Sam Simon
Samuel Michael Simon was an American television writer, producer and animal rights activist who co-developed the animated sitcom The Simpsons.
While at Stanford University, Simon worked as a newspaper cartoonist and after graduating became a storyboard artist at Filmation Studios. Simon submitted a spec script for the sitcom Taxi, which was produced, and he later became the series' showrunner. Over the next few years, Simon wrote and produced for Cheers, It's Garry Shandling's Show and other programs, as well as writing the 1991 film The Super.
Simon turned to fields outside television in his later years. He regularly appeared on Howard Stern's radio shows, managed boxer Lamon Brewster and helped guide him to the World Boxing Organization Heavyweight Championship in 2004, and was a regular poker player and six-time in the money finisher at the World Series of Poker. Simon founded the Sam Simon Foundation, which consists of a mobile veterinary clinic that goes into low-income neighborhoods offering free surgeries for cats and dogs several days per week, as well as a program that rescues and trains shelter dogs. He also funded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel MY Sam Simon. Simon was engaged at the time of his death, having been previously twice married, including to the actress Jennifer Tilly. Following a profile of Simon on 60 Minutes in 2007, CBS writer Daniel Schorn wrote in an online article that Simon was "perhaps the Renaissance man of the baffling, uncertain age we live in."
Simon was diagnosed with terminal colorectal cancer in 2012 and given only three to six months to live. He bequeathed his $100 million estate to various charities that he actively supported during his lifetime. He died on March 8, 2015.
Early life
Simon was born on June 6, 1955, in Los Angeles, California to a Jewish family. He grew up in Beverly Hills and Malibu. Simon's family lived opposite Groucho Marx. Simon's father, nicknamed Monty was a clothing manufacturer of Estonian-Jewish heritage. Simon had a childhood which has been described as "comfortable" and "privileged". Although his parents wanted Simon to become a lawyer, he was interested in art from a young age, appearing on televised local art programs as young as the age of five. He once was told by Walt Disney that he would one day work at his studio.Simon attended Beverly Hills High School, where he was on the football team and served as a cartoonist for the school newspaper. He was named "Most Humorous" and "Most Talented" in his senior yearbook. He later attended Stanford University, graduating in 1977. Simon had not wished to attend college, but Stanford persuaded him to apply due to his sufficient grades and proficiency at football; Simon quit the football team after one day. Simon drew comics for The Stanford Daily, a college newspaper, but was denied admission to a drawing class for not being talented enough. As he recalled to the Stanford alumni magazine, he was told, "You'd be taking the space of a student who has talent." Simon majored in psychology, but did not focus on his academics.
Career
Early career
While still at Stanford, Simon's first job was a newspaper sports cartoonist for The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner. After graduating, he worked as a television storyboard artist, and later a writer, at Filmation Studios. There he worked on several animated shows, including The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Simon recalls Filmation approving of his work because he was "self-taught and unschooled," but Simon felt the majority of what the studio produced was "awful". On the suggestion of Filmation producer Lou Scheimer who was impressed by Simon's writing ability, Simon submitted a spec script for the series Taxi which was produced as "Out of Commission" and aired in 1981 during its third season. Simon was hired as a writer, quickly becoming showrunner for its fifth and final season in 1983. Simon next worked as a writer and producer on Cheers from seasons one to three, writing five episodes: "Endless Slumper", "Battle of the Ex's", "Fairytales Can Come True", "Cheerio Cheers" and "The Bartender's Tale". Simon created, wrote and produced the short-lived sitcom Shaping Up in 1984, alongside Ken Estin; the show starred Leslie Nielsen as a gym owner and ran for five episodes on ABC. Simon also wrote and produced for Best of the West, Barney Miller and It's Garry Shandling's Show, and wrote the 1991 film The Super.''The Simpsons''
Simon co-developed the animated series The Simpsons, which premiered on the Fox network in 1989 and has remained on air ever since. The show is regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time, with Time magazine naming it the 20th century's best series. The premise for the series originated as a series of short cartoons airing in 1987 as part of The Tracey Ullman Show, on which Simon was a writer and executive producer alongside James L. Brooks, with whom Simon had worked on Taxi. The cartoons were developed into a full series two years later. For The Simpsons, Simon served alongside Matt Groening and Brooks as executive producer and showrunner for the show's first and second seasons, and was creative supervisor for the first four seasons. He assembled and led the initial team of writers, consisting of John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, George Meyer, Jeff Martin, Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky. The cartoonist and writer Mimi Pond, who wrote the first broadcast episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", claimed that she was not permitted to permanently join the show because Simon deliberately kept women out of the writing team.Simon has been credited with "developing sensibility." Former Simpsons director Brad Bird has described him as "the unsung hero" of the show, while Vitti has stated to "leave out Sam Simon" is to tell "the managed version" of The Simpsons history, because "he was the guy we wrote for." Writer Ken Levine called Simon "the real creative force behind The Simpsons... The tone, the storytelling, the level of humor—that was all developed on Sam's watch." Levine says that Simon "brought a level of honesty to the characters" and made them "three-dimensional," adding that his "comedy is all about character, not just a string of gags. In The Simpsons, the characters are motivated by their emotions and their foibles. 'What are they thinking?'—that is Sam's contribution. The stories come from the characters." Simon crafted much of the world of Springfield, and designed the models for many of the show's recurring characters, including Mr. Burns, Dr. Hibbert, Chief Wiggum and Eddie and Lou, as well as many of the one-time and guest-star roles, such as Bleeding Gums Murphy. One of his contributions to the show's character development was his proposal that Waylon Smithers should be gay, but that this should never have too much attention drawn to it; Smithers' sexuality became one of the show's longest-running gags. Simon saw The Simpsons as a chance to solve "what didn't like about the Saturday-morning cartoon shows worked on... wanted all the actors in a room together, not reading their lines separated from each other. The Simpsons would have been a great radio show. If you just listen to the sound track, it works."
