'The Simpsons' Creator Matt Groening Is Making A New Animated Series For Netflix

As the creator of The Simpsons and Futurama — two of the most beloved animated series of... well, ever — Matt Groening's name will always loom large in pop culture. And now he's preparing to add one more show to his already impressive legacy. Groening is reportedly in talks with Netflix to create a new animated series. 

According to Variety, Netflix is eyeing a straight-to-series order of two seasons of ten episodes each. The trade points out that a large initial order could help offset the long lead time and large production costs of an animated series. But it'd be far from the first Netflix series to begin with a two-season order; House of Cards, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Judd Apatow's upcoming Love were all picked up that way.

No details have been given about the content of the show itself. We don't know what it'll be called, or who'll star in it, or what it'll be about, or when it'll hit Netflix. But given that it's coming from Groening, I think we've got a pretty good reason to be excited about it already. In addition to several animated children's series, Netflix currently offers two grown-up animated sitcoms, BoJack Horseman and Bill Burr's F Is for Family.

Groening's The Simpsons began in 1987 as a series of interstitial shorts on The Tracey Ullman show. In 1989, the family got their own now-iconic half-hour series. The Simpsons entered its 22nd season last fall, and in 2009 became the longest-running scripted show on television. The show is no longer as sharp as it was in its '90s heyday, but it still turns out buzzworthy material on occasion, and the classic episodes are every bit as funny today as they were when they first aired.

Groening's Futurama was nowhere near as long-lived as The Simpsons, but managed the neat trick of coming back from the dead. (And this was back before streaming services like Netflix were running around reviving every brilliant-but-canceled series out there, mind you.) It originally aired on Fox for four seasons from 1999-2003, then came back in 2008 for four straight-to-DVD movies which were later broken up into a 16-episode fifth season. It finished up with two more seasons on Comedy Central, airing from 2010 to 2013.