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Length	28"	29"	30"	31"

 

From Wikipedia:

 

Ladies' man

A ladies' man is a male seducer of women.

 

Homer Simpson

Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and father of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Homer was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on Life in Hell but instead decided to create a new set of characters. He named the character after his father Homer Groening. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family got their own series on Fox, which debuted December 17, 1989.

 

Homer is the boorish father of the Simpson family. With his wife, Marge, he has three children: Bart, Lisa and Maggie. As the family's provider, he works at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Homer embodies several American working class stereotypes: he is crude, overweight, incompetent, clumsy, lazy and ignorant; however, he is also fiercely devoted to his family. Despite the suburban blue-collar routine of his life, he has had a number of remarkable experiences.

 

In the shorts and earlier episodes, Castellaneta voiced Homer with a loose impression of Walter Matthau; however, during the second and third seasons of the half-hour show, Homer's voice evolved to become more robust, to allow the expression of a fuller range of emotions. He has appeared in other media relating to The Simpsons – including video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials and comic books – and inspired an entire line of merchandise. His catchphrase, the annoyed grunt "d'oh!", has been included in The New Oxford Dictionary of English since 1998 and the Oxford English Dictionary since 2001.

 

Homer is one of the most influential fictional characters on television, having been described by the British newspaper The Sunday Times as "the greatest comic creation of modern time". He was ranked the second greatest cartoon character by TV Guide and was voted the greatest television character of all-time by Channel 4 viewers. Castellaneta has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance and a special achievement Annie Award for voicing Homer. In 2000, Homer, along with the rest of his family, was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

 

Role in The Simpsons

The Simpsons uses a floating timeline in which the characters do not physically age, and as such the show is generally assumed to be set in the current year. In several episodes, events have been linked to specific time periods, although this timeline has been contradicted in subsequent episodes. Homer Simpson is the bumbling husband of Marge and father of Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson. He was raised by his parents, Mona and Abraham Simpson; in the episode "Mother Simpson", (season seven, 1995) it is revealed that Mona went into hiding in the mid-1960s following a run-in with the law. Homer attended Springfield High School, and in his final year fell in love with Marge Bouvier. Marge later discovered she was pregnant with Bart, and the two were married in a small wedding chapel across the state line. Subsequently, Homer was hired to work at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.[4] Bart was born soon after, and the couple bought their first house. The episode "That 90's Show" (season 19, 2008) contradicted much of the established backstory; for example, it was revealed that Homer and Marge were childless in the early 1990s although past episodes had suggested Bart and Lisa were born in the 1980s.

 

Homer's age has increased as the series developed; he was 36 in the early episodes, 38 and 39 in season eight, and 40 in the eighteenth season, although even in those seasons his age is inconsistent. During Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein's period as showrunners, they found that as they aged, Homer seemed to become older too, so they increased his age to 38.

 

Homer has held many different jobs, over 188 in the first 400 episodes. In most episodes, he works as the Nuclear Safety Inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position he has held since "Homer's Odyssey", the third episode of the series. At the plant, Homer is often ignored and completely forgotten by his boss Mr. Burns, and constantly falls asleep and neglects his duties. Matt Groening has stated that he decided to have Homer work at the power plant because of the potential for Homer to create havoc. The rest of his jobs have lasted only one episode. In the first half of the series, the writers developed an explanation of how he got fired from the plant and then rehired in every episode; in later episodes he often began a new job on impulse, without any mention of his regular employment.

