Homer Simpson



"D'oh!"

- One of Homer's catchphrases

"This is the last time I take you kids to the [insert location here]!"

- Homer's catchphrase in the Ullman Shorts.

Homer Jay Simpson, formerly known as Max Power, is the father of the Simpson family. He is overweight, lazy, and ignorant, but also strongly devoted to his wife and children. He works as a low level safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, in Sector 7G, although he's often incompetent, mostly sleeps on duty and eats the donuts provided. He spends a great deal of his time at Moe's Tavern with his lifelong friends Barney, Carl, Lenny, and bartender Moe Szyslak. At home he can often be found sitting on the sofa mindlessly watching TV while snacking on food and drinking Duff beer.

1950s
Homer Jay Simpson was born as the third child of Abraham Simpson, and the first (and only) child of Mona Simpson on May 12, 1956. He was raised on the Simpson farm by his parents until they were forced to move out due to Homer spooking the cows by jumping out of a bale of hay and scaring them into giving sour milk. At some point during his childhood, Abe seemed to feed beer to Homer, but he quit drinking beer until he was older upon Barney's suggestion after he caused a multi-car pileup in his playschool car at school.

1960s
In 1960, Homer experimented to see if he can push fifteen crayons into his nose, which resulted in one being lodged into his brain and being responsible for his current below-average intelligence. In the early 1960s, when Homer was between nine and twelve years of age, Mona went into hiding following a run-in with the law. However, before she started protesting, she took Homer and her husband to the Woodstock Music Festival, where Homer ended up briefly adopting the hippie lifestyle (and Abe Simpson attempted to send him off to the Vietnam War as punishment for wanting to be a hippie). In 1966, Homer, along with Lenny, Carl, and Moe, went over to a deep gorge for a nice swim, but the water was drained. When investigating why the lake was reduced to a muddy pit, he stumbled upon a decomposing corpse inside the pipe, greatly traumatizing him and leading to his occasional overeating and fear of corpses.

1970s
Homer attended Springfield High School and fell in love with Marge Bouvier in 1974. After high school, Homer and Marge bought an apartment at Springfield Place. During this time, Marge received a letter accepting her into college. To pay for her tuition, Abe gave him a job at Simpson Lazer Tag. Along with Lou, Lenny, and Carl, Homer was also part of a barbershop quartet. When Marge became infatuated with her professor, Homer changed the band's name to Sadgasm, and they invented grunge music. Marge realized she really loves Homer, and she went back to him.

1980s
In 1979, Marge became pregnant with Bart. (After discovering this, Homer tore out half his hair.) At this time, Homer was working at Sir Putts-A-Lot, turning the crank spinning the windmill. The two married in Shotgun Pete's 24 Hour Wedding Chapel, a small wedding chapel across the state line. They spent their wedding reception alone at a truck stop, before ending up at the Bouvier House, where they lived at the time. After failing to get a job at the newly built Nuclear Power Plant, Homer left Marge to find a job where he can support his family. He went to work at a taco restaurant called the Gulp 'n' Blow, until Marge found him and convinced him to return home with her. As a result, Homer confronted Mr. Burns and secured a job at the Plant. Two years after Bart was born, Marge became pregnant with Lisa in 1981 (after discovering this, Homer tore out all but three strands of his hair), shortly before the couple brought their first house.

Homer's second leap to stardom was his success as the lead singer and songwriter for the barbershop quartet, the Be-Sharps, even winning a Grammy Award. (He later complains a Grammy isn't worth winning.) During his time with the group, Homer was frequently absent from home, which put stress on his marriage. After the group broke up due to creative differences, Homer went back to Springfield to continue his old life. Some time in the late 1980s, Homer drew up a budget so he can work at his dream job, a pin monkey at Barney's Bowlarama. The budget included buying regular toilet paper and only one of the kids can go to college. Unfortunately for Homer, Marge became pregnant with Maggie in 1988, shortly after he started his new job, and, not being able to support his family, he went back to the Nuclear Plant. Since then Homer started many jobs, including being a professional astronaut for NASA, but ended up back where he began at the Nuclear Plant. He nearly caused the destruction of Springfield a couple of times, after a nuclear meltdown at the plant and polluting Lake Springfield with his petpig's (and his own) waste.

Jobs
When first joining the Power Plant, Homer had a nameless job handling plutonium. He was fired by Barry Mackleberry, his supervisor, for creating a deadly gas leak. He was later re-hired as safety inspector for Sector 7-G, after complaining about the safety of the plant itself. Ironically, the accidents occurring at the plant double every year since Homer was made safety inspector. Homer impulsively quits occasionally to pursue other careers, although he always ends up losing or quitting these jobs. On one occasion, Homer misinterpreted a threat about losing his job as a hint he can take the next day off.

