Bort: A History of The Sampsons

It all started in 1984 when a superstar named Mat Groning, a mole rat wanted to create a comic called the life of Binky: Bort’s adventure. Mat Groning met Mel Brooks. Groning showed Mel the comic and spat on it and threw it in his face and said, "fuck you, your comic sucks." Groning was mad so he went to Mel Gibson instead. Gibson was enthusiastic and went to his family of gibbons to recreate it in live action. He then said to Groning that he only has enough actors for one gibbon and a banana. Groning didn't mind so he wrote the script full of monkey sounds. It would be a satirical take of the American zoo.

The filming and scripting were complete and Gibson and Groning sent it to Hollywood. Hollywood, with its main CEO being the 100-year-old Mel Brooks, knowing that his comic was shit, refused. Gibson had to hire a Hollywood veteran for help, Sam Simon, a lighthouse operator and the producer of King Kong back in 1920. Simon showed it to Mel Brooks. He still refused. It was not until Simons lawyers caught on and got sued 100 billion dollars. Mel had no choice but to agree.

The first episode aired in 1985 as part of the Tracey Ullman show. It starred Bort, Liza, Homere, Morge and Muggie. But the Gibson realized he ran out of money to hire another gibbon so it had to be animated. groning would use MS paint and draw distorted looking crude characters. Groning forgot they were meant to be monkeys but Gibson didn’t mind.

The show remained on Tracey Ullman for 2 years until 1987 when Sam worked on the pilot for the series without Groning’s and Gibson’s permission. Simon would be sued and not be allowed to show anyone the pilot. Groning then changed his mind a year later in 1988 and showed the pilot to everyone. It was so well received that there were already bort games in development and Bort t-shirts.

It would be made into a full series the following year in 1989. Mel hated so much he threatened to cancel it multiple times.The voice actors were Nancy Cartwright for Bort and every other character by Gibson himself with female characters being his voice at a higher pitch. The show was critically acclaimed and would spawn only 1 set of merchandise. Mel officially apologized as it made money for his company which was losing money at a very fast rate and even offered Groning to become CEO, he refused.