Okay, so earlier on Sam Hopkins mentioned that theyd just found out that Matt Groenings original idea was to have bunny ears under Marges hair. I responded with this... Thats why Sam Simon was the true genius behind the shaping of the show: Not only was he respected by the writing team & already a massive success in his own right, he had no fear in shouting Matt down. I read that Matt brought it up a few times, and whilst the writers would politely ignore it, Sam would bluntly say stuff like, Were not doing that: Its f**king stupid!. (It was because of this well-documented animosity between the two of them that Sam Simon was pushed out in 1993. The fact that Sam Simons name is still prominently in the shows credits & that he still receives tens of millions each year from it, says a lot about his vital input. No one fought to take the money rights or top billing away from him). By all accounts, Matt Groening seems like a really nice guy, but without the writing team that Sam Simon originally assembled and James L. Brooks magic input & championing, the show most probably never would have seen the light of day. If you look hard enough, youll find plenty of interviews where Matt takes undeserved praise & lies about his level of input (contradicted on record by many staff members) most of the time, but there are also examples of him saying that he sometimes feels redundant and embarrassed about the crumminess of his original Tracey Ullman shorts & how the brilliance around him made The Simpsons into the runaway success it is today...But hell usually qualify that by saying something like, But then I remind myself..I created this thing in the first place. Im the reason the whole thing exists! with a jolly chuckle. (Being a nerd about TV comedy and obsessed with classic Simpsons, Ive read and listened to ridiculous amounts of material on all things related to it. My opinion is that Matt Groening is a very VERY lucky man) Id like to add to that, (and quite possibly outstay my welcome further), with this... If theres one example to prove that Matt Groenings a tit, its this: You remember the whole classic Homer falling down the Springfield gorge in Bart The Daredevil, right?...Of course you do: its amongst almost everybodys favourite Simpsons moments of all time!... But heres the thing: When the animation for the episode had been completed, he went behind Sam Simon & the writing crews backs and had the whole scene taken out, as well as the animation destroyed to sabotage its airing! His reasoning? He hated it, because he didnt want the characters doing anything in the Simpsons that made them superhuman...Or cartoons, if you like. (It seems ridiculous now Im sure, with almost every joke in The Simpsons these days involving Homer getting physically tortured in some way. But back then, that was Matts vision. Conan OBrien, one of the shows greatest ever writers & now a star in his own right, said that he really had to plead with Matt to let him put in the joke in Marge vs The Monorail, where Leonard Nimoy beams out of Springfield at the end, just like his Star Trek character). Anyway, Sam was furious when he realised, and had to get the Production company to shell out a great deal of money to get the animation redone & shipped over from Korea in a much quicker time than usual. This never gets mentioned these days by Matt, and in fact, hes regularly listed it amongst his favourite Simpsons moments of all time! So at least its nice to see that hes a fan, just like us...and quite possibly just as integral to the show as us too
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 01:29:37 +0000
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