“ | Excellent... | „ |
~ Mr. Burns' famous catchphrase. |
“ | Simpson, eh? | „ |
~ Mr. Burns whenever he's reminded who Homer Simpson is. |
“ | Release the hounds! | „ |
~ Mr. Burns’ other famous catchphrase when responding to trespassers on his property or people who displease him. |
Charles Montgomery "Monty" Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns, or better known as Mr. Burns, is the main antagonist of The Simpsons franchise.
He is an extremely greedy, cheap, tyrannical and egotistical businessman, and is the richest and most powerful citizen of Springfield. He is the oppressive founder and chairman of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a member of the inner circle of the Springfield Republican Party, the employer of Homer Simpson, Lenny, Carl and Waylon Smithers and, finally, the archenemy and former friend of Abe Simpson and Homer Simpson.
In the holiday special series premiere, "Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire", he was voiced by the late Christopher Collins, who also played Starscream in the 1984 Transformers cartoon and Cobra Commander in the original Sunbow G.I. Joe cartoon. Since his second appearance, he has been voiced by Harry Shearer, who also voices Herman Hermann, Jebediah Springfield, King Snorky, God, Kang, Legs, Mr. Largo, and Adolf Hitler from the same series.
Personality[]
Mr. Burns embodies a number of stereotypes about corporate America, as he has an unquenchable desire to increase his own wealth and power, even through criminal means if necessary. This was shown when he briefly tried to run for Governor in order to prevent his plant from being shut down, and the time when he tried to sell uranium rods to terrorists for profit. Burns also embodies the stereotype of a manager by forgetting his employees' names (especially Homer's, although it appears that they interact more than Burns does with most of his employees), though this can be attributed to his senility. Burns is also unconcerned and dispassionate for his employees' safety and well-being, even laughing at the sight of a window washer falling from a great height of a building. His aspirations to apply obsolete technology to everyday life or references to Victorian-era people or places provide a common source of humor on the show.
Despite his evil nature, Burns is able to shed a sense of kindness, as he sympathized over Homer's loss of his new hair as everyone in the plant only took Homer for granted because of his hairstyle. He is also pretty close to his right-hand man Waylon Smithers due to the latter's loyalty; even taking him in as his own son following the death of Waylon's father, who sacrificed himself to prevent a meltdown during the 1960s. Even though he treats Smithers like dirt and usually stiff him out of a raise or promotion. Mostly his main goal, besides become the richest man in Springfield, is to make Homer Simpson and his family miserable and get them out of his life. Sometimes he usually fires Homer a lot of times, but he usually re-hires him back at the end. He also cherished his lost teddy bear Bobo as it reminds him of the innocence that he lost when he was a child, even telling Homer's youngest daughter Maggie to hold on to Bobo after seeing how much she loved it.
Although he sometimes does not care whenever his employees are up to no good, Mr. Burns has little tolerance for anything that could cost him money. A common plot in the series is Homer getting fired because he did something so reckless that not even Burns could ignore. This further proves that while he is mostly a cheap-stake who shows little concern for his staff, Mr. Burns will fire anyone whose reckless behavior endangers lives.
Property[]
The following is a list of facilities that Mr. Burns owns and are part of the Burns Empire.
- Springfield Nuclear Power Plant (current owner)
- Isotope Stadium
- Springfield Estadio de Toros (initially the Duff Beer Krusty Burger Buzz Cola Costington's Department Store Kwik-E-Mart Stupid Flanders Park)
- Springfield Monorail
- Montgomery Burns State Prison
- Springfield Concert Hall
- Mr. Burns Basketball Stadium
- S.N.P.P. Cafeteria
- Montgomery Burns Institute For Soul Extraction (non-canon)
- Mr. Burns' Casino
- Springfield Opera House
- Springfield Elementary School and Prison
- Springfield Sports Arena
- Springfield Atoms Stadium
- Naming Rights Available
- Spellympic Village (Part-owner)
- Little Lisa Recycling Plant
- Burns Slant Drilling Co.
