Matt Waldron · CC BY 2.0

Sam Simon co-developed The Simpsons and served as its early showrunner, having already become Taxi's showrunner from a spec script and written for Cheers. After stepping back from television, he founded the Sam Simon Foundation, funding a mobile veterinary clinic offering free surgeries in low-income neighborhoods and a program that rescues and trains shelter dogs, and helped fund a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel. He died of colorectal cancer in 2015.