Homer voted the Greatest!!!!

Unsurprising to Most

D'oh! Homer's the greatest
From The Sunday Times
June 16, 2003

EAT my shorts! Homer Simpson, the idiot-savant father of the US's most dysfunctional cartoon family, has emerged at the top of an international poll to find the greatest Americans.

Some people will proclaim it a sad day when a slob like Homer, whose brain has the cutting edge of the doughnuts he endlessly devours, can knock Abraham Lincoln into second place and leave Martin Luther King trailing in third.

Folk of rectitude will lament that the BBC poll marks another rung in the inexorable rise of a disreputable figure who has become an international institution. In the 70 countries where The Simpsons is shown, children and adults repeat such inane Homerisms as "D'oh!" and giggle helplessly.

Thanks to another poll, we also know 22 per cent of British children would happily swap their father for Homer.

That this maladjusted, lazy and greedy character should be held up as a paternal role model by psychologists mystifies those who have heard of a recent attempt by one of Homer's children to get his parents divorced on the grounds Homer is an unfit father.

But in a poll for Britain's Channel 4, Homer was voted the greatest television character of all time, one place ahead of Basil Fawlty, anti-hero of Fawlty Towers.

Celebrities keen to appear alongside Bart's father have included Michael Jackson, Meryl Streep, Dolly Parton, Ringo Starr, Paul and Linda McCartney, George Harrison and Elton John. Even British PM Tony Blair took time out during the Iraq crisis to record a guest appearance.

For those who have somehow missed, or resolutely avoided, the parallel cartoon world of the Simpsons over the past 15 years, Homer is a fat, bald man with a triple heart bypass incurred largely by his prodigious intake of beer, burgers, pizza and doughnuts.

Married to the beleaguered Marge, he often tries to strangle his delinquent son Bart, is humiliated by his idealistic and cerebral daughter Lisa, and remains largely oblivious to his dummy-chomping baby Maggie.

This unprepossessing format has been embraced by fans as the most brilliant show on television - a view reinforced by 17 Emmy awards, a $US2 billion ($3 billion) merchandising industry and 13 full series, making it the US's longest running prime-time television sitcom.

Viewers of all ages find their own niche in the saga, be it biting satire, a deconstruction of the media, or just a funny cartoon.

The show features about 90 characters all revolving around the indolent figure of Homer, about whom Simpson fans have recorded all manner of detail. So we know his social security number (568-47-008), his blood type (B positive) and his earmuff size (XL).

Born on May 12, 1956, Homer was raised by his father Abraham, who failed to fill the void left by the boy's mother after she ran away to become a hippie.

Graduating at the bottom of his high-school class, Homer was unsuited to work, but finally ended up as a safety officer at a nuclear power plant in the fictitious town of Springfield. Once, during a strike at the plant, his job was done by a brick placed on a lever.

He had failed in other employment as a door-to-door salesman, snow-remover, managing a country music star and selling grease. Nor did he find success as an astronaut, boxer, bowling-alley clerk, team mascot or blackjack dealer.

The only thing he has done right was winning the hand of his high school sweetheart, Marge Bouvier, who was pregnant when they married at Shotgun Pete's wedding chapel.

In the early days of the series, Homer was a crude, unsympathetic character, offering helpful advice to Bart such as this: "If you don't like your job, you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way." Or this: "Remember, son, the trick to avoiding jury service is to say you're prejudiced against all races."

The prototype Homer - who first appeared with his family on The Tracy Ullman Show in 1987 - was just a prop for Bart. This was because Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, initially identified with the juvenile rebel.

Groening, now a rotund man of 49 with a silver beard, had grown up in the suburbia of Portland, Oregon, the son of Homer, a graphic artist and film-maker, and Margaret Groening. His younger sisters were named Lisa and Maggie.

The fictional Homer evolved as his "voice", Dan Castellaneta, dropped his tone from a Walter Matthau growl to a more warm and vulnerable timbre. As Homer's stature grew, Bart assumed a more subsidiary role.

Homer's distinctive exclamation "D'oh!" - the eternal cry of disappointment at life's injustices - was borrowed by Castellaneta from the Laurel and Hardy films. Now it is listed in the Oxford and Macquarie dictionaries, with the latter noting that the word "is said in quite a high monotone, with an optional accompanying slap to the forehead".

The counterculture of Homer's world was seen as threatening by George Bush Sr. While running for re-election in 1992 he said: "We're going to keep strengthening the American family - to make them more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons."

The following week's episode saw Bart watching the president saying his piece on television before retorting: "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the depression too."

Homer proved a subject worthy of study in US universities, with courses on the D'oh! of Homer. In essence, he loves his family but cannot help being a bad father, yet always redeems himself.

Homer's pithy sayings have become catchphrases. "There are no good wars - apart from the American War of Independence, the Second World War and Star Wars," he proclaimed.

He argued that three little sentences could get you through life: "Cover for me"; "Good idea, boss"; and "It was like that when I got here."

Homer made his 300th appearance this year and Groening is haunted by the thought that the show may be past its prime. "Ever since we started the show I've been thinking, 'Oh, well, we have two years to go'. Of course, some episodes are better than others, but we keep trying to surprise ourselves and I think we still do."

As Homer is well aware, success can't be forced. He once advised his children: "Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try."

The Australian

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6602281%5E13780,00.html

 

news travels slow to down under

sorry