Guns N’ Roses Rocker Claims Simpsons’ Duff Beer is Named After Him
Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan has been talking about how Duff Beer from the long-running series The Simpsons was named after him. However, one of the original writers and producers of the show clapped back, saying that the name has nothing to do with him. In an interview with Stereogum, McKagan said that the show reached out to him and is annoyed that he never received any merch profits.
McKagan said, “Well, here’s the deal. So I was Duff, the King of Beers. But this is 1988, 1989 and our management, I remember they called me and said some arthouse-like cartoon wants to use your name as the beer, like a college arthouse cartoon. There weren’t any adult cartoons at this point. I didn’t know about branding or anything like that, but that show took off. And then they started selling merch and stuff. I never went after him, but I’m like, ‘Hey, mother*******,’ you know?”
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The Simpsons producer-writer Jay Kogen got wind of the interview and was confused, saying that they didn’t even know anyone’s name from Guns N’ Roses besides Axl Rose and likely Slash. He added, “We named it Duff because it’s a synonym for butt, tushy, booty, and so on. It’s very weird this Duff McKagan guy wants to claim credit for Duff Beer … He had zero to do with it.”
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Oddly enough, McKagan also wrote about Duff Beer in his autobiography, taking credit for its name. It seems that The Simpsons team has denied this and as of now, McKagan responded, “I think it’s very probably business savvy of them to say that’s not true. But if you just do your own math behind it, look at when they started off with the King of Beers, and I had my King of Beers belt I wore all the time.” No matter who you believe, you can sip an ice-cold Duff Beer (or Duff Lite) yourself in a Universal theme park. Have you ever tried it?
’80s Where Are They Now
March 2023
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