GROEN DRAIN

Popular celebrity-stalking website TMZ has posted an article by Melissa-Mindy Trump Hilton, who bears strong resemblance to comedienne Amy Sedaris, in which she declares her intentions of becoming the Akbar to Matt Groening’s Jeff:

People have been saying that I have “set my cap” on becoming “Mrs. Matt Groening.” And they say that for the entire summer, I have been drunkenly throwing myself at Matt, in a way that appears almost desperate, making plans to cross his path during movie industry events and parties and receptions, always popping up at his side. And that one incident where I got kind of drunk at the Viper Room with Matt that caused my banning. Anyway: Matt Groening and I are “just friends,” as they say. We do like to go to the beach together, we’ve been to a few local spas, we enjoy board games like Twatch and Scrabble. But we are just friends. Period. Oh, well, I have my hopes … like any girl does. But for now those hopes are private and I know that TMZ won’t betray my confidences.

[TMZ]

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The Simpson [sic] creator Matt Groening has snubbed new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown by insisting he’ll never have a cameo on the hit animated series. While Brown’s predecessor Tony Blair guest starred on a show in 2003, cartoon genius Groening is adamant there won’t be another British statesman on the show for years. He says, “One Prime Minister per century is enough.”

Could this lead to a British boycott of The Simpsons??? Developing… [Starpulse]

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The aloof creator of The Simpsons will be appearing in an upcoming issue of Playboy! Here is a funny quote:

As a parent, Groening says, “I’m the dad I wished I had. I try to let my kids have a good time.” His reward? “[My kids] tell me I’m not funny anymore. … My son said he wishes [‘Family Guy’ creator] Seth MacFarlane were his father.”

[NY Daily News]

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In a top ten list of the top ten environmental films (#9: FernGully), Ken Eisner rounds off his appraisal of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth with a solicitation to “look for some of these themes to emerge in The Simpsons Movie, from Al’s pal Matt Groening.” [straight.com]

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iF: For everyone who worked on [Futurama], it’s been off the air much longer, since Fox had a whole season left in the can to air once production had stopped.

GROENING: That’s the nature of animation. When the SIMPSONS finally ends, there will probably be another season and we’ll do a long farewell tour and wave to people.

[iF Magazine]

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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.

For comparison to other executive producers:

Al Jean: “I think the last couple years have been among our best”
James L. Brooks: Season 17 is “a classic”
Matt Groening: Animation is better, surprising new ideas, still makes him laugh [The Wave]

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At least according to the author of a new book, Stupid, Ugly, Unlucky and Rich: Spike’s Guide to Success:

“I’m not saying that being good looking won’t get you a date, but as for success – forget it,” said [Richard] St. John, who names multimillionaires Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates as examples of that principle.

“I apologize for calling them ugly,” he said. “In fact, I think they are just average, but there’s an inverse relationship between looks and success. The uglier they are, the richer they are.”

Ugly people discussed in the book include Groening, Rudy Giuliani, Barbra Streisand, Russell Crowe, Martha Stewart, Norman Lear, Quincy Jones, the Google founders, the discoverer of DNA and Ben of Ben & Jerry’s. [Buffalo News]

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No, really:

Mr. Mann, whose subjects have included underground cartoonists (“Comic Book Confidential”) and avant-garde jazz musicians (“Imagine the Sound”), takes a light, zippy approach to his material. His main conceit is to have much of the story told by the hot rods themselves, voiced by sympathetic celebs like Jay Leno (a car and motorcycle hobbyist), the Smothers Brothers, and “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, with John Goodman as the disembodied voice of Big Daddy himself, speaking to us from the great body shop beyond.

[New York Sun]

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As a cartoon animator, Mike Gerard always wanted to produce the best drawings he could.

But when he started work on [the first season of “The Simpsons”], he was astonished to be told that the creators did not want good animation.

“Matt Groening (creator of “The Simpsons”) was adamant that the show should be about humor, the characters, and that the animation should not look good. That was really difficult for me and I would get frustrated when he would tell me something was too good. So one day I picked up a scene I had thrown in the trash and he loved it.”

[KVOA]