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Matthew Abram Groening (born February 15, 1954) (name rhymes with raining, SAMPA ['grEniN])
is an American cartoonist and the creator of the television series Futurama and The Simpsons, where he currently serves as creative consultant. In high school, he was the student body president, but was stripped of this title when he tried to amend the
constitution to make him an all-powerful president for life. He graduated
from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
Before his work in television, Groening created the syndicated cartoon Life in Hell, which is still carried in many weekly newspapers and has been anthologized in a series of
books, such as School is
Hell, Love is
Hell, Work is
Hell, and The Big Book of Hell.
Groening grew up in Portland, Oregon, and seems to have found
names for some characters from major Portland
street names such as Flanders, Lovejoy, Powell, Quimby, and
Terwilliger.
He named the main family Simpson characters after his own family (reportedly he was not feeling very creative that day), his
parents, Homer and Marge, and his younger sisters, Lisa and Maggie. Groening also has an older brother and sister, Mark and
Patty, but these siblings were left out of the main Simpson family. As for Matt himself, he decided it was a bit too obvious and
therefore called him "Bart" (an anagram of brat). Groening has also named
his own sons Homer (who goes by Will) and Abe (which is the name of Grandpa Simpson).
Groening was influenced as a youngster by the dark humor of English cartoonist Ronald Searle.
He is part of the rock & roll band The Rock Bottom Remainders whose members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson,
Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom,
Roy Blount Jr., Stephen King, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, and Greg Iles.
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