Sam Simon, who became the showrunner on “Taxi” at age 23 and went to become a major creative force on “Cheers,” “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” and “The Simpsons,” succumbed to a long, public fight with cancer on Sunday.
Simon was one of the most awesome human beings on this planet.
He squeezed laughs out of the behavior of Homer, Bart, Lisa and Marge Simpson from their first televised appearance on Fox’s “Tracey Ullman Show,” another series on which Simon served as writer-producer.
While cartoonist Matt Groening (using his parents and siblings as models) named the Simpsons and created their physical appearance, it was Simon who assembled and led the spin-off’s first writing staff, snagging a lot of the screenwriters he worked with on “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show.”
If you’re one of those who wonders why “The Simpsons” isn’t anywhere near as funny as it was a quarter-century ago, know that Simon stopped writing for history’s longest-running sitcom at the end of its fourth season.
Brad Bird (“The Incredibles,” “Ghost Protocol”), who directed two episodes of “The Simpsons” during Simon’s tenure there, described Simon as "the unsung hero" of the show.
A renaissance zillionaire, Simon subsequently spent eight years managing boxer Lamon Brewster, a run that culminated in Brewster defeating heavily favored Wladimir Klitschko in 1994 -- a win that that elevated Brewster to WBO Heavyweight Champ.
Simon was a six-time in-the-money finisher at the World Series of Poker, and in 2009 created for The Playboy Channel a series titled “Sam’s Game,” which featured celebrities Norm Macdonald, Artie Lange, Brande Roderick, Dave Attell and Jennifer Tilly challenging Simon at poker.
While studying psychology at Stanford, Simon landed his first job as cartoonist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Following graduation he served as a storyboard artist for Filmation Studios series like “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” which led to writing Filmation cartoons.
Though the fabulously wealthy Simon had largely gotten out of sitcom writing by 1995, he emerged from retirement in 2006 to script and direct for radio’s “Howard Stern Show” a hilarious half-hour lampoon of Stern’s personal life titled “The Bitter Half” (aka “Really Desperate Housewives”).
If none of this were enough to garner Simon (a lifelong atheist) his own condo in Heaven, Simon used his “Simpsons” millions in 2002 to create and fund The Sam Simon Foundation, which rescues otherwise doomed dogs and trains them to serve as companions to the deaf. It also saves dogs’ lives by offering free surgeries for animals in need. And a lot more.
In 2011 Simon established the Sam Simon Foundation Feeding Families program, a vegan food bank that helps feed some 400 families per day.
These are just some of Simon’s charitable efforts.
In 2012 Simon said doctors gave him three to six months to live.
Last August the pop culture site Fusion announced it had received exclusive rights to chronicle Simon’s final days.
Read Fusion’s post about Simon saving gay bulls and orphaned chinchillas and tell me there’s not a movie in Sam Simon’s life.
