Which episode of The Simpsons did the famous yellow family's own creator refuse to take a credit for? Matt Groening is a name that will forever live in animation legend, largely thanks to his work on The Simpsons. Groening first began developing the idea in 1985, and The Simpsons would debut 2 years later before going on to achieve unprecedented global success with a unique blend of heart, humor and snarky satire. Serving as an executive producer since the very beginning, Groening continues to work on The Simpsons to this day and wrote both the 2007 movie and a select few classic episodes.
Naturally, Groening is credited on every episode of The Simpsons, but there is one notable exception. Premiering in 1995, The Simpsons season 6 features the episode "A Star Is Burns." This story sees Springfield hold a film festival in order to elevate their cultural status, and a cinematic battle is created between Barney Gumble's "Pukahontas" - an introspective, black and white look at alcoholism - and Mr. Burns' "A Burns For All Seasons." Essentially, the conflict is a play on the struggle between big budget movies and artistic integrity, and Barney eventually gets the recognition he deserves. Although not one of the elite episodes, "A Star Is Burns" does feature the memorable "Hans Moleman presents Man Getting Hit By Football" gag.
Initially, Groening attempted to have "A Star Is Burns" pulled from The Simpsons season 6 altogether but ultimately failed to do so and settled for having his name removed from the credits, disassociating from the story as much as possible. This is quite a drastic step for the creator to take, but Groening certainly had his reasons. In 1994, The Simpsons producers Al Jean, Mike Reiss and James L. Brooks launched a new animated TV series called The Critic, which followed the life of a movie reviewer called Jay Sherman and acted as a love letter to Hollywood. Aside from its producing trio, The Critic shared various other similarities with The Simpsons including voice actors (Nancy Cartwright, for example), the style of humor and references to Homer, Bart and other characters created by Groening.
The film festival in "A Star Is Burns" puts together a panel of judges to oversee the event, and Jay Sherman appears as a guest character, effectively making the episode a crossover between The Simpsons and The Critic. Although both shows did share figures behind the scenes, Matt Groening was not one of them. Fans had already started drawing comparisons between The Simpsons and The Critic, with some even mistakenly linking Groening to the new series. Sharing his feelings with the LA Times, Groening didn't want to be further associated with The Critic, and resented The Simpsons being used as a commercial for Jean, Reiss and Brooks' other series. The feud boiled over, with Groening criticized for taking the issue into a public forum and some taking the opportunity to air other behind the laughter grievances.
Whether Groening should've discussed the issue so openly is difficult to say, but it's certainly easy to understand where he's coming from. Although the success of The Simpsons was a collaborative effort, Groening was the original creator, and few would actively want their series used to promote another. It could also be argued that the cross-promotional episode is somewhat hypocritical given The Simpsons usual mocking of commercialism and selling out.
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