Long before he created “The Simpsons” and started a commercial empire that includes a classic TV show, a new movie and a mindboggling merchandising marketplace, Matt Groening was an ordinary working stiff. He not only drew comic strips but worked as a music critic for the alternative newspaper the Los Angeles Reader.
One day, he was sent to a nightspot in Reseda called the Country Club, where Danny Elfman and his band Oingo Boingo were filming a music video. Groening trashed the band’s performance that day.
“Honestly, I figured that they were so big and so unaware of me that they wouldn’t possibly be bothered by my review,” Groening told me a couple of days ago.
He was wrong.
Elfman was incensed, and he fired off a letter to the editor.
“He really took me to task for my review, and he was correct,” Groening said. “It was a ridiculous review. It was unfair of me to review their performance that day because they were filming a video, not performing at a show.”
Years later, “The Simpsons” was about to hit the airwaves, and the show’s producers needed a composer to write a theme song.
“I was always a huge fan of Danny Elfman and I wanted him to write the theme,” Groening said. “I wasn’t even worried about approaching him because I assumed he’d never remember me.”
Wrong.
“He did remember me,” Groening said, “but he said he forgave me a long time ago because of a comic strip I wrote called “How to be a Feisty Rock Critic.” I completely demolished rock critics, and he liked that.”
Just in case you didn’t know, Elfman wrote the theme for “The Simpsons” TV show.
The complete interview with Matt Groening and fellow producers James L. Brooks and Al Jean will be posted online in the next couple of days, and will appear July 27 in the Show section of the Orange County Register.
“The Simpsons Movie” opens July 27.
