Montgomery Burns

Charles Montgomery Burns, normally referred to as Mr. Burns, but also known as Monty Burns, is a fictional character on The Simpsons, voiced by Harry Shearer. He is the owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant (SNPP) and Homer Simpson's boss. He is attended to at almost all times by Waylon Smithers, his loyal aide, advisor, confidant and secret admirer.

Mr. Burns is Springfield's richest and most powerful citizen, with an estimated net worth of $16.8 billion ^[1]. He uses his power and wealth to do routinely what he wants without thinking of consequences or interference from the authorities.

Although originally designed as a one-dimensional recurring villain who might occasionally enter the Simpsons' lives and wreak some sort of havoc, Burns' popularity has led to his repeated inclusion on the show. He embodies a number of stereotypes about Corporate America. He has an unquenchable desire to increase his own wealth and power. Mr. Burns also embodies the stereotypes of a manager. He forgets his employees' names and is unconcerned for their safety and well-being. His favorite expression is the word "Excellent", muttered slowly in a low, sinister voice while tenting his fingertips.

Age

Mr. Burns was born on September 15, but the year of his birth is uncertain. It has fluctuated during the course of the show, being explicitly stated as young as 81 in Simpson and Delilah and as old as 104 in Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part I and A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love. In the episode Fraudcast News, originally aired in 2004, Burns states that he was born in 1889 makking him 114 years old. He is occasionally referred to as "Springfield's oldest resident".

Frequent allusions to Burns' age place his date of birth in the late 19th century. He had a drivers' license which expired in 1909, he graduated from Yale University in 1914, and was depicted in a 19th century Woodcut as terrorizing children. Also, Burns was enemies with General Tso, who lived in the 19th century.

Other references to Burns' age place him at thousands or millions of years old. His ATM password, which is the same as his age, is four digits long. Burns' birthplace has also been named as Pangaea.

Biography

The Burns family has deep roots in the United States. Mr. Burns' great-great grandfather Franklin Jefferson Burns participated in the Boston Tea Party. Mr. Burns had a strained relationship with his own mother, who had an affair with President Taft and lived into her 120s.

As a child, Burns lived happily with his natural parents, younger brother George, and teddy bear Bobo. In one episode he was asked the cause of his parents' deaths and he replied: "got in my way".

At a young age he left his family to live with a twisted and heartless billionaire, who owned an "atom mill" in Springfield, where laborers split atoms by hitting anvils with sledgehammers. Burns lived a life of privilege and would amuse himself by injuring hapless immigrant laborers. Mr. Burns later attended Yale University, where he studied science and business, played on the varsity football team, and was inducted into the Skull and Bones secret society. Burns graduated from Yale in 1914.

In 1939, at Burns' 25-year college reunion, he became romantically involved with the daughter of an old flame. She would later bear his child, Larry, who was given up for adoption and would later enter Mr. Burns' life briefly.

Burns served in the United States Army during World War II, holding the rank of private after being demoted for his involvement in a romantic scandal and attempting to block a probe from J. Edgar Hoover. A member of Springfield's Flying Hellfish squad battalion, he saw action in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge, serving under Sergeant Abraham Simpson. He was later transferred to the South Pacific with part of his squad. During the war, a factory he owned also made shells for the Nazis.

At the end of World War II he was personally hired by President Harry S Truman to transport a specially-printed trillion-dollar bill to Europe as the United States's contribution to the reconstruction of Europe. As America's richest citizen, Burns was thought to be also the most trustworthy, even though almost everyone hates him for several reasons. Burns absconded with the bill and kept it in his possession for many years until it was lost to Fidel Castro.

During the 1960s, Burns operated a biological weapons laboratory until it was destroyed by peace activists - including Homer's mother Mona Simpson.

In the 1970s, Burns built the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Burns currently owns the plant, although he has parted with it several times, including when he sold it to German investors, when the bank foreclosed on it and put Lenny in charge, when he lost all of his money in a bet with Colonel O'Hara, and when Homer and Lisa staged a hostile takeover of it. In each of these instances, Burns regained ownership of the nuclear plant.