Appearance
Homer's appearance is an overweight balding man. He has a tan stubble that can regrow itself at a very quick rate if he ever shaves. Despite his overweight status, and hate for exercise, he, on occasion, shows surprising physical prowess and agility for a man of his stature, like when training for Whacking Day, he hit several pop-up Snakes with kicks and even back flipping. His baldness is contributed by several factors. Upon finding out Marge was pregnant, he tore out a substantial amount of his hair. Another contribution he is working at the nuclear plant so long, the exposure to radioactivity caused most of his hair to fall out. In one episode, he learned if he repented for all of his sins and became Catholic, he can go to Heaven when he dies. During his confession, he states he masturbated eight billion times, he doesn't plan to stop, and he doesn't regret it. Excessive masturbation can lead to hair loss as well. He wears a white polo shirt, blue pants, and grey shoes.

Personality
Homer suffers from a short attention span complementing his intense but short-lived passion for hobbies, enterprises and various causes. Homer's prone to emotional outbursts; he gets very envious of his neighbors, the Flanders family, is easily enraged at his son, Bart, and strangles him in an exaggerated manner. His trademark phrase to strangling Bart is, "Why you little...!" and on one occasion, "Why you little bastard!". He also spanks Bart sometimes and, in one case, Lisa, but never Maggie.

One time, he was too busy to spank them, so he told them to go to their rooms and spank themselves. He shows no compunction about this, and does not attempt to hide his actions from people outside the family, even showing disregard for his son's well being in other ways, like leaving Bart alone at a port, or allowing Bart to go to court for skateboarding naked on his dare when all he will have to do is attend a 1 hour parenting class signifying not only his disregard for Bart but his extreme laziness. Homer's explosive anger is mostly targeted on Bart. Despite their disadvantages, these common outbursts have likely saved Homer from dying of a pent-up rage-induced heart attack.

Although often selfish he is capable of self-sacrifice, i.e. selling his cherished ride on the Duff Blimp and using the money to enter Lisa in a beauty pageant so she can feel better about herself; giving up his chance at wealth to allow Maggie to keep a cherished teddy bear; spearheading an attempt to dig Bart out after he fell down a well, although he hates doing physical labor; and arranging a surprise second wedding with Marge to make up for their lousy first ceremony, even going so far as to hire one of The Doobie Brothers as part of the wedding band and getting a divorce from Marge, essentially making their second wedding a "real" one.

Homer tends to derive amusement from the misfortune of others. He is also a chronic petty thief and borderline kleptomaniac, stealing everything from TV trays to power tools and air conditioners, even an entire room of the Flanders House from Ned Flanders. He stole golf balls from the local driving range, office supplies (including computers) from work, and beer mugs from Moe's Tavern. Homer has a vacuous mind, but he's still able to retain a great amount of knowledge about very specific subjects. He often shows short bursts of astonishing insight, memory, creativity and fluency with many languages. He is also extremely confident; no matter how little skill or knowledge he has about anything he tries to do, he has no doubt he'll be successful. However, his brief periods of intelligence are overshadowed by much longer and more consistent periods of ignorance, forgetfulness and stupidity. Homer has a low IQ due to many factors: his hereditary "Simpson Gene", his alcohol problem, exposure to radioactive waste, repetitive cranial trauma, and the crayon lodged in the frontal lobe of his brain. He also implied he will have been at least a bit smarter, if not by a substantial amount, if his father tried to give him encouragement rather than beat him down.

The crayon in his brain's possibly the largest causal factor in his stupidity. Homer's intelligence was said to jump up fifty points when he had the crayon removed, bringing him to an IQ of 105, slightly above an average person (though he showed far above average intelligence), but he went back to his old self when he had it reinserted, presumably lowering his IQ back down to its original 55. This IQ score's, however, likely a joke or oversight on the producers' part, because someone with an IQ of 55 will be unable to look after themselves and will be classified as severely mentally handicapped. Also, from the level of intelligence he showed, it's much more likely his IQ was boasted to 135-155. Despite his handicap, Homer does have a degree of long term, calculated planning of what may happen, like when, shortly before taking his "forget-me-shot" from Moe Syzslak, requested for their anniversary party to have a Moon Jump due to realizing exactly what will happen afterwards.

Homer, at times, debates against his own brain. Occasionally, a specific body part, like the face, stomach or liver, is also shown debating with his brain. In one notable scene Homer's mind actually leaves his body out of boredom, causing him to collapse. Homer's also inclined to retreat into fantasy, like daydreaming of Germany as "the land of chocolate". His attitudes toward women, romance, and sex are occasionally shown. While Homer's marriage with Marge is occasionally strained, it seems generally happy. Despite this, Homer's often tempted with other women, and usually shows no qualms with gawking at (and drooling over) attractive women. Homer almost had an affair with Mindy Simmons, but ended up not wanting to. He made the occasional remark denoting his attraction to other women (including beautiful next-door neighbor Maude Flanders, whom he later accidentally kills in a freak accident), even in front of Marge on occasion, despite his wife's neurotic insecurity, but always shows his devotion to Marge in the end.

