A Note on The Simpsons

I came across (or, more accurately, was sent)(thanks, mom) an unauthorized and unofficial history of The Simpsons, written in a snippet, oral tradition style.

Some of the way through it, I can definitely say I've learned things. It starts out with some background on Matt Groening, about his schooling, his college years, about moving to LA and starting Life in Hell, the comic strip that got the attention of Jim Brooks. The book describes the early stressful days at Fox, about their attempt to become a fourth network. It talks about Tracey Ullman, and the little bumper spots of animation, and about how there had been two different casts of characters, by two separate animation creators and groups (one was obviously dropped after a short while). About these things I knew some, but not in the details given here.

Then I read things of which I had no idea: that The Simpsons, as a satirical and heartwarming animation program, as a groundbreaking prime-time series, as an entity that continues to affect all realms of comedy in this country to this day was really the brainchild of Sam Simon, one of the three names on the television at the end of the opening credits under the "Developed by" credit (along with Jim Brooks and Matt Groening). It seems like from this book, if you like The Simpsons, then you're a fan of Sam Simon's work.

Whether a gruff dad, bratty kids, and a doting mom who filled time and let the audience of a sketch show know the sketch was over could become a viable series on their own was very much in question. Matt Groening had provided the template; Jim Brooks would float in occasionally and add minor touches to scenes that would reinforce the families lovingness and reality (not a small contribution); but Sam Simon hand-picked the entire writing staff. He flushed out the town of Springfield. He gave the characters their now-known characterizations. An accomplished television writer, producer, brilliantly hilarious and quite caustic, Simon was also an excellent cartoonist, and the smoothing out of the characters from the first season into what we, as fans, understand as their final look was done by him.

Matt Groening was more involved in the licensing of the various products that made him incredibly wealthy than he was with the day-to-day operations of the show. Besides, his history working in television was zero, and the skills he brought to the table as a cartoonist were ill-suited for the rigors of 22-minute television-script writing. Sam Simon turned an idea--How about a series about that animated family from Tracey--into the institution it became, and is, today, through one brilliant classic episode after another, full of true emotion, sight gags, subversive wit, and real life situations.

Sam Simon left the show after the fourth season, the relationship between he and Groening fluctuated between non-talking to yelling and screaming, mainly due (it appears) to Groening happily taking all the credit for making the show a success, and Simon being basically ignored. Simon also seemed to feel he got shafted from the financial end of the merchandising. In the end, when he left, he took no severance package and instead settled on future points...it seems he makes about $20 to $30 million a year--still--even while it's been fifteen years since he was running the show.

Simon had been a genius who'd worked on Taxi and Cheers, and Groening was a starving artist riding the bus and searching the shag carpet in his hovel for change to get a burger...which story would you guess would be the one picked up by the major media outlets once the show hit the big-time? Industry Insider makes Good Show a Success, or Starving Cartoonist Hits Jackpot and is King of TV? (That's a paraphrase from the book itself, as someone was trying to console a furious Sam Simon.)

Not owning any seasons earlier than the fifth, I really had no idea that Sam's contribution was as great as it was.