Homer Simpson
Homer Jay Simpson is the main protagonist of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. Part of the titular family, Homer made his television debut in the short "Good Night" on The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening crafted and designed Homer while waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks's office. Initially called to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic strip Life in Hell, Groening instead developed a new set of characters. After two years on The Tracey Ullman Show, the Simpson family received their own series, which premiered on Fox on December 17, 1989.
Homer is the patriarch of the family; he is married to Marge, with whom he has three children, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. As the family's primary provider, Homer primarily works as a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. He represents numerous American working-class stereotypes: he is overweight, balding, immature, unintelligent, outspoken, aggressive, lazy, ignorant, unprofessional, and deeply fond of beer, junk food, and television. Despite these flaws, Homer is fundamentally a kind-hearted man and fiercely protective of his family, particularly during crucial moments.
In the short films and early episodes of The Simpsons, Dan Castellaneta voiced Homer with a loose impression of Walter Matthau. However, starting with the second season of the full-length series, Homer's voice transformed into a stronger tone to effectively express a wider range of emotions. Homer has also been featured in various Simpsons-related media, such as video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials, and comic books, and has sparked a wide array of merchandise. His iconic catchphrase, the annoyed grunt "D'oh!", has been recognized in linguistics, appearing in The New Oxford Dictionary of English since 1998 and the Oxford English Dictionary since 2001.
Homer is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential television characters of all time and is widely recognized as an American cultural icon. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked Homer ninth on their list of the "50 Greatest TV Icons," and in 2010, placed him first on their list of the "Top 100 Characters of the Past Twenty Years". The Sunday Times referred to him as "the greatest comic creation of time", while TV Guide, in 2002, referred to him as the second-greatest cartoon character. Castellaneta has received four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, along with a special-achievement Annie Award. In 2000, Homer and the family were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Role in ''The Simpsons''
Homer Jay Simpson is the bumbling husband of Marge and the father of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson. He is the son of Mona and Abraham "Grampa" Simpson. Over the first 400 episodes of The Simpsons, Homer held over 188 different jobs. His primary role is as a nuclear safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant in Sector 7-G. This position, which he is unqualified for, often sees him neglecting his duties or falling asleep on the job. His boss, Mr. Burns, frequently ignores or forgets his existence. Creator Matt Groening chose the nuclear plant as Homer's workplace to provide opportunities for comedic chaos. Although Homer's numerous other jobs each last only one episode, earlier seasons often explained how he was fired from the plant and rehired. In later episodes, these transitions became more impulsive, with his side ventures occurring without reference to his regular employment.The Simpsons employs a floating timeline, where characters either do not age or age minimally. Therefore, the show is always assumed to be set in the current year. Despite the show's flexible timeline, several episodes link events in Homer's life to specific time periods. In "Mother Simpson", Homer's mother, Mona, is portrayed as a radical who went into hiding in 1969 after a run-in with the law. "The Way We Was" depicts Homer falling in love with Marge as a senior at Springfield High School in 1974. Similarly, "I Married Marge" implies that Marge became pregnant with Bart in 1980. However, "That '90s Show" contradicts these events, depicting Homer and Marge as a twentysomething, childless couple in the early 1990s. This inconsistency deepens in "Do Pizza Bots Dream of Electric Guitars", which reimagines Homer's adolescence as occurring in the 1990s. Showrunner Matt Selman has addressed these contradictions, stating that no version is "official continuity" and that "they all kind of happened in their imaginary world", allowing viewers to choose the version they prefer.
Homer's age has fluctuated throughout The Simpsons due to its floating timeline. In the early episodes, he was thirty-four, increasing to thirty-six in season four, thirty-eight and thirty-nine in season eight, and forty by season eighteen, though these ages are inconsistent even within those seasons. In the episode "Duffless", Homer's driver's license lists his birthdate as May 12, 1956, making him 36 at the time. During Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein's tenure as showrunners, they aged Homer to thirty-eight, reflecting their own aging and perception of the character. According to the episode guides The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family and Simpsons World: The Ultimate Episode Guide: Seasons 1–20, both authored by Groening, Homer's official age is 36. Homer stands tall and weighs between 239 and 260 lbs.