Religious beliefs
Homer doesn't attend church every Sunday and when he does go it is only for Marge's sake. He frequently sleeps in church, much to the annoyance of Reverend Lovejoy and called Jesus "Jebus". He actually met God face to face several times and even got permission from him in a dream to skip church. (God is a lot less uptight than Marge or Rev. Lovejoy.)

Alter egos
Homer became a superhero named Pieman when The Rich Texan made Lisa cry. He chucks pies in the faces of evildoers or people who deserve to be pied, uses the basement as a Pie Cave and his car as the Piemobile. Bart later acted as his sidekick named Cupcake Kid. He also attempted to don a graffiti alias as "El Homo", meant to be a Mexican take on his name, but erased it when he realized it was one of the words in Spanish for homosexual.

When Homer went to prison for bribing an official, an offered Homer a way out by infiltrating into the Springfield Mafia to spy on Fat Tony. Homer was given a toupee, a wig with a microphone and a camera and a new name, Nicky Bluepants Altosaxophony.

Skills
Homer was part of several bands. He won a Grammy for barbershop, numerous golden records for his grunge band, and was able to help Lisa win a music contest using songs he wrote for her.

He can also pick up foreign languages fairly quickly when it is in his interest. When he and Bart were imprisoned in Japan for a seemingly short amount of time, he was able to speak the language fluently by the time he left.

Health
While varying in physical ability from episode to episode, Homer is consistently portrayed as a binge drinking, over eating, accident prone dare devil who puts absolutely no thought into what his actions'll cost him, all of which made it impossible to get any form of insurance concerning his health. Homer's in the hospital in at least one episode every season, and had several life saving operations not including the one for his triple heart bypass and subsequent installation of his pacemaker he needed after his arteries were clogged with cholesterol. Years of working in a sub standard nuclear facility left his blood irradiated enough to show up on an x-ray, as well as having rendered him sterile.

Homer loves food. He can almost always be seen eating far more than any one man can possibly eat alone. His favorites are foods he knows are bad for him, and will blatantly refuse healthy food like oatmeal and fruit in favor of fatty meals. He was once willing to die upon eating a poisoned éclair despite knowing it will kill him, only to throw it away in horror when Lisa claimed it was low fat. He also seems to have trouble with his hearing because he attended too many rock concerts. His lack of hearing may be the reason he didn't pay attention at any words anyone said. Both Bart and Homer have problem with concentration.

Hair Loss
There are multiple theories how Homer lost his hair. One theory suggests Homer ripped out some of his hair when he realized Marge was pregnant with Bart, then more when he found out she was pregnant with Lisa, and all but the last few hairs when he found out she was pregnant with Maggie. It was once shown that Homer gradually lost his hair over time.

Romantic
Despite being married to Marge, throughout the entire show, Homer had a number of romantic encounters.

Marge Simpson
Homer is the husband of Marge Simpson. They met when they were younger without learning who each other was before meeting again properly in high school. They had three weddings. The two have a very strong marriage which survived cheating, amnesia and many arguments. They have been in love since high school.

Mindy Simmons
Mindy Simmons was an attractive employee at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant who has nearly everything in common with Homer. They attended a convention together and nearly had an affair. After Homer turned her down, he later says she "hit the bottle pretty hard and got fired."

Lurleen Lumpkin
Lurleen Lumpkin is a waitress Homer helped in launching a successful singing career. She attempted to seduce him with no success. She's been married multiple times to men who all look like Homer.

Amber
Amber was the Las Vegas wife whom Homer inadvertently married in Viva Ned Flanders. They managed to get her drunk and made her believe she married Abe which made her run back to Vegas.

Julia
When Homer becomes a famous opera singer, he attracts the attention of a horde of fans including a stalker by the name of. She confesses to Homer she is his to do with as he wants, becoming his personal assistant and attempting to seduce him at every turn. When he proclaims his heart belongs to Marge, she attempts to kill him with no success.

Edna
Homer was one of many individuals to have a relationship with Edna Krabappel.

Barney Gumble
Barney Gumble is one of Homer's best friends. They were both born in 1951 making Homer the same age as Barney. They have been best friends since high school. Homer was the one who convinced him to become an alcoholic.

Lenny and Carl
Lenny and Carl are Homer's co-workers at the Nuclear Power Plant; they were all childhood friends through adulthood.

Future
Eight (8) years in the future, Homer and Marge's relationship finally ended, after Homer blew the family savings on an underwater house. She started dating Krusty the Clown, and eventually Homer fought him to win her back. Homer was beaten, but Marge still decided to go back to him.

