The Worst Simpsons Character

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.

How would you rehab apu (other than voice recasting)?

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

his religion is generally treated respectfully (at least in early episodes, i quit following it closely after season 11 or so)

I feel like if anything there's a lot more lazy lol-India humour wrt Apu in the post-90s/crap-Simpsons era; not that it there wasn't any of that earlier in the show's run, but it got worse rather than better - I guess it's just the general trend across the board that the humour became cruder and meaner, the characters more broad? there's also lots of lol-elderly jokes about Grandpa in later episodes that feel crasser and nastier than anything from the early/mid 90s era - though possibly the earlier stuff was just as problematic and I'm more inclined to interpret it generously if it's funny, and the stuff from later seasons isn't? idk

Tbh, the main reference I remember to Apu's religion was when Homer tried to feed Ganesh a peanut. In the 'curry-flavoured Slushies' episode, I think? That said, I'm pretty sure I've said more vicious things about Hinduism in my day so.

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.

Idk why this would have been more OK in 1990! Azaria himself on the origins of the character's voice.

Like, it wasn't ambiguous to me when I was 12.

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.

??

Dr Hibbert is voiced by Harry Shearer
Carl is voiced by Azaria.

Ive never heard anyone complain about it.

(which isnt to say no one has, obviously!)

which isn't to say it's not terrible, obviously

Well of course. I was just correcting the "the show doesn't do that with most (any?) of its other non-white characters" comment.

In actual fact none of the main cast as far as I can tell is non white, which is pretty surprising. Futurama has Phil Lamarr and Lauren Tom at least.

Main voice actor cast, that meant to say.

trayce i said "a deliberately stereotypical way" -- i don't think dr hibbert or carl are stereotypes at all. apu's voice is an over-the-top caricature, and it seems as if hank azaria was encouraged to make it as stereotypical as possible.

It is a very fine line that separates "stereotypical" from "racist". So fine it is hard to see with the naked eye.

In my childhood, being the only Indian-American in my class, I remember how humiliating it was when the class voted me "most likely to work at the Kwik-e-Mart" and other similar BS. Probably he should go if that kind of shit still happens to South Asian kids today (or the whole show, because who gives a shit anymore)

On the other hand, I can remember laughing my ass off with my family at some of the Apu episodes - we were happy to see any humor related to India represented on such a funny show. I didn't know or care that Hank Azaria was not Indian until I was an adult. Apu has given me so many laughs over the years that I've basically given a pass to the character. If a new show did a character like that now, I'd be rmde for sure

Always loved the fact that Apu was part of the Be Sharps.

Everybody should watch "the trouble with Apu".

Homers potato man ruse to get backstage at U2 gig also a low point

They're fucking dubs, not spudeating culchies. Do some basic fucking research.

the squishy flavor was chutney

Yaritza Burgeos is much much much worse than Apu. At least Apu has some back stories and can be seen as fully fleshed character, spanish speaking bumblebee man is really just a dumb running joke about the Spanish language in the US.

Was a bit surprised to see Bobby Jindal cited as a representational advance.

I think of Apu as a caricature that they could (barely) get away with in 1990, but which the show did its best to develop into a real character as it went on. Several episodes handle his relationship with Manjula with a certain amount of depth.

Weirdly I have no problem with bumblebee man, he is both a very specific media parody and a deliberately crass cartoony stereotype (I'd liken him to Italian Chef in terms of v broad "characters"), obv it's a knife edge but it's one they used to walk more surely before they were shit

Apu tho... it's precisely the fleshing out of the character that makes the tone-deaf portrayal seem so galling. There's no "it's the attitudes we're mocking" plausible deniability

almost every episode where the Simpsons go "abroad" is majorly fucked up in one way or another