*suck suck*

—Maggie's catchphrase

[9]

Margaret Evelyn "Maggie" Simpson[10] (born January 14, 1988 or 1989), is the 1-year-old, and youngest, child of Marge and Homer, and the baby sister to Bart and Lisa and the tetartagonist of The Simpsons. She is often seen sucking on her pacifier, and, when she walks, she trips over her clothing and falls on her face. Because she rarely ever talks, Maggie is the least seen and heard in the Simpson family.

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Personality

Despite being the only member of the Simpson family who hasn't learned how to speak, Maggie is in no way one-dimensional and has many different layers of personality. She appears to be somewhat detached from the rest of her family and is once described as "the forgotten Simpson" by Homer . When she, Bart and Lisa were shipped to a foster home (the Flanders) after their parents were deemed unfit, Maggie was the quickest to adapt and almost joined them until Marge called for her and Maggie "became a Simpson again."

Maggie shows a much stronger devotion to her mother than her father, possibly because Marge is always at home or shopping with her while Homer is mostly at work or at Moe's. Once, when Homer tried to bond with her, she tried to run away. She developed a father-daughter relationship with Moe the bartender, who once saved her life. However, she does love Homer and has more than once saved his life. Not to mention she said her first word, "Daddy" after Homer tucked her in and kissed her goodnight, although no one heard her.

At the beginning Maggie seemed to rely on Marge and the likewise but eventually she became fiercely independent as she was able to plan a Great Escape-style breakout from a daycare center to get all the babies' pacifiers back, which were being held under lock and key. Although treated by almost everyone as a helpless baby, she, in fact, sometimes exhibits violent mannerisms and a surprising amount of physical strength. She was able to lift up a mallet and bludgeon her father with it, after being influenced by Itchy and Scratchy, as well as able to drag her father back to the shore when he got caught in a rip tide. She is also surprisingly proficient with firearms and is a natural marks-woman, shown when she used a rifle to incapacitate Fat Tony and his henchmen, winging them all and driving them off, when they came to kill her parents.

Maggie is slightly mischievous also. When Homer was largely immobilized as a result of wearing a body cast, she spun him around like a bottle and took great joy in the endeavor. (This happening immediately after Bart himself wrote something on Homer's chest and refused to tell him what.) She also once locked her family out of the only bathroom and bounced a ball as they yelled outside for her to let them in.

Biography

When Marge became pregnant with Lisa, she and Homer bought their first home. Seven years later, Homer felt financially secure enough to quit his job at the power plant and take his dream job at Barney's Bowlarama. Soon after, Marge became pregnant with Maggie, and unable to support his new family member, Homer reapplied for his job at the power plant. Homer fell into a deep depression as a result, but when he held Maggie for the first time after she was born he loved her at first sight. He keeps all of Maggie's baby photos in his office to cheer him up at his work place.

For the first 101 episodes of the show and from seasons 1 to 5 The Boy Who Knew Too Much ), Maggie was not a year old yet and was considered to be in her first twelve months between Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire and The Boy Who Knew Too Much . Maggie turned a year old in Lady Bouvier's Lover and has been a year old since that episode.

Maggie is impressionable and easily influenced by what she sees around her. She once hit Homer on the head with a mallet, shot a suction dart at his picture and brandished a pencil in imitation of Itchy and Scratchy. [11] She shot Mr. Burns [12] although it is unclear if she actually shot him or if his gun, which fell out of his pocket, discharged when they tussled over her lollipop, which he was trying to steal from her. She battled Baby Gerald during the Springfield St. Patrick’s Day Riot, when the two found themselves on opposite sides. [13] Once, when the Simpson home was being raided by an angry mob, she was able to smash her baby bottle and use it as a makeshift weapon (against Krusty's monkey, which quickly ran away) but the house was still ransacked in The Simpsons Movie; in the movie, she also knocked Russ Cargill, the villainous head of the EPA, unconscious by dropping a rock on his head when he was about to shoot Homer.[14]

She is keenly aware of her surroundings, and can usually be seen imitating the flow of action around her. Like Bart, Lisa and Homer, she is not fond of spending time with her aunts Patty and Selma. It is also known that she and Baby Gerald mutually dislike each other very much, despite apparently marrying in one of the Simpsons Comics.

Appearance

Maggie bears a strong resemblance to Lisa, suggesting that Maggie will look very much like her sister when she gets older. She has yellow skin and blonde, pointed star-like hair that matches the color of her skin, just like Lisa. She wears a light blue onesie with a light blue hair bow, and is almost always sucking on a red pacifier. At night, her sleep suit and hair bow are white. When not sucking on the pacifier, she most often has a straight lip like Marge and Lisa, but sometimes, she has a curved upper lip like Homer.

