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Homer Simpson Named Greatest TV Character
A survey by Entertainment Weekly has named Homer Simpson the greatest character created for television or film in the past 20 years. Everyone's favorite beer-swilling, donut-eating dad beat out Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the top spot. From the article: "'People can relate to Homer because we're all secretly propelled by desires we can't admit to,' Groening was quoted as telling Entertainment Weekly. 'Homer is launching himself head-first into every single impulsive thought that occurs to him. His love of whatever ... is a joy to witness.'"
That Harry Potter & Buffy yelled 'Doh!'
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Weird, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff.
And I want in.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Really??
No sig today...
If by "great" you mean "iconic", sure. And in TV land the two are probably synonymous. But back in my day, you had to conquer Asia-Minor to be considered "great".
woo hoo take that 60 minutes
Homer: Uh, I'm somewhere where I don't know where I am.
Marge: Do you see towels? If you see towels, you're probably in the linen closet again.
Homer: Just a second...no, it's a place I've never been before.
Selma: Hmm. The shower. [laughs]
"What kind of music do pirates listen to?" -Paul Maud'dib
"Yeeeaaarrrrr n' Bee!!" -Stilgar, Leader of Sietch Tabr
Whoops.
He was streaked through with redeeming qualities, yeah, but the Simpsons horse is far past dead. I don't think there are bones left to be kicked - the dust has been blown far and wide, and all that's left is a crazed shell of a creative team that shows itself to be more out of touch with every passing year.
Of course, if you want a really great TV character, look at Dr. Gregory House - the entire show succeeds on his stooped shoulders, and from I've heard the past season or so coasts on his momentum. What about Tony Soprano? Deadwood's Al Swearengen? I don't even watch much TV and those drift to mind with ease because they have depth.
He was created MORE than 20 years ago! Homer is almost 25.
Tracey Ullman aired them on Fox in 1987.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons_shorts
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Purely from a variety and skill point of view, I would have to nominate Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf. The number of different characters and personality mutations that character (and subsequently the actor) had to go through was ENORMOUS. Each and every one of them were expertly done, they were all done by the same actor, and unlike The Mighty Boosh where one actor plays multiple characters, they were all still technically Rimmer.
Living With a Nerd
A fat, balding, selfish, stupid, bad-skinned, horrible-father-figure is voted as being "great". Welcome to America.
You have to realize, the reason he's great is _because_ he embodies those "fat, balding, selfish... etc. (I'm going to add irreverent to this)" qualities on so many levels.
Not only is he as lazy and ignorant as we all at least on SOME occasions have wanted to be, but he's also the embodiment of irony and self-deprecating humor in that respect too.
There's a reason why other countries that hate America still love the Simpsons and love Homer. And no it's not because they're stupid enough to think that character actually represents America (maybe Hank Hill from King of the Hill, though =P). Sure America might take many (too many? most?) of those qualities too far, especially in how stubbornly we present ourselves politically to the rest of the world. But The Simpsons, in its decades long run, is our attempt to not just revel in that attitude, but also constantly remind everyone in the world, including and _especially_ ourselves that we are nowhere near as perfect as we claim to be.
If anything, the Simpsons has been a great lesson in finding the good with the bad, a little bit of the bad in the good, and a lot of funny in everything.
Hurley from Lost. Newman from Seinfeld. Wesley from TNG.
Lennie Briscoe. Jean-Luc Picard. Jack Bauer. Red (from Shawshank Redemption). Londo Mollari. It's not that hard to name fictional characters with more depth than Homer Simpson.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Just sayin'. Otherwise, you're spot-on.
I think Homer survives because the Simpsons are frozen in time - if you witnessed live actors he'd lose touch with the age group or just seem like a retard who hasn't changed in 20 years. Instead he's still the classic middle aged dad who can keep going for many more seasons, while Harry Potter has changed from a kid to teen to adult now in the closing movies. The only reason I can think of why Buffy rates so high is Sarah Michelle Gellar, the role itself is hardly that awe-inspiring.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If you think that is what Homer Simpson is about, then you are pretty dim. So, how is Alabama these days?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I would have said Al Bundy. *shrug* Peg: Miss me? Al: With every bullet so far.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
None of those characters were anywhere near as likable as Homer Simpson.
