Matt Groening Says This Is Secret to ‘The Simpsons’ Longevity
For one night anyway, Matt Groening could ignore talk about his long-running show’s decline and simply celebrate The Simpsons. Who can blame the guy for taking a victory lap after accepting the Honorary Cristal Award this week at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival?
Speaking to his fellow animators, Groening celebrated a life that allowed him to “fill the universe with crazy characters who do what you tell them to do,” according to Deadline. “You can have them be brave, but isn’t it more fun to have Homer fall off a cliff? We torment our characters and have fun with them.”
After more than 36 seasons and 800 episodes, Groening revealed what he believes to be the secret to the show’s enduring popularity: a refusal to give in to laziness and a commitment to comedy. “As it goes on, we become known for different kinds of jokes,” he said. “We have parodies of cinema and references to books, TV shows and personal autobiographical anecdotes. The sum total of the show is that contribution of everyone involved.”
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With so many seasons under their belt, he said, the show’s creators’ “main motivation is to surprise ourselves. If we surprise ourselves then we think we can surprise the audience.”
The Simpsons has come a long way since the crude Groening drawings that populated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show.
But Groening says the show has tried to keep that human touch, even as its animation has become more sophisticated over the decades. He quoted cartoonist Jules Feiffer in explaining that approach: “Jules said with every advance in technology comes decline in quality. So we have tried to maintain that hand-drawn quality.” (Does The Simpsons still feel “hand-drawn” in 2025? Your mileage may vary.)
Groening addressed the public perception that The Simpsons has an eerie ability to predict the future through its comedy, confirming that “all the conspiracy theories are true.” The secret, he joked, was writers pulling predictions out of a magical, Marge Simpson-shaped wig.
What’s Groening’s advice for the next generation of animators? First, he said, don’t let your mom throw out your comic book collection when you leave for college. On a more serious note, “whatever you’re working on, finish it,” he advised. “The world is full of half-finished pieces of animation, so finish it and get it out there.”
The Simpsons creator got a little verklempt as he thanked his family while accepting his award. After all, most of the main characters in The Simpsons share names with his parents Homer and Marge, his sisters Lisa and Maggie, and his grandpappy Abe.
Connecting the dots, wouldn’t that make Groening the inspiration for Bart? “I’ll let you into a little secret,” Groening told the crowd. “Je suis Milhouse.”
