Homer’s Greatest Moments
August 1996 © Loaded magazine – issue 28

“Homer quickly became the star of the show,” says Groening, “and he’s certainly the easiest character to write for because he’s extremely stupid. I had begged the writers not to make him so stupid or insane, but saying that just encourages them. “The biggest laugh I’ve ever gotten on the show is when Homer inadvertently skateboards over Springfield Gorge, misses and hits the rocks all the way down the sides of the cliff – which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time in cartoons – smashes himself to a bloody pulp at the bottom, and the next scene he’s being winched up by a helicopter smashing himself on more rock back up the cliff, gets loaded into an ambulance, and then the ambulance goes about 10 feet, smashes into a tree, the doors open and he goes back down over the cliff.

“There’s more and more of me in Homer as the years go by. Originally my inspiration was a little bit of my dad and a little of all of the the sitcom dads I remember and the dads in the neighbourhood who were a lot more angry than the dads on TV. A friend of mine hung out in his garage and his dad used to burst through the door and find out what the hell we were doing, which was absolutely nothing. When Homer started out on the Tracey Ullman Show, he wasn’t so charming. I think the radiation poisoning has softened him up a bit. We showed his sperm on the show and it was damaged due to radiation.“Talking of sperm, NASA has asked for a Simpsons patch for their next launch, and the scientist who approached me is in charge of sperm for whatever reason, so we’re coming up with a Homer Sperm Patch.”