The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about my favorite animation is The Simpsons. Besides the great storyline, I am more drawn to the animation because I am highly intrigued by the animation of the characters and the whole scene. And this is why I want to talk about an influential animator, Matt Groening. Matt Groening, born in 1954, is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, and animator. He is most known for his works on the comic strip Life in Hell (1977–2012) and the television series The Simpsons (1989–present), as he is the creator of both. Matt has also worked on several others, such as Futurama (1999–2003, 2008–2013) and Disenchantment (2018–present). Before his rise to fame, he first dipped his toes in the animation industry by making the comic strip Life in Hell, where the cartoon was carried in 250 weekly newspapers at Wet Magazine. However, Matt Groening is known for his hit animated Television series, The Simpsons.
The Simpsons is the longest-running U.S. primetime television series in history and the longest-running U.S. animated series and sitcom. This is precisely what I find very inspiring about his work. Matt, alongside his team, is still on track as they are constantly working on the animation to tell a story and adhere to different audiences as time goes by. This shows that, as an animator, he is able to be adaptable enough to increase the quality of the animation, but at the same time, it does not lose the core storytelling characteristics of the animation. In other words, I am inspired that the animation sustained the pressure of existing at different times and had to adapt to new technologies. This is not an easy task to do as it will take a lot of reanimating the characters and the settings. On top of that, the show has won 31 Emmy Awards. This resilience and persistence inspire me to become a better digital media designer.
When it comes to The Simpsons, an original piece of animation, the most intriguing aspect was the fact that the characters were not human-like. Starting from the color and the shape of the characters stood out to me the most. For the first few short episodes aired on TV, the characters and the setting look like a bad drawing, but because of the fluidity and exaggerated expression seen on the characters’ faces and bodies. It was refreshing to see that badly drawn animated characters can bring so much to the story as a lousy drawer myself. With the topics we are learning in class about animation, now it made more sense as to why The Simpsons was a great hit. It is not about how well the characters look like humans or the attention to detail; the essential aspect of animation is to make sure that it is animated to tell a unique story. This is what we are witnessing while watching The Simpsons. Even though the characters had spiky hairs and a lot more motion in its animation style, it made the characters funnier and, in unorthodox ways, relatable-at least that how I saw it.
Furthermore, the other interesting aspect is that during its debut, the characters and the setting were drawn by hand. Matt was solely responsible for creating the characters for each frame, resulting in differences of appearance in the characters. This is interesting because, at first glance, I did not notice those differences; I just felt that the animation was unique and needed some work, but I didn’t know exactly what was causing it.
As a fan of this animated TV series, it was incredible to see the growth and adaptation to technology and see how far they came. The Simpsons came a long way as an animated series, as it came from using traditional 2D animation to fully CG animated episodes and incorporating shadows to give a 3D aspect to it. With that being said, from its first premiere to its latest episode, I genuinely admire the work of Matt’s animation growth and the result that came from it.
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