Holidays of Future Passed shows her quitting her pacifier at around 3 or 4, and at 8 she stopped wearing her bow, although some of her adult appearances show her with a hair bow, and this episode is non-canon. In her future appearances as a teenager and adult, her hair is longer and still in its star-like shape, except her first 3 "points" of hair fall forward and the rest are worn back (at least when her head is seen at a third quarter angle like most cartoon characters are seen at). She is usually wearing at least one article of blue clothing in these appearances.

Quotes

Although Maggie generally doesn't talk, due to her being a baby, there have been various occasions where Maggie has had words of spoken dialogue. Most of her speaking roles are not to be considered canon, however, with the only known true lines of dialogue being the ones said in Lisa's First Word, Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily, Lisa Gets an "A", The Simpsons Movie, Coming to Homerica, Friends and Family, and There Will Be Buds.

Violent Behavior

Maggie can be a violent child, especially for her age. Maggie once had a violent encounter with Homer after watching the violent mannerism acts from Itchy and Scratchy. She had hit him over the head with a mallet and later attempted to stab him with a pencil.

When Mr. Burns planned to cover up the sun, he was shot by Maggie while trying to steal candy from her. The citizens of Springfield deemed it "an accident". After figuring this out, it cleared Homer of all charges. She later tried to shoot an amnesiac Burns again with a shotgun in her own house but was stopped by Lisa.

On another occasion, Lisa enlisted Maggie to be her fencing partner. However, when Lisa inadvertently condescended to the baby, Maggie dueled her proficiently and quickly overwhelmed her, even slashing an M into Lisa's shirt, Zorro-style.

When members of the local Mafia were going to kill Marge and Homer, Maggie shot and incapacitated them all with an air gun. Her parents never learned it was she who saved them.

In The Simpsons Movie, when the mob was attacking the Simpson family home, Krusty told his monkey, Mr. Teeny, to take out the baby, referring to Maggie. She then broke her baby bottle making rigid spikes of glass, showing that she was ready to take him on; this scared Teeny who ran into Krusty's arms. Later on in the same movie when the villainous Russ Cargill was about to shoot Homer, she dropped a rock on to his head, knocking him unconscious. Her violent actions are often illustrated as somewhat innocent or at least unintentional except when she is actively protecting herself or her family.

Criminal Record

Assault : Influenced by Itchy and Scratchy, Maggie once hit Homer on the head with a mallet and later attempted to stab him with a pencil.

: Influenced by Itchy and Scratchy, Maggie once hit Homer on the head with a mallet and later attempted to stab him with a pencil. Attempted Murder: In the episode in which Mr. Burns schemed to cover up the sun, he was shot by Maggie, although it was never made clear if the gun went off during a tussle when he tried to steal her lollipop. He survived the shooting and recounted what happened. The citizens of Springfield deemed the incident "an accident". Homer, who had been the prime suspect, was cleared of all charges. Some years later she threatened Burns with a shotgun when he had lost his memory and was in the Simpson home. Lisa stopped her.

Skills and Abilities

Maggie takes after her sister in many ways. Not only does she greatly resemble Lisa (looking exactly like her in a blue dress in flash-forwards to the future), she also is brilliant and musically inclined like her sister. Maggie can play the saxophone with great ability, despite the fact that she is only a year old. In Lisa's Wedding and Holidays of Future Passed, it is implied that Maggie is a fantastic singer, again taking after her sister. In the latter episode, Maggie becomes a famous rock star. She is the lead singer in her band, is referred to as "the voice of her generation" on her Christmas card, and plays guitar.

Maggie has, on numerous, numerous occasions, demonstrated that her agility—both mental and physical—is extremely advanced for her age. She organized the other infants at the Ayn Rand School for Tots to steal a key so they could reclaim their pacifiers which had been confiscated. She figured out communication signals, gathered supplies, used the window-blinds string to pull herself into the ventilation shafts, used a Krusty Doll to lower herself into the room containing the Key (holding bottles to weight herself down and then dropping them so the string would retract), shot a suction-cup line across the room, slid across it with a hanger, and used the key to unlock the locker holding the children's pacifiers, decidedly an insider-joke imitation of Tom Cruise's maneuverings in the film "Mission Impossible". She also commonly moves along ropes with ease by hand-over-handing her way across them, such as when she tried to escape from Homer who was trying to bond with her by climbing across the clothesline. She usually keeps her intelligence a secret, as in A Streetcar Named Marge.