Character
Creation
first conceived Homer and the rest of the Simpson family in 1987 while waiting in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks's office. Groening was invited to pitch a series of animated shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show and initially planned to adapt his comic strip, Life in Hell. Upon realizing that adapting the strip would require him to relinquish publication rights, he quickly decided to create something new. Groening hastily sketched a concept for a dysfunctional family, naming the characters after members of his own family. Groening named Homer after his father, who himself had been named after the ancient Greek poet. Very little of Homer's character was inspired by Groening's father, and to emphasize that the significance of the name was minimal, Groening later named his own son Homer. Groening explained, "Homer originated with my goal to both amuse my real father, and just annoy him a little bit. My father was an athletic, creative, intelligent filmmaker and writer, and the only thing he had in common with Homer was a love of donuts". On the podcast WTF with Marc Maron, Groening stated in 2025 that the original inspiration for Homer Simpson came from the 1982 PBS documentary series Middletown about the city of Muncie, Indiana, which contains an episode featuring a Shakey's Pizza franchise manager who employed his own kids to make ends meet.While Groening has often mentioned that Homer was named after his father, he has also stated in some interviews that the character Homer Simpson from Nathanael West's 1939 novel The Day of the Locust and its 1975 film adaptation was an inspiration. In a 2012 interview with the Smithsonian Magazine, Groening clarified, "I took that name from a minor character in the novel The Day of the Locust Since Homer was my father's name, and I thought Simpson was a funny name in that it had the word "simp" in it, which is short for "simpleton"—I just went with it". Homer's middle initial "J", which stands for "Jay", is a nod to animated characters like Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, whose middle initial was a tribute to series creator Jay Ward. Homer first appeared alongside the Simpson family on April 19, 1987, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night". On December 17, 1989, these shorts were developed into The Simpsons, a half-hour series on the Fox Broadcasting Company, where Homer and the Simpson family became the central characters.
Design
Homer's typical attire includes a short-sleeved white shirt with an open collar, blue pants, and gray shoes. He is overweight and bald, with a fringe of hair around the sides and back of his head and two curly strands on top.The Simpson family was designed to be easily recognizable in silhouette. The characters were initially crudely drawn because Groening submitted rough sketches to the animators, expecting them to refine the designs; instead, the animators simply traced over his original drawings. Homer's appearance has been noted for its resemblance—intentional or not—to the cartoon character Adamsson, created by Swedish cartoonist Oscar Jacobsson in 1920. When Groening originally designed Homer, he incorporated his initials into the character's features: the hairline resembled an "M", and the right ear resembled a "G". While this design was eventually modified to make the ear appear more natural, Groening continues to draw it as a "G" in sketches for fans. Director Mark Kirkland has described Homer's head shape as resembling a tube-shaped coffee can topped with a salad bowl.
During The Simpsons shorts, animators experimented with Homer's mouth movements, at one point allowing his mouth to stretch beyond his beard line. However, this approach was abandoned when it became overly exaggerated. In early episodes, Homer's hair was more rounded to suggest a disheveled look, but it evolved into the consistently pointed style seen today. During the first three seasons, close-up shots of Homer occasionally included small lines meant to represent eyebrows. Groening disliked this detail, and the lines were eventually removed.
In the season seven episode "Treehouse of Horror VI", Bart, alongside Homer, was rendered as a three-dimensional character for the first time in the "Homer3" segment of the episode. The computer animation was provided by Pacific Data Images. In the final minute of the segment, the three-dimensional Homer transitions into a live-action setting, finding himself in real-world Los Angeles. Directed by David Mirkin, this marked the first instance of a Simpsons character appearing in the real world within the series. In "Lisa's Wedding", which is set fifteen years in the future, Homer's design was modified to reflect his older age. Changes included increased weight, the removal of one hair from the top of his head, and the addition of an extra line under his eye. This older design has since been used in subsequent flashforward episodes.