THE FACE OF GENIUS

A year or two ago Vanity Fair published a great (and long) article about the history of the Simpsons writing room. It shed a lot of light on who exactly contributed what during the show's 800 year run. One thing that struck me when I was reading it was a guy called Sam Simon - Simpsons' show runner in the early 90s. Unlike almost everyone else mentioned in the piece Simon hadn't been interviewed by the writer of the article. In fact some of the other writers made it sound like Simon was unpleasant to work with: relentless, demanding and uncompromising.

Crucially however it was under Simon's reign that the show sprouted wings and developed the depth that would allow it to have such a freakish lifespan. Before Simon The Simpsons was a show about a family. After Simon it was about a whole town. He was responsible for developing the supporting cast almost in its entirity.

It is also no coincedence that the series which bear Simon's paw prints are the funniest series. The Simpsons has been on a depressing, downward slide for more than a few years now. Maybe it needed to have a hard-ass at its core, rejecting line after line, joke after joke, until the programme was sufficently funny.

I was therefore pleased to see a Wikipedia page has popped up for Sam Simon. There wasn't one before. I checked. Look at his crazy career. Poker ace? Dog Saver? Boxing manager? And the fact he still makes $10m a year from The Simpsons despite not having touched it for a decade is impressive. In any case, all hail Sam Simon - the architect of Springfield.