27 years ago today, The Simpsons aired a classic episode that solved a major mystery fans had been wondering about for ten long seasons, and with it changed what we understood about Homer Simpson forever. The Simpsons will be crossing over its 800th episode milestone in the near future as it continues to run through Season 37, and through the years fans have gotten to learn all about Homer as part of the long running animated series. But surprisingly, there are still many things to learn about these characters ever after all this time. That was also very much the case even ten seasons in too.
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The Simpsons‘ earliest seasons really shed a light on Homer‘s past life with his absentee fugitive mother and emotionally distant father, but there were pieces of his life that even he didn’t know were a mystery. This included his middle name, and that was something fans had been wondering about since the series began. All that had been revealed before was that his name was “Homer J. Simpson,” but it wasn’t until Season 10’s “D’oh in the Wind” finally revealed what that middle initial actually stood for as Homer discovered a new aspect of his mother’s life.
The Simpsons Revealed Homer’s Middle Name 27 Years Ago Today
On November 15, 1998, 27 years ago today, The Simpsons Season 10 debuted “D’oh in the Wind” on FOX. When Homer tries to fill out a membership form for the Screen Actors Guild, Lisa points out that he’s only filled in his middle initial. It’s here that Homer realizes that he doesn’t know his middle name, and decides to seek it out. Grampa Simpson then takes him to a farm when his mother had spent time as a hippie, and it’s soon revealed that his middle name is actually “Jay.”
Homer’s full name turns out to be Homer Jay Simpson, and it comes full circle with the joke that he’s going to be saying his name the same was as before even with the reveal. There are multiple layers to this as not only his middle name a reference to the inspiration behind Rocky and Bullwinkle’s own middle initial inspiration of Jay Ward, and it’s a name that took the writers three days to nail down according to previous statements from episode writer Donick Cary.
How This Changed Homer Forever
In the immediate aftermath of Homer finding out his middle name, he’s inspired to become a hippie much like his mother once was. As per usual when Homer decides to follow a new endeavor, he takes it entirely too far and nearly ruins a business that his mother’s old hippie friends had started. But funny enough, the reveal of his middle name didn’t quite impact the show from that point forward. It was a great way to highlight another aspect of his mother Mona, but Homer himself sort of went back to his usual shenanigans after all of this.
Instead, it changed fans’ understanding of Homer. This was something that fans had been asking about for the first few years of the series, and finally helped put that long running mystery to bed. It’s a much fuller picture for the character overall, and then made it even more possible to add further layers from that point on. It’s why the Homer we see in the current day is much different than how he was before, and why we continue to learn about him to this day. This episode helped to spark a greater journey into what made him tick through a fun new avenue.
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Courtesy of Comedy Central
