simpsons-bookThe Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History is a new book out this week from Faber and Faber, an expansion of author John Ortved’s 2007 article for Vanity Fair. In a blog post for The Daily Beast, Ortved outlines the difficulties he had writing the story, largely because James L. Brooks and Matt Groening put the clamps down when they heard that Ortved was asking about deposed producer/writer Sam Simon, who left the show after the fourth season. A snippet (emphasis mine):

Groening was not considered a great asset by many in The Simpsons writers room; he was not a sitcom writer and didn’t really didn’t know how to tell those kinds of stories, and Sam Simon let him know it. Once while discussing a script where Marge finally lets her hair down, Matt really wanted to reveal that underneath her beehive, Marge had Rabbit ears—Sam, of course, said no. One witness to the early days was particularly annoyed that Groening took so much credit for the show’s success, when “the fat fuck just sat up in his office all day, figuring out ways to make more money [with merchandising]” while Sam Simon and the writers churned out brilliant script after brilliant script.

Even more delightful is Ortved’s description of the corrupted circle jerk that is the Hollywood publicity machine:

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