A few snippits:

• Groening’s younger son, Abe, likes to tell him that The Simpsons is over, the cartoonist says — that Family Guy is the hot show now.”This is how he puts it,” Groening says, channeling Abe’s voice: “‘I wish Seth McFarlane was my dad.'”
• Which is why, for example, The Simpsons has fun with Ned Flanders, but not because of his religious beliefs.

  “The idea of making fun of the uptight Christian neighbor would be too easy,” Groening says.

  Like the similarly iconic Peanuts comic, Groening believes, The Simpsons keeps audiences interested because while it’s simple on the surface, it often grapples with genuinely complicated issues.

  “With Charlie Brown it was about loneliness and isolation. … Half the strip was about who wasn’t there. The parents were never in the picture. The Simpsons is about alienation, and the ambivalence of living with a family who you love, but who drive you completely crazy.”

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