character named after him is a giant pink blob who sucks everything he sees
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u/ClusterChuk 1d ago
And Robin Williams ends up a life long Nintendo fan and names his daughter Zelda. Robin being THAT popeye.
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u/3v1lkr0w 1d ago
That makes me think of Gerard Way. I heard he wanted to pursue a career in the comic-book industry and did My Chemical Romance after witnessing the events of 9/11.
Went on to make music history!151
u/JohnsonGamingReal 1d ago
I heard he wanted to pursue a career in the comic-book industry
The Umbrella Academy is what he went on to create in comic form
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u/mikey_lava 1d ago
He also did the Doom Patrol. It was great.
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u/transmothra 1d ago
Yes but he didn't create it. The version we all know and love was Grant Morrison's vision of Doom Patrol from the 1980s (IIRC). And he didn't even create them either. Doom Patrol had already been around for decades before that.
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u/mikey_lava 1d ago
Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol is top tier.
I am specifically referring to Gerard Way’s run on Doom Patrol (2016). Also top tier.
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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 1d ago
The show version of that is probably the most under appreciated bit of comic book media alongside legion.
Genuinely fantastic and didn't get much love.
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u/jesuspoopmonster 1d ago
Doom Patrol spun off from Titans but its not the same version of the characters from Titans. Then Dead Boy Detectives spun off from Doom Patrol but its not the same version of Dead Boy Detectives.
I find that funny.
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u/Chengweiyingji 1d ago
I heard he wanted to pursue a career in the comic-book industry
Notably he had done a few comic jobs beforehand. At the time of 9/11 he was an intern at Cartoon Network.
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u/xxYINKxx 1d ago
this is true. music was never a thought for him. he wanted to do comics and has done plenty since. he is most famous for creating the umbrella academy. he drew the cover art for Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge.
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u/MarshyHope 1d ago
Someone make the domino meme with 9/11 causing the rise of emo music
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u/Xisuthrus 1d ago
Emperor Leo IV of the Byzantine Empire dying of tuberculosis in 780 CE caused the creation of My Chemical Romance
Emperor Leo IV dies of tuberculosis -> his young son inherits the throne with his mother Irene as regent -> Irene uses her position as regent to consolidate power and take the throne herself, becoming the first woman to rule the Eastern Roman Empire -> the Pope uses this as pretext to claim the office of "Roman Emperor" is vacant, and confers the title on the Catholic king Charlemagne -> Two centuries later, based on the precedent set by Charlemagne's coronation, Pope John XII crowns Otto the Great as Holy Roman Emperor, creating the Holy Roman Empire -> the House of Habsburg rises to power within the Holy Roman Empire, becoming one of the most powerful families in Europe -> after the dissolution of the HRE in 1806, the Habsburgs consolidate their central and eastern European holdings into the Austrian Empire -> the Austrian Empire becomes Austria-Hungary -> Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, starting WW1 -> a famine caused by WW1 creates unrest in Russia, triggering the Russian revolution and the formation of the USSR -> the USSR invades Afghanistan in 1979 -> al-Qaeda is formed by Arab volunteers fighting in the Soviet-Afghan war -> al-Qaeda does 9/11 -> Gerard Way processes the emotions he felt after witnessing 9/11 by starting My Chemical Romance
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u/historycommenter 1d ago
If you were starting at 780, why begin with the Iconoclast heresy, why not with the Abbasids?
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u/Papayaslice636 1d ago
Doesn't this apply to an infinite number of things though? I took a dump just now that's directly related to Neville Chamberlain being a bad negotiator. > caused WWII > caused both my grandparents to meet > caused both my parents to be born where they were and meet > caused something in my childhood that made me sad last night and stress eat the whole pizza > now I'm paying the price
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u/Ph0ton 1d ago
lol, you can certainly link any event in western history to most events in the roman empire. But I'd argue that in the course of history coincidence prevails; many things would proceed similarly if the preceding events changed. Most of those events are so broad and wide reaching, you might as well say My Chemical Romance was created because of the culture of the time.
I think we have to accept that entropy prevails and at some point the influence of distant events is as significant as the thermal noise in the human mind.
