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Matt Groening knows what a real theremin sounds like.

As a kid who grew up on the celluloid junk food of the 1950s and ’60s, “The Simpsons” creator heard the ghostly wail of that early electronic instrument in sci-fi film scores and in albums by his beloved Frank Zappa. Its cousin, the ondes martenot , was featured in one of Groening’s favorite classical pieces — the “ Turangalîla-symphonie ” by Olivier Messiaen — which would inspire the name for a lead character in “Futurama,” Turanga Leela.

So, when composer Alf Clausen was recruited in the sophomore season of Groening’s popular new show about a yellow nuclear family and answered a request to use theremin — a small lectern

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