Top 96 Quotes by Matt Groening

I know for a fact, obviously, because my kids grew up watching the show, that there are some things they are introduced to from 'The Simpsons', and then later in life they see the thing we're parodying. My kids had not seen 'Casablanca,' and we'd done parodies of 'Casablanca.'

I love the idea that we put in jokes the kids don't get. And that later, when they grow up and read a few books and go to college and watch the show again, they can get it on a completely different level.

I had been drawing my weekly comic strip, 'Life in Hell,' for about five years when I got a call from Jim Brooks, who was developing 'The Tracey Ullman Show' for the brand-new Fox network. He wanted me to come in and pitch an idea for doing little cartoons on that show.

Our solution on 'The Simpsons' is to do jokes that people who have an education, or some frame of reference, can get. And for the ones who don't, it doesn't matter, because we have Homer banging his head and saying, 'D'oh!'

With Charlie Brown, it was about loneliness and isolation. I always thought that the thing about Charlie Brown and those characters was the absence of the parents. Half the strip was about who wasn't there. The parents were never in the picture.

I may be biting off more than I can chew, but with 'The Simpsons' and with 'Futurama,' what I'm trying to do in the guise of light entertainment, if this is possible - is nudge people, jostle them a little, wake them up to some of the ways in which we're being manipulated and exploited.