December 16, 2024

— Matt Groening

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A series of lousy jobs ...

In 1977 a 23-year-old would-be writer moved to Los Angeles. He didn't like it very much.

As he recalled years later:

From there, things got worse. He suffered through a "series of lousy jobs" to pay the bills: busing tables, working in a nursing home, running the cash register at a punk record store, even working at a sewage treatment plant.

He wrote long letters to friends back home telling them how bad it was. Having been a bit of an artist and the editor of the newspaper back at Evergreen State College ("a hippie college ... that drew every weirdo in the Northwest" ... his words), he added crude little cartoons.

Within a few months, he started adding fictional characters to his artwork.

Within a few more months after that, he had enough material to turn into a self-published, black-and-white comic book. He sent copies to friends and also sold them for $1 from a rack in the back of the record store.

He called it "Life in Hell." And it became a bit of an underground cult favorite.

By the time he was 24, he worked out a deal to publish weekly editions of the comic in a newly formed alternative newspaper called the Los Angeles Reader, and added a music column -- although between his eclectic music tastes and limited time, he had a habit of inventing fictionalized bands and interviews.

Personally, I like the routine he came up with: apologizing each week for having fabricated the previous week's column, promising not to do it again, and then rolling right into another fictionalized review.

In 1984, he had his first real commercial success, on his own terms, as a girlfriend at the time who knew something about printing helped him to self-publish a book-length version of "Life in Hell," which sold 22,000 copies.

And then the Hollywood producers came calling.

Their idea at first was to adapt "Life in Hell" into a series of very short, 1-minute animations that would run as "bumpers" during another TV show.

But our writer—Matt Groening, maybe you know him?—was concerned that he might wind up losing ownership of his creation -- or perhaps worse, that it would flop as a TV cartoon, and drag the underlying comic down with it.

So, literally in the waiting room outside the office of producer James L. Brooks, he came up with another idea: a dysfunctional but sort of lovable family, naming the dad after his father (Homer), the mom after his mother (Marge), and the two daughters after his sisters (Lisa and Maggie).

It would have been too much to name the main character, the son, after himself, Groening named him "Bart," which he realized was an anagram for "brat."

And, that's how we got The Simpsons.

They made their debut as a series of very short vignettes on the Tracy Ulman Show, proved much more popular than the show itself was, and then turned into a full-length show that premiered on December 17, 1989 -- so 35 years ago today.

No wait, tomorrow. But, fast-forward and ... Well, you know The Simpsons. It holds the record for longest-running TV show in history.

We're at 776 episodes in now. If you watched it all back-to-back-to-back for 12 hours a day it would take a little over a month.

Massive cultural impact, George Bush made it a political issue -- and we're talking about George H.W. Bush, way back in the quaint 1990s.

And that's the end of ... oh wait, we need a quote. Here's Matt Groening himself. Who knew he had good parenting advice?

Did you see ...

• I live in New Jersey so I'm more than a bit interested in the stories of mysterious drones flying overhead. So, two stories. First, the official line: The White House, FBI and DHS on Saturday stressed that most of the recent reported drone sightings in New Jersey and nearby states involved manned aircraft, and there was no evidence of any national security threat. The FBI said the agency was working with 50 local, state and federal partners to look into increased reports, and that less than 100 of over 5,000 reported sightings had turned out to merit further investigation, and all of the large fixed-wing reported sightings so far involved manned aircraft. (Reuters)
• But: A frustrated New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has called for federal assistance after the latest drone sighting temporarily shut down Stewart International Airport, located roughly 60 miles north of New York City. "Until [greater drone-combatting] powers are granted to state and local officials, the Biden Administration must step in by directing additional federal law enforcement to New York," the governor said. (ABC News)
• Elon Musk’s net worth has climbed by more than $170 billion since Election Day, a massive increase after the world’s richest person spent at least $277 million backing Donald Trump and other Republican candidates. As of Friday, Musk’s fortune was about $442 billion, according to Bloomberg. (The Washington Post)
• An Epidemic of Vicious School Brawls, Fueled by Student Cellphones: Cafeteria melees. Students kicked in the head. Injured educators. Technology is stoking cycles of violence in schools across the United States. (The New York Times)
• Hooligans in Florida terrorized motorists, including one with a baby on board, and set a fire in a chaotic street takeover last month, according to shocking footage. Video posted by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office shows fire set to the road right outside the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, with flashy coupes performing smoke-laden donuts and fiendish hangers-on attacking cars as they attempt to escape the madness. (NY Post)
• Forget Florida. Where are older Americans moving more often than anywhere else in the country? Myrtle Beach, S.C. (WSJ)
• Some Washington D.C. restaurant staff say they're planning to stage a low-stakes war against incoming Trump administration officials who might want to do things like go out to dinner or have a drink in a bar. "This person theoretically has the power to take away your rights, but I have the power to make you wait 20 minutes to get your entree," says Nancy, the bartender. "There’s a lot of opportunities for us as workers to feel like we’re taking our power back, while not necessarily ruining someone’s life. Giving them a subtle inconvenience feels like a little bit of a win for us." (Washingtonian)