David Duchovny
My point was that out of all the intelligent, deep, and stimulating characters we have had in TV and film in this country, what gets voted as the greatest is one who brings nothing but the average person to the table. That, to me, is awfully self-centered...just like our country. We don't aspire to greatness, but merely the a comfortable, head-in-the-sand lifestyle.
For the record, I live about 20 minutes outside of DC. Forgive me if my views are cynical, but living around here will do that to you -_-;;
Living With a Nerd
The reason Homer is so appealing to us is because he is Everyman, at his worst. Whenever he does something I either have done it, thought about doing it or know someone who did it.
Upon haphazardly compiling a potential list for this I thought: "All right, brain, I don't like you and you don't like me - so let's just do this and I'll get back to killing you with beer."
Yeah and your counterexamples were Red Dwarf and Mighty Boosh.
You probably don't understand my point. Everyone else does.
Nobody watches Red Dwarf. It's not bad, but it's not exactly good. Mighty Boosh is just bad.
But hey that's your call. Go keep talking down widely-popular bits of culture and talk up your inconsequential and little-cared-for interests, eventually it'll make you look more worldly and sophisticated than others. Maybe. Probably not, most people have actually seen both of those shows and are well aware they're nowhere near the quality in both production and entertainment value as The Simpsons.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
Probably not, most people have actually seen both of those shows and are well aware they're nowhere near the quality in both production and entertainment value as The Simpsons.
Whoa whoa whoa. I never said the Simpsons weren't good entertainment...I simply said Homer, in my opinion, is far from being the greatest character out there.
I threw out Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf as an example, not as a suggestion for the top spot. Me personally, looking strictly from an intelligence, growth, and interesting point of view, I would likely choose either Dexter Morgan or Omar from The Wire.
Living With a Nerd
Homer: Ohhhh! Why Me?
Marge: Homey, it's a great accomplishment.
Homer: Will I get donuts? mmmmmmm Donuts mmmmmmmmmm
Marge: No, but you're more entertaining than Peter Griffen.
Homer: Whoo Hoo!
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Surveys are meaningless. The greatest TV character is obviously Dr. Who.
I find Homer's character to be too two dimensional... He lacks depth.
But seriously, I have mixed feelings about that choice. Let me say that I could see Homer being the tops of many notable lists; he is *a* great character. He's a little bit Everyman, and a little bit of satire of the "Everyotherman" (if I may be allowed to invent a word here... It's perfectly cromulent!)
However, It just seems a bit superficial to me to say the greatest character of TV or Film in 20 years. There are so many great characters from TV and film that really do have tremendous depth of character, but just aren't as ubiquitous as Homer. Perhaps I just don't know how I feel about the designation of "Greatest".
But on the other hand... I am just merely questioning it, not outright disputing it. I really don't know how I feel about it.
Rimmer IS NOT an "Everyman", he's an effeminate elitist boob with delusions of grandeur. Homer Simpson, on the other hand, is just a boob, but a boob accessible to everyone, and not at all with an air of elitism (excepting the episode where he donned a top hat & gloves and went around as if he were rich. Or the time he had a genius IQ...) Rimmer is easy to not like. Simpson is likable, depending on the circumstances. Very different characters, but I would venture to guess that fewer people find Rimmer an appealing one. Simply because he's versatile doesn't mean anything. Name a job or a circumstance Simpson hasn't done or been in. Its hardly the reason more people have either heard of him or like his personae.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
... to celebrate with beer, naturally. *Heading for the fridge*
I have tried to watch the Simpsons twice. It was so mind-numbingly stupid I couldn't stand to watch more then ten minutes combined. I am willing to admit that perhaps I chose the wrong ten minutes to watch, but one scene (back within the first 3 seasons) had Bart being rude in school, and the other had Homer chasing something (a doughnut??) through traffic.