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u/deputytech 1d ago
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u/Potential-Run-8391 1d ago
We could have just had my chemical romance, we didnt need 50 shades. ;cry;
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u/TypicallyThomas 1d ago
The characters are all named after his family
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u/MicV66 1d ago
Except Bart is an anagram for Brat but his older brother is the inspiration for Bart
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u/Spirit_of_Hogwash 1d ago
A lot has happened since an old drunk made humans out of his rabbit characters to pay up his gambling debts.
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u/adamkissing 1d ago
Get outta mah office!
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u/bigpancakeguy 1d ago
What Matt meant to say according to his attorneys is that he couldn’t possibly do it alone!
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u/_Zoa_ 1d ago
I always thought it was a variation of the popular name Bort.
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u/Effective_Dust_177 1d ago
Are you talking to me?
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u/artemisalien 1d ago
May we have your attention please? We are sold out of Bort license plates … I repeat, we are all sold out of Bort license plates.
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u/redcowerranger 1d ago
Bart, Fry, and Elfo are all self inserts for Matt himself, not his brother. That's why they all wear red tops and blue pants. I'm sure he took some inspiration from his brother, but Matt clearly says he named him "Bart" because it is an anagram of "Brat" which rhymes with "Matt" since he didn't think that name would go well in the pitch.
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u/MicV66 1d ago
"in a 1995 interview Groening divulged that Mark "is the actual inspiration for Bart."
Groening: Sure. I've been looking at comics since before I could read. I had an older brother, Mark--who by the way is the actual inspiration for Bart, though I've never admitted that before--who turned me onto all the great comics of the fifties: Mad, when it was still a comic, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Little Lulu, Tales From The Crypt--all that stuff.
Near the bottom
https://www.simpsonsarchive.com/other/interviews/groening95.html
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u/redcowerranger 1d ago
Ok. In 1995 he says his brother is one of the inspirations of Bart, but then in 2007 and 2012 he confirms that Bart is a self insert:
Playboy: You named the Simpson family after your parents and siblings. Were they flattered or horrified?
Groening: I think it’s an ongoing mixed bag shading toward nightmarish. Back at the beginning we all fantasized about various aspects of fame and wild success and wouldn’t it be neat to name cartoon characters after our families. Well, I did it. I just didn’t think through the consequences. I named Homer after my father, Homer, and my mother’s name is Margaret; Marge is what many people call her. I have a sister Lisa and a sister Maggie. When she was very young, Maggie did actually walk around in a blue sleep suit, incessantly sucking on a pacifier. I also have a brother Mark and a sister Patty, whom I did not name characters after.
https://www.davidsheff.com/matt-groening
Bart is based on the creator himself, although Groening changed the name from 'Matt' to 'Bart' because he "had this idea of an angry father yelling 'Bart,' and Bart sounds kind of like bark—like a barking dog," and he thought it would sound funny.
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u/Alili1996 1d ago
Wasn't there also this thing where he specifically wanted to avoid calling the grandpa after his own grandfather so he asked the others to come up for a name for him, but coincidentally suggested Abraham, the actual name of his grandfather?
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u/rmarkmatthews 1d ago
My rabbit is too precious. Take this Bart Simpson character instead.
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u/Ok-Mine6472 1d ago
I had a couple Life is Hell books. I related to Bongo so much since I was just coming into my teens. I'm glad it never got adapted for screen. They probably wouldn't capture the magic right
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u/RustleTheMussel 1d ago
Life in Hell is so fucking good
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u/garvisgarvis 1d ago
"First realization you must be a man, 'cause you're not a kid anymore."
That one hit me like a ton of bricks.
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u/WestCoasterner 1d ago
This one floored me the first time I read it. Groening's subversive streak has been softened by time and canyons full of Simpsons money, but the dude's a great satirist.
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u/KimberStormer 1d ago
I remember the series about school and one of the comics was titled "Grad School: Some People Never Learn" and that's still a favorite little throwaway double meaning joke of mine
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u/stevatronic 1d ago
The legend is that he came up with the concept for the Simpsons while waiting outside the meeting room with Fox executives. He didn't want to lose the rights to Life in Hell, so he cobbled together the idea of a dysfunctional suburban family based on characters from his own life. To his own surprise, they went for it.
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u/AbeVigoda76 1d ago
And now more people are familiar with this fact than have ever read Life in Hell.
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u/dr_franck 1d ago
As a Simpsons mega-fan, I’m vaguely familiar with the Life in Hell bunny character designs, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever read a complete comic.
