Name: "The Simpsons" Creator Matt Groening Was A Decent Teen | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-03-22T22:01:03.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video '"The Simpsons" Creator Matt Groening Was A Decent Teen | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-22. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video '"The Simpsons" Creator Matt Groening Was A Decent Teen | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-22. Transcript available.

our uh next guest is the creator of the life and hell comics and his animated
cartoon special
entitled the simpsons roasting on an open fire will be on the fox network next
sunday
ladies and gentlemen please say hello to matt graining
nice to see you how you doing hey how are you oh you know i'm all right where
are you from what
part of the country are you from i'm from uh portland oregon portland oregon
and uh in your
in your work there do we see a reflection of what your own family life was when
you were a kid or
maybe is now yeah that's what my family looked like exactly no they weren't
like that at all yeah
and you started doing this kind of thing cartooning and writing captions pretty
early oh yeah from from
the moment uh i went into school the first day of school i started doodling
yeah and uh how did you
know that you were good at this kind of thing i guess it's self-explanatory the
kids loved it and
the teachers hated it yeah uh did you ever enter any of those contests they
would have in the uh
like the weekly reader magazines the uh uh draw this yeah and i won i won what
was the contest uh it
was a finish the short story uh contest jack and jill magazine oh i see and how
old were you then
eight eight years old all right national magazine yeah won a short story
contest wow and what what was
the short story well uh it was finished the short story contest and it was
started out little davy
was playing out in the backyard and he was tired playing cowboys so he decided
to go inside and go
up into the attic and pretend to be a ghost so he ran up the stairs and he
opened the door and he went
inside and then he bumped his head on the ceiling and he said now i know what i
want to be and then you
finished the story how long did it have to be well i i don't know it wasn't
very long i was eight years
old you know very short story anyway most of the kids wrote uh he wanted to be
a cowboy now i want
to be a cowboy now i want to be a fire truck you know i mean you know how you
wanted to be a vehicle
sometimes and uh in mine i said he hit his head and he died and uh they nailed
this the door shut to the
attic the family did and once a year on the anniversary he came down and ate
dinner in silence
and and the killer last line was he was a ghost he was entombed in the attic
yes this is eight years
old yeah and you won the jack and jill contest well you know i was always
wondering because
i was watching casper the friendly ghost and and friends of mine pointed out if
there's casper the
friendly ghost right where is the body of casper the friendly boy right i mean
i i never i never got
that far in my analysis of casper yeah i'm sorry that's why i'm a cartoonist
and and and this is odd and
nobody on the jack and jill editorial staff there's a brain trust nobody in
that group who thought this is
the work of a disturbed young man no i got rewarded for it in fact well
actually i thought it was a
reward at first they came somebody from jack and jewel magazine came to portland
and they said was it
jack or was it jill um i'm not sure anyway he uh uh they put me on romper room
as a prize oh you
guys as a little kid was that must have been a pretty big deal for you were you
excited about it yeah
not four
i have to be so damn testy about it i don't know what the cutoff level is for
romper room
well that's for little baby kids you know i was embarrassed i thought i was
being punished okay
uh anyway well congratulations i'm sorry i didn't know you then uh and then and
then as you uh your
education career grew you uh also were good as in art right which were you
better at writing or the art
uh well that's why i was a cartoonist back then i was good at both i guess or
not so good at either
i don't know so i just kept on doing it uh my friends and i we sat in the back
row we kept on
getting in trouble with the teachers and uh we drew comics that they didn't
like you know and this is
went on through high school and i said you teens you're just a bunch of teens
for filth and uh that's
what teachers said and uh so we said well we're not teens for phil no of course
not no so we formed
our own political party called the teens for decency yeah and our motto was if
you're against decency
what are you for and we ran for uh office and we all won congratulations again
thank you
you're like the american dream yeah well you know i hate you know the jerks
that always run for office
in high school i said i'm gonna do that i i'm gonna be one of those guys you
know somebody who
sits in the back of the class who finally gets it you know right and you you're
now living in portland
you have a family of your own no i live in uh venice oh venice oh now that's
nice isn't it
it's interesting there in california yeah it's new age yeah you know the woman
down the street
does gong therapy right very early in the morning and bangs a gong i've tried
it it's really good
though is it is it a um i've heard that it can be dangerous that part of the
town there well you can
if you're careful you know it's not so bad this guy came to the door last
summer late one night uh
i was by myself my wife had left left me alone and uh hard to figure
and this guy comes to the door and he says you gotta help me it's my little
brother timmy he's
been badly hurt he's at the hospital but they need a deposit of 55 bucks and i'm
five dollars short
and i went oh go wait how can i help you and i pulled out and i gave him uh i
only had a 20 so i
gave him a 20 and he he was gone and then i went uh-oh wait a minute wait a
minute hospital deposit
right to yourself what yeah what what is that and my wife comes home and she
goes you idiot yeah you
idiot and i felt really stupid and then about an hour later there's another
knock on the door and the
guy's back and he goes i just want to thank you i'm going to my wife see see it
was real it was real
he says thanks a lot timmy's going to be okay uh uh i really like to thank you
and i stepped out on
the porch to shake his hand he goes just one thing the cab it needs change the
guy needs change come
come with me come with me and i follow him around the corner where it's really
dark and and then i
realized whoa wait a minute trouble trick yeah yeah so then i moved right so
you didn't you didn't pay
him the cab no i ran back inside all right good idea then i moved a few months
later and i'm sitting
up late at night there's a knock on the door it's the same guy i only was a few
blocks away he's at
the door again i was so excited because now i got him yeah he doesn't recognize
you he doesn't
recognize me so uh i run to my wife who's in bed and i say it's the guy he's
back call the police
we'll stall him you know i was really excited she goes no don't she's i'm
locking the door i don't
care what i hear i'm not going to unlock this door and uh i went back out and i
said uh left my wallet
with my wife who went to the store please wait looks in right and uh my wife
called the police
and said there was an armed robbery in progress and so cop cars came from every
direction and the guy
took off and they almost arrested me for for making a fault there you go that's
what happens uh so your
big your big holiday special are you excited about this yeah the clip you
showed wasn't actually from
the special was not from the special that's an outtake oh i'm sorry but uh the
blooper things like
that in the special things like that is this your first uh like it's a half an
hour show yeah first
long form animated cartoon yeah oh good and then it goes on uh regularly uh in
january good for you
oh it'll be a serious thing a serious thing we'll be right back folks
Thank you.