Creation
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 members of his own family, with Homer being named after his father. Homer made his debut with the rest of the Simpsons clan on April 19, 1987 in Tracey Ullman short "Good Night". Homer's middle initial "J", revealed to stand for "Jay", was a "tribute" to Bullwinkle J. Moose from Rocky and Bullwinkle, a show Matt Groening loved as a child.

According to Matt Groening, the whole family was designed so they would be recognizable in silhouette.

Voice
Homer's voice sounds different on the shorts than the later half-hour show. Dan Castellaneta's earliest portrayal began as a loose impression of Walter Matthau, but developed into a more robust and humorous voice during the second and third season of the half-hour show, allowing Homer to convey a wider range of emotions. Castellaneta changed the voice, as he could not sustain his Matthau impression for the 9-10 hour long recording sessions and had to find something easier. During an interview with the cast of the show on Inside the Actors Studio, Castellaneta stated Homer's voice was based in part on his own father who often spoke with an exuberant tone.

Foreign dubs
Homer's name is rarely translated, though exceptions occur. In the Arabic version Homer becomes Omar, and it was heavily modified, with alcohol and pork being removed. The Latin American version translates Homer to Homero.

Catchphrase
Homer popularized the annoyed grunt "D'oh!" (made memorable through Dan Castellaneta's distinctive voice work), which began as an abbreviated form of James Finlayson's annoyed "Dooooh" in Laurel and Hardy films and other comedy shorts. This modern interjection found enough popular acceptance to be included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

He also popularized the catchphrase "Mmm...". Many examples of other "mmm...s" are "Mmm...candy", "Mmm...pointy" or "Mmm...hug". He used it less lately.

Homer has other catchphrases. His other catchphrases are Woo Hoo! and Why you little!.

Reception
On May 30, 2003, Homer was made an honorary citizen of Winnipeg, Canada, in recognition of Matt Groening's father Homer Groening, believed to be from the Manitoba capital.

Homer placed second on TV Guide's 2002 Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters, behind Bugs Bunny. In 2005, Homer was listed fifth on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters, one of only four cartoon characters on that list. British TV viewers voted him as the greatest TV character of all time. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly placed Homer ninth on their list of the "50 Greatest TV icons".

The Simpsons has been recommended for use in the teaching of sociology to modern-day college students. The journal Teaching Sociology appraised it as "particularly effective for illustrating sociological themes and encouraging critical thinking among today's undergraduates". The non-academic book The Simpsons and Philosophy, the D'oh! of Homer includes a chapter analyzing Homer's character from the perspective of Aristotelian virtue ethics.

Homer was ranked the second greatest cartoon character by TV Guide, behind Bugs Bunny, and was voted the greatest television character of all time by Channel 4 viewers. For voicing Homer, Castellaneta won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance and a special-achievement Annie Award. In 2000, Homer and his family were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Homer Simpson syndrome
A five-year study of more than 2,000 middle-aged people in France found a possible link between weight and brain function, dubbed the "Homer Simpson syndrome". Results from a word memory test showed people with a BMI of 20 (considered to be a healthy level) remembered an average of nine out of 16 words. Meanwhile, people with a BMI of 30 (inside the obese range) remembered an average of just seven out of 16 words.

Merchandising
Homer's inclusion in many Simpsons publications, toys, and other merchandise is evidence of his enduring popularity. He played central roles in the Simpsons Comics series. The Homer Book, written about Homer's personality and attributes, has been published and is commercially available. Numerous other items such as bottle openers, alarm clocks and other merchandise are widely available for purchase.

Trivia

 * His social security number is 568-47-0008.
 * His blood type is B positive.
 * His earmuff size is XL.
 * He often writes fist-like.
 * His Instagram account is "@homersimpson_official".
 * Homer's PIN is 7431, according to "The Girl Who Slept Too Little".
 * In one episode, he was the only character in the show to say but the "" part was censored by a honk sound.
 * Homer owns the Denver Broncos, despite wanting to own the Dallas Cowboys.
 * In "Fear of Flying", it is shown his favorite song (at the time) was "It's Raining Men".
 * Homer, in fact, died twice. As shown in "Homer's Triple Bypass", when he died of a heart attack, but was revived when Mr. Burns mentioned a ham. And again in "Million Dollar Maybe", when he was trying to calm himself down after stressing about being rich and not being able to tell Marge, but was revived when he realized he was dead and made a desperate attempt to return to his body. He dies countless times in the Treehouse of Horror segments, but they are non-canon.
 * According to "The Blunder Years", his constant eating and fear of corpses was a direct result of his trauma from finding Waylon Smithers, Sr.'s corpse.
 * Homer is 5'11" tall and his shoe size is 11 1/2. He also weighs 240 pounds.
 * He is one of three characters in the series to break a leg and have an episode plot revolve around it. (The other two are Bart and Marge. )