Matt Groening is set to appear on late-night TV for the first time in more than a decade.
The Simpsons creator will stop by NBC’s Late Night With Seth Meyers on Thursday to promote his upcoming Netflix show, Disenchantment. Meyers’ other guests will include Jessica Biel and Awkwafina.
Groening previously appeared on Late Night With Conan O’Brien (a former Simpsons writer himself) in 1994 for the show and again in 2007 to promote The Simpsons Movie. His first late-night appearance was on Late Night With David Letterman in 1989 to promote the pilot for The Simpsons.
The press-shy Groening has granted a number of interviews as of late to talk about his new animated series, but some controversy has also come from those chats.
In an interview with The New York Times, Groening was asked about the now-controversial Simpsons character Apu and the remarks (“People love to pretend they’re offended”) the animation pioneer made in a USA Today story about the Indian-American character voiced by a white actor.
“That wasn’t specifically about Apu. That was about our culture in general. And that’s something I’ve noticed for the last 25 years. There is the outrage of the week and it comes and goes,” he told The Times. “I think particularly right now, people feel so aggrieved and crazed and powerless that they’re picking the wrong battles.”
When Groening was interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter, he said: “One of the great things about these days, everybody gets to comment.”
Asked if it was fair to ask a creator to change a long-standing character he loves because the cultural context has shifted, Groening replied, “No,” and added, “It’s a free country. Everybody gets to pipe up.”
