Mona Simpson

Mona Penelope Simpson (née Olsen), also known as Sunny,Let's Go Fly a Coot and formerly Penelope Olsen,The Simpsons Uncensored Family Album was the mother of Homer Simpson, mother-in-law of Marge Simpson, paternal grandmother of Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson and first wife of Abraham Simpson II.
==Personality==
Mona was strong-willed, righteous and caring, always doing what she knew or thought was the right thing no matter what. She cherished the relationship she had with her son and later her grandchildren and daughter-in-law. Despite her friendly nature, she was shown to hold distaste for her ex-husband and Homer's father Abe due to his irritability, intolerance and questionable parenting methods concerning their son, even berating him for telling Homer she had died. She also disapproved of those with ill intentions, as seen when she joined a radical group protesting biological warfare experiments and other unscrupulous activities by Charles Montgomery Burns.
Overall, she seemed to bring out a more vulnerable side of Homer reminiscent of the innocent child he was before she left.
==Early Years==
Due to being a fugitive from the law from her 30s onward that used fake identification and aliases, Mona's age was unclear. Various driver's licenses issued in the 1990s gave her date of birth as May 10, 1920 March 15, 1929; May 5, 1931; November 26, 1934; July 18, 1933; and February 27, 1926."Mother Simpson"
In the 1950s, she married Abraham Simpson.
At some point after her marriage she learned that Abe fathered Herbert Powell with a carnival worker named Gaby. Shortly after Homer was born, she made him promise to never talk about the incident at the carnival as she wanted Homer to grow up respecting his father.Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? However, she often found herself looking out for Homer while Abe could've cared less due to the circumstances of his conception,Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy much to her dismay.
Despite her hippie activism, Mona's life was on a floating timeline, and while one episode cited Joe Namath's sideburns during a Super Bowl in the 1960s as the start of her political activism and subsequent disappearance, another episode placed this circa the 1980s to 1990s, about 30 years before the Patriots traded Brady."Mothers and Other Strangers"
Mona took Homer and Abe to Woodstock, where Homer ended up being influenced by hippies.D'oh-in' in the Wind Unfortunately, her frequent protesting eventually led to Homer developing his eating disorder to cope with her absence."Mona Leaves-a" When Homer was either about six"Gone Abie Gone""To Cur, with Love" or nine, and when Mona was in her early 30s, she and other activists protesting germ research entered a facility owned by Mr. Burns, destroying all the biological warfare experiments and curing Clancy Wiggum of asthma. While escaping, she made the mistake of stopping to tend to Burns who threatened her with arrest. She then left her husband and son; Mona kissed Homer on the head while he was asleep, which Homer thought he dreamed. Abe told Homer that she had died while he was at the movies, although in another episode's flashback Abe told Homer she was dead when she had already been missing for a while. Abe went as far to point out a grave, telling him it was Mona's, although the grave actually belonged to Walt Whitman. A few weeks prior to Mona's departure, Abe took Homer on a fishing trip that ended with Homer nearly drowning, but Abe rescued him and took him back home. This resulted in a brief reconnection between Mona and Abe."How I Wet Your Mother" Unfortunately, they went back to bickering amongst themselves when Mona revealed she only married Abe to get back at her mother.Todd, Todd, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
After leaving Springfield, her exact movements are unknown, although it is later revealed she resided at the hippie commune Groovy Grove Natural Farm for several years, painting murals of Homer. She sent Homer care packages each week, although Homer was unaware of this, only collecting the packages many years later ("That's what happens when you don't tip your letter carrier at Christmas"). During this time, she also cheated on Abe, having a ménage a trois relationship at Groovy Grove with Seth and Munchie, who later fondly remembered her as a "pretty groovy chick" and "a demon in the sack", with Abe humorously remaining oblivious to this fact despite being present during the hippies' reminiscence. Abe remained unaware of her whereabouts throughout all these past events.
She was found in Utah by Abe and 16-year-old Homer, but Homer lost her to save Abe. She was the disguised pediatrician for Bart after he was born.
===Return to Springfield===
When Homer faked his own death to avoid work, Mona hears of her son's death on the news and visits her son's still open grave, finding Homer in the grave, who accidentally fell in. She initially told him off for lying in her son's grave until both realized who the other was. She returns to the Simpson house, spending time with Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. She meets Abraham again, although Abraham continues to harbor resentment over her leaving him and Homer. Mona gets angry after learning he had told Homer she was dead although Abraham states to her that he did not want Homer to find out about the fact that she was a wanted criminal on the run for 27 years. While this episode insisted that Homer first discovered Mona was alive after she finds him in his grave a different episode has him learn this when he was 16. When Homer and Mona go to the post office, to collect years worth of care packages, she is spotted and recognized by Burns. Mona is forced again to leave Springfield, on the run from the police, although the now Police Chief, Clancy Wiggum, aides her escape as she had helped cure his asthma.
===Second return to Springfield===
Sometime later, Homer discovers a hidden message in a newspaper, left by his mother, to meet her under a bridge. Homer and Bart do so and reunite with Mona, although she is discovered by the police at a diner and is arrested, later put on trial. She is acquitted because of evidence given by Homer, although she is later imprisoned, thanks to Mr. Burns, for signing into a federal park under a false name. Homer attempts to break his mother out of prison on a prison bus, with a police chase ensuing. The chase ends when she apparently dies, after the bus drives off a cliff and into some water, where it explodes, which sets off a rock avalanche, burying the bus. Mona narrowly escapes the bus before it went off the cliff. She again goes on the run, where she sends another hidden message in a newspaper to Homer, written while eating a Rhode Island-style clam chowder.My Mother the Carjacker
===Final return and death===
Mona returns to Springfield again, visiting Homer. Homer has grown sick of his mother's constant leaving and returning and refuses to reconcile with her in order to keep himself from feeling hurt. Later, feeling guilty, he attempts to apologize to his mother, only to find out she had passed away sitting in front of the fireplace.
