THE WINNERS WRITE THE HISTORY

You probably know Matt Groening as the wildly successful creator of The Simpsons. The show is the longest-running primetime series in US and has won 32 Emmy Awards, ten in the category of Outstanding Animated Program alone. What’s more, its record 636 episodes have been nominated for the Emmy 89 times.

Believe it or not, The Simpsons is number four on the list of Emmy winners, behind only Fraser, Game of Thrones, and Saturday Night Live. That means the cartoon has bested most of your favorite shows, including Cheers, Hill Street Blues, The West Wing, The Sopranos, Taxi, Mad Men, Star Trek, Sex and the City, and every other show that’s been on television.

But before all these accolades, it didn’t look like Groening (rhymes with “complaining”) would be such a breakout success.

He first sold his cartoons at a Portland record store for two dollars each. He made a living delivering newspapers for more than six years.

Groening drew a series of cartoon strips, starting with Life in Hell, followed by Love Is Hell, Work Is Hell, School Is Hell, Childhood Is Hell, and Akbar and Jeff’s Guide to Life. Life in Hell — his first published strip — was unceremoniously cut from the newspaper after Groening wrote an angry letter to the editor about another writer.