At the nuclear plant, Burns spends most of time in his office, monitoring his workers via closed circuit cameras. In his office he keeps a team of ten high-priced lawyers, a scale model of Springfield, a special microbe-resistant chamber, a two-seat escape pod, and the "League of Evil" - a sinister cabal whose members are long deceased but whose skeletons remain. The boobytraps in Burns' office include cricket poison, a secret trapdoor, a catapult that fires 100 gram weights, and a ceiling-mounted suction tube which he can use to transport dissident workers to Morocco. Burns' entire office can be rotated so that his window has different views.

Burns has also owned or co-owned a number of business ventures in Springfield, including the Monty Burns Casino, "Li'l Lisa" recycling and ocean slurry manufacturing plant, Burns Slant Drilling Co., Burns Media, the electric company, the water works, and a hotel on Baltic Avenue.

Burns has used his power and wealth to blackmail various members of Springfield, including Mayor Quimby, as well as safety inspectors. He once attempted to block out the sun to force Springfield residents to increase their use of electricity produced by the Nuclear Plant and was subsequently shot by Maggie; Homer Simpson has claimed to have been the one who shot Burns and framed Maggie for the crime ^[2]. The town routinely is subject to Burns' abuse, such as Burns' stealing of Christmas from 1981 to 1985.

Burns resides in a vast, ornate mansion on an immense estate called Burns Manor, located at 1000 Mammon Street, on the corner of Croesus and Mammon streets in the 'Springfield Heights' district. It is protected by a high wall, an electrified fence, and a pack of vicious attack dogs known as "The Hounds". At times he has employed for protection a force of Wizard of Oz - style guards, a personal paramilitary force, a riot police squad, and a robotic Richard Simmons.

The inside of the mansion includes a room containing a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters, a bottomless pit, a human chess board, the largest television in the free world, a 'Hall of Patriots' commemorating his ancestors, a laboratory, a botanical garden of vultures bearing his likeness, a safe containing a Beefeater guard, and a theater showing round-the-clock plays regardless of whether there is an audience.

The mansion is also home to many rare historical artifacts including the only existing nude photo of Mark Twain, the suit Charlie Chaplin was buried in, King Arthur's mythical sword Excalibur, and a rare first draft of the Constitution with the word "suckers" in it.

Burns has been engaged at least three times: a woman named Gertrude who died of loneliness and rabies, to Jacqueline Bouvier, and to a policewoman named Gloria. He once had an affair with Countess von Zeppelin.

Organizations

Mr. Burns is a member of various organizations. In his younger years, while a student at Yale University, he was a member of Skull and Bones. During World War II, Burns became a member of the Flying Hellfish squad, a group of soldiers who entered into a tontine regarding the ownership of German artwork. Burns was a member of the Stonecutters until it disbanded, at which time he joined the Ancient Mystic Order of No-Homers. He is currently the head of the Springfield Republican Party and the Burns Religion. He is also a member of the "Excluders Club", the Springfield Golf and Country Club, and the National Rifle Association ^[3]. He holds a Chair (literally, a throne with snarling dogs chained to it) at Springfield University and controls an anti-democratic fighting force in Latin America. In a spoof of Citizen Kane he once tried to run for Governor-until Marge Simpson forever ruined his chances with a three-eyed fish. At the end he echos Kane by crying out his name in rage-and vows for the rest of his life to make Homer Simpson's life miserable.

State of mind

Burns' state of mind is the subject of frequent jokes on the show. He continually fails to recognize Homer Simpson or remember his name despite all the major events in Burns' life on the series have revolved around him in some way. Burns is also generally unaware of the townspeople's general dislike of him.

Mr. Burns uses phrases and expressions that have fallen out of common usage, including score (meaning 20), twain (two), post-haste (quickly), petroleum distillate (gasoline), gay (jolly), dean (principal), velocitator and deceleratrix (a car's accelerator and brake), aeromail (post by air), lollygagger (slacker), fourth form (fourth grade), ahoy-hoy (hello), jumping box and picto-cube (television), dictabelt (tape recorder), the New York Nine (New York Yankees), minstrels (rock musicians), horseless sleigh (snowmobile), crackleberries (peanuts), cafetorium (cafeteria), talkie (movies with sound), thrice (three), and mater (mother).

