KOOL WEB TOOL

Creation
Matt Groening created Homer while waiting in James L. Brooks' office

Matt Groening first conceived Homer and the rest of the Simpson family in 1986 in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show, and had intended to present an adaptation of his Life in Hell comic strip. When he realized that animating Life in Hell would require him to rescind publication rights, Groening decided to go in another direction,[14] and hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family, naming the characters after members of his own family. Homer was named after Groening's father.[15][14] Very little else of Homer's character was based on him, and to prove that the meaning behind Homer's name was not significant, Groening later named his own son Homer.[16][17] Although Groening has stated in several interviews that Homer is the namesake of his father, he also claimed in several 1990 interviews that a character in the 1939 Nathanael West novel The Day of the Locust was the inspiration for naming Homer.[1][18][19] Homer's middle initial "J", which stands for "Jay",[20] is a "tribute" to animated characters such as Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show who got their middle initial from Jay Ward.[21][22]

Homer made his debut with the rest of the Simpson family on April 19, 1987 in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night".[23] In 1989, the shorts were adapted into The Simpsons, a half-hour series airing on the Fox Broadcasting Company. Homer and the Simpson family remained the main characters on this new show.[24]