• Biography
• Biography (2)
• Movies
• Quotes
• Websites
• Forum

• More ...
• Filmbug Top 100
• Showbiz News
• Site Search
• Movie Dictionary
• Directory A-Z
• DVD Top 100
• Black Friday!
•  
•  Daily Birthdays

Matthew Abram Groening (born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist and the creator of the television series Futurama and The Simpsons, where he currently serves as creative consultant. In high school, he was the student body president, but was stripped of this title when he tried to amend the constitution to make him an all-powerful president for life. He graduated from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

Before his work in television, Groening created the syndicated cartoon Life in Hell, which is still carried in many weekly newspapers and has been anthologized in a series of books, such as School is Hell, Love is Hell, Work is Hell, and The Big Book of Hell.

Groening grew up in Portland, Oregon, and seems to have found names for some characters from major Portland street names such as Flanders, Lovejoy, Powell, Quimby, and Terwilliger.

He named the main family Simpson characters after his own family (reportedly he was not feeling very creative that day), his parents, Homer and Marge, and his younger sisters, Lisa and Maggie. Groening also has an older brother and sister, Mark and Patty, but these siblings were left out of the main Simpson family. As for Matt himself, he decided it was a bit too obvious and therefore called him Bart (an anagram of brat). Groening has also named his own sons Homer (who goes by Will) and Abe (which is the name of Grandpa Simpson).

Groening was influenced as a youngster by the dark humor of English cartoonist Ronald Searle.

He is part of the rock & roll band The Rock Bottom Remainders whose members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount Jr., Stephen King, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, and Greg Iles.