Marge Simpson

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

Matt Groening first conceived Marge and the rest of the Simpson family in 1987 in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called 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[16] and hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family, naming the characters after members of his own family. Marge was named after Groening's mother Margaret "Marge" Groening, who has said she bears little similarity to the character, stating, "It's really weird to have people think you're a cartoon."[16][17][18] Marge's beehive hairstyle was inspired by the titular Bride in Bride of Frankenstein and the style that Margaret Groening wore during the 1960s, although her hair was never blue.[19][20]

Marge debuted with the rest of the Simpson family on April 19, 1987, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night".[21] In 1989, the shorts were adapted into The Simpsons, a half-hour series airing on the Fox Network. Marge and the Simpson family remained the main characters on this new show.[22]

Matt Groening believes that episodes featuring Marge are among the most difficult episodes to write. Bill Oakley believes that the "junior" writers are usually given Marge episodes because he and writing partner Josh Weinstein were given several to write during their first season.[23] During the third season of the show, most of the writers focused on Bart and Homer, so David M. Stern decided to write a Marge episode, which became "Homer Alone" (season three, 1992). He felt that they could achieve a "deeper vein" of comedy in an episode where Marge has a nervous breakdown, and James L. Brooks quickly approved.[24]

The entire Simpson family was designed so that they would be recognizable in silhouette.[25] The family was crudely drawn, because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead, they just traced over his drawings.[16] To draw Marge, the animators generally start off with a sphere, similar to the way Lisa and Maggie are drawn. The eyes are then drawn, with one roughly in the middle of the sphere, and the other to the front side of the head. Then, the nose and lip are drawn. Her hair is then drawn on top as a long tube coming out of the sphere. An original idea the animators had for when Marge walked through doorways was that her hair would be forced down as she walked through, then once clear of the door, it would spring back and forth. This was never used.[26] Groening's original plan for Marge's hair was that it would conceal large, Life in Hell-esque rabbit ears. The gag was intended to be revealed in the final episode of the series, but was scrapped early on due to inconsistencies, and also to the fact that rabbit ears would be too fictitious even for The Simpsons.[27]

Julie Kavner

Marge's voice is performed by Julie Kavner, who also does the voices of Marge's mother Jacqueline and her sisters Patty and Selma. Kavner had been part of the regular cast of The Tracey Ullman Show. Voices were needed for the shorts, so the producers decided to ask Kavner and fellow cast member Dan Castellaneta to voice Marge and Homer rather than hire more actors.[28][29] Part of Kavner's contract says that she will never have to promote The Simpsons on video and she rarely performs Marge's voice in public because she believes it "destroys the illusion. People feel these are real people."[30][31] Kavner takes recording sessions seriously and feels that voice acting is "a little more limiting than live acting. And I have nothing to do with my character's movement."[32]

Marge's raspy voice is only slightly different from Kavner's, who has a "honeyed gravel voice"[33] which she says is due to "a bump on [her] vocal cords."[34] While Marge is her most famous character, Kavner's favorite characters to voice are Patty and Selma because "they're really funny and sad at the same time."[31] In The Simpsons Movie, some scenes, such as Marge's video message to Homer, were recorded over one hundred times, leaving Kavner exhausted.[35] Kristen Bell provided Marge's singing voice in "The Star of the Backstage".[36]

Until 1998, Kavner was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing to cast new voices.[37] However, the dispute was soon resolved and she received $125,000 per episode until 2004 when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode.[37] The issue was resolved a month later,[38] and Kavner earned $250,000 per episode.[30] After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors receive approximately $400,000 per episode.[39] Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Kavner and the other cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode.[40]

Marge is generally a stereotypical sitcom mother, and she also plays the "long-suffering wife" who puts up with the antics of her children and her oafish husband.[3] While she usually takes her family's problems with good humor, in "Homer Alone" (season three, 1992), her workload and resultant stress caused her to have a mental breakdown. After spending time at "Rancho Relaxo", during which her family barely coped with her absence, she returned refreshed and everyone promised to help out more often.[41] Marge often provides a grounding opinion for Homer and their marriage has often been shaky. Marge admits that she "put[s] up with a lot in [their] marriage," and has left Homer or thrown him out of the house on several occasions.[42][43][44] One of the first such episodes to depict this is "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" (season five, 1994), where Homer starts teaching an education class on how to build a successful marriage. He is at first unsuccessful, but gains the interest of the class when he starts giving away family secrets, many of which concern Marge. Upon finding this out, Marge is incensed and throws him out of the house. The next day, Homer is dirty and disheveled, and begs Marge to take him back, saying the one thing he can offer her that nobody else can is "complete and utter dependence." At first, Marge does not see that as a benefit, but eventually admits that he "really [does] make a gal feel needed."[42] Episodes that depict marital problems have become more frequent in recent seasons of the show. Through it all, Marge has remained faithful to Homer, despite temptations to the contrary such as the one in "Life on the Fast Lane" (season one, 1990), where she resists the charming Frenchman Jacques and instead chooses to remain with Homer.[45]

Marge in her first televised appearance in "Good Night".

