Maggie Simpson

 Margaret Evelyn "Maggie" Simpson''' is the youngest child of Marge and Homer, and sister to Bart and Lisa. She is almost always seen sucking on her pacifier and, when she walks, she trips over her clothing and falls on her face. Because she cannot walk or talk, Maggie is the least seen in the Simpson family.

Biography
When Marge became pregnant with Lisa, she and Homer bought their first home. Seven years later, Homer felt financially secure enough to quit his job at the power plant and take his dream job at Barney's Bowlarama. Soon after, Marge became pregnant with Maggie, and, unable to support his family, Homer reapplied for his job at the power plant. Homer fell into a deep depression but when he held Maggie for the first time after she was born he loved her at first sight. He keeps Maggie's baby photos in his office to cheer him up at work.

Maggie has both good and bad qualities. Orally fixated (hence her omnipresent pacifier), she is stubborn, acquisitive, and always seems to eventually get her own way. When she doesn't get what she wants she becomes cholicky or throws tantrums, which cause her family to seek to immediately mollify her. For this reason, other babies want nothing to do with her, which is why she is always seen playing alone or with her siblings.

However, she is also curious, intelligent, and given to rescuing her father from some of the numerous precarious predicaments in which he finds himself. Impressionable and easily influenced by what she sees around her, she once hit her father on the head with a mallet, shot a suction dart at his picture, and brandished a pencil (all in imitation of the ultraviolent television show Itchy and Scratchy watched by her siblings and, indeed, all the children in Springfield). She felt guilty over causing the Springfield Prison break, ultimately blamed on Bart, which got him banned from watching the Itchy & Scratchy movie.

A formidable markswoman with a rifle, she winged and drove off in rapid succession seven mobsters out to kill her parents. She was also behind the shooting of Mr. Burns, which may or may not have been an accident, when he tried to steal her lollipop and his gun fell out of his pocket and the two scuffled.

Maggie maintains an ongoing enmity with Gerald Samson, the unibrowed baby (the two—who share the exact same birthdate—dislike each other very much, likely sparked by Gerald's understandable resentment of the allocation of the only diaper in the hospital to Maggie on the day they were both born, leaving him to be wrapped in a piece of newspaper which left him with a nasty skin rash). The two fought during the St. Patrick's Day Riot, which was sparked among tourists to Springfield from the Emerald Isle by a ban on alcohol after Bart was caught drinking. Maggie was on the side of those representing Ireland (green), while Gerald represented Northern Ireland (orange), although neither baby is Irish and likely selected opposite sides merely to reflect their own continuing antagonism. When the family's house was being raided by an angry mob, she was able to smash her baby bottle and use it as a makeshift weapon (although only against Krusty's monkey, who promptly ran away). In The Simpsons Movie, she rolled a boulder on the head of Russ Cargill, the evil head of the EPA, when he was about to shoot Homer and Bart.

Maggie is often frightened of her father's attempts to bond with her, although she does love him. Instead, Maggie shows a much stronger attraction to her mother instead, possibly because Marge is always at home or shopping with her, while Homer is mostly at work or at Moe's. She is keenly aware of her surroundings, and can usually be seen imitating the flow of action around her. Like Bart, Lisa and Homer, she is not fond of spending time with her aunts Patty and Selma. She bears a strong resemblance to her elder sister, Lisa. Maggie's first word is "Daddy" (although nobody heard her say it), something neither Bart or Lisa called him when they were babies. On another occasion, Maggie's speaks the word "Ya" (which means "Yes" in many Scandinavian and Eastern European nations), after a woman from the city of Ogdenville (occasionally referenced but never seen before or after, and which is filled with depressed, stereotypically accented Scandinavians) eased Maggie's teething pain with some lingonberry ointment. Maggie said "Dadily Doodily" when she and her siblings were in the care of Ned and Maude Flanders and her parents were deemed unfit. Maggie seriously considered remaining with the Flanders family and leaving her father and siblings, relenting only after Marge showed up and called to her.

Appearance
Like Lisa, her hair is like a starfish. She wears a light blue onesie, matching bow, and is almost always sucking on her red pacifier. When the Simpsons go to church, she wears a light blue dress hat.

Future
At age 9, during Bart and Lisa's high school graduation, Maggie visits Alaska, hotter because of global warming. At this age she looks exactly like Lisa does currently and wears a blue dress (as opposed to Lisa's red dress) but Maggie still also wears the tiny blue bow in her hair. At age 16, she dresses in a punk-style fashion. It is said she has a beautiful singing voice and, according to Homer, never shuts up on the phone (ironically, whenever she tries to speak, she is always interrupted). At some point as a young adult she marries her former nemesis, Gerald, but finds his constant interruptions annoying. It is unknown if the marriage lasted. She gives birth to a daughter (Maggie Jr.) who, as a toddler, looks exactly the same as Maggie does now and as Lisa did years earlier.

