Matt Groening Finally Reveals the Original Inspiration for Homer Simpson

After nearly four decades of The Simpsons, most of the characters’ real-life origin stories have been well-established. Bart Simpson was based on Leave It to Beaver’s Eddie Haskell and a random kid from a Diane Arbus photo. Krusty the Clown was a nod to Portland’s ominously-named Rusty Nails. And pretty much every citizen of Springfield was named after one of Matt Groening’s family members.

But weirdly, Groening never revealed one of the biggest inspirations behind Homer Simpson — until now. While Homer got his name from Groening’s dad, and his catchphrase from Scottish actor James Finlayson, there was another source that led to the creation of the character. 

Groening just guested on WTF with Marc Maron and was asked by Maron if there was any piece of Simpsons trivia that he’s somehow “never mentioned” before. “I’ve never mentioned the original inspiration for Homer Simpson,” Groening responded. “And it was from a 1982 documentary on PBS. It was part of the Middletown series about Muncie, Indiana.”

Middletown was a six-part documentary series about Midwestern life in the early ‘80s. The third installment, “Family Business,” caught Groening’s attention. “It was about a guy who had a Shakey’s Pizza franchise. And he was going nuts,” Groening explained. “He couldn’t make his monthly due. And it was just about him trying to make pizza and have the straw hat on and playing the piano and running around and stuff.” 

“And he had his kids working there,” the Life in Hell cartoonist continued, “and his kids loved him, but he didn’t have enough money to pay his kids. And (at) one moment in the documentary, the kids just can’t take it and they go to a movie instead of coming to work. And he’s there by himself, and, of course, the camera crew is there documenting this guy going crazy. And I thought, this is a man, a sweet man, who’s getting kicked in the ass by life. I want to write about that. And that’s where Homer came from."

After confirming that Groening had never publicly talked about Middletown's influence on The Simpsons before, Maron proclaimed that it would be “the big news (from) this episode.”

The proto-Homer was a man named Howard Snider, a former Marine who passed away in 2016. Looking back at the documentary, Snider isn’t overtly Homer-like, although his Walter Matthau-like drawl isn’t so dissimilar from the earliest iteration of the Simpson patriarch. And Snider’s struggles to make ends meet and support his family feels of a piece with the series premiere, “Simpsons Roasting on An Open Fire.”

The fact that this docuseries led to the creation of one of the most beloved characters in the history of pop culture is just one more reason why public broadcasting is important.