The Simpsons (franchise) In 2008, $750 million worth of "The Simpsons" merchandise was purchased worldwide. Peter Byrne, Fox executive vice-president of licensing and merchandising, called "The Simpsons" "without doubt the biggest licensing entity that Fox has had, full stop, I would say from either TV or film." Matt Groening conceived of the idea for the Simpsons in the lobby of James L. Brooks's office. Brooks, the producer of the sketch comedy program "The Tracey Ullman Show", wanted to use a series of animated cartoons as bumpers between sketches. Groening had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts, and had intended
Peep Show (TV series) "POV", as noted by David Mitchell on the DVD commentary for the first episode of the first series. Spike TV commissioned its own version in 2008, originally to be written and directed by Robert Weide, who is the executive producer of "Curb Your Enthusiasm". It was to be written by Armstrong and Bain, but it never went to series. A book entitled "Peep Show: The Scripts and More", which featured the scripts of every episode from the first five series as well as an introduction from Mitchell and Webb, was released in 2008. To celebrate the show, Channel 4 aired