Maggie Simpson
Margaret Simpson, known as Maggie Simpson, is a fictional character from the cartoon television series The Simpsons. She is the third daughter of the main couple, Homer and Marge Simpson, and the youngest of them. Her older siblings are Bart and Lisa Simpson. She is always seen sucking on a pacifier and when she walks, she often trips over the monkey and falls on her face.
Maggie was created by cartoonist Matt Groening in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office, for her television debut on April 19, 1987, in the short Good Night for the show The Tracey Ullman Show.
In the original version, Nancy Cartwright and Yeardley Smith usually do all the laughing, crying, and babbling that the character normally emits, as well as some of her words. However, the first time she spoke, it was actress Elizabeth Taylor who lent her voice for a single word: daddy . Exceptionally, in the Halloween specials, James Earl Jones and Harry Shearer have made her speak in a male voice for comedic purposes. Another time Maggie speaks is in the episode titled: Homerica, where she says the word if in the Norwegian language: Ha, Ha, Ha.
Maggie has appeared in other merchandise related to The Simpsons, including video games, the film, the Universal Studios Hollywood park ride, commercials, books, and comics. She has also inspired an entire line of licensed merchandise, including figurines, t-shirts, and children's books. In 2000, Maggie, along with the rest of her family, was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Role in The Simpsons
The role Maggie plays in the series is greatly reduced and may or may not be commensurate with her age. As a baby, Maggie is limited to eating, sleeping, burping, and sucking on her pacifier. Its presence in the family generates some humorous portraits of the poor domestic organization in terms of avoiding risks for a baby who roams freely in the house (unprotected stairs and corners, small parts and cleaning products within reach, sparking sockets without hide or ground-level fans, among others), although it is also ironically noted that Maggie is capable of dodging these dangers on her own. In a certain way, the Simpsons' home does not suggest that a baby lives there, the proper accessories that a house with a baby should contain appear sporadically and as humorous resources. In fact, on several occasions she has hinted that her parents and siblings have neglected her quite a bit and pay attention to her only as a last resort and temporarily.
As a trademark, Maggie sucks loudly and repeatedly on her pacifier with a characteristic postalveolar and affricate oral onomatopoeia. But with the evolution of the series, this noise has had to be reduced (both in appearances and in volume) so as not to overshadow the conversations that the characters have around her. Lacking her pacifier, Maggie also sucks on other objects that come to her. within reach (fingers, noses, toy parrots, or fish), making the same or similar sucking sound. Her repeated falls and her inexhaustible stamina are other characteristics that she displays in the series.
Biography
The designs of the main characters in The Simpsons do not change, so in each season they are assumed to be in the relevant year with the age they represent. In some episodes the birth dates of the protagonists have been given, but as the series has progressed it has made them totally incoherent and as a resource of humor and confusion for the writers. Despite this, a very general line can be drawn about Maggie's short span of life.
Shortly after Marge became pregnant with Lisa, she and Homer bought their first house (the current one). Believing himself to be the happiest man on Earth, Homer fired his job at the nuclear power plant when he achieved some financial stability supporting only his wife and his two children at the time, Bart and Lisa. The patriarch looked for a job that was less demanding and liked more at the bowling alley, but when Marge inadvertently became pregnant by Maggie, she had to ask to be reinstated at headquarters.
In the Simpsons Halloween special episodes, they find out that Maggie is the daughter of one of the aliens, but being a Halloween special, it has no real value, in those specials various things happen like murders and crazy things that aren't real either.
The most notable anecdote of her short life is that she shot Mr. Burns in the episodes of Who Shot Mr. Burns?. It appears that Maggie has developed some skill with weapons, as that he shot some mobsters again to save his father's life. It also seems that Maggie knows how to distinguish the good people from the bad, so in the film she was crucial in getting rid of Russ Cargill, the film's antagonist who threatened his father and brother with a shotgun.
Despite these specific events that take her away from her daily life, the baby is dedicated to leading an idle and carefree life at home, entertaining herself with her toys or her relatives. She has recently been seen playing more with children her age, especially her new foster cousin. She still doesn't go to kindergarten.
In the episodes "Lisa's Wedding" and "Holidays of Future Passed", according to some visions, in the future Maggie will be a rebellious teenager, with an angelic voice, who dresses like a rocker and who manages to be the singer of a musical band; but she is not heard talking about her because she is always interrupted.
Character
Maggie plays the role of a neglected baby in a dysfunctional family, who has had to develop forced self-sufficiency. However, as a baby, she is very attached to her mother, in contrast to her father, who pays little attention to her, even forgetting that she exists. This also reflects the domestic roles that parents play in the family. Maggie is impressionable and influenced by her surroundings, which together with her skill made her dangerous, even hitting her father with a hammer in imitation of the Itchy & amp; Scratchy Maggie also sometimes plays a parallel role to Lisa, that of a baby with great possibilities for the future, but limited by the economic situation of her family and the underestimation that she receives from it..
Due to her family neglect, Maggie is shown to be quite self-sufficient in scenes where she is alone. Thanks to this, Maggie has saved her siblings and her father from life and death situations, she is able to prepare a bottle, imitate Britney Spears dances and organize riots against adults. Since the first season, Maggie has shown gifted abilities but recently in the series it has been shown that this is due to the influence that her intelligent sister Lisa exerts on her. His condition as an adorable baby has been the central theme of some episodes to bring out the most tender side of the most reclusive characters in the series, although on certain occasions he usually presents behaviors that refute the innocence of a child: he plays poker on the Internet, he handles firearms and even received a salary for collaborating with a federal agent, who later tells him that the FBI could count on his services in the future.