 

Personality

Homer's personality and comic efficacy lies in his frequent bouts of stupidity, laziness and his explosive anger. He has a low intelligence level, described by director David Silverman as "creatively brilliant in his stupidity". Homer also shows immense apathy towards work, is overweight, and "is devoted to his stomach". His short attention span is evidenced by his impulsive decisions to engage in various hobbies and enterprises, only to "change... his mind when things go badly". Homer often spends his evenings drinking Duff Beer at Moe's Tavern and, as shown in the episode "Duffless" (season four, 1993), is a borderline alcoholic. He is very envious of his neighbors, the Flanders family, and is easily enraged by Bart. Homer will often strangle Bart on impulse in a cartoonish manner. The first instance of Homer strangling Bart was in the short "Family Portrait". Matt Groening's rule was that Homer could only strangle Bart impulsively, never with pre-meditation, and that it would always be over quickly. Another of the original ideas entertained by Groening was that Homer would "always get his comeuppance or Bart had to strangle him back", but this was dropped.He shows no compunction about expressing his rage, and does not attempt to hide his actions from people outside the family. While Homer has repeatedly upset people and caused all sorts of mayhem in Springfield, these events usually result from a lack of foresight or his intense temper, rather than any malice. Except for expressing annoyance at Ned Flanders, Homer's destructive actions are usually unintentional.

 

Homer has complex relationships with all three of his children. He often berates Bart, but the two commonly share adventures and are sometimes allies. Homer and Lisa have opposite personalities and he usually overlooks Lisa's talents, but when made aware of his neglect does everything he can to help her. He sometimes forgets that Maggie even exists, although Homer has often tried to bond with her; "daddy" was her first word. While Homer's thoughtless antics often upset his family, he has also revealed himself to be a caring father and husband: in "Lisa the Beauty Queen", (season four, 1992) he sold his cherished ride on the Duff blimp and used the money to enter Lisa in a beauty pageant so she could feel better about herself; in "Rosebud", (season five, 1993) he gave up his chance at wealth to allow Maggie to keep a cherished teddy bear; in "Radio Bart", (season three, 1992) he spearheaded an attempt to dig Bart out after he had fallen down a well; and in "A Milhouse Divided", (season eight, 1996) he arranged a surprise second wedding with Marge to make up for their unsatisfactory first ceremony. Homer however has a poor relationship with his father Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, whom he placed in a nursing home as soon as he could. The Simpson family will often do their best to avoid unnecessary contact with Grampa, but Homer has shown feelings of love for his father from time to time.

 

Homer is "a (happy) slave to his various appetites", and would gladly sell his soul to the devil in exchange for a single doughnut. He has a vacuous mind but is still able to retain a great amount of knowledge about very specific subjects. Homer’s brief periods of intelligence are overshadowed however by much longer and consistent periods of ignorance, forgetfulness, and stupidity. Homer has a low IQ of 55 which has variously been attributed to the hereditary "Simpson Gene", his alcohol problem, exposure to radioactive waste, repetitive cranial trauma, and a crayon lodged in the frontal lobe of his brain. In the episode "HOMR" (season 12, 2001) Homer had surgery to remove the crayon from his brain, boosting his IQ to 105, but although he bonded very well with Lisa, his newfound capacity for understanding and reason made him less happy and he had Moe reinsert a crayon, causing his intelligence to return to its previous level. Homer often debates with his own mind, which is expressed in voiceover. His brain has a record of giving him dubious advice, sometimes helping him make the right decisions, but often failing spectacularly. It has even become completely frustrated and, through sound effects, walked out on him. Homer's conversations with his brain were used several times during the fourth season, but were later phased out after the producers "used every possible permutation". These exchanges were often introduced because they filled time and were easy for the animators to work on.

 

Analysis

Homer Simpson is an "everyman" and embodies several American stereotypes of working class blue-collar men: he is crude, overweight, incompetent, clumsy and a borderline alcoholic. Matt Groening describes him as "completely ruled by his impulses". Dan Castellaneta calls him "a dog trapped in a man's body", adding, "He's incredibly loyal – not entirely clean – but you gotta love him." In his book Planet Simpson, author Chris Turner describes Homer as "the most American of the Simpsons" and believes that while the other Simpson family members could be changed to other nationalities, Homer is "pure American".In the book God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture, the authors comment that "Homer's progress (or lack thereof) reveals a character who can do the right thing, if accidentally or begrudgingly." The book The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer includes a chapter analyzing Homer's character from the perspective of Aristotelian virtue ethics. Raja Halwani writes that Homer's "love of life" is an admirable character trait, "for many people are tempted to see in Homer nothing but buffoonery and immorality. [...] He is not politically correct, he is more than happy to judge others, and he certainly does not seem to be obsessed with his health. These qualities might not make Homer an admirable person, but they do make him admirable in some ways, and, more importantly, makes us crave him and the Homer Simpsons of this world." In 2008, Entertainment Weekly justified designating The Simpsons as a television classic by stating, "we all hail Simpson patriarch Homer because his joy is as palpable as his stupidity is stunning".

