After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family was given their own series on the Fox Broadcasting Company which debuted December 17, 1989.

She is often seen sucking on her red pacifier and, when she walks, she trips over her clothing and falls on her face (this running gag is used much more in earlier seasons).

Maggie's occasional speaking parts and other vocalizations are currently provided by Nancy Cartwright, but she has also been voiced by guest stars Carol Kane, James Earl Jones, Elizabeth Taylor and Jodie Foster, and by series regulars Yeardley Smith and Harry Shearer.

The Simpsons uses a floating timeline in which the characters do not physically age (or if they do, then very slowly), and as such the show is assumed to be set in the current year.

To support his impending family, Homer all but demanded a job at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, impressing its owner, Mr. Burns with his aggressive submissiveness.

By the time Maggie was born, Homer had shown great signs of distress, but he managed to find motivation in the form of his newborn baby girl.

[7] Maggie has performed a number of feats that for her age suggest she is highly intelligent, akin to her sister, and possibly a genius.

She has spelled out E=MC² with her baby blocks, driven Homer's car, escaped from the Springfield daycare center,[8] written her name on an Etch A Sketch,[7] played Internet poker,[9] spelled words with her baby blocks, shot Mr. Burns, played Lisa's saxophone, and treated her pacifier like a cigarette.

She shows a high degree of dexterity, and she once hit Homer on the head with a mallet and shot a dart at a photograph of him in imitation of Itchy and Scratchy.

Groening had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show, and had intended to present an adaptation of his Life in Hell comic strip.

[21] The family was crudely drawn, because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead, they just traced over his drawings.

[23] At the time, Groening was primarily drawing in black and white and when designing Lisa and Maggie, he "just gave them this kind of spiky starfish hair style, not thinking that they would eventually be drawn in color".

[24] Groening thought that it would be funny to have a baby character that did not talk and never grew up, but was scripted to show any emotions that the scene required.

[25] Maggie's comedic hallmarks include her tendency to stumble and land on her face while attempting to walk, 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.

Maggie's first lines were spoken in "Good Night", the first short to air on The Tracey Ullman Show, after the family falls asleep.

The sucking noise is heard in all of Maggie's appearances to date, and is usually archive audio from either of Groening or Csupo's initial recordings (from the show's early episodes).

[44] In 2006, Elizabeth Taylor was named thirteenth on IGN's "Top 25 Simpsons Guest Appearances" list for her performance as Maggie in "Lisa's First Word".

[45] James Earl Jones, voice of Maggie in "Treehouse of Horror V", was named the seventh greatest guest star on the show in the same list.

[54] On April 9, 2009, the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of five 44-cent stamps featuring Maggie and the four other members of the Simpson family.