Her physical appearance is like her sister Lisa but as a baby. He has large eyes and blond hair that is spiky around his entire head. She always wears a blue bow on her forehead and a blue overalls during the day, while she can be white or lilac as pajamas. As additional clothing, in winter she is dressed in an orange coat on which she looks like a five-pointed star. For special occasions, she has been seen wearing small-sized dresses. She is never separated from her red pacifier.
Creation
Matt Groening first conceived Maggie and the rest of her family in 1986 in the waiting room of James L. Brooks' office. Groening was tasked with designing characters for animated shorts to be included in the Tracey Ullman Show and, fearing he would lose ownership of his comic strip by introducing Life in Hell, the cartoonist improvised a dysfunctional American family based on his own. Groening thought it would be funny to have a baby in such a family who could neither speak nor grow, but who could express the emotions that each scene required. Thus, the cartoonist baby he hastily designed was named after his younger sister.
In haste, Groening tried to design the characters in such a way that they would have a perfectly recognizable silhouette for each of the main characters and unique characteristics. In Maggie's case, the silhouette was the same as Lisa's, but in reduced, and the main characteristic was that pointed hair that projects directly without any distinction from the head. Her one-piece dress is based on and honors another famous baby from the world of animation: Cocoliso. Groening also made the pacifier a distinctive part of the character.
Development
Maggie is probably the least evolved character within the main family, due to her mute and marginal nature. Her advanced intelligence is outlined early in the first season, being able to spell complicated mathematical formulas, and she continues to develop in a frustrating manner in later seasons. Possibly her role as the conductor of the emotions of each scene makes her seem much more intelligent (observer and judge) than what is supposed for a real one-year-old, but this has allowed Maggie's evolution to oscillate between what it would be a normal baby and a gifted one.
Dubbing
With few exceptions, Maggie never speaks but often participates in events around her, with subtle gestures or facial expressions. The first time the baby spoke she did so in the short Good Night , first aired on The Tracey Ullman Show , after the family fell asleep. This time, Liz George provided the voice for Maggie.
In the internationally broadcast series, Maggie first spoke in Lisa's First Word and was voiced by Elizabeth Taylor. Even though it was only one word (daddy), Taylor had to record her several times before the producers were satisfied. James Earl Jones voiced Maggie in the fifth Halloween special. Later in the ninth Halloween special, Maggie would speak again, dubbed by Harry Shearer in his Kang log. For the rest of the episodes, Yeardley Smith would provide most of the baby's babbling and occasional phrases, but in recent seasons Nancy Cartwright has taken over. Jodie Foster has also lent her She voices an adult Maggie in the twentieth episode of the twentieth season: Four Great Women and a Manicure, aired on May 10, 2009. In the Spanish dubbing, the noises she makes are usually kept as in the original version and professional voice actresses like Alexia So lis, Patricia Acevedo (for Latin America) and Isacha Mengíbar (for Spain) have lent her her voice to articulate her few words.
Reception
Nancy Basile on About.com said her favorite scenes of Maggie on The Simpsons are the ones where she acts more like an adult than a baby. She commented that among her favorite scenes with the baby are in the episode Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song, where she meets her unibrowed nemesis, in Lady Bouvier's Lover, and especially the scene where Bart is supposed to babysit her, but Maggie gets away with Homer's car in a sequence in Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie. Basile added that "whether looking at The Happy Elves or falling down, Maggie is the cutest baby in the Simpson family." Comedian and former Simpsons writer Ricky Gervais named And with Maggie are three her second favorite episode of the series, adding that the scene in which Homer puts the collage of photos on his workstation made her "choke up to the point of make him think about it."
In 2006, Elizabeth Taylor was nominated as the 13th of IGN's "Top 25 Star Appearances on The Simpsons" for her role as Maggie in "Lisa's First Word." James Earl Jones, who cameoed as the voice of Maggie in the fifth Halloween special, was considered the seventh best guest actor on the same list.
Cultural influence
The inclusion of Maggie in the various merchandising of The Simpsons attests to its popularity. Maggie Groening (the sister of the person in charge of The Simpsons and who inspired the character) has edited four children's books illustrated by Matt Groening himself: Maggie Simpson's Book of Animals, Maggie Simpson's Counting Book, Maggie Simpson's Book of Colors and Shapes and Maggie Simpson's Alphabet Book, released in North America on September 12, 1991. Other merchandise she has featured in includes dolls, posters, figurines, puzzles, and T-shirts. Maggie has been turned into an action figure for the World of Springfield in the "living room" section, showing her and her mother in the dining room of the Simpson house. Maggie has appeared in commercials for Burger King, Butterfinger, C.C. Lemon, Domino's Pizza, Ramada Inn and Subway.
Maggie has appeared in other spinoffs related to The Simpsons. She has a place in almost all of the Simpsons video games, with a special role in the most recent: The Simpsons Game. Aside from the television series, Maggie appears regularly in The Simpsons comics that published monthly since November 29, 1993. Maggie also plays a small role in The Simpsons Ride, which opened in 2008 at Universal Studios in Hollywood in Florida.
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