Name: Matt Groening on Letterman, December 12, 1989
Uploaded: 2016-09-24T02:17:54.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Matt Groening on Letterman, December 12, 1989' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-09-24. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Matt Groening on Letterman, December 12, 1989' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-09-24. Transcript available.

okay our 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
here now take a look at clip of that show here is what you'll see when you tune
it in
how you doing you know i'm all right where are you from what part of the
country i'm from
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 uh 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 cowboy 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 the story how long did
it have to be well i i don't know it wasn't very long it was eight years old
you know very short story
anyway most of the kids wrote i 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 want to be a vehicle sometimes
instead of a thing 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 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 jill magazine came to portland and they
said was it jack or
was it jill i'm not sure anyway he uh uh they put me on romper room as a prize
oh you guys a little
kid was that must have been a pretty big deal for you were you excited about
eight yeah not four
i have to be so damn testy about it i don't know what the cutoff level is for
romper room
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 uh back then i was a little uh 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 filth
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 and you
you're now living in portland you have a family of your own no i live in uh venice
oh venice oh no 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 um 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 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 you're
saying to yourself what yeah what what is that and my wife comes home and she
goes you idiot 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 really says
thanks a lot timmy's gonna 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 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 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
and i was really excited
and she goes no don't she's unlocking 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
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 false well see there you go that's what happens uh so your big
your big uh 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 is 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
oh uh we're almost finished here matt nice meeting you good luck with your big
cartoon show and my
thanks to the tower of power horns are you coming back again tomorrow night
okay great sound terrific
and also our thanks to lauren bacall tomorrow night on the program kids uh ray
davis from the kinks
and Marv Albert. Have a nice night.
Good night, everybody.