Homer Simpson

“Ah, good old trustworthy beer. My love for you will never die.”

Weighing in at anywhere between 239 and 260 pounds, this beer-drinking, fun-loving, easily-tiring, stupid-like-a-fox dolt has boozed and drooled his way into the hearts of people all over the world.

The ultimate celluloid character from the mind of creator Matt Groening, Homer Simpson easily fits our massive profile for induction into the Brian’s Belly Heavyweight Hall of Fame.

Other gluttonous cartoons that have come before him (and after him) have been erased from our minds in his wake (Fat Albert and Fred Flintstone being the exceptions) and certainly no other cartoon has ever drank as much as he.

On June 10, 1955 the “unusually large, ugly baby” was born, however Homer wasn’t created until 1987. With a head start on the body fat, Homer has been drinking excessively and eating without concern for most of his life. As a boy of 17, Homer drank some very good beer that he purchased with a fake ID using the alias Brian McGee.

All through life, Homer has strived to get the most out of his time with the least amount of physical or mental effort possible. In an attempt to lessen his work load at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Homer devised a plan to get his weight up to 300 pounds so that he can work from home. Successful with such a goal, he sports a mu-mu and the classic Dom DeLuise-type “fat hat.” His enormous weight fails him however, and a liposuction treatment gets him back down to the mid two-hundreds.

Homer’s patented “out of this world, space age moon waffles” are just one of the many delectables dishes that our yellow role model has brought to our attention. Although Homer is primarily a burger, hot dog, pork chop and donut man, he has taught us to “butter up our bacon” and “bacon up our sausage.” You may catch Homer on a Friday evening down at the Springfield Squidport for all-you-can-eat night at the Frying Dutchman (where he’s known as “Bottomless Pete: Nature’s Cruelest Mistake”) or attempting to finish off the challenging 16 pound Sir Loin-A-Lot at The Slaughter House. Other things that Homer has eaten (for a variety of reasons) include a 10-foot, week old sandwich, a waffle that was stuck to the ceiling, a bag of flour, a nacho sombrero, a large container of petroleum jelly, and 64 slices of American cheese. What can we say… the man likes to eat. While employed by the Springfield Shopper for a brief but notable stay as the resident food critic, his lowest rating ever of a meal was seven thumbs up.

When you can’t find Homer, look no further than his favorite watering hole Moe’s where he usually stops on his way to work for “a eye-opener” and on his way home for several rounds of Duff, Springfield’s favorite beer. A slew of quotes and Homerisms about beer have enriched our lives and enabled us to laugh at who we are… “I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer.” It’s funny because it’s true.

As an icon of popular culture, Homer Simpson was recently honored when his catch-all catch phrase “D’oh” was inducted into the Oxford English Dictionary making the expression an official word of the English language. The improvisational line was created by the voice of Homer Simpson, Dan Castellaneta who notes that it was written into the script as “frustrated grunt.”

“Matt liked it, and I kept it, but no one knew it would become a catch phrase” says Castellaneta.

So it is with great honor that we induct Homer Simpson into the Heavyweight Hall of Fame. We’d all like to visit the land of chocolate, take a day off from work when we feel like it or eat our body weight in Krusty burgers… but Homer Simpson actually does these things.

The upper-lower-middle class hero of Springfield is living the life most of us wish we could have as he sits on the couch with a remote in one hand and a beer in the other. Pass the pork rinds and a Duff please.