Homer Simpson Once Got the Tupac Hologram Treatment at Comic-Con

It’s that special time of year when sweaty nerds from across the globe gather in San Diego to celebrate the art of comic books, spend dumb amounts of money on useless merchandise and line up for countless hours to catch a fleeting glimpse of a celebrity presenting a movie trailer that gets dumped online before you can even exit the auditorium.

Comic-Con is also beloved by many Simpsons fans, hence why every year there are at least a few people who show up slathered in what we can only assume are near-fatal levels of yellow body paint.

Ten years ago, Comic-Con’s Simpsons panel ended up making headlines, after attendees were introduced to a very special guest: the “real life Homer Simpson.” Actually it was a Homer “hologram” brought to life using the same technology that enabled Tupac Shakur to rise from the dead and freak the hell out everyone at Coachella two years earlier. 

The 6-foot-tall Holo-Homer was even able to chat with his creator Matt Groening. And by “chat,” I mean deliver what was clearly a pre-recorded series of lines.

But just weeks after the event, 20th Century Fox was sued by Hologram USA, a company run by the billionaire (but not really) heir to the Coca-Cola bottling fortune, Alki David. The company, which was behind the Tupac stunt, argued that the Homer hologram “infringed its patented system to project three-dimensional images onstage.” They also filed a similar suit in response to a Michael Jackson recreation that was part of the Billboard Music Awards, also in 2014.

All of which is especially strange considering that the “holograms” weren’t really holograms at all, they were projections. And the method behind them was derived from a technology older than the light bulb: the Pepper’s Ghost illusion, which reflects hidden objects on a pane of glass. The same trick was famously used in Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride. 

Fox fired back with a searing statement claiming that the “filing is totally without merit and we have no comment except to say that once again, Mr. David has demonstrated his insatiable need to remain relevant.”

But despite the fiery response, Fox ended up settling the suit for an undisclosed sum. And while David may have won his battle with The Simpsons, he would go on to lose a string of high-profile legal cases in the ensuing years, including a six-figure fine following an SEC investigation that charged David and his not-hologram company with “fraud, registration violations and misleading investors ahead of a planned IPO.” And just last month he was ordered to pay $900 million in damages in a sexual assault case brought by a former Hologram USA employee. 

A good reminder that it’s always better to trust Homer Simpson instead of a shifty rich guy.

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