The Simpsons utilized a process of collaborative script re-writing by the show's whole writing staff; this meant the credited writer may not have been responsible for the majority of an episode's content. Nevertheless, Simon was credited with co-writing the season one episodes "The Telltale Head," "The Crepes of Wrath," and the season finale "Some Enchanted Evening." "Some Enchanted Evening" was intended to be the show's premiere but was delayed due to substandard animation. Simon adapted Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" for the third segment of the season two episode "Treehouse of Horror." Groening was nervous about "The Raven" because it did not have many gags, and felt it would be "the worst, most pretentious thing ever done" on the show. Nevertheless, the segment has often been praised as one of the best Treehouse of Horror stories in the show's history. Ryan J. Budke of TV Squad described the segment as "one of the most refined Simpsons pop references ever," and knows "people that consider this the point that they realized The Simpsons could be both highly hilarious and highly intelligent." Simon co-wrote the episode "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish" with Swartzwelder, an episode which Tom Shales of The Washington Post has described as "a bull's-eye political satire". The final episode he co-wrote for season two was "The Way We Was," alongside Jean and Reiss. While Reiss and Jean took over as showrunners, Simon remained on the writing staff for seasons three and four. For the third season he co-wrote "Treehouse of Horror II," and conceived the story for the Sideshow Bob episode "Black Widower," together with mystery author Thomas Chastain, hoping to construct a full mystery story; Vitti wrote the episode's teleplay. Simon also substantially contributed to the episode "Stark Raving Dad," pitched the episode "Homer at the Bat," and proposed the "Land of Chocolate" sequence from "Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk." Simon's final writing credit was for the "Dial 'Z' For Zombies" segment of "Treehouse of Horror III."
Although they initially worked well together, Simon and Groening's relationship became "very contentious" according to Groening. Simon never expected the show to be a success, often proclaiming to fellow staff members "We're thirteen and out"—meaning that the show would be cancelled after the thirteenth episode of the first season. Therefore, he also told the staff that they had creative freedom to do whatever they wanted to make The Simpsons as good a show as possible, regardless of network or public opinion, because he thought it inevitably would not be renewed; he elaborated in 2009 that "Really I was saying that to take the pressure off of everyone. I was just saying let's just go out and make 13 episodes that are really good and really funny." However, Groening interpreted it as meaning Simon was uncommitted and did not care whether the show was a success or not, as Simon's career would survive, whereas his own would not. In 2001, Groening described Simon as "brilliantly funny and one of the smartest writers I've ever worked with, although unpleasant and mentally unbalanced." According to John Ortved's book The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History, when the show became successful Simon resented the media attention Groening received, particularly the praise for the show's writing; Simon felt that Groening's involvement was limited, and that he should have been the one receiving credit for the show. Simon later spoke well of Groening's influence, particularly on the show's positive tone.
As well as Groening, Simon was often at odds with Brooks and production company Gracie Films. While working on The Simpsons, he and Brooks had co-created the series Sibs and Phenom as part of a multi-series deal for ABC. Simon did not want to work on either series, both of which were poorly received and swiftly canceled, which put a strain on the pair's relationship.
Simon left The Simpsons in 1993; he commented that he "wasn't enjoying it anymore," wished to pursue other projects, and that of "any show I've ever worked on, it turns me into a monster. I go crazy. I hate myself." Before leaving, he negotiated a deal that saw him receive a share of the show's profits every year, particularly from home media, and an executive producer credit despite not having worked on the show since 1993. The deal means he made over $10 million a year from The Simpsons; he later told Stanford Magazine that "tens of millions" was a closer figure. Simon commented: "When I was there I thought I was underpaid. I thought I wasn't getting enough credit for it. Now, I think it's completely the opposite. I get too much credit for it. And the money is ridiculous."