David Silverman (born March 15, 1957) is an American animator who has directed numerous episodes of the animated television series The Simpsons, as well as its 2007 film adaptation. Silverman was involved with the series from the very beginning, animating all of the original short Simpsons cartoons that aired on The Tracey Ullman Show. He went on to serve as director of animation for several years. He also did the animation for the 2016 film The Edge of Seventeen, which was produced by Gracie Films.
Early life and career[]
Silverman was born to a Jewish family on Long Island, New York. His father, Joseph Silverman, was a chemical engineering professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, for over 30 years. He grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attended the University of Maryland for two years, focusing on art. He then attended UCLA and majored in animation.
Early in his career with The Simpsons, he was a subject on the December 26 1990, episode (#83) of To Tell the Truth.
The Simpsons[]
Silverman is largely credited with creating most of the "rules" for drawing The Simpsons. He is frequently called upon to animate difficult or especially important scenes, become go-to in Season 2 when he animated the first of Homer's many "rants, freak-outs, and heart attacks". He appeared during the end credits of the Simpsons episode "Goo Goo Gai Pan" giving a quick method of drawing Bart, and is a frequent participant on the Simpsons DVD audio commentaries. A cartoon rendering of him can be seen in "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", where he is the animator who draws Poochie (along with renderings of other Simpsons staffers). He was once credited as Pound Foolish as the director of the episode "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular".
Silverman is also the director of The Simpsons Movie, which released July 27, 2007. He originally left The Simpsons during the production of its ninth season to direct additional sequences for The Road to El Dorado for DreamWorks Animation alongside Will Finn. Some of his other film work includes Monsters, Inc. for Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar, for which he was a co-director (alongside Lee Unkrich). He is currently a consulting producer and occasional director. He also worked on the animated films Ice Age, Robots, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.
In 2012, Silverman directed the theatrical short The Longest Daycare starring Maggie Simpson, released in front of Ice Age: Continental Drift. The short was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. He also directed the follow-up theatrical short Playdate with Destiny in 2020, released in front of Onward.