Maggie is the baby of the family on The Simpsons, so she isn’t known for being the most talkative character. She’s really better known for the sucking noise she makes with her pacifier. In fact, it’s practically her catchphrase, something the show itself has acknowledged. However, there have been quite a few times that Maggie has said her “first words” on the show.
The Simpsons
- Release Date
- December 17, 1989
- Seasons
- 35
- Studio
- Fox
It helps that The Simpsons have had quite a few stories that aren’t canon, which means that anything can happen. Added to this, there are all different types of communication, and some use things other than the spoken word. Thanks to this, Maggie has “spoken” without breaking her silent streak.
That said, Maggie has vocalized a few words in canon and has even been voiced by a variety of actors. This includes the series’ regular voice actors as well as a few guest stars. In fact, Maggie’s actually been voiced by quite a few celebrities over the years. Stream The Simpsons on Disney+.
16 The Tracey Ullman Shorts
The Simpsons got their start through shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, although they didn’t always resemble the characters they would eventually become in their own series. Notably, Maggie seemed a little more talkative than she’d be later on, though it was usually limited to babbling or saying something in unison with her siblings. In fact, Maggie talked as early as the short that started it all, “Good Night.”
Maggie Spoke in the Original Short
Homer and Marge are tucking the Simpson children into bed. However, they accidentally scare the kids, with Bart thinking about the human mind, Lisa worried about bedbugs, and Maggie terrified by the nursery rhyme, “Rock-a-bye Baby,” imagining herself as the falling baby. The short ends with the spooked Simpson children running to their parents’ bed. It’s then Maggie says her first lines, the very title of the short, “Good Night.”
For this scene, Maggie was voiced by actress Liz Georges, who would later be known for voicing Courtney in As Told By Ginger and Dorothy in Dic’s cartoon spin-off of The Wizard of Oz.
15 Bart’s Thanksgiving Nightmare
Season 2, Episode 7
“Bart vs. Thanksgiving” sees trouble for the Simpsons on the titular holiday, when Bart, while trying to place the cooked turkey on the table, ends up destroying a centerpiece Lisa made. After being told he ruined Turkey Day, Bart runs away from home.
“It’s Your Fault I Can’t Talk”
However, a nightmare sequence gives us a glimpse at just why Bart doesn’t want to apologize. When he imagines returning home and trying to say he’s sorry, he’s immediately told it’s not enough with his family growing more monstrously cartoonish. Soon, everyone starts blaming him for all sorts of things, with even Maggie mouthlessly saying “It’s your fault I can’t talk,” which is either a contradiction in itself or a sign she’s somehow telepathic. An uncredited Carol Kane voiced Maggie in this imagination spot.
14 The Boblox Emojis
Season 34, Episode 10
In the digital age, people have found all sorts of new ways to communicate with each other. In The Simpsons, emojis were once shown to have effectively become the modern-day equivalent of hieroglyphics. “Game Done Changed” sees the kids of Springfield fall in love with a new game, “Boblox.” The game is said to be so kid-friendly, even Maggie gets to play.
Maggie Converses in Cyberspace
Throughout the story, Maggie is able to convey what she’s thinking through the emojis, which show up in a speech bubble, allowing her to finally communicate with Marge and Homer when they play the game with her. For example, Maggie tells her father she loves him using symbols for “Baby,” “Heart,” “Doughnut,” and “Man.” Maggie also associates her sister Lisa with the symbols for “Star” and “Saxophone.” Eventually, the family is so distracted by the virtual world, they are still glued to their screens by the story’s end.
13 Maggie’s Dream Dialogue
Season 27, Episode 1
There have been a few dream sequences and other, similar non-canon events which have allowed Maggie to speak without interrupting the continuity. “Every Man’s Dream” sees the story come in and out of characters’ dreams.
“I See Trees of Green…”
At one point, he’s become a better man for his family, encouraging Lisa to eat meat again and Maggie to start talking. In fact, Maggie starts singing “What a Wonderful World,” before it turns out to be another dream, transitioning into the song switching to a cover by The Clerks. This would end up being the first time Maggie sang in the series.
12 Maggie Says “Moe”
Season 3, Episode 10
Sometimes, it’s unclear if Maggie spoke or if it was just imagined. In “Flaming Moe’s,” Moe betrays Homer by taking credit for his recipe for a new alcoholic drink that soon takes Springfield by storm. At one point, Homer is tortured by imagining his family constantly saying “Moe” again and again.
Everything’s Coming Up Moe
It starts innocently enough, with Marge telling Bart to “mow” the lawn. However, it soon reaches the point where the rest of the family keeps repeating “Moe.” Finally, Maggie takes out her pacifier and says Moe. Of course, it’s implied this was all just in Homer’s imagination.
