The Worst Simpsons Character

You realize they are cartoon characters that are from people's imaginations, and that they don't literally reproduce.

That came out sounding like a command.

oh yeah! I'll show you

no that's ok, thanks

Ha!

You can't really gauge a worst character when considering the simpsons on the whole. Season 4 and season 18 are more or less incommensurable.

Case in point: Ralph as the slow, awkward kid (e.g. "I bent my wookie") vs. Ralph as stupid for the sake of stupid (and unnecessarily tedious).

Also: ceci n'est pas une pipecock = A++

cookie kwan may be the first character to have emerged after i stopped watching - never heard of or seen her til just now

She's been on it for at least 10 years.

I cant think of her in more than a few eps - she was in the one where marge gets the real estate job, but what else?

flashback episode with tween summer camp marge.

whoreson of frank grimes was a letdown. (this is the first time i have ever used the word "whoreson" ever)

That tour guide from the latest episode. Couldn't understand him and couldn't wait for him to shut up and he didn't.

Bart's not great.

what is this I don't even

Last episode had a really funny part.. Homer sleeping in the "tomb of the unknown savior" and the following dialogue. Tour guide might be funny for hardcire jews? Or the opposite. He was bleh

That tour guide from the latest episode. Couldn't understand him and couldn't wait for him to shut up and he didn't.

― Evan, Monday, March 29, 2010 6:16 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it was sasha baron cohen, barf

Does Apu's stereotyping really seem like racial stereotyping still?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGzvEqBvkP8

(I'm only slightly tempted to revive every thread where someone was incredulous that anyone found this offensive.)

That looks great

i absolutely cannot stand troy mcclure.
― ernest, Thursday, October 4, 2001 7:00 PM (sixteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what the fuck ernest

A lot of answers on this thread that I thought were wrong in 2001 are correct now - basically every character I have liked has been run into the ground

except Troy McClure, who can remain forever great because the show stopped using him

I don’t think I’ve ever watched a simpsons episode from start to finish

you should try it. some of them are very entertaining. and that's the tooth.

It started off a bit shaky but it's really hit its stride in the last few years, check it out

Struggling to think of a regular recurring character that I actively dislike

and now i made the mistake of googling "worst simpsons character" lists and the first two i read had LISA SIMPSON AT #1

FUCK NO

Sideshow Bob's kid Gino made it into two episodes. I've only seen the first, it was painful. "Vendetta!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_5Y5MvxGwU

its not on netflix or hulu so wont bother

Lisa was designed to be the voice of reason among all the characters, but she has devolved badly in that role, so as to make her character unlikeable, grating and smug. this entirely negates her original utility as a voice of reason, and consequently the whole Simpsons universe has become irredeemably chaotic and stupid.

sounds familiar

Lisa is amazing for those reasons. She acts as a proxy for the square audience member who comments critically on the absurdity of what's going on. She is a manifestation of the smug audience member who questions continuity. Without her this show would just be Family Guy

Bleeding Gums is the worst single-appearance character
Apu is the worst regular character
Disco Stu is the worst semi-recurring character
Dr. Marvin Monroe is also bad I guess

Principal Skinner has been and will always be the best regular character, I feel the entire id of the show's sense-of-humour is encapsulated in his nonchalant acceptance of the absurd

On a side note, I went to high school in Portland, OR exactly contemporaneously to Matt Groening. We were both Class of 1972. My high school was across the river from his high school. The principal of my high school was named Skinner.

bleeding gums appears twice though? and his death is in one of the best episodes of the show, "'round springfield"

and now i made the mistake of googling "worst simpsons character" lists and the first two i read had LISA SIMPSON AT #1

FUCK NO

― flappy bird, Thursday, November 30, 2017 7:00 PM (thirty-two minutes ago)

ppl hating on lisa for being "humorless" or whatever is some p run-of-the-mill online nerdboy misogyny

Three times -- he also sings the national anthem at a baseball game, but he's suddenly a singer rather than a saxophonist, and he's voiced by Daryl Coley instead of Ron Taylor.

xp

wtf I love Apu. an honest hard working family man, "Who Needs the Kwik-E Mart?" is heartbreaking
also whatever episode where he starts acting like a hummingbird

oh wait i just realized who i hate the most: CLETUS

I fucking hate Cletus.

Cletus is good in the episode where Marge has the pretzel business.

And he has one of the great one-liners when Marge accidentally destroys her Chanel dress then has to look for a replacement. The saleswoman at the outlet store tells her they have a shipment of "slightly burned Sears activewear" coming in:

https://frinkiac.com/gif/S07E14/1024623/1028627.gif?b64lines=V2hhdCB0aW1lIGFuZCBob3cgYnVybnQ_

an honest hard working family man

his honesty has some holes in it regarding outdated merchandise

he's just trying to get by

cletus' theme song makes the character worth it imo

some folk'll

man that theme song always got on my nerves

wtf i just asked my boss (massive simpsons fan) who his least favorite character is and he said APU

Dude

is yr boss south asian

I'm pretty sure Apu is what kept me from ever really loving the show. On paper, it should be my favourite show ever.

I don't think Apu's the worst by a longshot but there are some p clear issues w him as a character

NB I haven't watched with anything remotely resembling regularity since the 90s so it's possible that Apu has been written with the utmost wokeness since flappy was old enough to tune in.

sund4r, it's fr4z's birthday today btw. I feel he has to be on this thread in spirit

Why Apu is my pick for worst character: I adored him when I was a kid and felt empathy for him and his family, laughed at jokes he made and made at his expense, repeated these jokes to friends as a preteen and teenager, learned all the words to "Who Needs A Kwik-E-Mart?", not realizing that this character was completely racist from top to bottom, voiced by Hank Azaria, and the feeling of having participated in something that is with any distant perspective incredibly dehumanizing toward South Asians, and having felt now that I reenforced stereotypes about South Asians in the process of loving this character, it just makes me feel godawful and concerned that Apu as a whole might scuttle the entire series as being unwatchable in the future, in the same way that I've never been able to watch Breakfast At Tiffany's or Sixteen Candles

i don't think apu is necessarily written in a bad way, you could argue he's always depicted as a fairly sympathetic and admirable person (the show makes it clear that the shitty things about the kwik-e-mart are corporate policy, not him being lazy), and his religion is generally treated respectfully (at least in early episodes, i quit following it closely after season 11 or so). but in 2017 it's p hard to get around the fact of a non-white character being voiced by a white person in a deliberately stereotypical way. all the more sad + unsettling because the show doesn't do that with most (any?) of its other non-white characters.