Why is Homers voice lower in earlier seasons ? For the most part if you're doing a voice over, they're looking for a voice and it's gotta be that voice. But since Matt was sort of laid back, it was one minute, so whatever I came up with that day was fine with Matt. There was no heavy duty pressure to make this a huge hit since it was a little thing on a television show. So it allowed me the ability as an actor to actually find the character. So when I was doing one minute I was more of a low key, Walter Matthau kind of a voice that was easy to do in short bursts, but we did more things with the character, with more emotional range, the voice changed, and in the half hour it was very hard to sustain that sort of low key kind of voice, and so it started going deeper into the throat like that because it was a more comfortable place for me. Where did you get inspiration for Homer ? Homer's an interesting character because he's actually an amalgam of a lot of sources. Certainly from my experiences with my own father - some of his intonations. Some of it drawing from Walter Matthau. Some of it from myself, my own childishness or my own stupidity, whatever it is that Homer has. A lot of the mannerisms that were given Homer actually came from Matt. I think even some of the hand moves, they're very Matt Groening-like. If you ever see Homer move his hands, I don't know if that's true, but it looks to me like he moves his hands like Matt. And there were a few things like Mmmmmmmm - those were the things that Matt gave me. So Homer sort of came as a collective character. Fred Flintstone ? Yes, there have been comparisons drawn between Homer Simpson and Fred Flintstone. Both are blue collar, both of them have a 5 o'clock shadow. One of them has a lot more hair. And in some ways both of them are kind of boorish. Homer doesn't have as big an ambition as Fred Flintstone or the work ethic. I think Fred Flintstone actually was a harder worker and had more work ethic. Homer has ambition but he has absolutely no drive. I remember one scene where he actually says 'boy after all these get rich schemes I'm gonna make me rich - and quick!' What about Homer's catchphrase ? The catchphrase "Doh" that