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Though his name may not as familiar as someone like Dick Wolf or Chuck Lorre, the late Sam Simon (1955-2015) was definitely one of the most influential television writers/producers in the history of television. During his lifetime, Simon had a hand in writing and/or producing “Cheers,” “Taxi,” The Drew Carey Show,” “Friends,” “House of Cards,” and “Anger Management.”
That resume alone would have been more than enough to allow Sam to retire on a tropical island and never work again, but, amazingly, we haven’t even mentioned his biggest success. In the late 1980s, Sam co-created a little animated show called… “The Simpsons.”
As of this writing, there have been 36 seasons and more than 775 episodes of The Simpsons. After some animosity with his fellow creators and producers, Sam quit the show after four seasons (81 episodes). Was that a huge financial blunder in hindsight? Nope. Despite the fact that he quit the series in 1993 after just four seasons, Sam continued to be paid as an Executive Producer for the rest of his life (and beyond). More importantly, as co-creator, he owned a lucrative chunk of the show’s backend equity points. Those points made him an ENORMOUS fortune. An enormous fortune that he spent the last twenty years of his life giving away. Sam died in March 2015 at the age of 59 after a prolonged battle with cancer. Including what he donated upon death, Sam gave away hundreds of millions of dollars to various animal charities in his last few years. He was a truly incredible person, and the world will miss him. This is his inspirational life story…
Sam Simon and Jennifer Tilly / Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Early Career
Sam Simon grew up in Beverly Hills, California, on a street where his neighbors were Groucho Marx and Elvis Presley. He was recruited to play football at Stanford but quit the team after his first practice. Instead of playing football, Simon became the cartoonist for the Stanford student newspaper.
While still an undergrad, he was hired by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner newspapers as a sports cartoonist. This early passion for cartoons landed him his first job after college at a Los Angeles-based animation studio called Filmation. At Filmation, Simon worked as a storyboard artist on the cartoon “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.”
In 1981, a friend encouraged Sam to submit an unsolicited “spec” script to the creator of the hit show “Taxi.” Incredibly, the producers loved his script so much that they not only turned it into a full episode, they also hired Sam as a full time writer. He was just 26 years old. By 1983, when he was 30 years old, Simon had risen to the level of showrunner (the most important day-to-day manager on a show). He was the youngest network television showrunner of all time until 26-year-old Josh Schwartz ran “The O.C.” in 2003. After Taxi ended, Sam worked as a staff writer on the first three seasons of another little sitcom called “Cheers.”
Origins Of The Simpsons
Taxi was created and executive produced by the prolific writer/director/producer James L. Brooks. In 1987, while serving as executive producer on The Tracey Ullman Show, Brooks had an idea. He wanted to feature short animations when coming in and out of commercials. For one of the cartoons, Brooks reached out to animator Matt Groening, whose “Life in Hell” series was syndicated in newspapers around the country. The first obvious concept was to simply create an animated version of the Life in Hell strips. But after learning that he would be forced to rescind his life’s work’s publishing rights, Groening decided to pitch a brand new series at the very last minute. The short series Groening pitched revolved around a dysfunctional family called “The Simpsons.” Tracey Ullman cast members Dan Castellaneta and Julie Kavner volunteered to provide voices for cartoon parents Homer and Marge Simpson.
Fun fact: Matt Groening’s real-life parents were named Homer and Margaret “Marge” Groening. His mother’s maiden name was Wiggum. His paternal grandfather was named Abram, AKA “Abe.” His older sister is named Patty and his two little sisters are named Lisa and Maggie (he also has an older brother named Mark).
After running as short animated bumpers for two years on The Tracey Ullman Show, audiences were demanding to see more of The Simpson family. James L. Brooks paired Matt Groening with his old friend Sam Simon and set them out to develop The Simpsons into a full-time, half-hour show.
The Simpsons premiered on December 17, 1989. Thirty-six seasons later, The Simpsons has produced 775 episodes as of this writing and is considered one of the greatest television shows of all time. Tracey Ullman, whose show was canceled in 1990, tried unsuccessfully to sue for a piece of The Simpsons after it became a worldwide phenomenon.