She once crawled all over town to her mother's favorite hangouts trying to track down her mother, who was on a well-deserved vacation. Maggie usually has a good understanding of her circumstances and surroundings and has at times tried to point out the obvious to adults (mostly Homer) who are oblivious to what is going on. She knows how to read and was seen trying to communicate to Homer using baby blocks, but failed because Homer can't read. Maggie has spelled out E=MC2 with her blocks before [15] and can change her own diapers. She has also used a fire extinguisher to put out burning curtains and has driven Homer's car. Maggie can also skateboard and has already said her first word despite being only a year old.

Although Maggie shows a natural inclination to weapons (see the above section for examples of her ability to defend herself), and aggression, she also has saved members of her family on various occasions, such as when she swam out to sea and saved Homer from drowning or when she saved Bart and Lisa from Groundskeeper Willie in Treehouse of Horror VI.

Maggie also seems to take after her father in bowling, as she has already bowled a perfect game (something it took Homer 39 years to do) at the age of 1.[16]

On some level, Maggie is like Bart. Like her brother, she is capable of underhanded scheming and rallying others (like the babies at the daycare) in common cause, much as Bart frequently does with his friends and peers. More recently, she developed an interest in whistling, so Homer attempted to launch her baby-celebrity career but this was sidelined by her first tooth emerging.[17]

Relationships

Homer

Homer has at times forgotten Maggie's existence and Maggie in turn has shown disinterest and even fear towards her father. In fact, she wasn't above targeting him after seeing a cartoon and running away from him when he tried to bond with her or when Marge asked him to hold her. Nevertheless, she recognizes his heart and has shown herself willing to do whatever it takes to save or aid him. When he was on the verge of drowning, Maggie stopped at nothing to rescue him and when he was kidnapped by a crazed tow-trucker, she rode out to liberate him and bring him home (despite earlier wriggling out of his grip to get to Marge). In addition, when Homer and Marge were threatened by the local mob, she used a shotgun to disarm and injure them all and her parents never learned she was the shooter. At one point, when she thought Homer was lost at sea with Bart, she was clearly saddened (like Marge and Lisa), but was overjoyed when she saw him alive and hugged his arm in response. At one point she gave her father one of her dolls to take care of to cheer him up and while giving him a warm hug, replaced a dream version of Flanders (a reference to her once being one of his foster children) with one of Homer. Maggie's first word was, "Daddy", although no one was around to hear it.

Marge

Maggie has a much closer bond with her mother than anyone else in the family. This was most evident when, forced to choose between the Flanders family or the Simpsons in a custody matter, she was undecided until Marge appeared and Maggie ran to her. In addition, when Marge was missing for a time (actually on a personal much-needed vacation), a saddened Maggie spent a large amount of time looking for her, even going so far as to search in all of the places she typically goes with her. And whenever she is worried or frightened and Marge is around, she always goes to her for comfort and security. Even then, however, she at times rebels against her mother's parenting by refusing to eat certain foods and resisting her mother's insistence that she wear an uncomfortable sweater.

Bart

Like the other members of her family, Maggie has at times shown aggravation towards Bart. At one point, she even slapped him repeatedly for choices that he made. And when she was "a mean drunk" after "getting high off the beer fumes", she drunkenly threw slow punches at him and at one point even had him in a stranglehold, although Bart did not appear to be fighting back. She also (in her own way) tattled on Bart, letting her parents know that he had a dolphin in his possession. Despite this, Maggie loves her brother very much. So much so, she played with him when he couldn't see Milhouse for awhile, pulled several pranks with him, and joyfully square-danced with him at a Dude Ranch.

In addition, after he returned from a very poorly-planned disastrous trip to France, Maggie gave him a loving hug upon seeing him again. On another occasion, she played a brief game of Police Detective with him. When Bart was accused of a prank he, surprisingly, did NOT commit. She alone knew he was innocent.

During two Treehouse of Horror segments, Maggie held onto Bart for security when climbing down from the tree house and when falling asleep, laid on him. However, she happily stole money from him, only to suck on, though, in lieu of a pacifier.

Lisa

After Marge, Maggie seems to be closest to Lisa. The two have similar levels of intelligence and general interests despite their youth and have a strong sisterly bond. Also, next to Marge and Homer, Lisa holds and carries Maggie the most. However, Maggie does express annoyance with Lisa at times and will occasionally act smug towards her, such as when she developed her whistling ability.

Mr. Burns

Although she makes amends with Mr. Burns by giving back Bobo.

Ned Flanders

When she, her brother, and sister go to live with the Flanders, she seems fine with it, especially when she said Daddily Doodily after spending time with the Flanders.

