The Simpsons Creator Matt Groening Made Homer To Annoy One Specific Person

A fun piece of trivia: Matt Groening named characters on "The Simpsons" after his family. His father was named Homer, and he has two little sisters named Lisa and Maggie. His mother was named Margaret, and her unmarried last name was Wiggum. He has an older sister named Patty, which is also the name of one of Marge Simpson's older sisters. Groening's grandfather was named Abram, which was changed to Abraham for the elderly Simpson patriarch. Naturally, Matt was the stand-in for Bart Simpson, the bratty brother of the family. 

It can be easy to forget that "The Simpsons," long before it became a decades-long institution, was meant to be a punky deconstruction of the traditional American sitcom. The Simpsons were a below average suburban family, but they bickered and got into trouble in unwholesome ways. They said "damn" on TV, which was unheard of in mainstream animation of the late 1980s. "The Simpsons" was pointed and even a little mean-spirited. Its dismissive sense of irony caught on big with a public equally tired of traditional sitcoms, and "The Simpsons" came to be one of the defining texts of 1990s America. We have 12 people to thank for its existence.

Homer was originally depicted as a snippy, short-tempered, blue-collar boob, obsessed with his family's standing in the community. As the show progressed, Homer got stupider, eventually transforming into a comedic moron, sometimes barely perceiving the world around him. This depiction, of course, couldn't have been flattering to his namesake, Matt Groening's real father. Homer Groening was, by Matt's own descriptions, nothing like Homer Simpson. But Matt also admitted, in a 2010 interview with EW, that he created Homer Simpson as a playful way of annoying his dad. 

Again, Homer Simpson and Homer Groening are nothing alike. Matt wanted that known. Indeed, Matt seemingly made Mr. Simpson as unlike his father as possible, just to be a brat. The way he put it was: 

"Homer originated with my goal to both amuse my real father, Homer, and just annoy him a little bit. My father was an athletic, creative, intelligent filmmaker and writer, and the only thing he had in common with Homer was a love of donuts. And he never strangled me, but he got so mad sometimes, it felt like that could be the next move." 

Groening also never intended for Homer (the versatile Dan Castellaneta, sometime Disney employee) to be the star of "The Simpsons." Early in the series — for its first three seasons — one might note that most of the stories focus on Bart (the Daws Butler-inspired Nancy Cartwright) and his plight. In the EW interview, Groening admits that the show's focus began to shift because there weren't so many interesting tales that could be told about a 10-year-old delinquent. How many times can Bart commit a prank that has unintended consequences? Homer, in contrast, faces consequences all the time. And his idiocy allowed for a greater range of harebrained schemes or bad decisions. Bart, for instance, isn't going to drop out of school and go to Clown College, but Homer will. 

Groening said that Homer was, in a very cynical way, an All-American Dad. He overeats, is an alcoholic, and has a temper that sometimes has him strangling his son. He's impulsive and non-thinking. His ambitions are modest and short-lived. That sort of character can carry a show better than a 10-year-old with a spray paint can.