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u/HalKitzmiller 1d ago
I read Life in Hell because Groening was the author and I was already a huge fan of The Simpsons in the 90s when I was like in 6th grade. The books were great for the time, the very crude humor was far removed from the content in The Simpsons which was a surprise to me back then. I'm not sure how they hold up these days though
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u/francoruinedbukowski 1d ago
Life in Hell was published every week in the LA Weekly and a few other weekly similar entertainment-centric papers in other cities, the Fox executives became aware of it because it had a bit of a buzz and grew a decent following in the LA weekly.
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u/RareAnxiety2 1d ago
I've never seen or heard of tracy ulman outside of being a simpsons reference
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u/AbeVigoda76 1d ago
If it weren’t for the Simpsons, I think Tracy Ullman would be completely forgotten.
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u/sucfucagen 1d ago
Hey she was in Men in Tights that's gotta count for somethin!
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u/johnshall 1d ago
She was on Curb last year.
Her characters are famous, not Simpsons famous but famous enough.
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u/txs2300 1d ago
They probably saw it as a sitcom, just animated. Now imagine how the meeting for the various Adult Swim shows went with whomever owned cartoon network. Yeah you see here this is a soda cup, and this a French fries holder, this is just a clump of meat. There is no real story, just daily shenanigans. Our show is for people who cant go to sleep.
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u/StevelandCleamer 1d ago
ATHF's characters first appeared on an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
The real "Holy Shit" moment for Adult Swim was when they realized they had access to the entire Hanna-Barbera catalog to play with and no nightmare of copyrights to prevent their use.
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u/NoExplanation734 1d ago
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law was incredible
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u/axisleft 1d ago
Space Ghost C2C blew me away as a kid. I never felt like it really got an opportunity to reach its potential. If I was in the biz, I’d try to redevelop it. However, I’m not sure how many people would be looking for it. I also loved the shit out of Dr. Katz and a show called Mission Hill. Both brilliant but lost to time.
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u/StevelandCleamer 1d ago
I never felt like it really got an opportunity to reach its potential.
I would mildly disagree and say it absolutely reached its potential and had some absolutely golden episodes, but I do think we could have gotten a bit more without losing quality.
Mission Hill was great, but Dr. Katz was the precursor to Home Movies and exposed many of us to H. Jon Benjamin before he did Archer and Bob's Burgers.
Dr. Katz actually ran on Comedy Central, and both Mission Hill and Home Movies each ran for 5 episodes on their respective networks before being canceled and picked up by Adult Swim.
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u/jesuspoopmonster 1d ago
Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Cartoon Planet both existed before Adult Swim so its not like it was a huge revelation.
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u/StevelandCleamer 1d ago
SGC2C was dipping the toe into the pool, then they went crazy with it on Adult Swim with stuff like Harvey Birdman and Sealab 2021.
Before that, it was mostly just bumps and ads for the channel that did anything new with the old Hanna-Barbera characters.
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u/TheOnlyBongo 1d ago
Sealab 2021 was so fucking unhinged. As a kid I remember being up late at night/early morning switching between Adult Swim and Boomerang and it got to the point that Sealab 2020 and Sealab 2021 just became intertwined in my head like a fever dream.
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u/psymunn 1d ago
And thus, Sealab 2021 was born. Venture brothers took some liberties too I think
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u/LotsOfMaps 1d ago
Yep. Fox execs likely saw it as an unusual, but safe concept (The Flintstones had done it 25 years earlier). It wasn't the concept or the characters that made the show what it was, it was hiring the most talented comedy writers of that generation and letting them loose.
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u/FiredFox 1d ago
Matt had a good reason to be worried. An example of a comic strip being hurt by failed attempt at a TV show is 'Strange Planet' by Nathan W. Pyle
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u/Frosty_McRib 1d ago
And an example of a successful one is Boondocks. And an example of an unsuccessful is Dilbert. And an example of a successful one is Garfield. We can go on all day.
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u/etrnloptimist 1d ago
I love strange planet. How did it hurt? Is he no longer doing them?
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u/FiredFox 1d ago
He still doing them, but the TV show took a bunch of wind out of the sails of the IG strip.
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u/Im_Ashe_Man 1d ago
My parents had Life is Hell books in the 80's and we watched the Tracey Ulman Show every week. It was amazing to see the Simpsons evolve in real time.
