Matt Groening's Top 100 Things
Matt Groening is the cat's pajamas. Additionally, he has impeccable taste.
1. Vietnamese Spring Rolls or Sex
2. Frank Zappa’s Lumpy Gravy, Uncle Meat, Burnt Weenie Sandwich, Hot Rats, The Yellow Shark, etc.
3. Scuba Diving.
4. Lynda Barry’s Ernie Pook’s Comeek.
5. Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. (2-piano version)
6. Gary Panter’s Jimbo.
7. The Wizard of Oz, directed by Victor Fleming.
8. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Something Happened.
9. Carol Reed’s The Third Man.
10. Oliver Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony and Oiseaux Exotiques.
11. J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.
12. Satiyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy.
13. Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus.
14. Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse.
15. Lee 'Scratch' Perry’s Blackboard Jungle Dub.
16. Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita and Dr. Strangelove.
17. Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II.
18. Yma Sumac’s Mambo!
19. Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy and Sluggo comic strips.
20. Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances and Steamboat Bill Jr.
21. Irving D. Yalom’s Existential Psychotherapy.
22. Anything by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies.
23. Henry A. Shute’s The Real Diary of a Real Boy.
24. Anything by the Comedian Harmonists.
25. Dr. Seuss’s On Beyond Zebra.
26. Ronald Searle’s The Female Approach.
27. Mal Waldon and Eric Dolphy’s The Quest.
28. G. Legman’s Rationale of the Dirty Joke and No Laughing Matter.
29. A Volta, by Ed Lincoln.
30. Nino Rota’s Juliet of the Spirits soundtrack.
31. Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra’s Glen Gray in Hi-Fi.
32. Anything by Erik Satie.
33. Thom Kah Kai soup.
34. Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band’s Trout Mask Replica.
35. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
36. Ren & Stimpy.
37. SCTV.
38. David Letterman.
39. Albert Brooks’ Lost in America.
40. Wim Wender’s Wings of Desire.
41. Son House’s Death Letter.
42. Jackie Chan’s Project A, Part 2.
43. The Avengers (with Diana Rigg).
44. Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle.
45. Eric Knight’s You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up.
46. Anything by Bob & Ray.
47. Tuli Kupferberg’s 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft.
48. Tobias Wolf's This Boy’s Life...
49. The Trumpet King’s Meet Big Joe Turner.
50. Green Acres.
51. R.D. Laing’s Knots.
52. Kids in the Hall.
53. The Fugs’ It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest.
54. Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge comics.
55. "Mistakes", by Madness.
56. Thrift Store Paintings, edited by Jim Shaw.
57. Richard Lester’s How I Won the War.
58. Nicole Hollander’s Sylvia.
59. Cartoons by Heather MacAdams.
60. David Boswell’s Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman comics.
61. Peter Bagge’s Hate comics.
62. Daniel Clowes’ Eightball comics.
63. The Bonzo Dog Band’s Cornology.
64. Suburbia, a book of photographs by Bill Owens.
65. Doug Allen’s Steven comics.
66. Bananas.
67. Dennis P. Eichorn’s Real Stuff comics.
68. Anything by "Big" John Patton (my favourite jazz organist).
69. "Man in the Street" by Don Drummond (classic driving 965 ska instrumental).
70. Andrew Sarris’ The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968.
71. George Anthiel’s Ballet Mechanique.
72. The Compleat Tex Avery (laserdisc box).
73. Eric Berne’s Games People Play.
74. William Cameron Menzie’s Invaders from Mars.
75. James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice.
76. "Crazy" by Patsy Cline.
77. Henry Kane’s Armchair in Hell.
78. Raymond Carver’s Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
79. George Miller’s The Road Warrior.
80. William Kotzwinkle’s The Fat Man.
81. Robert Grudin’s Time and The Art of Living.
82. Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child.
83. The Wizard of Oz, by Salman Rushdie (British Film Institute book on the film).
84. John Lennon’s In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.
85. Art by Kenny Scharf.
86. Martin Denny’s Exotica.
87. Flannery O’Connor’s Collected Stories.
88. Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.
89. John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers.
90. Esquivel’s Infinity in Sound Vol. 2.
91. Dr. Seuss’s The 5,000 Fingers of Dr.T
92. David Greenberger’s Duplex Planet magazine.
93. Kampung Boy and Town Boy, by Lat (Malaysian cartoonist’s autobiographical books).
94. Jim Woodring’s Frank in the River comics.
95. Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor comics.
96. The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Vols. 1-3 (laserdisc boxes).
97. Cartoons by Rowland Emmett (old Punch cartoonist).
98. Joel and Ethan Coen’s Blood Simple.
99. A Critique of Religion and Philosophy, by Walter Kaufman.
100. Any video bloopers featuring small animals biting TV personalities.