PEOPLE WATCH
<i> Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation's press</i>
The Simpsons vs. the Groenings: Matt Groening has had some second thoughts about naming the characters in his hit TV show, “The Simpsons,” after members of his family, especially his dad, who gets called Homer Simpson by his friends. “If I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn’t have called this character Homer,” Groening told a Playboy interviewer. “It was just an inside joke for my family that has backfired in a very big way. That’s why I had to name my son Homer, to make up for it.” He added: “But the Simpsons aren’t really my family. . . . There are elements of my family in the cartoon but I also have a brother and a sister I have not humiliated by naming cartoon characters after them.”
