Episode 1684 - Matt Groening

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

Marc Maron

Comedy

4.6 • 29.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Matt Groening discovered the things that helped shape his artistic sensibility when he was 12 years old: psychedelia, the Grateful Dead, Catch-22, and of course cartooning. Matt explains to Marc how the road to creating The Simpsons started in Portland, Oregon and had stops in New York City, Los Angeles, the Licorice Pizza record store, the LA Reader and the office of James L. Brooks. They also talk about The Simpsons becoming a breeding ground for comedy writing talent and Matt reveals, for the first time, who was the real inspiration for Homer Simpson.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Lock the gate!
0:09.1	All right, let's do this.
0:11.2	How are you?
0:11.8	What the fuckers?
0:12.5	What the fuck buddies?
0:13.4	What the fuck Knicks?
0:15.0	I'm Mark Maren.
0:16.0	This is my podcast.
0:17.2	Welcome to it.
0:18.4	We're coming down to the wire here.
0:39.4	Only a few more shows. I hope you all right. Are you all right? Today on the show, Matt Graining is here. He's the creator of the Simpsons, which means he's responsible for a global phenomenon and an American cultural institution. I was on episode 653 of The Simpsons.
0:40.5	That's season 30.
0:43.6	He's also known for Futurama, disenchantment.
0:45.8	And he got him right under the wire here.
0:49.4	He will be the last guest recorded here in the garage.
0:52.0	I'm going to do one more.
0:55.2	And that'll be me talking to you directly.
0:56.6	Just me.
0:57.9	Just us.
0:59.8	It's going to be just us.
1:01.9	And then we have one more after that.
1:04.1	This is the longest goodbye ever.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marc Maron, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Marc Maron and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.