‘The Simpsons’ creator Matt Groening honored as he recalls Portland family’s connection to characters

Matt Groening, creator of “The Simpsons,” has been honored as an “icon of animation” at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the annual event in France that, as

The Hollywood Reporter notes,

“has become a must-attend for the biggest names in the industry.”

In accepting an Honorary Cristal lifetime achievement award, Groening thanked his family,

as Deadline reports,

and “reminded the audience that the main characters iin ‘The Simpsons’ are famously named after his father and mother, Homer and Marge, his sisters, Lisa and Maggie, and his grandfather, Abe.”

Portlanders may already be well aware of Groening’s roots in the Rose City. As

The Oregonian/OregonLive has reported,

Groening was raised in the West Hills, attended Ainsworth Elementary School and Lincoln High School. Names of Portland streets (Flanders, Terwilliger, Quimby, for example) have turned up as character names in the show, as well.

“The Simpsons” first appeared in 1987, as short animated films included on “The Tracey Ullman Show,” and later became a mainstay as a series on the Fox broadcast network.

During the event at the festival,

The Hollywood Reporter noted

that Groening was joined by “The Simpsons” executive producer and showrunner Matt Selman, and consulting producer-animator David Silverman for a discussion of the show, its development, and its enduring popularity on Fox, where it’s currently in its 36th season.

Selman said,

“So many of our fans now are young people, like, really young people…between the ages of, like, 8 and 12, watching it on Disney+, and it becomes their favorite show for, like, four years before they move on to harder and crazier stuff. They watch every episode, and it kind of informs their worldview. … We get a chance to teach them our worldview, to show them how to look at the world with skepticism and curiosity and also empathy.”

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