An obituary from nine years ago has resurfaced on the Internet, reminding everyone of an adorable fact about the longest-running animated series in television history, The Simpsons.
Margaret Ruth Groening, who passed away in April of 2013, married high school classmate Homer Groening in 1941. In the obituary, it says she chose Homer because “he made her laugh the most.”
In case this doesn’t sound familiar enough yet, Margaret and Homer had five children: Patty, Mark, Matt, Lisa, and Maggie. Matt Groening went on to create The Simpsons, taking a lot of inspiration from his family, and life growing up in Portland, Oregon.
Although Groening told David Letterman back in 1989 that his family “wasn’t like [the Simpsons] at all,” it’s clear his past experience helped him with picking out names for the show’s characters. In the replies to the tweet containing the obituary, fellow Portland natives were quick to point out that it wasn’t just Matt’s family that inspired some of the names, but streets and places in the city as well.
North Van Houten Avenue landed its name to the Van Houtens, most notable of which is Lisa’s perpetual suitor, Milhouse. Montgomery Burns gets his name from Montgomery Park and Burnside Street, while the Mayor of Springfield shares his with Northwest Quimby Street. There are also streets named Flanders, Lovejoy, and Kearney, as well as Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard.
Take a walk in some Portland neighborhoods and see the influences for Matt Groening’s The Simpsons. pic.twitter.com/WrzqQpWsab
— Tim (@timoalexM) October 13, 2022
Matt Groening’s grandfather on his dad’s side was also called Abraham, much like the fictional Homer’s father.
The Simpsons was reportedly created by Groening in 15 minutes while in the lobby of FOX’s James L. Brooks’s office. He quickly drew a cartoon of a family, and named them after his own, substituting his name for Bart’s, as an anagram for the word “brat.”