[695] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
Background on Lisa Simpson going veggie
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Wendy M Mastandrea)
Sat Oct 28 18:12:23 1995
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 18:03:54 -0400
From: wendymas@world.std.com (Wendy M Mastandrea)
To: vegan-l@vm.temple.edu, vsg@MIT.EDU, veg-ne@empire.net
Hi everyone!! Just thought I'd share what information I know about
how the producers decided to make Lisa Simpson go veggie.
Over the summer I attended the International Vegan Festival in San Diego.
I attended a couple of lectures given by Howard Lyman, former cattle
man turned vegan, who was there and he told (paraphrasically) this
story:
As you may or may not know, Howard Lyman travels the country giving
lectures to all kinds of people about the benefits of going vegan.
One time, he gave a lecture that Lisa Presley attended. After the
lecture, she invited him to give a lecture at her house to a small
group of her friends. He, who has always been smitten with her, of
course said yes!
He said when he arrived there, there were about 15 people and most
of them were scraggly looking, especially this one character. He then
spoke to the group. At the end of the talk/discussion, he said this
one guy who had been sitting quietly listening to him got up, told
him that he was full of shit & then walked out.
The next day, he gets a call from this same, scraggly guy who said
to him that he had spent the *entire* day in the library researching
the facts given by Howard and he found out they were all true!!
This man just happened to be Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons.
Matt then invited Howard Lyman to speak with his writing staff at
fox (which he did).
After Howard Lyman's talk with the writing staff of the Simpsons, he
influenced half the staff to become vegetarian (which they are to
this day) and the other half is definitely more open-minded about
vegetarianism!!
Things went on from there and the staff decided, with the influence
of Paul & Linda McCartney, to have Lisa Simpson go vegetarian!
So there you have it!!!! :)
Thought some people on this list might be interested :)
Love,
Wendy
