SUDDENLY SIMON

This past Monday, Simpsons producer emertius and animal activist Sam Simon went on Jon Leiberman’s Leiberman Live at Five radio show and publicly revealed he’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Sam’s good friend Howard Stern played a few clips of that interview yesterday, which you can listen to below:.

Simon had been strongly hinting at the diagnosis for a while on Twitter: last month, he tweeted a photo of his medications, including one for chemotherapy, as well as a photo of all the “medical” marijuana people have been giving him.

Simon, of course, played an enormous role in forming the tone and voice of The Simpsons as it evolved into a series.

SUDDENLY SIMON

Sam SimonFormer Simpsons writer/producer/showrunner/developer/character designer Sam Simon, who still rakes in more than $10 million from the show every year, secretly bought a $2 million ship for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a superteam of anti-whaling activists who are engaged in a war with Japanese whalers. The SSS Sam Simon, which is the group’s fourth ship, will be used to tie up the Japanese whalers’ ships (somehow?) and prevent them from harpooning any whales for supposed “scientific” reasons. So, basically Charlie’s Angels with Simon as Charlie, I guess?

[The Christian Science Monitor]

SUDDENLY SIMON

sam simonFormer executive producer and do-gooder Sam Simon wants to make a food bank, so he bought what he was told was a former Pinkberry yogurtarium for $1.2 million. Only, get this, it turns out the property was never licensed for food service, never obtained permits for anything, and it’s not clear if it was ever actually a Pinkberry. So now Simon’s understandably pissed and suing everybody. Maybe he’s finally getting his just desserts for making fun of frogurt back in the day? [TMZ]

SUDDENLY SIMON

sam simonFrom a British tabloid article about WWE wrestler guy Glenn “Kane” Jacob:

One of Kanes [sic] finest hours was the 2001 Royal Rumble where he went an hour before sailing over the top. He remembers the occasion fondly, because he nearly killed celebrity guest Drew Carey.

“Two things I remember the most hitting Honkey with the guitar, I should have done the shuffle!! The Drew Carey deal was funny too.”

“He was there with Matt Groening, the creator of the Simpsons, a friend of his and we were in the locker rooms, I was showing him what we were going to do with the chokeslam deal.

I grabbed him and picked him up and Matt starts yelling stop stop stop, and I looked up. The roof was so low I nearly put Drew Careys [sic] head through the ceiling. I almost became infamous for killing Drew Carey before he got out there.”

I am 99% certain that either Kane or the tabloid confused Groening with former executive producer Sam Simon, who was the 2004 World Boxing Manager of the Year and a producer, writer and director for The Drew Carey Show. That guy just can’t get credit for anything, can he? [Daily Star]

SUDDENLY SIMON

Apparently The Simpsons was not the only show where former executive producer Sam Simon, whom Matt Groening once called “mentally unbalanced,” was difficult to work with. Hot off the heels of quitting The Simpsons and subsequent court proceedings, Simon created The George Carlin Show, a sitcom starring the late George Carlin, which ran for 27 episodes on FOX in 1994. Later, in a timeline page on his website, Carlin wrote the following reflection: “Lesson learned: always check mental health of creative partner beforehand.” [Macleans.ca]

SUDDENLY SIMON

Ivy Supersonic, who according to Wikipedia is “a New York fashion designer, entertainer, publicist, promoter, event planner, and animated character designer,” sent out a press release claiming that former Simpsons producer Sam Simon helped steal her idea for the squirrel thing from the Ice Age movies and tried to blackmail her into starring as his wife in a TV show (????):

“Sam Simon is not a man of his word — he is a man of many words that do not hold true. He said Howard Stern asked him to be a writer on the show,” Supersonic said. “He was considering it but said he would not do it unless I had a starring role as his wife. I was blown away when Ice Age 2 hit the theaters. Simon’s partner and writer Matt Groening, was one of the writers on Ice Age 2, released by 20th Century Fox. Sam Simon’s Simpson cartoon short premiered in front of Ice Age 2. There is nothing more I hate than someone who is dishonest to land me in the sac. I am more than outraged, I am eternally livid!” Supersonic says angrily.

[Ivy Supersonic press release]