Matthew Abram Groening is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, and animator. He is best known as the creator of the television series The Simpsons (1989–present), Futurama, and Disenchantment (2018–2023), and the comic strip Life in Hell (1977–2012). The Simpsons is the longest-running American primetime television series in history and the longest-running American animated series and sitcom.
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Set in the fictional town of Springfield, it caricatures society, Western culture, television and the human condition.
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company and later revived by Comedy Central, and then Hulu. The series follows Philip J. Fry, who is cryogenically preserved for 1,000 years and revived on December 31, 2999. Fry finds work at the interplanetary delivery company Planet Express, working alongside the one-eyed mutant Leela and the robot Bender. The series was envisioned by Groening in the mid-1990s while working on The Simpsons; he brought David X. Cohen aboard to develop storylines and characters to pitch the show to Fox.
John William DiMaggio is an American actor. His various voice roles include Bender on Futurama, Jake the Dog on Adventure Time, Marcus Fenix in the Gears of War series, Dr. Drakken on Kim Possible, Hak Foo in Jackie Chan Adventures, The Scotsman on Samurai Jack, Brother Blood on Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go!, Shnitzel on Chowder, Fu Dog on American Dragon: Jake Long, Hammerhead and Sandman on The Spectacular Spider-Man, Aquaman on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, King Zøg on Disenchantment, Jocktopus on Fish Hooks, Wakka and Kimahri in Final Fantasy X, Rath in the Ben 10 franchise, Crosshairs, Leadfoot, Nitro Zeus, Transit and Stratosphere in the Transformers film franchise, and Gonza in the English version of Princess Mononoke.
Craig Michael Bartlett is an American animator. He wrote, directed, created, and produced the Nickelodeon television series Hey Arnold! and the PBS Kids television series Ready Jet Go! and Dinosaur Train.
The first season of Futurama began airing on March 28, 1999 and concluded on November 14, 1999, after 13 episodes.
Cel shading or toon shading is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make 3D computer graphics appear to be flat by using less shading color instead of a shade gradient or tints and shades. A cel shader is often used to mimic the style of a comic book or cartoon and/or give the render a characteristic paper-like texture. There are similar techniques that can make an image look like a sketch, an oil painting or an ink painting. The name comes from cels, clear sheets of acetate which are painted on for use in traditional 2D animation.
Marvel Studios, LLC, formerly known as Marvel Films, is an American film and television production company. Marvel Studios is the creator of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), a media franchise and shared universe of films and television series produced by the studio, based on characters that appear in Marvel Comics publications. The studio was founded in 1993 by Avi Arad as part of Marvel Entertainment Group and has been led by producer Kevin Feige, who serves as its president since 2007. The studio originally licensed the film rights to several Marvel characters before beginning to produce its own films in 2004, and has since regained many of those rights. In 2009, the Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Studios' parent company Marvel Entertainment, and in 2015, they transferred Marvel Studios to the Walt Disney Studios, which has been a part of the Disney Entertainment division since 2023. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures has distributed most of the studio's films since The Avengers (2012).
Film Roman, LLC, is an American animation studio currently based in Woodland Hills, California and formerly in Burbank. It was previously owned by Starz Inc., which is now a division of Lionsgate, and currently by Waterman Entertainment, the production company of producer Steve Waterman.
DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA) (also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios or simply DreamWorks) is an American animation studio owned by Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The studio has released a total of 49 feature films, including several of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, with Shrek 2 (2004) having been the highest at the time of its release. Its first film, Antz, was released on October 2, 1998, and its latest film, The Wild Robot, was released on September 27, 2024. They have an upcoming theatrical slate of films, which includes Dog Man on January 31, 2025, How to Train Your Dragon on June 13, 2025, The Bad Guys 2 on August 1, 2025, Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie on September 26, 2025, and Shrek 5 on July 1, 2026.
Rough Draft Studios, Inc. is an American animation production studio based in Glendale, California, with a second studio in Glendale and its sister studio Rough Draft Korea located in Seoul, South Korea. The studio was founded in Van Nuys, Los Angeles by Gregg Vanzo in 1991.
Fox Animation Studios was an American animation production company owned by 20th Century Fox and located in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox Animation and was established by animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. It operated for six years, until the studio was shut down on June 26, 2000, ten days after the release of its final film, Titan A.E.. Most of the Fox Animation Studios library was later acquired by Disney on March 20, 2019. Anastasia is the studio's most critically praised and commercially successful film, as well as the most commercially successful film by Don Bluth.
Richard L. Moore is an American film and television animation director, screenwriter and voice actor. He is best known for serving as a director on primetime animated television series such as The Simpsons, The Critic and Futurama as well as directing the films Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Zootopia (2016) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) for Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is a two-time Emmy Award winner, a three-time Annie Award winner and an Academy Award winner.
20th Century Animation, Inc. is an American animation studio located in Century City, Los Angeles. Formed in 1994, it is organized as a division and label of 20th Century Studios, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios, and is tasked with producing animated feature-length films. At one point, 20th Century Animation had two subsidiaries: Fox Animation Studios, which was shut down on June 26, 2000, and Blue Sky Studios, which was closed on April 10, 2021. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment distributes the films produced by 20th Century Animation in home media under the 20th Century Home Entertainment banner.
"Space Pilot 3000" is the pilot episode of the American animated television series Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 28, 1999. The episode focuses on the cryogenic freezing of the series protagonist, Philip J. Fry, and the events when he awakens 1,000 years in the future and is the first episode to be set in the 30th century. Series regulars are introduced and the futuristic setting, inspired by a variety of classic science fiction series from The Jetsons to Star Trek, is revealed. It also sets the stage for many of the events to follow in the series, foreshadowing plot points from the third and fourth seasons.
Peter Avanzino is an American animation director. He has directed several episodes of Futurama, and served as supervising director on the 6th and 7th seasons of the series. Avanzino works for Rough Draft Studios in Glendale, California. He has also directed episodes of Drawn Together, Duckman, The Wild Thornberrys, Sit Down, Shut Up, and The Ren & Stimpy Show. He was also a storyboard artist on The Ren & Stimpy Show and The Simpsons. Additionally, he directed the Christmas movie How Murray Saved Christmas. Avanzino currently resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife and kids.
Toonz is a 2D animation software program. The base application is currently managed by Dwango as open-source software under the name OpenToonz. An extended commercial variant for professional individuals and studios, Toonz Premium, is being developed and marketed by Digital Video S.p.A. Toonz has been used by studios such as Studio Ghibli and Rough Draft Studios.
20th Television Animation is an American television animation studio that creates, develops, produces, publishes, and distributes primarily adult animated television series and specials. It is a unit of Disney Television Studios, a subsidiary of Disney Entertainment, which is a division of The Walt Disney Company.
Disenchantment is an American animated fantasy sitcom created by Matt Groening for Netflix. The series is Groening's first production to appear exclusively on a streaming service; he previously created The Simpsons and Futurama for Fox. The story takes place in the fictitious medieval fantasy kingdom of Dreamland, a fictionalized take on the Middle Ages. The series centers on Bean, a rebellious alcoholic princess, as well as her naïve elf companion Elfo and her destructive "personal demon" Luci. Disenchantment stars the voices of Abbi Jacobson, Eric André, Nat Faxon, John DiMaggio, Tress MacNeille, Matt Berry, David Herman, Maurice LaMarche, Lucy Montgomery, and Billy West.
