Quote: Rico El Vista @ February 22 2011, 6:38 PM GMTI read in a 'reputable' newspaper (ie: not a red-top) that Tracey Ullman not only quit the UK to marry a rich Yank (or somebody rich), but she also went on to amass a personal fortune of $75 million (and counting) on the grounds that she accepted a cut of all future Simpsons profits by screening clips on her show in the (then) unlikely event of the animation becoming a worldwide smash-hit.
Nobody else would touch The Simpsons with a barge-pole in the early, unknown days, and Groening & co. were pretty keen to get much-needed publicity... it looks like it was a very lucrative business move for our Trace.
Incorrect. The Simpsons was created specifically for The Tracey Ullman Show, IIRC to buffer one of the ad breaks. It's quite likely she was one of the producers on the show, so really was - although perhaps not creatively - involved with bringing the family to life.
It was the success and popularity of the short animations in The Tracey Ullman Show that lead Fox to commission The Simpsons in its own right.