He also displays mannerisms which are considered outdated, such as practicing phrenology, writing with a quill pen, driving a Stutz Bearcat while wearing a Victorian motorists' outfit which includes hat, driving gloves, and goggles, carrying a mace for self defense, driving without regard to traffic laws in the manner of early 20th century motorists, and using an antique view camera to take photographs.

Burns appears unaware of 20th century political and social developments, such as Fidel Castro replacing Fulgencio Batista as the President of Cuba, Siam changing its name to Thailand, the Belgian Congo changing its name to the Congo-Kinshasa, Prussia being absorbed into the German Empire, India gaining its independence from the British Empire, New Mexico entering the United States, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Idlewild Airport changing its name to JFK Airport, the disbanding of the Negro Leagues, the desegregation of the Major Leagues, Joe DiMaggio no longer being a rookie, the extinction of the dodo bird, the demolition of the Polo Grounds, the ceasing of publication of Collier's Weekly, the demise of the DuMont Television Network, believing tires need to be revulcanized, confusing The Ramones with The Rolling Stones, thinking cars are still operated by levers, believing mail may still be delivered by autogyro, and the occurrence of the 1939 World's Fair.

Mr. Burns' investment portfolio includes long-defunct shares in "Confederated Slaveholdings, Transatlantic Zeppelin, Amalgamated Spats, Congreve's Inflammable Powder, U.S. Hay", and an "up-and-coming Baltimore Opera Hat Company".

Burns commonly refers to deceased persons as if they were alive, including Sir Donald Bradman, Stewie Dempster, Vic Richardson, Al Jolson, Tallulah Bankhead, Louise Brooks, Honus Wagner, Cap Anson, and Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown. He believes some social institutions and inventions are novel or nonexistent, such as musicals about "the common cat" and "the King of Siam", the Packard automobile, the Fire Department, ice cream (or "iced cream"), vending machines, recycling, strip clubs, the DuMont, the stereopticon, the Crimean War, the word "into", silent films like the 1929 Lulu, and the synonymity of ketchup and catsup.

Nonetheless, there are many instances where Burns also displays a clear knowledge of recent events: Citing the films Bugsy and Working Girl as examples when making a movie to gloss over his evil rise to power; being inspired by the movie Sliver to have hidden cameras installed in every home in Springfield; meeting Elvis Presley and regaling Smithers with his impression of the famous singer; enjoying Ziggy comics; playing golf with Richard Nixon, who fretted to Burns about going to prison over the exposure of the Watergate scandal; personally knowing Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, who along with Nixon tried to attend Burns' birthday party (Bush Sr and Carter were denied admittance for being "one-termers"); and recalling watching the Beatles' breakthrough performance on the Ed Sullivan Show, dismissing it as "off-key caterwauling".

Health

Burns has numerous physical ailments and health problems, often to the point where he seems to straddle the line between life and death. On prior occasions, Burns may have died. Presently, Burns has a condition known as "Three Stooges Syndrome" where a delicate state of homeostasis is created by the presence in his body of every known disease and other diseases unique to him.

Physically weak, he often has great difficulty performing the most basic physical tasks, such as giving a thumbs-up, receiving a hug, crushing a paper cup, or stepping on an insect. He is weak enough to be pushed over by an ant or a high-five, or pushed down by a sponge scrub on his head. Bunting a baseball sends him flying to the backstop. He has a hunched back and his vertebral column is visible when he is viewed from the side. His exposure to radiation has given his skin a green glow ^[4] and left him infertile.

His organs have grown immensely weak over the years. His heart is black, desiccated, and barely beats or does not beat at all. It is shrunken to the size of a cherry. Burns' blood type is double-O negative. When his finger is pricked, he bleeds dust, and when his arm is poked with a needle, the needle passes through his arm. On one occasion, a chunk of Burns' brain fell out through his ear. Another time, his lungs came out through his mouth and acted like an airbag. If he is not careful, fluid can build up in his hands, causing them to swell to enormous proportions. It has been revealed that if Burns sweats even one drop, he could die of dehydration unless he takes a bath immediately. Burns has also lost body parts due to leprosy.

