Matt Groening Meets Apple

Any fan of The Simpsons should suspect the show's creator Matt Groening has a love of Apple Computers: in the episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car", the devil is revealed using a Mac to run operations in hell. It turns out that Groening wasn't only a fan of Steve Jobs' company: in 1989, he was hired by Apple to provide artwork for a Macintosh brochure. It featured characters from his Life in Hell weekly comic strip, and came out less than a year before The Simpsons became a cultural madness. The brochure is a nice little bit of cultural history (kind of like seeing The Beatles perform in 1962) and gives some good tips on how to use a Mac. To see the whole brochure visit Comics Alliance:

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/06/13/matt-groening-apple-macintosh-brochure-cartoon/

So That's Where It Got It's Name...

"When Guns n’ Roses began to break into the public consciousness, I was known as a big drinker. In 1988 MTV aired a concert in which Axl introduced me — as usual — as Duff 'the King of Beers' McKagan. Soon after, a production company working on a new animated series called me to ask if they could use the name 'Duff' for a brand of beer in the show. I laughed and said of course, no problem. The whole thing sounded like a low-rent art project or something—I mean, who made cartoons for adults? Little did I know that the show would become The Simpsons and that within a few years I would start to see Duff beer glasses and gear everywhere we toured."

From the autobiography It's So Easy (And Other Lies) by Duff McKagan
http://www.maxim.com/amg/MUSIC/Articles/GunsNRoses+Nearly+Killed+Duff+McKagan