Most of the Simpsons Are Named for Matt Groening's Family

Matt Groening was laughing about a phone call from his father, the real Homer.

Groening, the cartoonist behind the yellow family from Springfield, named Homer, Marge, Lisa, and Maggie after his own family. His father was Homer, his mother was Marge, and his sisters were Lisa and Maggie. As he put it, he kind of wrecked their lives.

Talk of Marge led Groening to memories of his mother's hair. Groening said his mother wore a very tall beehive when he was a child, and, as he put it, "from the angle that I was looking at her, it really seemed big." She always denied it was that big, he said, but he has photos.

His father loved the cartoon version, with one exception. Groening said his dad did not like it when Homer treated Marge badly. After one episode where the family vehicle gave out in the desert, and everyone else rested beneath a large rock while Marge was sent to haul a tire to town on foot, the elder Homer called to complain. He was upset that Homer had made Marge do the carrying.

Groening tried a defense. He recalled saying, "He strangles his kid." His father answered, "I don't care about that."

The strangling was a long running gag in which Homer grabs his son Bart around the neck and shouts, Why you little. O'Brien said, "It wasn't out of concern for children's safety," and Groening said it went away because, as he put it, "we just got tired of repeating the same joke."

There were limits. The show would not do spanking, he said, because that was too real. The strangling was silly, and in general Bart tries to reach for a frying pan and hit Homer, who gets his comeuppance. Groening said the strangling was only funny if it was impulsive, and a version in which Homer walked over very slowly was cut.