Sandwich Man

Matt Groening's dad told him he couldn't draw and would fail as a cartoonist. His sons push his buttons by announcing his show is sooooo over.

His revenge: he gave the socially maladroit dad of his cartoon family his father's name and went on to give one of his two sons the Homer label, in combined tribute to the grandfather/cartoon pops.

It is, of course, father Homer who sets the action in motion in the "The Simpsons" movie that debuted in Springfield, Vt. (winner among 14 U.S. Springfields). As Groening put it in a recent Daily Show appearance, "Homer falls in love with a pig. And the rest of the movie wrote itself."

** Just an average father; taking heat and dishing back to and from above and below. **