She is cremated and, sometime after her cremation, the Simpson family watches her recorded will. She leaves Bart her Swiss-army knife, Lisa her rebellious spirit (although Lisa takes her earrings), and Marge an old purse made of hemp, asking Homer to release her ashes from the top of a specific mountain at 3:00 pm. Homer completes his mother's wish, releasing the ashes, which are sucked into a missile launch computer within the mountain, owned by Mr. Charles Montgomery Burns. The ashes stop the missile from launching, preventing the nuclear power plant's waste from being blasted to the Amazon rain forest. Homer is arrested but manages to escape, with help from Marge, Bart and Lisa, destroying the base and fulfilling his mother's final wish.
===Homer's dreams===
Mona continues to live on in Homer's dreams. When Homer develops a bed wetting problem after taking Bart on a fishing trip (which brought back his memory of his disastrous fishing trip with Abe), the rest of the family ventures into his dreams to find the cause of the problem. Eventually, they come across Mona after she saves them, under the guise of Death, from being crushed by a pair of gears. She provides them the answer to Homer's bed wetting problem via movie theater. Mona also tells Homer that he misinterpreted everything that happened between her and Abe after the fishing trip and shows him a video of what really happened. She tells Homer she will always live on in his memory along with younger versions of Homer and Abe. She then tells them to leave the dreams and to wake up, with Homer saying goodbye to his mother one last time. Homer's dream then collapses (due to Jonathan Frink and Clancy Wiggum fighting), and he and the rest of the family return to the real world.
==Physical Appearance==
Mona had straight, light blue hair as well as the distinctive large, round eyes and small, rounded nose typical of Simpson family members. However, in flashbacks she was shown to have dyed her hair maroon.
==Behind the Laughter==
===Creation===
Prior to the seventh season, Mona Simpson was mentioned once and only made brief flashback appearances. Homer Simpson first mentions his mother in the Season 1 episode "There's No Disgrace Like Home" when he claims she called Homer a disappointment, very contrary to her normal behavior. The first flashback appearance is in the Season 2 episode "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" and another flashback appearance in the Season 6 episode "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" (albeit without her face shown). In both of those episodes, she was voiced by Maggie Roswell.
Mona's first major appearance was in the seventh season episode "Mother Simpson," which was pitched by Richard Appel, who was desperately trying to think of a story idea and decided that he had to really reach for an idea. He decided to do something about Homer's mother. Many of the writers could not believe that an episode about Homer's mother had not previously been produced. Part of the fun of an episode about Homer's mother for the writers was that they were able to solve several little puzzles, such as where Lisa's intelligence came from.
The character is named after Richard Appel's wife, whose maiden name is Mona Simpson. Mona Simpson was designed in a way so that she has a little bit of Homer in her face, such as the shape of her upper lip and her nose. There were several design changes because the directors were trying to make her an attractive older and younger woman, but still be Simpson-esque.
The inspiration for the character comes from Bernardine Dohrn of the far-left revolutionary group Weather Underground, although the writers acknowledge that several people fit her description. Her crime was intentionally the least violent crime the writers could think of, as she did not harm anyone and was only caught because she came back to help Mr. Burns.
Glenn Close, who was directed in her first performance by Josh Weinstein, was convinced to do the episode partially because of James L. Brooks. When Mona gets in the van, her voice is done by Pamela Hayden because Glenn Close could not say "D'oh!" properly and thus they used the original temp track recorded by Hayden.
Mona was originally voiced by Maggie Roswell, before Glenn Close took over in most of her appearances from season 7's "Mother Simpson" to season 33's "Mothers and Other Strangers". Tress MacNeille voiced her flashback appearance in the episode "D'oh-in' in the Wind", which aired between Close's portrayals of Mona in "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular" and "My Mother the Carjacker".
==Reception==
"Mother Simpson" is one of Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein's favorite episodes, as they feel it is a perfect combination of real emotion, good jokes and an interesting story and they have expressed regret about not submitting it for the Emmy Award in the "Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming less than One Hour)" category
IGN.com ranked Glenn Close's two performances as Mona as the 25th best guest star in the show's history. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly called Glenn Close one of "fourteen guest stars whose standout performances on TV make us wish they'd turn up in a Simpsons Movie 2."
==Trivia==
*A year before her debut in a flashback in "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?", Homer said in "There's No Disgrace Like Home" that his mother said to him that he was a big disappointment.
*Mona was voiced in flashbacks in season 2's "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" and season 6's "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy", though not by Glenn Close, who voiced her in many major and minor appearances from season 7 onwards.
*In The Simpsons Uncensored Family Album, she appeared as Penelope Olsen, which according to "Mother Simpson" was one of her aliases.
*She appears in many of Homer's fantasies.
*When she died, there was a video of what she wanted the family to receive and what she wanted Homer to do with her ashes.
*She is responsible for Wiggum's police career.
*She once worked in a garage.
==Gallery==
==Appearances==
Episodes where she has a major role are in bold.
==Citations==
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ru:Мона Симпсон
cs:Mona Simpsonová
zh:莫娜·辛普森
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