The Simpsons: The Uncensored, Unauthorized History
Written by John Ortved
Published by Faber & Faber
Conducting dozens of interviews with writers, producers, cartoonists and executives whose lives have been connected to the development of the forever-running television series The Simpsons, John Ortved’s book attempts to untangle the web of the series creation and provide a glimpse at how it all came to be and who fathered the show’s, and the family’s, many startling and hilarious facets.
As might be expected, a network television show doesn’t truly have its origins in a phrase as simple as “created by Matt Groening.” Dozens of writers have passed through the show’s writers room, each drawing from different experiences, divergent senses of humor and completely individual expectations for the series itself.
Curiously, Ortved doesn’t speak to the three major players: Matt Groening, whose comic strip Life in Hell was noticed by producers on The Tracey Ullman Show, who in turn asked him to come up with a concept for interstitial cartoons to run between their skits; James Brooks, the movie and TV mogul, who produced and protected The Simpsons at Fox; and Sam Simon, the show’s lead writer during its formative years. Brooks’ company, Gracie Films, opted not to cooperate with the book’s creation, leaving Ortved to fill in his history from the outside in. Thus, readers are left with an interesting view into the world of the show’s three-headed initiators.
The effect creates a multi-faceted perspective that enables backers and detractors of each of the three to put forth their own experiences as to what occurred, as well as offering other theories as to how the show found its unique satirical voice and visual design. Readers can examine the evidence presented and look for something close to the “truth,” if such exists, in the cross-section of the testimony given.
Ortved is able to speak to many of the important figures, including the show’s original animation executive producer, Gabor Csupo; former writers and producers like Brent Forrester, Jay Kogen, and Josh Weinstein, among many others; one-time writer and current talk show host Conan O’Brien; former creative consultant Brad Bird; Matt Groening’s long-time friends and fellow cartoonists Lynda Barry, Art Spiegelman and Gary Panter; and FOX CEO Rupert Murdoch and other FOX execs like Barry Diller and Charlie Goldstein. Also, the administrator of fan sites like NoHomers.net are able to weigh in. So readers will definitely get a well rounded picture of how things occurred.
Probably the most distracting element of the book is when Ortved breaks from the “oral history” style and inserts his own thoughts. Often, he’s providing valuable and factual background that sets the stage from the interview segments, but sometimes, Ortved drifts into editorializing. His comments on others’ quotes are occasionally valuable, but often unnecessary. More disconcerting is his penchant for slagging off the show’s later years. It’s not that he’s wrong (not having watched the show in close to a dozen years, I can’t say myself), but it seems unnecessary and at times even petty when cast against his own fawning over the undeniably massive influence of the show on current pop culture and comedy.
That’s a fairly minor complaint, as most of the book conforms to the “oral history” format, using quotes and only context-providing paragraphs from the author to set the scene for each person’s story. All of those people providing their perspectives on the founding of The Simpsons builds a multifaceted history of a television revolution and institution. If anyone has any interest in codifying the building of one of the most important pieces of American pop culture, The Simpsons: The Uncensored, Unauthorized History is a very effective, very worthwhile read.
December 7th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
If you are interested in this you may be entertained or totally put off by the art of New York artist Joseph Cavalieri – He places the Simpsons in stained glass. See: CAVAglass.com