Voiced by Julie Kavner,[2] she first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987.

Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on Life in Hell but instead decided to create a new set of characters.

After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three seasons, the Simpson family received their own series on Fox, which debuted December 17, 1989.

The Simpsons uses a floating timeline (the characters do not physically age), and as such the show is generally assumed to be set in the current year.

At the end of the evening, while Artie drove her home after receiving a slap, she spied Homer walking along the side of the road with the corsage meant for her.

After the two had been dating for several years, Marge discovered she was pregnant with Bart, and she and Homer were married in a small wedding chapel across the state line.

[10] In "Homer's Paternity Coot" (season 17, 2006), Marge states that Emerald would have been her birthstone if she had been born three months later, placing her birthday sometime in February.

[12] In the season eighteen episode "Marge Gamer" she states that she and actor Randy Quaid share the same birthdate (October 1).

[17] Matt Groening first conceived Marge and the rest of the Simpson family in 1987 in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks' office.

Groening had been called 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][22] Marge debuted with the rest of the Simpson family on April 19, 1987, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night".

He felt that they could achieve a "deeper vein" of comedy in an episode where Marge has a nervous breakdown, and James L. Brooks quickly approved.

[28] 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.

The gag was intended to be revealed in the final episode of the series, but was scrapped early on due to inconsistencies, and also to the fact that rabbit ears would be too fictitious even for The Simpsons.

[31][32] Part of Kavner's contract says that she will never have to promote The Simpsons on video and she rarely performs Marge's voice in public because she believes it "destroys the illusion.

"[34] In The Simpsons Movie, some scenes, such as Marge's video message to Homer, were recorded over one hundred times, leaving Kavner exhausted.

[43] Marge is generally a stereotypical sitcom mother, and she also plays the "long-suffering wife" who puts up with the antics of her children and her oafish husband.

[4] While she usually takes her family's problems with good humor, in "Homer Alone" (season three, 1992), her workload and resultant stress caused her to have a nervous breakdown.

The next day, Homer is dirty and disheveled, and begs Marge to take him back, saying the one thing he can offer her that nobody else can is "complete and utter dependence."

Marge maintains a good relationship with her mother Jacqueline and her sisters Patty and Selma, though they disapprove of Homer and are vocal about it.

[56] She often provides a voice of reason for the town itself, but many of the townspeople are frustrated or contemptuous of her failure to recognize or react correctly to breaches of social norms.

[57] While Marge has learned to cope with her addiction, it has never completely disappeared and remains an underlying problem that is referenced occasionally on the show.

Politically, Marge generally aligns with the Democratic Party, having supported the candidacy of her state's progressive governor Mary Bailey,[61] and voted for Jimmy Carter in both of his presidential elections.

[62] In 2004, Kavner and Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer) won a Young Artist Award for "Most Popular Mom & Dad in a TV Series".

[63] For her performance in The Simpsons Movie, Kavner was nominated for "Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature" at the 2007 Annie Awards, but lost to Ian Holm from Ratatouille.

The article included the following passage: "She loves America's Funniest Home Videos but remains baffled after sampling The Simpsons.

"[79] The writers decided to respond by privately sending a polite letter on September 28 to Bush where they posed as Marge Simpson.

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

[84][85] Marge is depicted in much The Simpsons-related merchandise, including T-shirts, baseball caps, bumper stickers, cardboard stand-ups, refrigerator magnets, key rings, buttons, dolls, posters and figurines.

[90] Marge appeared in a 2005 advertisement for Dove Styling, where her normal beehive hair was exchanged for a more stylish look for a series of ads featuring several popular cartoon women.