Matt Groening Quotes
-
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.
-
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.
-
Nihilism in American comedy came along way before 'The Simpsons.' There was a fairly nihilistic point of view to 'Saturday Night Live,' for instance, back in the beginning, and a lot of really dark comedy had a really anti-sentimental take on life.
-
I think 'Family Guy' and 'American Dad' have definitely staked out their own style and territory, and now the accusations are coming that 'The Simpsons' is taking jokes from 'Family Guy.' And I can tell you, that ain't the case.
-
'The Simpsons' was about children and married parents; 'Futurama' is about people in between; they're growing up and haven't settled down. Every other cartoon show seemed to be, you know, dumb dad, bratty kids.
-
I don't have to be careful, I've got a gun.
-
I think in daily newspapers, the way comic strips are treated, it's as if newspaper publishers are going out of their way to kill the medium.
-
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.
-
The really great thing about having two TV shows going on at the same time is that I can go to one and say that I have to go and visit the other, and then I can just go home, and they don't know.
-
Sometimes people get mad at The Simpsons' subversive story telling, but there's another message in there, which is a celebration of making wild, funny stories.
-
I had been drawing my weekly comic strip, 'Life in Hell,' for about five years when I got a call from Jim Brooks, who was developing 'The Tracey Ullman Show' for the brand-new Fox network. He wanted me to come in and pitch an idea for doing little cartoons on that show.
-
I like the 'Simpsons' pinball machines. Those are pretty great.
-
God often gives nuts to toothless people.
-
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.'
-
I judge my life by how miserable it used to be. If I could pay my rent, I was deliriously happy. Now I'm deliriously happy all the time.
-
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.
-
Most TV shows don't reward you for paying attention.
-
Living creatively is really important to maintain throughout your life. And living creatively doesn't mean only artistic creativity, although that's part of it. It means being yourself, not just complying with the wishes of other people.
-
The nice thing about 'Futurama' for me personally was that it was a way to honor some of the traditional ideas in literary science fiction, not so much movie or television science fiction - although we have that too, obviously. Our situation, a workplace comedy, led to all sorts of stuff.
-
A lot of people believe that if everybody just did what they were told - obeyed - everything would be fine. But that's not what life is all about. That's not real. It's never going to happen.
-
You've got to embrace the future. You can whine about it, but you've got to embrace it.
-
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.
-
People go into cartooning because they're shy and they're angry. That's when you're sitting in the back of a classroom drawing the teacher.
-
We have 'Doctor Who' references on 'Futurama,' but we have a lot of science fiction references that I don't get; but in the staff we have experts on 'Star Trek,' 'Star Wars,' 'Doctor Who' and 'Dungeons and Dragons.'