Sam Simon was the creative driving force of the early days of The Simpsons. He served as creative supervisor and hired the entire first writing staff. Simon also helped design the fictional world of Springfield and created the characters of Mr. Burns, Chief Wiggum, Bleeding Gums Murphy, and Dr. Hibbert, to name a few. Simon never believed the show would last, so his goal for the first season was simply to create 13 episodes that his friends would find funny. With that mindset, he gave the writing staff the freedom to do whatever they wanted in those early episodes. That attitude is arguably the reason the show was such a huge hit among both old and young audiences.
Unfortunately, Matt Groening was insulted by that attitude and interpreted it as Simon being uncommitted to the show. As the show became a sensation, Simon resented Groening’s new-found fame and glory, which he thought should have been his own. Tensions reached a boiling point in 1993 when, after four seasons of contention and bitterness, Simon offered to leave the show.
Cashing In
When Sam offered to leave the show, he didn’t exactly walk away empty-handed. He shrewdly negotiated a deal that would allow him to retain his backend points on the show’s syndication and home video sales, as well as his executive producer credit. Keep in mind that in 1993, home video was basically a non-existent market. Sam would have been forgiven had he relinquished that seemingly worthless deal point. Fast forward a few decades and we all know that The Simpsons is one of the most popular and successful syndication, DVD, and VHS properties in the history of Hollywood.
The Simpsons has sold over 25 million DVDs, generating over a billion dollars in revenue. Global syndication of The Simpsons has generated billions and billions and billions in revenue.
To this day, 30 years after he left the show and nearly a decade after he died, Sam Simon is still credited on every episode of The Simpsons as executive producer.
So, how did that impact Mr. Simon’s bank account? When you combine back-end syndication, home video/DVD sales, and his executive producer credit, Sam earned $20-30 million every year off The Simpsons. That’s $20-30 million per year off a show he hadn’t worked on since 1993. In total, Sam Simon earned hundreds of millions of dollars off The Simpsons royalties.
In a 2013 interview with Marc Maron, Sam admitted that he hadn’t watched the show in years.
Retirement And Philanthropy
After retiring in 1993 at the ripe old age of 38, no one would have blamed Sam if he spent the next twenty years dating Playboy Playmates and partying all over the world. Actually, he did end up marrying a Playmate named Jami Ferrell, but their union lasted a scant three weeks. His other marriage was to actress Jennifer Tilly. They were married from 1984-1991. They remained close friends for the rest of his life.
When Sam and Jennifer finalized their divorce in 1993, he agreed to give her a 30% cut of the net profits he received from The Simpsons going forward. Years later, that would amount to $6-10 million per year for Jennifer. This arrangement had long been rumored but was officially confirmed following his death when Tilly and Simon’s estate agreed to a new payment method for her share of the royalties. When Sam was alive, Jennifer received her royalties from Sam’s company, Coconino Inc. The new arrangement allowed for Jennifer to receive her cut directly from Fox going forward.
Sam dedicated the last 20 years of his life to philanthropy. He was especially generous when it came to animal causes.
In 2002, he self-funded the creation of The Sam Simon Foundation, which operated a mobile clinic to provide free surgeries for dogs and cats and adopted shelter dogs who were set to be euthanized. At any given time, his animal shelter in Malibu housed hundreds of dogs. In a 2007 “60 Minutes” profile, the shelter was described as:
“…the grandest dog shelter in the country, a five-star, six-acre spread in Malibu, perhaps the most desirable real estate on the planet. Here, among the waterfalls and the manicured grounds, The Sam Simon Foundation gives stray and abandoned dogs a new lease on life, literally.”
Sam served on the executive committee for PETA for much of his adult life. In 2013, PETA renamed its world headquarters in Virginia the “Sam Simon Center.” The anti-whaling organization Sea Shepherd named its flagship boat the “SS Sam Simon”. After another huge undisclosed donation, Sea Shepherd named a second boat the “MY Sam Simon.”
WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images
WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images
After being diagnosed with terminal colon cancer late in 2012, Simon chose to spend his remaining years donating his entire net worth to charity. When Marc Maron asked what would happen to his fortune after his death, Simon, who had no children, explained:
“I’ve given most of it away… I won’t be rich until we get [my next] quarterly installment from The Simpsons!”
At another point in the podcast, Sam encouraged everyone to do their part to help the environment and animals. Even if that just means doing a “meatless Monday.”
Sam Simon died on March 8, 2015 at the age of 59. We truly admire Sam for all of his accomplishments. The world needs more people like Sam. Rest in peace, friend! You will be missed.
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