Moe

Aside from a non-canon word of his name in Flaming Moes, she is shown to like Moe as in a few episodes especially in Moe Baby Blues, where he is shown that he likes spending time with her.

Non-Canon Appearances

The contents of this article or section are considered to be non-canon and therefore may not have actually happened/existed.

Future

In Marge on the Lam , when Homer gets his arms stuck in two vending machines he remarks that "Oh, I’m gonna have these things on my arms forever.” Once this is said, Homer has a fantasy of Maggie’s wedding in the First Church of Springfield where Maggie removes the pacifier and kisses an unknown man

In Future-Drama, Maggie, now 9, went on holidays to Alaska, which became a sunny beach due to global warming. At this age she looks exactly like Lisa does currently.[18]

In Barthood, Maggie is seen at 9 years old again, and she and Gerald kiss while at Milhouse's graduation party with Bart and Lisa.

In Lisa's Wedding, Maggie is seen as a 16 year old with a punk-like style. She is shown to wear her trademark pacifier around her neck as a necklace. It is said that she has an incredible singing voice and, according to Homer, never shuts up (Ironically, whenever she tries to speak, she is always interrupted). She almost performs "Amazing Grace" at the wedding, but then an announcement is made that the wedding is off.

In Bart to the Future, she is 31 and she has a daughter, Maggie Jr., who looks exactly the same as Maggie and Lisa did as infants.[19] She does not actually appear in the episode, but a deleted scene revealed she became an astronaut.

In Holidays of Future Passed, it is seen through a 30-year photo montage that she grows up to be a world famous rock star, acting as the lead singer in her band and also playing guitar. In the episode, she is 31 and pregnant, and has her baby daughter, Maggie Jr., who looks just like her as an infant, while traveling to visit her family for Christmas. Maggie once again is not heard speaking, as her doctor told her to not speak until she gave birth due to new research discovering the umbilical cord is actually a vocal cord. When she arrives home with her baby girl, she is cut off by Grampa when she tries to answer his question of who her baby's father is.

During some future episodes, it's implied that Maggie now has a relationship with her nemesis Gerald Samson. During Milhouse's graduation party, they are kids and are seen holding hands and kissing[20]. In Days of Future Future, she and Gerald are seen sharing a drink while staring romantically at each other [21]. This also hints that Gerald may be the father of Maggie's baby from Holidays of Future Passed.

In Flanders' Ladder, she is revealed to never pass on, becoming a constellation.

Treehouse of Horror

In an alternate universe that Homer briefly visited during the "Time and Punishment" segment, Maggie hits Groundskeeper Willie in the back with an ax and then spoke in James Earl Jones' voice: "This is indeed a disturbing universe."[22]

In Treehouse of Horror IX, during the "Starship Poopers" segment, Maggie loses her legs and arms and grows green tentacles after she got her first tooth (which is a sharp Rigellian tooth). Maggie's pacifier contacts the alien duo, Kang and Kodos. When the duo arrives at the Simpson house, it is later revealed that Kang is Maggie's real father. Homer and Kang then proceed to fight for custody of the human-Rigellian hybrid, although the family managed to trick Kang and Kodos into leaving Maggie behind to "destroy every politician in Washington", although Maggie then reveals she's capable of driving before laughing ominously. It is implied that she is a year and a few months old in this episode, as Marge mentioned that Kang's impregnation of her that led directly to her giving birth to Maggie occurred two years before the events of the episode.

In Treehouse of Horror XV, Maggie is eaten by Mr. Burns but is later rescued by her family, a reversal of the usual narrative trajectory.

In the opening of Treehouse of Horror XXVII, Maggie proceeded to kill Sideshow Bob, the Leprechaun, Kang/Kodos, and (technically) the ghost of Frank Grimes by beheading them while they were distracted with dancing before trying to murder the Simpson family at a Christmas tree lot.

In Treehouse of Horror XXVIII, Maggie was possessed by Pazuzu. In the next segment of the same Treehouse of Horror episode, "Coralisa", she still had some of Pazuzu's evil left in her, causing her to vomit all over the kitchen table.

The Simpsons Guy

In The Simpsons Guy, Chris Griffin takes Maggie's pacifier to suck on himself, causing her to cry and snatch it back.