11 The Maggie Roark Speech
Season 20, Episode 20
Another episode, “Four Great Women and a Manicure,” sees Marge and Lisa share stories of great women at the nail salon. Marge’s final story, “Maggie Roark,” is based on Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and sees Maggie deal with a conformity-obsessed preschool teacher.
“And Now, If the Jury Will Allow Me, It’s Naptime”
After repeatedly getting in trouble and being put on a preschool trial, Maggie gives an impassioned speech in the voice of Jodie Foster.
In the end, Maggie becomes a successful architect, even opening a daycare center where babies are encouraged to be as creative as they want. Ironically, Marge gets upset when Maggie ends up painting The Starry Night on the wall.
10 The Don Hertzfeldt Couch Gag
Season 26, Episode 1
Surreal things can happen in The Simpsons universe during the series’ famous couch gags. The family can turn into anything from animals to monsters, and even temporarily get killed off. One opening gag, animated by Don Hertzfeldt, has Homer use a strange remote that sends him and his family into the future.
The Future of Maggie is Advertising
The futuristic incarnations of the Simpsons look more like aliens than humans. Even Maggie is shown to be a shape-shifter, dubbed “Maagi Sampsan.” She’s also able to speak in this form, using a near-inhuman voice, telling the viewers, “Make purchase of the merchandise!”
9 Maggie Subtitled
Season 27, Episode 3
Maggie might not be able to communicate with the people in her life, but she might have some friends who understand her quite well. The episode “Puffless” contains a subplot, “Maggie’s Extraordinary Animal Adventure,” that could effectively serve as its own episode, in which Maggie befriends a squirrel, who introduces her to all sorts of different animals. Unfortunately, her new opossum friend gets captured by Cletus, who plans on cooking the poor creature for dinner. It’s up to Maggie, her new animal friends, and the return of Plopper the Spider-Pig to save the day.
There’s Even a Freeze-Frame Bonus
Throughout the story, subtitles reveal Maggie sucking on her pacifier reads as language to the animals. Notably, Maggie recognizes Plopper as Spider-Pig, suggesting she was able to talk with him in the past. In fact, a few “sucks” even turn out to mean an elaborate rescue plan. Of course, this is done so the subtitles can have the punchline, “If you’ve read all this, congratulations, you’re a genius!”
There have been other times when subtitles have explained Maggie’s baby talk. In “Million Dollar Abie,” Maggie’s gurgling is translated as “Bald Mommy will surely fail,” in response to Homer’s ambitions.
8 Maggie Decoded
Season 3, Episode 24
When Homer first met his half-brother Herb, he accidentally ruined his life. By his second appearance in the show, “Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?,” he’d become homeless and penniless. After seeing a mother helplessly ask her baby what they want, Herb comes up with the idea of a baby translator. He also reunites with Homer who has also just been awarded a $2,000 prize to avoid a lawsuit against Mr. Burns, to get the needed funds.
“Lavish Attention on Me and Entertain Me”
Naturally, Herb uses the baby of the Simpsons family to help develop and test out his new invention. While Maggie doesn’t exactly talk, the invention actually works, translating her cooing into actual sentences, spoken in Herb’s voice, as performed by Danny DeVito.
Herb created his machine by writing human responses that parallel the noises Maggie makes as various reactions, blurring the line between what Herb’s saying and what Maggie’s saying. However, the invention appears to be more or less accurate. For example, during a game of peek-a-boo, Maggie says, “Oh, there you are. Very amusing.”
7 Maggie Speaking In Ogdenvillese
Season 20, Episode 21
In the episode, “Coming To Homerica,” an economic crisis and a bad harvest drive the people of Ogdenville, whose culture is heavily influenced by the town’s original Norwegian settlers, to look for low-wage work in Springfield. However, the town grows to resent their new neighbors, even inspiring plans to build a fence.
“Ja, Ja”
Marge is initially hesitant over the idea, saying that they’ve taught their children to befriend those are different. All three children agree with this, even Maggie, who repeatedly responds with “Ja,” likely having overheard the word from the Ogdenvillians, such as her new nanny Inga. Marge is horrified that her daughter’s first words, as she believes them to be, are in Ogdenvillese.
She quickly changes her tune, now telling Homer to build a fence “as tall as the sky and deeper than hell!” Maggie then continues to say “Ja” a few more times.
6 Maggie’s Big Movie Line
The Simpsons has had hundreds of episodes over the years, so it was only a matter of time before the series would get a theatrically released movie. Although the series was already still running when the movie came out, audiences were still wondering if they could expect more than The Simpsons Movie.
“Sequel?”
