I went through a phase where people would introduce me at parties as a cartoonist, and everybody felt sorry for me. 'Oh, Matt's a cartoonist.' Then people further feeling sorry for me would ask me to draw Garfield. Because I'm a cartoonist, draw Snoopy or Garfield or something.

I may be biting off more than I can chew, but with 'The Simpsons' and with 'Futurama,' what I'm trying to do in the guise of light entertainment, if this is possible - is nudge people, jostle them a little, wake them up to some of the ways in which we're being manipulated and exploited.

'The Simpsons' from the very beginning was based on our memories of brash '60s sitcoms - you had a main title theme that was bombastic and grabbed your attention - and when you look at TV shows of the 1970s and '80s, things got very mild and toned down and... obsequious.

I grew up completely overwhelmed by TV, and part of the reason why I have gone into television is as a way to justify to myself all those wasted hours of watching TV as a kid. I can now look back and say, 'Oh, that was research.'

On 'The Simpsons,' I will say that we definitely like to comment on what's going on in the world, and we try to be funny. If we can figure out a way of being funny about it, then we've gone part of the way of accomplishing our task.

Living creatively is really important to maintain throughout your life. And living creatively doesn't mean only artistic creativity, although that's part of it. It means being yourself, not just complying with the wishes of other people.

There's always room out there for the hand-drawn image. I personally like the imperfection of hand drawing as opposed to the slick look of computer animation. But you can do good stuff either way. The Pixar movies are amazing in what they do, but there's plenty of independent animators who are doing really amazing things as well.

The thing about a cartoon is, you can do whatever you want. The tightrope that we are walking on 'The Simpsons' and 'Futurama' is 'How do you continue to surprise the audience, but make them good surprises?' Not every surprise is good, but you want to continue jolting people.

I basically drew my own family. My father's name is Homer. My mother's name is Margaret. I have a sister Lisa and another sister Maggie, so I drew all of them. I was going to name the main character Matt, but I didn't think it would go over well in a pitch meeting, so I changed the name to Bart.

We have 'Doctor Who' references on 'Futurama,' but we have a lot of science fiction references that I don't get; but in the staff we have experts on 'Star Trek,' 'Star Wars,' 'Doctor Who' and 'Dungeons and Dragons.'

Here's to alcohol: the cause of, and answer to, all of life's problems.

Donuts. Is there anything they can't do?

Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun.

Me fail english? Thats unpossible.

People go into cartooning because they're shy and they're angry. That's when you're sitting in the back of a classroom drawing the teacher.

I thought I was going to make crazy cartoons for the rest of my life. I didn't think I'd ever get paid for it, didn't think I drew well enough, but I knew it made me happy.

Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.

My standard comment is, 'If you don't want your kids to be like Bart Simpson, don't act like Homer Simpson.'

The scary thing about the future... there will be tiny cameras everywhere, and they'll be flying around like mosquitoes and drones. That will be bad. Drones are scary. You can't reason with a drone.

Sometimes people try to read into my strip and find out what my state of mind is. And I can say if I'm in a good mood, generally the comic strip starts out in a good mood, but the punchline is very negative and sour.

'The Simpsons' is about alienation and the ambivalence of living with a family who you love but who drive you completely crazy.

The best stories in our culture have some sort of subversiveness - Mark Twain, 'Catcher in the Rye.' You provide kids with great stories and teach them how to use the tools to make their own.

You've got to embrace the future. You can whine about it, but you've got to embrace it.

'The Simpsons' is an especially collaborative show.