IMHO Bugs Bunny had more wit and style.
What is the best episode to watch that might convince me it is worth the effort?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Vir will forever have a place in my heart for this quote:
Ambassador Vir Cotto: I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this.
[waves]
Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?
Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another
Look, kids --- I have here the amazing piece of technology for which Harry Potter was created. It's like an ebook, but it's made of paper!
As much as I grew up with The Simpson's, Twin Peaks' main character is by far greater than Homer Jay Simpson. Unless there's a secret contingent of David Lynch fans around, I've an impossible battle to win trying to convince anyone...so I won't try more than just bitching that Agent Dale Cooper is the best character every made, and Harry Potter and Buffy shouldn't even be mentioned as runner-ups in such a list.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
Buffy rates so high because of the narrative style. That show set a role model for stories about empowered women, and simultaneously marked a high point in comedic banter that has yet to be rivaled. The character of Buffy by itself isn't inspiring, but the ensemble cast behind her was. Every supernatural show since, from Charmed to Torchwood, owes a debt to the narrative formula that was perfected with Buffy.
The real wildcard in the list, IMHO, is Edward Scissorhands. Did that movie really leave that much of an impression? I'd rather see Jack the Pumpkin King in that slot, to fill the same role, and even then I'm not sure it's worthy of the top ten.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
You're wrong. I watch Red Dwarf. And I find The Mighty Boosh mind-blowing. QED, smeghead.
Oooh, I get it! You're just spoofing the Comic Book Store Guy, right?
Simpsons may be dead now, but House was always a mediocre show with an excellent actor dragging the whole scene, despite the multiple clichés, the vast amounts of incongruity, the stretching of "dramatic" moments for half a season. Seriously, it was never more than watchable.
If you want to talk about good characters in drama series, Dexter is much better than House.
And of course Homer doesn't have "depth", it's a comedy, not a drama. It follows completely different rules.
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Newman from Seinfeld.
No one in any way involved with Seinfeld deserves so much as a dried-out piece of American cheese. That's got to be the most overrated show of all time. No sympathetic characters to speak of. And nothing particularly original. The show wasn't any more a "show about nothing" than any other sitcom on TV for the past 50 years. It was simply a place for Jerry Seinfeld to dump his stand-up humor alongside one-dimensional characters. And if you're going to have one-dimensional characters, that one dimension ought to be likable.
So you haven't realized yet that it is the same show over and over and over again?
Ok, that is an exaggeration, but it is just too formulaic for me.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
First, the question isn't depth. It's iconic status. Different animal altogether. Second, Lennie Briscoe might have had some depth, and possibly Red, but Jack Bauer's character was never convincing as anything other than a badass. That's what people remember about him. And 24 itself was so badly written that Jack's most iconic line would have to be, "There's no time!". As for Picard, I don't think you could name anything iconic about the character. Captain Kirk was iconic, but that was off the air by the time the timeframe of the survey.
I realized a few years ago that I was watching the show to see House specifically. Not coincidentally, that's around the time I stopped. :) As I said, he carried the entire thing on his shoulders - take away Hugh Laurie, and you have some well-sketched characters played by capable actors who aren't given anything to do that you haven't seen before.
Never play a game you can't win, son.
--
make install -not war
Seinfeld is funny if you understand social convention. Not surprisingly I find that it wasn't a big hit in the software community.
I am probably not a master of social convention, but Kramer makes me LMAO every time. I dont think this "understanding" has to be a requirement to like Seinfeld. And tbh I never met anyone in software who didnt like seinfeld.
I'm not really part of the "software community", and I do understand social convention. The social observations were interesting, even insightful, at times. But insightful and funny aren't synonymous. Social commentary coming out of the mouths of sociopaths is more sad than amusing.
Jack Bauer had depth? No offense, I just never saw it. To me it was just "badguy wants to hurt me/my friends/my family/my country, ill go kill him".