During a credits sequence, Bart is trying to get the family to leave, but Homer feels they should respect the filmmakers by watching the credits, later getting distracted by floor popcorn. When the family eventually decides to leave, Lisa notices Maggie wants to say something. Marge excitedly says this will be her first word, or at least the first the family has heard. Maggie then asks a one-word question: “Sequel?,” leading fans to wonder if this will be the only movie starring The Simpsons.
5 Maggie’s Gone Flanders
Season 7, Episode 3
The Simpsons are known for being a subversion of the cheery TV families of yesteryear, but they are usually stable, relatively speaking. In “Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily,” however, a few misunderstandings cause Bart, Lisa, and Maggie to be put into foster care. However, their mother and father are still close by, as they are taken in by the Flanders.
“Daddily Doodily!”
As the story goes on, while Bart and Lisa are disturbed at the idea of becoming part of the Flanders, Maggie seems to get along with her new family just fine. In fact, she starts picking up Ned’s speaking habits, at one point saying “Daddily doodily!,” while her head spins around, much to her brother and sister’s horror. In the end, however, reuniting with Marge is enough to make her happy to be a Simpson.
4 Maggie’s Therapy Session
Season 28, Episode 2
A popular theory among fans is that Maggie can talk, but chooses not to, especially since she has said a few words over the years. This show might have given some evidence to support this theory in the episode, “Friends And Family,” which opens up with the death of a psychiatrist, causing the family to have a flashback of their own therapy session during the ensuing funeral.
“Maggie Talk!”
While the family is distracted by their own arguing, Maggie starts to talk in the third person, twice saying, “Maggie talk!” Hurt at being ignored, Maggie sadly adds, “No one listen? Maggie never talk again.” That said, the next scene has the family arguing at the funeral over the accuracy of the flashback at the funeral, adding some level of ambiguity over whether or not Maggie, now seen sleeping in her mother’s arms, really talked. Once again, Nancy Cartwright provided the dialogue.
3 Maggie’s Halloween Alter-Egos
Multiple Treehouse of Horror Episodes
Anything can happen on Halloween when it comes to The Simpsons, and everything is more or less back to normal by the next story. Thanks to this, plenty of “Treehouse of Horror” tales have taken advantage of the lax continuity. Of course, when it’s the spooky season, there’s usually a supernatural explanation for Maggie’s sudden speech, so she usually isn’t going to sound like an average baby girl.
“This is Indeed a Disturbing Universe”
James Earl Jones briefly voiced a murderous alternate-universe version of Maggie in “Time and Punishment” created by Homer’s time-traveling shenanigans. When “Starship Poopers” revealed Maggie was an alien, the end of the story revealed she could talk, provided by Harry Shearer using the same voice for Kang, offering to drive the family home and vampirically claiming to want blood. The alien version of Maggie also appears in the opening to “Treehouse of Horror X,” where she screams “Silence” when Lisa asks what aliens have to do with Halloween.
Sometimes, a character speaks through Maggie. When Maggie gets possessed by the demon Pazuzu in “The Exor-Sis,” she speaks in his voice, provided by Kevin Michael Richardson.
2 “Mama”
Just because it’s Halloween doesn’t mean Maggie can’t speak in a more natural-sounding voice, regardless of who’s providing it. Even if it technically isn’t canon, at least one Halloween story has Maggie get to say something as just regular Maggie. It also keeps the trend of putting Maggie’s love for her parents on display.
A Happy Reunion Gets Maggie Talking
In “In the Belly of the Boss,” the family shrinks down to rescue Maggie after she was herself shrunk small enough to fit inside a pill and ingested by Mr. Burns. Upon being rescued, the happy baby lovingly says “Mama” after reuniting with Marge.
1 “Daddy”
Season 4, Episode 10
While “Lisa’s First Word” mostly revolves around the story of how “Bart” was Lisa’s first word, giving the brother and sister one of their most heartwarming scenes in the series, the episode starts up with the family trying to get Maggie to say her first word. The payoff is revealed to the viewers, just not to the characters, right at the very end.
Maggie Loves Her “Daddy”
Throughout the story, it’s a running joke that Bart and even baby Lisa also address him by his first name, something that gets under his skin. After tucking Maggie into bed, the youngest Simpson says her first word before drifting off to sleep in her crib: “Daddy.” While Maggie’s had a few “first” words over the years, fans often accept this as the definitive example.
Famously, the line was provided by actress Elizabeth Taylor. Allegedly, Taylor had to do multiple takes for the single word line, due to initially saying it too sensually.
One thing that makes the scene poignant is that the family will never know about it. However, fans got a slight reprieve in “Gump Roast,” in which Kang and Kodos have the scene played on a screen pulled from Maggie’s memory. This time, Maggie was dubbed over by Bart’s actress, Nancy Cartwright.