Mr. Burns' medical treatment includes a weekly procedure which includes chiropractics, a vocal chord scraping, and an injection of narcotics; its purpose is to postpone his death for one week. He also has his brain flushed out with vinegar and his eyes "re-balled". Burns' knees are also sent out to be repaired at a "shop." His dentures replace themselves. In the future, Burns may be kept alive by cryonics ([3]).

In the Simpsons Comics

In Simpsons Comics #122, it is been revealed that Mr. Burns has a niece called Victoria. In the past, she was a very beautiful girl and at one point visited her uncle Monty in Springfield. There, she met Homer at a diner who had just gone steady with Marge. Victoria immediately flirted with Homer and went out on a date with him. However the relationship ended when Victoria found out about Marge. After breaking up with Homer, Victoria dated a lot of rich guys such as Artie Ziff and has been married a couple of times since. Victoria has yet to appear in an actual episode on the show.

In another, it is revealed that Burns's constant exposure to radiation has given his body an electromagnetic pulse, which causes all electronics to short-circuit if he even touches them. In the same one, it is alleged that Burns has had no actual pulse since the Sixties.

Inspiration for Mr. Burns

Matt Groening has revealed that he had problems finding inspiration to the Burns character, but found much help to form him in Fredrik Olsen, a reclusive Norwegian shipping magnate and owner of the Timex. Olsen came to Groening's attention during a dispute with his workers in American Timex factories. Burns bears a striking physical resemblance to Olsen ([4]).

The character of Mr. Burns was originally modeled after Fox Broadcasting Company executive Barry Diller. Throughout the series, the character has come to resemble, in one facet or another, J.P.Morgan, Howard Hughes, William Randolph Hearst, Andrew Carnegie, George Burns, Charles Foster Kane, John D. Rockefeller, and others.

The inspiration for Burns' name came from the very large Montgomery Park sign atop a former Montgomery Ward high-rise in Portland, Oregon's Northwest Industrial district ([5]). A character named Monty Burns appeared as the villain in the 1976 "Beauty on Parade" episode of the Wonder Woman television series ([6]).

His mannerisms are often compared to the Grinch: in one episode, he mimics the Grinch's actions at the end of the book when he hears the plant workers sing. On another occasion, Kent Brockman mentions he "stole Christmas from 1981-1984".

During an appearance by Harry Shearer and Dan Castellaneta on NBC talk show Late Night with Conan O' Brien, host Conan O' Brien (who had a brief stint as a writer on the show) reminisced that the Mr. Burns character was one of the favorites of the writers.

Video game appearances

• The Simpsons: The Arcade Game: Burns is the main villain and the final boss of the game. In the eighth and final stage, he attempts to destroy the Simpsons using a large mechanical walker which changes forms as it takes damage.
• Bart vs The World: Burns is the main villain. He employs family members to kill Bart Simpson as he travels from country to country. Bart must defeat them to travel to the next level.
• The Simpsons Road Rage: Burns appears as a villain and in the opening and closing cutscenes. In Mission 2, he attempts to catch Homer sneaking into work. In Mission 7, he attempts to destroy Professor Frink's invention. In Mission 10, he must be defeated by destroying statues in his garden. In the "Road Rage" mode, he appears and says, "Get em', Smithers."
• The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare: Burns appears as the stage boss in the 'Bartman' stage, piloting a WWI biplane and firing missiles at Bart from the Nuclear Plant. piloting a blimp that fires large rockets. Statues bearing Burns' likeness also appear in the game.
• The Simpsons Wrestling: Burns assists Smithers in his fights by throwing bombs into the ring to hurt Smithers' opponent. Burns also taunts the opponent at the appropriate cues.
• The Simpsons: Hit and Run: Mr. Burns appears in mission 7 in level 1, where harasses and fires Homer Simpson. Mr. Burns also appears in mission 5 in level 7, where he gives Homer a map showing the location of nuclear waste stockpies. His limousine and Stutz Bearcat are available to be driven. His mansion can be accessed from levels 1 and 4, and his office is accessible in Level 7.

See also

References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Revenge is a Dish Best Served Three Times
3. ^ [2]
4. ^ episode

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