You've never worked at my company, then. We have an (American) programmer who swears up and down that he has never heard of Richard Pryor. Not that he doesn't like his humor -- he literally hadn't heard of the man.
I'll consider the Simpsons truly dead the day it stops being funnier than the three shows that follow it combined. Although if you like fart jokes, Seth MacFarlane has to be hard to beat.
Who says they have to be likable?
the fucking hoopleheads probably never even considered Al
"smoke me a kipper, i'll be back for breakfast..."
what gets voted as the greatest is one who brings nothing but the average person to the table
You've got it all wrong. Homer Simpson is the average man, but faster!
... and then they built the supercollider.
Mighty Boosh is just bad.
Cheese is a kind of meat, motherfucker.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I think Killface is/was more entertaining, but that's just me. Then again, I'm sure the Simpsons being on the air since the dawn of time has something to do with it.
That's just swell. Now can we let this show die? It jumped the shark. It hasn't been funny since season 11.
Rimmer IS NOT an "Everyman", he's an effeminate elitist boob with delusions of grandeur.
British, in other words.
So not the world's greatest, merely in the USA?
If I had to vote on the World's greatest fictional character it would have to be Sherlock Holmes.
The character is over 122 years old and has been published on every media known to mankind and in every country.
Stuart http://stuarthalliday.com/
John Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren Burger.. Mmm, burger..
OK, if it was atleast even a real fictional character played by a real actor i could swallow it,
but somehow, i am having a hard time with this one, maybe the fact that i have no duff beer to wash it down with....
Seriously, he is a cartoon, this is why i would never read entertainment weekly, they are full of crap
"Rounding out the top 10 were Rachel from "Friends"..." What the fuck? Off all the characters in Friends she is probably the most boring and least funny. Monica may just beat her but not by a lot.
He was streaked through with redeeming qualities, yeah, but the Simpsons horse is far past dead. I don't think there are bones left to be kicked - the dust has been blown far and wide, and all that's left is a crazed shell of a creative team that shows itself to be more out of touch with every passing year.
Of course, if you want a really great TV character, look at Dr. Gregory House - the entire show succeeds on his stooped shoulders, and from I've heard the past season or so coasts on his momentum. What about Tony Soprano? Deadwood's Al Swearengen? I don't even watch much TV and those drift to mind with ease because they have depth.
If your wanting depth in TV characters try Major Winchester from MASH.
I can claim relationship to the greatest TV character now? My second cousin twice removed is the origional cast director of the simpsons. Interesting
Picard is really the only one of those that had any impact on Pop culture and none had Homer's impact...
Simpson is likable, depending on the circumstances.
Your qualifier is insurmountable. If Homer Simpson is the everyman then I will turn from a philathrope to a misanthrope. He is repeatedly called a madman and a criminal throughout the series. He is a liar, he is selfish, short-sighted and a violent alcoholic and he repeatedly screws over the people he should value more than his own life for the most pitiful reasons without ever learning a thing.
I have watched 20 seasons of it, every word I have said about him is factual and I've had enough of The Simpsons because of the character Homer Simpson. His redeemable qualities fall far short of his irredeemable ones, and though I don't believe in a hell that's where his writers send him. In one episode he literally drags Lisa with him.
All rites reversed 2010
"He is repeatedly called a madman and a criminal throughout the series. He is a liar, he is selfish, short-sighted and a violent alcoholic and he repeatedly screws over the people he should value more than his own life for the most pitiful reasons without ever learning a thing."
1) Calm down, its a cartoon. 2) You're completely ignoring the many acts of selflessness he has committed. He's saved Springfield numerous times, stood up to Mr. Burns, arguably the show's arch-villain, as many, been quite kind on more than one occasion. 3) Your reaction to suddenly decide not to watch the show after 20 years is bizarre. You're just NOW coming to grips with the negative side of Simpson?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Oh, BTW- I never claimed Homer was an "Everyman", that was reaction to the post in which Rimmer was described as an "Everyman". My argument is that Simpson is more of an everyman than Rimmer could ever hope to be.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'