Yeah!
It is time again to talk about visual arts in the United States. This
time we are not going to talk about painters, but about famous
American cartoonists.
Can
someone guess which American family is the most famous all over the
world? Yes, you got it, they are The Simpsons.
 |
| The old and actual Simpsons family |
As
all of us know, one of the fathers of this family is Matt Groening.
He was born in Portland (Oregon) on February 15th, 1954
and his father was cartoonist as well. He pushed his son to follow
his path and Matt did it. Matt felt strongly linked with coloring
books rather than going to school, mostly because he was not able to
stay inside the lines (as he said). He went to school, but he spent his time
doodling his notebooks. He tends to think that he has gaps in
education because he was not able to say his capitol state or even to
multiply any number between 7 and 13. During high school, he kept
drawing in every class and he also drew cartoons for the school
newspaper. With his hippie friends, they created their own political
party called Teens for Decency. He was elected as Student Body
President, but their classmates immediately regretted it. Later he
went to college in Olympia (Washington), where he met Lynda Barry
(cartoonist), who pushed Matt to keep drawing cartoons.
In
1977, Matt graduated and moved to Los Angeles to become a writer. He
did not have a good beginning because he started working as a
chauffeur and biographer for an 88-years-old director of bad movies.
Hopeless, he sent a message to his friends in Oregon. Instead of
writing a letter, he sent a comic book about life in Los Angeles. He
called it Life in Hell and it soon became an
underground success in L.A.
1.1.
The Simpsons and Futurama
In
1985, James L. Brooks (renowned film and television producer) showed
interest in his work and asked Matt to work with him in some projects
of animation for comedy series. 15 minutes before the meeting took
place, he was told he had to come up with something new and original.
There, The Simpsons were born, while waiting
in Brooks foyer, he hurriedly sketched a quirky looking family
consisting of one father, one mother, two girls and one boy - and
named them each like his own family members (with the exception of
Bart). In this meeting, the executives liked Matt’s work but they
asked him to tell them a little more about this singular family. They
started laughing and Matt knew at this moment that they were in.
 |
| The Simpsons |
The
first 13 full-length episodes came out on April 19th,
1989. At the beginning, the episodes were focused on Bart, but weeks
later, they realized that Homer was more popular. Nowadays, the
episodes are just around the family, and some episodes featuring
supporting characters are very common.
In
our opinion, the Simpsons criticizes the society of the United States:
rich people who do not care about the poor ones, the obsession of a
mother about taking care of her baby and her family, etc., and also
we have been watching the most fancy famous performing a little role
in Springfield, including Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton, George
Bush and the Spanish Rosa López. The Simpsons has been on our
screens for more than 25 years and still remains as one of the best
programs on television.
Matt
Groening also has created other famous programs as Futurama
but it was canceled after 4 years. For this program, he picked up the
2011 Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.
 |
| Futurama |
2.
Seth MacFarlane
Let’s
move to another, but not less famous, cartoonist. He is Seth
MacFarlane. He is younger than Matt Groening but he is very important
as well.
Seth
was born on October 23rd,
1973, in Kent (Connecticut). He had his first job as a cartoonist
when he was nine years old in a
local newspaper. He studied video and animation and his career
ambitions were initially focused on Disney but
he caught
the attention of Hanna-Barbera Productions with his thesis film, Life
of Larry,
which contained the beginnings of what would later become Family
Guy.
In 1995, he moved to Los Angeles and started working for
Hanna-Barbera as a writer and animator on Johnny
Bravo
(1997) and Cow
and Chicken
(1995).
His
career has been very successful. He is the father of Family Guy,
American Dad and The Cleveland Show and also, he has been
the director of Ted and he participated as producer for the TV
show Flashforward.
 |
| The Cleveland Show |
 |
| Flashforward |
 |
| Ted |
 |
| American Dad |
Matt
Groening and Seth MacFarlane worked together to create a special episode
of Family
Guy
in which the characters of both cartoons, The
Simpsons and
Family
Guy,
lived togheter. It was released on September 28th, 2014, on Fox TV
under
the name of The
Simpsons Guy.
Do you want to watch it? Here you have a trailer of it:
3. Reflexion
These
two cartoonists are similar and different. Both of them used their
“families” to criticize the American civilization and others
world issues. These TV shows have been part of our lives (for some of
us) from the beginning and also nowadays, we are watching it during
our lunchtime.
These
shows are not for children, even though if they are watching it. The
Simpsons are violent and cruel in some ways and children could
copy this behavior. We grew up watching them and we are not a violent
person, so what do you think? Do you agree with people who use to
think that these TV shows could change the behavior of our children?
We
are waiting for your comments and we hope you enjoy our post this
week.
● Bibliography
●
Pictures
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