Mage

Marjorie "Marge" Simpson (née Bouvier) is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Marge was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on Life in Hell but instead decided to create a new set of characters. He named the character after his mother Margaret Groening. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family received their own series on Fox, which debuted December 17, 1989.

Marge is the well-meaning and extremely patient mother of the Simpson family. With her husband Homer, she has three children: Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Marge is the moralistic force in her family and often provides a grounding voice in the midst of her family's antics by trying to maintain order in the Simpson household. She is often portrayed as a stereotypical television mother and is often included on lists of top "TV moms". She has appeared in other media relating to The Simpsons—including video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials, and comic books—and inspired an entire line of merchandise.

Marge's distinctive blue beehive hairstyle was inspired by a combination of The Bride of Frankenstein and the style that Margaret Groening wore in the 1960s. Julie Kavner, who was a member of the original cast of The Tracey Ullman Show, was asked to voice Marge so that more voice actors would not be needed. Kavner has won several awards for voicing Marge, including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 1992. She was also nominated for an Annie Award for Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature for her performance in The Simpsons Movie. In 2000, Marge, along with the rest of her family, was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. {| class="toc" id="toc"

Contents
[hide]*1 Role in The Simpsons
 * 2 Character
 * 2.1 Creation
 * 2.2 Design
 * 2.3 Voice
 * 2.4 Personality
 * 3 Reception
 * 4 Cultural influence
 * 4.1 Merchandising
 * 5 Notes
 * 6 References
 * 7 External links
 * }

[edit] Role in The Simpsons
The Simpsons uses a floating timeline in which the characters do not physically age, and as such the show is generally assumed to be set in the current year. In several episodes, events have been linked to specific time periods, although this timeline has been contradicted in subsequent episodes.[1] Marge Simpson is the wife of Homer and mother of Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson.[2] She was raised by her parents, Jacqueline and Clancy Bouvier.[3] She has a pair of sisters, the joyless Patty and Selma, both of whom vocally disapprove of Homer. In "The Way We Was" (season two, 1991), it is revealed via flashback that Marge attended Springfield High School, and in her final year met Homer Simpson. She was at first wary of Homer, but agreed to go to the prom with him, although she ended up going with Artie Ziff. However, she regrets going with Artie and ends up with Homer.[3] After the two started dating for several years, Marge discovered she was pregnant with Bart, and she and Homer were married in a small wedding chapel across the state line.[4] Bart was born soon after, and the couple bought their first house. The episode "That 90's Show" (season 19, 2008) contradicted much of the established back-story; for example, it was revealed that Marge and Homer were childless in the early 1990s although past episodes had suggested Bart and Lisa were born in the 1980s.[5]

As with many Simpsons characters, Marge's age changes to serve the story. In season one (1990) episodes "Life on the Fast Lane" and "Some Enchanted Evening", Marge is said to be 34.[6] [7] In "Regarding Margie" (season 17, 2006), Homer mentions that Marge is his age, meaning she could be anywhere between 36 and 40.[8]

Marge has been unemployed for most of the series, choosing to be a homemaker and take care of her family.[9] However, she has held several one-episode jobs in the course of the series. These include working as a nuclear technician alongside Homer at Springfield Nuclear Power Plant in "Marge Gets a Job" (season four, 1992);[9] selling houses in "Realty Bites" (season nine, 1997);[10] owning her own pretzel business in "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson" (season eight, 1997),[11] and working at an erotic bakery in "Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes" (season 20, 2008).[12] While Marge has never expressed discontent with her role as a homemaker, she has become bored with it. In "The Springfield Connection" (season six, 1995), Marge decides that she needs more excitement in her life and becomes a police officer. However, by the end of the episode, she becomes upset with the corruption in the force and quits.[13]

[edit] Creation
Matt Groening created Marge while waiting in James L. Brooks' office.Matt Groening first conceived Marge and the rest of the Simpson family in 1986 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[14] 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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-americasfirstfamily_13-1">[14] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-14">[15] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-sundvd_15-0">[16] Marge's beehive hairstyle was inspired by The Bride of Frankenstein and the style that Margaret Groening wore during the 1960s, although her hair was never blue.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-16">[17] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17">[18]

Marge debuted with the rest of the Simpson family on April 19, 1987, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-18">[19] 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-19">[20]

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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-20">[21] 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-21">[22]

[edit] Design
Marge in her first televised appearance in "Good Night".The entire Simpson family was designed so that they would be recognizable in silhouette.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-22">[23] 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-americasfirstfamily_13-2">[14] 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-23">[24] According to Matt Groening, the original idea behind Marge's hair was that it would conceal large 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-24">[25]

[edit] Voice
Marge's voice is performed by Julie Kavner, who also does the voices of Marge's mother Jacqueline and 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-The_Age_25-0">[26] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-FN_26-0">[27] 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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Sheridan_27-0">[28] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Hamilton_28-0">[29] 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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-29">[30]

Marge's raspy voice is only slightly different from Kavner's, who has a "honeyed gravel voice"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-30">[31] which she says is due to "a bump on [her] vocal cords."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-31">[32] 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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Hamilton_28-1">[29] In The Simpsons Movie, some scenes, such as Marge's video message to Homer, were recorded over one hundred times, leaving Kavner exhausted.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-moviesonline_32-0">[33]

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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Glaister_33-0">[34] 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.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Glaister_33-1">[34] The issue was resolved a month later,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-34">[35] and Kavner earned $250,000 per episode.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Sheridan_27-1">[28] After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors receive approximately $400,000 per episode.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-35">[36]