Matthew Abram Groening ( GRAY-ning; born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist and animator. He is the creator of the television series The Simpsons (1989–present), Futurama (1999–2003, 2008–2013, 2023–present), and Disenchantment (2018–2023), as well as the comic strip Life… Matthew Abram Groening ( GRAY-ning; born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist and animator. He is the creator of the television series The Simpsons (1989–present), Futurama (1999–2003, 2008–2013, 2023–present), and Disenchantment (2018–2023), as well as the comic strip Life in Hell (1977–2012).
Born in Portland, Oregon, Groening made his first professional cartoon sale of Life in Hell to the avant-garde magazine Wet in 1978. At its peak, it was carried in 250 weekly newspapers and caught the attention of the producer James L. Brooks, who contacted Groening in 1985 about adapting it for animated sequences for the Fox variety show The Tracey Ullman Show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights, Groening created a new set of characters, the Simpson family. The shorts were spun off into their own series, The Simpsons, which became the longest-running American primetime television series and the longest-running American animated series and sitcom.
In 1997, Groening and former Simpsons writer David X. Cohen began production on Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000, which premiered in 1999. It ran for four years on Fox, was picked up in 2008 by Comedy Central for another 5 years, and was picked up again by Hulu in 2023. In 2016, Groening developed a series for Netflix, Disenchantment, which premiered in August 2018.
Groening has won 14 Primetime Emmy Awards, 12 for The Simpsons and 2 for Futurama, and a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004. In 2002, he won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for his work on the Life in Hell comics syndicated in over 250 daily and weekly newspapers. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 14, 2012.
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