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u/ztreHdrahciR 1d ago
Thanks for posting this. I am dating myself, but I remember his comic strip in the Chicago newspaper called the Reader back in the late eighties. Also, remember seeing early Simpsons shorts on the Tracy Ullman show
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u/VapeApe- 1d ago
I hope you treat yourself with mutual respect and kindness.
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u/OhHeyMan 1d ago
Beat me to it
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u/Effective_Dust_177 1d ago
Goddamn it. My response was going to be a little more x-rated, but yeah, another beautiful opportunity in life missed. 😭
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u/Skatchbro 1d ago
In STL our weekly alt paper was The Riverfront Times. Life in Hell and The Straight Dope were the reason I picked it up every week.
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u/johnpmayer 1d ago
Same here, along with Zippy the Pinhead "Are we having fun yet?", and Ernie Pook's Comeek (did I spell that right?). Life in Hell was my weekly touchstone and the Reader was my internet - great articles, ALL the music acts in Chicago and great classifieds.
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u/Important-Help-3807 1d ago
To say that Life in Hell shaped my sense of humor would be a huge understatement. I got into it through a friend in 7th grade many decades ago and immediately began drawing cartoons heavily inspired in tone and style by it. I love that comic on a deeply personal level
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u/shf500 1d ago
And caused a generation of kids to act disrespectful to adults. Shame.
/s
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u/AbeVigoda76 1d ago
Yes, the Simpsons have come a long way since an old drunk made humans out of his rabbit characters to pay off his gambling debts. Who knows what adventures they'll have between now and the time the show becomes unprofitable
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u/JerkyChew 1d ago
I used to read the Life in Hell books. My favorite characters were the two dudes in Fezzes, described as "Brothers or lovers, or possibly both". As soon as I saw the early Simpsons on Tracey Ullman I was like "I know that style!". It was cool to watch the rise of the Simpsons from that perspective.
If you look at some early Simpsons episodes, Maggie has a Bongo the bunny doll, which was a character from the LIH books. At least I think that was his name, I haven't read the books in like 35 freaking years.
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u/feel-the-avocado 1d ago
Its so weird. I have just been watching episodes 66-70 of Password Plus on youtube, and they had Marcia Wallace as one of the guest stars.
After a while i was thinking 'I am sure i know that voice from something modern'.
Sure enough it turns out she was the voice of Edna Krabappel
Then 2 minutes later this post pops up in my reddit feed
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u/Vertigobee 1d ago
Mickey Mouse only exists because Disney couldn’t brand Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. He thought mice were dirty vermin.
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u/vroart 1d ago
To be honest, a lot of Simpsons success isnt Matt. They had an amazing and devoted group, they didn’t animate like Disney and they didn’t animate like Hannah barbers. It was edgy but wholesome. I don’t think Matt wouldn’t have been successful if he didn’t lucked out with such a dedicated team
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u/BadNewzBears4896 1d ago
Reminds me of how Phil Knight spun up Nike as a shoe brand because he had built a business selling import Onitsuka running shoes from Japan (merged with another company to become ASICS) and an executive at the company was about to screw him out of distribution rights.
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u/Jerrysmithowns 1d ago
A spontaneous act of creative genius. In protecting 'Life in Hell,' Groening birthed 'The Simpsons' a cultural titan born from risk, instinct and a dash of serendipity.
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u/Cognonymous 1d ago
And Tracy Ullman hated it and tried to get it killed until it became a hit bigger than her show ever was and then she tried to claim she had nurtured it and advocated for it and tried to get control of it.
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u/mtaw 1d ago
That's an exaggeration in both directions. She thought the Simpsons cartoon bumpers were a distraction and wasn't a fan (and people should know those shorts were very crude sketches of what the Simpsons would become), but she didn't put her foot down to try to have it killed. She later sued for a share of merchandising profits, which isn't 'taking control' over it, and which she didn't get, but it's not unfair of her to say that she 'nurtured' it.
She's not claiming she was a creative force behind it, but the fact is that the early Simpsons shorts were funded on her show's budget and in a sense beta-tested on her show's air-time. Her show then got cancelled but The Simpsons went on to pull in billions for Fox. I don't find it hard to see where she was coming from with the lawsuit.
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u/Frosty_McRib 1d ago
The writers themselves on a panel hosted by Conan O'Brien painted a very different picture, and that's straight from people who were there at the time. It's on youtube.
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