Treehouse of Horror
In "Treehouse of Horror V" Homer briefly visits an alternate universe and sees Maggie hit Groundskeeper Willie in the back with an axe. She says in James Earl Jones's voice: "This is indeed a disturbing universe". In "Treehouse of Horror VI", Maggie saves Bart and Lisa from Groundskeeper Willie (as a bagpipe spider) in their dream by clogging his pipe with her pacifier. In "Treehouse of Horror IX", Kang is Maggie's real father and was born as the result of Marge being forced to take part in a cross-breeding program. Maggie starts to grow fangs and her arms and legs are replaced by tentacles. Kang attempts to take her with him but instead appears on The Jerry Springer Show with Homer during which Maggie attacks and kills Springer. At the end the Simpsons manage to keep Maggie but she begins asking for blood in Kang's voice.

Behind the Laughter
Matt Groening first conceived the Simpson family in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. He had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts, and intended to present his Life in Hell series. When he realized animating Life in Hell would require him to rescind publication rights for his life's work, Groening decided to go in another direction. He hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family, and named the characters after various members of his own family. Maggie was named after Matt Groening's younger sister Margaret "Maggie" Groening. She often sucked on a pacifier and wore a sleep suit, both of which Maggie almost always does.

Maggie made her debut with the rest of the Simpsons clan on April 19, 1987 in the Tracey Ullman short "Good Night". Groening thought it would be funny to have a baby character who did not talk and never grew up, but assigned any emotions the scene required. Her comedic hallmarks include her tendency to stumble and land on her face while attempting to walk (though this has been downplayed in later seasons), and a penchant for sucking on her pacifier, the sound of which became the equivalent of her catchphrase and was originally created by Groening during the Tracey Ullman period, and by Nancy Cartwright during the regular series.

During the show's opening credits, Maggie is run through a supermarket checkout scanner, which reads she is worth $847.63 (a reference to the monthly cost of infant-rearing in 1989). In "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular", the scanner instead reads "NRA4EVER," a reference to the running joke the show's creators are right-wing radicals. In the newer episodes her price changed to $486.22 (because there had been 486 episodes broadcast as the end of season 22).

Voice
With few exceptions, Maggie never speaks but is very participatory in the events around her, emoting with subtle gestures and facial expressions. Maggie spoke in "Good Night", the first short to air, after the family falls asleep. On this occasion, Liz Georges provided the voice of Maggie. In "Bart vs. Thanksgiving", Bart has a vision of what could happen if he returned home after destroying Lisa's centerpiece. In this vision, Maggie says to him telepathically: "It's your fault I can't talk!" In this scene, she was voiced by Carol Kane.

Maggie's first word spoken in the normal continuity of the series occurred in "Lisa's First Word", when she was voiced by Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor's performance as Maggie was named the 13th greatest guest spot in the history of the show by IGN. James Earl Jones, who voiced Maggie in "Treehouse of Horror V" was in seventh place. She would later have brief dialogue in "Treehouse of Horror IX", voiced by Harry Shearer, who used his Kang voice. Although she spoke many times, she only had two canonical speeches real within the series. Her first canon speech was in "Lisa's First Word", and this word was "daddy", however only the viewers and not the family heard her say this (until the Father's day Clip show); the voice was that of Elizabeth Taylor. Her second speech was in "Coming to Homerica"; this time the family did hear her speak. According to The Simpsons Movie, the first word the family heard Maggie say was "sequel?", in the ending sequence (unless one counts the Father's Day clip show as being canon). Maggie also said some thing in "Four Great Women and a Manicure" when on she is in the court, though this is non-canon since it was a story told by Lisa. This voice was done by Jodie Foster.

Heroism
Maggie has saved people's lives on a few occasions, almost always members of her family. She saved Bart and Lisa from Groundskeeper Willie in "Treehouse of Horror VI" and she saves her parents' lives by winging seven gangsters with a shotgun in Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge. Her parents never knew who was responsible. She even rescued her nemesis, Gerald, from floating into space in Maggie Simpson: Bringing Down Baby.

She saved her father on The Simpsons Movie from Russ Cargill by rolling a boulder down on his head before he could kill Homer and Bart. In "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder", she again saved Homer, this time from drowning. (In realization of her efforts, Homer once told Maggie, "What a great little accident you turned out to be", referring to the fact that her conception was unintended).