I was thinking about Family Guy, when it hit me that these two characters have a lot in common. I have a few ideas, and I am sure that we can come up with some more. I will limit myself to just a couple to start to see if anyone else has the same ideas.
They both seem to excel in their jobs (Simpson: Safety inspector, Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Griffin: Assembly line worker, Happy-Go-Lucky Toys.), even though they don’t actually do their jobs.
Hmmm, I’ll bet you’re the first person ever to discover a similarity between The Simpsons and Family Guy! Perhaps you could apply your skills to finding a sitcom similar to Unhappily Ever After.
Homer is just plain dumb with moments of brilliance. His stupidity leads to his anger at times, but he always recoils with a moment of regret and sorrow afterwards.
Peter, on the other hand, is just oblivious, not necessarily stupid. He loses his shorts at the beach due to a wave, and doesn’t even think of trying to cover himself up later. He just kinda rolls over people that happen to find themselves underfoot. In order to make him regret his actions, you REALLY need to pound the thought into his brain.
Homer is like a little kid, Peter Griffin is just an airhead.
Peter is very intelligent in many ways, far more intelligent than Homer. However, Homer generally has his children’s best intentions in mind, while Peter is 100% neglectful.
Also, Peter’s wife is hot, while Marge is only hot in flashbacks.
I’d say they’re about as similar as the shows they appear on, really, since they’re each the main character. They’re both prone to pretty crazy logic and flights of fancy, Peter perhaps moreso. (A great example was on the other night’s episode: “Peter: Well I’m getting something special back, too. And by special, I don’t mean special like that Clideman boy down the street, or special like Special K. What do they do with the Regular K? And for that matter, what ever happened to Kaye Ballard? If you said ‘mallard’ and you had a cold it would sound like Ballard.”)
I’d agree that Homer is a better parent. The best description of him I’ve ever seen was “stupid but wily” (that’s from the Simpsons Forever book). Peter isn’t wily, and he may be stupider than stupid. He’s just on another planet most of the time.
Although they do both have 3 kids and a dog, Homer’s infant child and dog don’t talk, I always thought that seemed significant.
Peter doesn’t seem to have a problem neglecting/upsetting/cheating on Lois, while Homer, for the most part, loves Marge and cares when something is wrong.
Homer also doesn’t make statements like “It’s illegal for women to drive”.
Though I’ve missed a lot of the latterday simpsons episodes.
The cloning hammock vignette during Treehouse of Horror XIII suggested that the difference between Homer & Peter is only a small mutation in Homer’s DNA.