Matt Groening first conceived Homer and the rest of the Simpson family in 1987 while waiting in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks's office. Groening was invited to pitch a series of animated shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show and initially planned to adapt his comic strip, Life in Hell. Upon realizing that adapting the strip would require him to relinquish publication rights, he quickly decided to create something new. Groening hastily sketched a concept for a dysfunctional family, naming the characters after members of his own family. Groening named Homer after his father, who himself had been named after the ancient Greek poet. Very little of Homer's character was inspired by Groening's father, and to emphasize that the significance of the name was minimal, Groening later named his own son Homer. Groening explained, "Homer originated with my goal to both amuse my real father, and just annoy him a little bit. My father was an athletic, creative, intelligent filmmaker and writer, and the only thing he had in common with Homer was a love of donuts".

While Groening has often mentioned that Homer was named after his father, he has also stated in some interviews that the character Homer Simpson from Nathanael West's 1939 novel The Day of the Locust and its 1975 film adaptation was an inspiration. In a 2012 interview with the Smithsonian Magazine, Groening clarified, "I took that name from a minor character in the novel The Day of the Locust [...] Since Homer was my father's name, and I thought Simpson was a funny name in that it had the word "simp" in it, which is short for "simpleton"—I just went with it". Homer's middle initial "J", which stands for "Jay", is a nod to animated characters like Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, whose middle initial was a tribute to series creator Jay Ward. Homer first appeared alongside the Simpson family on April 19, 1987, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night". On December 17, 1989, these shorts were developed into The Simpsons, a half-hour series on the Fox Broadcasting Company, where Homer and the Simpson family became the central characters.
Homer's typical attire includes a short-sleeved white shirt with an open collar, blue pants, and gray shoes. He is overweight and bald, with a fringe of hair around the sides and back of his head and two curly strands on top.

The Simpson family was designed to be easily recognizable in silhouette. The characters were initially crudely drawn because Groening submitted rough sketches to the animators, expecting them to refine the designs; instead, the animators simply traced over his original drawings. Homer's appearance has been noted for its resemblance—intentional or not—to the cartoon character Adamsson, created by Swedish cartoonist Oscar Jacobsson in 1920. When Groening originally designed Home…

Read more on Wikipedia

Homer's influence on comedy and culture has been significant. In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Homer "the greatest character of the last 20 years". He was placed second on TV Guide's 2002 Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters, behind Bugs Bunny; fifth on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters, one of only four cartoon characters on that list; and first in a Channel 4 poll of the greatest television characters of all time. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly placed Homer ninth on their list of the "50 Greatest TV icons" and first on their 2010 list of the "Top 100 Characters of the Past Twenty Years". Homer was also the runaway winner in British polls that determined who viewers thought was the "greatest American" and which fictional character people would like to see become the President of the United States. His relationship with Marge was included in TV Guide's list of "The Best TV Couples of All Time". In 2022, Paste writers claimed that Homer is the second best cartoon character of all time.

Dan Castellaneta has won several awards for voicing Homer, including four Primetime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Voice-Over Performance" in 1992 for "Lisa's Pony", 1993 for "Mr. Plow", in 2004 for "Today I Am a Clown", and in 2009 for "Father Knows Worst". However, in the case of "Today I Am a Clown", it was for voicing "various characters" and not solely for Homer. In 2010, Castellaneta received a fifth Emmy nomination for voicing Homer and Grampa in the episode "Thursdays with Abie". In 1993, Castellaneta was given a special Annie Award, "Outstanding Individual Achievement in the Field of Animation", for his work as Homer on The Simpsons. In 2004, Castellaneta and Julie Kavner (the voice of Marge) won a Young Artist Award for "Most Popular Mom & Dad in a TV Series". In 2005, Homer and Marge were nominated for a Teen Choice Award for "Choice TV Parental Units". Various episodes in which Homer is strongly featured have won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program, including "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment" in 1991, "Lisa's Wedding" in 1995, "Homer's Phobia" in 1997, "Trash of the Titans" in 1998, "HOMR" in 2001, "Three Gays of the Condo" in 2003 and "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind" in 2008. In 2000, Homer and the rest of the Simpson family were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2017, Homer Simpson was celebrated by the National Baseball Hall of Fame, to honor the 25th anniversary of the episode "Homer at the Bat".
Homer is an "everyman" and embodies several American stereotypes of working class blue-collar men: he is crude, overweight, incompetent, dim-witted, childish, clumsy and a borderline alcoholic. Matt Groening describes him as "completely ruled by his impulses". Dan Castellaneta calls him "a dog trapped in a man's body", adding, "He's incredibly loya…

Read more on Wikipedia

Homer Simpson is one of the most popular and influential television characters by a variety of standards. USA Today cited the character as being one of the "top 25 most influential people of the past 25 years" in 2007, adding that Homer "epitomized the irony and irreverence at the core of American humor". Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television, believes that "three centuries from now, English professors are going to be regarding Homer Simpson as one of the greatest creations in human storytelling." Animation historian Jerry Beck described Homer as one of the best animated characters, saying, "you know someone like it, or you identify with (it). That's really the key to a classic character." Homer has been described by The Sunday Times as "the greatest comic creation of [modern] time". The article remarked, "every age needs its great, consoling failure, its lovable, pretension-free mediocrity. And we have ours in Homer Simpson."

Despite Homer's partial embodiment of American culture, his influence has spread to other parts of the world. In 2003, Matt Groening revealed that his father, after whom Homer was named, was Canadian, and said that this made Homer himself a Canadian. The character was later made an honorary citizen of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, because Homer Groening was believed to be from there, although sources say the senior Groening was actually born in the province of Saskatchewan. In 2007, an image of Homer was painted next to the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset, England as part of a promotion for The Simpsons Movie. This caused outrage among local neopagans who performed "rain magic" to try to get it washed away.

On April 9, 2009, the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of five 44-cent stamps featuring Homer and the four other members of the Simpson family. They are the first characters from a television series to receive this recognition while the show is still in production. The stamps, designed by Matt Groening, were made available for purchase on May 7, 2009.

Homer has appeared, voiced by Castellaneta, in several other television shows, including the sixth season of American Idol where he opened the show; The Tonight Show with Jay Leno where he performed a special animated opening monologue for the July 24, 2007, edition; and the 2008 fundraising television special Stand Up to Cancer where he was shown having a colonoscopy.

On February 28, 1999, Homer Simpson was made an honorary member of the Junior Common Room of Worcester College, Oxford. Homer was granted the membership by the college's undergraduate body in the belief that ″he would benefit greatly from an Oxford education″.

Homer has also been cited in the scientific literature, in relation to low intelligence or cognitive abilities. A 2010 study from Emory University showed that the RGS14 gene appeared to be impairing the development of cognitive abilities in mice (or, rather, that mice with a disabled RGS14 gene improved their cognitive abilities), prompting the authors to dub it the "Homer Simpson gene".
Homer's main and most famous catchphrase, the annoyed grunt "D'oh!", is typically uttered when he injures himself, realizes that he has done somethin…

Read more on Wikipedia