Behind the Laughter

Matt Groening first conceived the Simpson family in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. He had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts, and had intended to present his Life in Hell series. When he realized that animating Life in Hell would require him to rescind publication rights for his life's work, Groening chose to go in another direction.[23] He hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family, and named the characters after various members of his own family. Maggie was named after Matt Groening's younger sister Margaret "Maggie" Groening. She often sucked on a pacifier and wore a sleep suit, two traits Groening used for Maggie. Then Maggie made her debut with the rest of the Simpsons clan on April 19, 1999, aged three months, in the Tracey Ullman short Good Night.[24]

Groening thought that it would be funny to have a baby character that did not talk and never grew up, but assigned any emotions that the scene required. Her comedic hallmarks include her tendency to stumble and land on her face while attempting to walk (though this has been downplayed in later seasons), and a penchant for sucking on her pacifier, the sound of which has become the equivalent of her catchphrase and was originally created by Groening during the Tracey Ullman period, and by Nancy Cartwright during the regular series.

During the show's opening sequence, Maggie is run through a supermarket checkout scanner, which reads that she is worth $847.63 (a reference to the monthly cost of infant-rearing in 1989). In The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular, the scanner instead reads "NRA4EVER", a reference to the running joke that the show's creators are right-wing radicals. In the newer episodes, her price has changed to $486.52 (possibly because of the change in the cost of infant-rearing). In the Treehouse of Horror XXIV couch gag introduced by Guillermo del Toro the scanner reads 666 instead, referring to the number of Satan.

Voice

With few exceptions, Maggie never speaks but is very participatory in the events around her, emoting with subtle gestures and facial expressions. Maggie has spoken in Good Night, the first short to air, after the family falls asleep. There was another time she had tried to talk in Making Faces short upon the task given by Bart and Lisa. Liz Georges provided the voice of Maggie in Good Night, and by Yeardley Smith in "Babysitting Maggie", "Making Faces", "Football", "House of Cards", and "The Money Jar".

In Bart vs. Thanksgiving, Bart has a vision of what could happen if he returned home after destroying Lisa's centerpiece. In this vision, Maggie says to him telepathically: "It's your fault I can't talk!"

Maggie's first word spoken in the normal continuity of the series occurred in Lisa's First Word, when she was voiced by Elizabeth Taylor, whose voice role as Maggie was named the thirteenth greatest guest spot in the history of the show by IGN. James Earl Jones, who voiced Maggie in Treehouse of Horror V, was in seventh place. She later had brief dialogue in Treehouse of Horror IX at the end of "Starship Poopers", the third act, voiced by Harry Shearer using Kang's voice. For a few Tracey Ullman Show shorts, Yeardley Smith did many of Maggie's non-sucking noises and occasional speaking parts, but for The Simpsons Movie and since Season 1, her non-sucking noises and occasional speaking parts are done by Nancy Cartwright. Although she has spoken many times, she has only had two canonical speeches that were real within the series. Her first canon speech was in Lisa's First Word, and this word was "Daddy" (as both Bart and Lisa grew up calling Homer his given name); however, only the viewers and not the family heard her say this (at least until the Father's Day clip show). Her second speech was in Coming to Homerica. This time, the family did hear her speak.

According to The Simpsons Movie, the first word the family heard Maggie say was "sequel?", in the ending sequence (unless one counts the Father's Day clip show as being canon). It was stated in the DVD commentary that she was voiced by Nancy Cartwright, who is also the current voice of Maggie in the series.

In Four Great Women and a Manicure, Maggie (voiced by Jodie Foster) rallies her classmates with a stirring speech about injustice and creativity, though this is a non-canon story.

Heroism

Maggie saved Bart and Lisa from Groundskeeper Willie in Treehouse of Horror VI and saved Homer from being killed by mobsters in Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge. She even rescued her arch-enemy, Baby Gerald, from floating into space in a Simpson comic story called "Bringing Down Baby". Maggie saved Homer a second time in The Simpsons Movie from the villainous Russ Cargill by rolling a small boulder down onto his head. Homer once said "What a great little accident you turned out to be", referring to the fact that she was conceived at a time that none of her parents intended to. She also saved her father from drowning in a riptide and rescued him from being held prisoner by an insane tow trucker from Guidoville whom Homer had offended. In the Season 27 episode Puffless, she, along with the help of Plopper and an army of animal friends, save a possum from The Spuckler Family.

Trivia

Gallery

The full image gallery for Maggie Simpson may be viewed at Maggie Simpson/Gallery.

Appearances

This article or section is incomplete. Please improve the article, or discuss the issue on the talk page.

Citations

As one of the five major title characters of the series, Maggie appears in a majority of all the episodes, as well as The Simpsons Movie and the Simpsons games. However, due to her young age and lack of major plot involvement, Maggie is often shown briefly in certain episodes as a background character. There are even certain episodes, where Maggie doesn't appear at all.