Marge is more caring, understanding, and nurturing toward Bart than Homer, but she refers to him as "a handful" and is often embarrassed by his antics.[46] In "Marge Be Not Proud" (season seven, 1995), she felt she was mothering Bart too much and started acting more distant towards him after he was caught shoplifting. In the beginning of the episode, Bart protested her "over-mothering", but as she started acting more distant towards him, he felt guilty about it and made up with her.[47] Marge has expressed understanding for her "special little guy" and has defended him on many occasions. She once said "I know Bart can be a handful, but I also know what he's like inside. He's got a spark. It's not a bad thing ... Of course, it makes him do bad things."[46] Marge has a good relationship with Lisa and the two are shown to get along quite well. Marge over-mothers Maggie, which causes her to become too clingy and dependent on Marge. Marge maintains a good relationship with her mother Jacqueline and her sisters Patty and Selma, though they disapprove of Homer and are vocal about it. Marge has tolerated their criticism, but has occasionally lost patience with them, once referring to them as "ghouls."[48] Marge's late father Clancy is rarely referred to in the series and has had speaking parts in only two episodes.[4] It was revealed in "Fear of Flying" (season six, 1994) that Clancy told Marge that he was a pilot, but in reality, he was a flight attendant. Marge discovered this one day and developed aerophobia.[49] In "Jazzy and the Pussycats" (season 18, 2006), Homer casually mentions that they once attended his funeral.[50] It was finally revealed that Clancy died of lung cancer in season 27 episode "Puffless".[51]

Marge believes she has higher morals than most other characters, once leading a family values crusade against the violent The Itchy & Scratchy Show[52] and being a prominent member of the "Citizens' Committee on Moral Hygiene."[53] She often provides a voice of reason for the town itself, but many of the townspeople are frustrated or contemptuous of her failure to recognize or react correctly to breaches of social norms.[54] Marge is the only member of the family who encourages, and often forces, church attendance. In "Homer the Heretic" (season four, 1992), Homer starts skipping church and Marge tells him "don't make me choose between my man and my God, because you just can't win."[55] Yet, in some episodes, Marge's stereotypical attitude seems to affect her relationship with her daughter, Lisa, who is a feminist. In "Lisa the Skeptic" (season nine, 1997), an "angel skeleton" is discovered, much to the skepticism of Lisa. As Lisa rants about the people who believe it is an angel, Marge informs her that she also believes it is an angel. She tells Lisa, "There has to be more to life than just what we see, everyone needs something to believe in."[56] In spite of her highly debatable moral stances, Marge struggles with vices, such as a gambling addiction.[54] While Marge has learned to cope with her addiction, it has never completely disappeared and remains an underlying problem that is referenced occasionally on the show.[57] Marge is also known to suffer OCD as shown when she won a house cleaning but she then cleaned the whole house herself and it thus led to her accidentally causing her to suffer Amnesia. Another time is when the family had to house sit for Mr. Burns, she forced Lisa and herself to clean the entire mansion.

Politically, Marge generally aligns with the Democratic Party, having supported the candidacy of her state's progressive governor Mary Bailey,[58] and voted for Jimmy Carter in both of his presidential elections.[11] She was also deeply affected by the death of Lyndon B. Johnson, to the point where she wanted him to be alive so badly that she kept seeing him everywhere she looked.

Marge is depicted in much The Simpsons-related merchandise, including T-shirts, baseball caps, bumper stickers, cardboard stand-ups, refrigerator magnets, key rings, buttons, dolls, posters and figurines.[83] She has appeared in each of The Simpsons video games.[84] Besides the television series, Marge regularly appears in issues of Simpsons Comics, which were published from 1993-2018.[85][86] Marge also plays a role in The Simpsons Ride, launched in 2008 at Universal Studios Florida and Hollywood.[87]

Marge appeared in a 2005 advertisement for Dove Styling, where her normal beehive hair was exchanged for a more stylish look for a series of ads featuring several popular cartoon women.[88]

In April 2004, Marge appeared on the cover of Maxim.[89] She also appeared on the cover of the November 2009 issue of Playboy, becoming the first cartoon character to appear on the cover. The cover and a three-page picture spread, as well as a story inside entitled The Devil in Marge Simpson, commemorated the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons,[90] but as also part of a plan to appeal to younger readers, a decision which has been criticized due to a page in which the character is depicted nude.[91] Darine Stern's picture on the October 1971 cover served as the inspiration for Playboy's November 2009 cover.[92]