I am – Hercules!!

Following a report of alleged comments by a longtime “Simpsons” writer suggesting “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening really never had much to do with “The Simpsons” TV series, an Ain't It Cool reader attended the “Simpsons” Paley Festival event in Los Angeles Thursday night and asked Groening about his role on the show.

Now my recollection is that Groening completely dodged this very question at another Museum of Television & Radio event held more than a decade ago. Did Groening shed more light this time around?

“JimBobthe3rd” reports:

Hey Herc,

Went to the Paley Festival closing night tonight, and had the pleasure of getting to see Matt Groening, Nancy Cartwright, Mark Kirkland, Carolyn Omine, Matt Selman and a plethora of other folks (though James L. Brooks did not show, as was originally scheduled).

After showing two full episodes from this season (first the one with Bart becoming Nelson's best-friend after attending his birthday party, the second showing the lives of all of the adults in Springfield from high-school on) the panel moved on to discussion. Some interesting topics included the cast's favorite lines from the show (Being President is easy, you just point your army and shoot - Homer), Nancy breaking into Bart, Nelson and Ralph (and bringing down the house), as well as the mere shock at being around for 400 episodes. "At the reading of our 200th episode, I jokingly said, 'ahh, halfway there.'"

As you requested, yours truly asked the second question of the open QA, asking Matt Groening, "Your role on the show is rather mysterious," garnering some laughter from the crowd. "What exactly is your day-to-day role?" Groening immediately dodged the question, discussing how he was able to take credit for the collaboration of all of the great people that work on the show. He then came back to it though, saying he was the guy that stuck his nose in the places it needed to be stuck, and that he offered the jokes that other people wouldn't. He also mentioned that he was the guy that shot down jokes, and would cross his arms at the writing table - to which of course, the writers would then try to continue to sneak their jokes through.

There was discussion of the fact that the characters are static in age, and how that was a huge benefit and helped them avoid the travesty that was the final years of Leave it to Beaver. They mentioned the various celebrities that have appeared on the show, discussing how Paul McCartney was only persuaded to come on the program after they promised that Lisa would remain a vegetarian for the rest of the series (and she has, despite some writers attempts to sneak around it!). There was a question on if they ever actually had denied a licensed product, which drew hoots from the crowd, and if not, what the weirdest Simpsons merchandise was - to which Groening replied that it was the Bart Simpson inhalers on the market.

All in all, it was really a spectacular evening, and there were laughs everywhere. They closed the evening with the trailer for the new movie, noting that the film really wouldn't have been possible until digital animation came around because they want to tell a spectacular story and do things they just couldn't do on TV.

That's all from this year's Paley Festival!

JimBobthe3rd