 

In the season eight episode "Homer's Enemy" the writers decided to examine "what it would be like to actually work alongside Homer Simpson". The episode explores the possibilities of a realistic character with a strong work ethic named Frank Grimes placed alongside Homer in a work environment. In the episode, Homer is portrayed as an everyman and the embodiment of the American spirit; however, in some scenes his negative characteristics and silliness are prominently highlighted. By the end of the episode, Grimes, a hard working and persevering "real American hero", is relegated to the role of antagonist; the viewer is intended to be pleased that Homer has emerged victorious.

 

In Gilligan Unbound, author Paul Arthur Cantor states that he believes Homer's devotion to his family has added to the popularity of the character. He writes, "Homer is the distillation of pure fatherhood. [...] This is why, for all his stupidity, bigotry and self-centered quality, we cannot hate Homer. He continually fails at being a good father, but he never gives up trying, and in some basic and important sense that makes him a good father." The Sunday Times remarked "Homer is good because, above all, he is capable of great love. When the chips are down, he always does the right thing by his children — he is never unfaithful in spite of several opportunities."

 

Cultural influence

Homer Simpson is one of the most popular and influential television characters in a variety of standards. USA Today cited the character as being one of the "top 25 most influential people of the past 25 years" in 2007, adding that Homer "epitomized the irony and irreverence at the core of American humor." Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television believes that "three centuries from now, English professors are going to be regarding Homer Simpson as one of the greatest creations in human storytelling."[99] Animation historian Jerry Beck described Homer as one of the best animated characters, saying, "you know someone like it, or you identify with (it). That's really the key to a classic character." Homer has been described by The Sunday Times as "the greatest comic creation of [modern] time". The article remarked, "every age needs its great, consoling failure, its lovable, pretension-free mediocrity. And we have ours in Homer Simpson."

 

Homer has been cited as a bad influence on children; for example, in 2005 a survey conducted in the United Kingdom found that 59% of parents felt that Homer promoted an unhealthy lifestyle. A five-year study of more than 2,000 middle-aged people in France found a possible link between weight and brain function, the findings of which were dubbed the "Homer Simpson syndrome". Results from a word memory test showed that people with a Body mass index (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.

 

Despite Homer's embodiment of American culture, his influence has spread to other parts of the world. In 2003, Matt Groening revealed that his father, after whom Homer was named, was Canadian, and said that this made Homer himself a Canadian. The character was later made an honorary citizen of Winnipeg, Canada, in real life because Homer Groening was believed to be from the Manitoba capital, although sources say the senior Groening was actually born in Saskatchewan. In 2007, an image of Homer was painted next to the Cerne Abbas giant in Dorset, England as part of a promotion for The Simpsons Movie. This caused outrage among local neopagans who performed "rain magic" to try to get it washed away. In 2008, a fake Spanish euro coin was found in Avilés, Spain, with the face of Homer replacing the figure of King Juan Carlos I. On April 9, 2009, the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of five 44 cent stamps featuring Homer and the four other members of the Simpson family. They are the first characters from a television series to receive this recognition while the show is still in production. The stamps, designed by Matt Groening, were made available for purchase on May 7, 2009.

 

Homer has appeared, voiced by Castellaneta, in several other television shows, including the sixth season of American Idol where he opened the show; The Tonight Show with Jay Leno where he performed a special animated opening monologue for the July 24, 2007 edition; and the 2008 fundraising television special Stand Up to Cancer where he was shown having a colonoscopy.