- Germ Warfare Laboratory (formerly)
- Baltic Avenue Hotel
- Water Works
- Electricity Company
- Ticketmaster
- Burns University
Health[]
Due to his unnaturally long lifespan, Mr. Burns is shown to have numerous physical ailments that has passed up to him throughout most of the series, such as being infertile with a green glow due to many years of running his plant. Because of this, he is shown to be physically weak in nature as he is unable to perform any normal physical tasks, such as wrestling a teddy bear from an infant, taking a picture of several school students, or even crushing a tiny ant with his foot. However, his physical strength depends on the episode.
Despite his poor health, Mr. Burns has utilized his wealth to provide himself the best health care in Springfield that anyone can receive; he even had to provide himself painful medical treatments that involves chiropractics and painkillers which leave him disoriented in order to cheat death every single week. In the episode "The Fool Monty" after having amnesia, a recovering Burns is surprised to learn that the feeling of spite is what keeping him alive due to his enjoyment of making people's lives miserable and earning their hate.
Relationships[]
Family[]
- Clifford Burns (father)
- Daphne Burns (mother)
- George Burns (younger brother)
- Colonel Wainwright Montgomery Burns (paternal grandfather/adoptive father)
- Evelyn Graycomb (paternal grandmother)
- Larry Burns (son)
- Unnamed woman (daughter-in-law)
- Larry Burns' unnamed children (grandchildren)
Allies[]
- Waylon Smithers (lackey)
- Simpson Family (occasionally)
- Springfield Nuclear Power Plant employees (one-sided)
Enemies[]
- Simpson Family (arch-enemies; especially Homer and Grampa Simpson)
- Russ Cargill
- People of Springfield (usually)
Trivia[]
- Mr. Burns' voice is an impression of both the late Lionel Barrymore and the late Ronald Reagan.
- In the episode "The Burns and the Bees", Mr. Burns' net worth is arguably $1,800,037,022. However, he lost money, and by the time of the ending of the episode, decreased to $996,036,000.
- That has not been his net worth throughout the whole series; it has risen to as large as $16.8 billion, and has lowered to as small as an amount of roughly $100 million.
- Mr. Burns signs his will as "Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns" in the season 22 episode "Flaming Moe", which implies that he is related to Adolf Hitler (whose father's original surname was Shicklgruber before he changed it to Hitler) and a descendant of the House of Plantagenet.
- He is also one of the many Simpsons characters who guest star on the Family Guy episode "The Simpsons Guy".
- Burns seems to be modeled after Jacob Rothschild and Janez Janša. He also shares a few similarities with both of them.
- He is inspired by Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life, since Matt Groening's high school teacher was named Mr. Bailey, which is the surname of the film's main protagonist, George Bailey.
- According the Simpsons Uncensored Family Album, Burns bought Springfield's gas and electric company when he was in his twenties. This may be the same electric company mentioned in Who Shot Mr. Burns?.
- In the second story of "Treehouse of Horror XVI", "Survival of the Fattest", Burns has some similarities to Emil Fouchon from Hard Target as both hunt men and have their assistants, though his role in this story is more based off of General Zaroff.
- Mr. Burns, while still greedy and egotistical, has become less villainous in the more recent seasons and more of an anti-hero, whilst in any season prior to season 9 he was portrayed most of the time as a genuine threat. However, that does not take away the fact that he is the main antagonist of the series, as he still can be evil at times.
- Despite being the secondary antagonist of The Simpsons Movie, Mr. Burns was never seen interacting with Russ Cargill.
- In his song "High to be Loathed", he references many other pop culture villains, (some even being in history and IRL) in order: Chucky, Joseph Stalin, Megatron, Eric Cartman, Donkey Kong, Darth Vader, Ralph_Nader, Simon Legree, along with the Three Terminators. With Iago (Othello), Joker, Lord Voldemort, John McEnroe, Himself and Skeletor All in silhouettes acting as his shadow.
External Links[]
- Mr. Burns on the Simpsons Wiki
- Mr. Burns on the Wikipedia