David Cooper

patreon

David Cooper posts

Posts: 676 Files: 1703

0407 - Jimmy Pearson

Full-named Jimmy Pearson is Skinner and Patty's waiter at the Sit-n-Rotate restaurant. He mumbles awkwardly while Skinner tells him off.It seems that Skinner was his principal 20 years ago, in the "class of '71". It has not yet been established that Skinner is a Vietnam vet, but this is a hint that he is an older gentleman, having principalled (a word I made up) for a long time.I hope this evening forced Jimmy to get his act together and do something more with himself. He never appears again, even when this restaurant appears ag...

0406 - Groundskeeper Willie

Willie's first appearance is fairly understated. His accent is not as thick as it will become, and he's quite calm - even the couple of angry rants he has in this episode are fairly tame compared to what will come.Like many long lasting characters, his creation was an accident - Castellaneta apparently tried Spanish and Swedish accents for this one-off janitor character before settling on Scottish, and a lot of his personality spiralled naturally our of that, leading to him being one of the world's most famous Scotsmen. I live in Sc...

BONUS! Ms Finch, Complete Stranger, Laramie's Cowboy, Date Selma, Date Patty

In Homer's Terminator-like search for a date for Selma, he encounters a few options before settling on Skinner. Let's cover some of them!Ms Finch is another of Homer's colleagues - we've seen many in this project, speaking and unspeaking, but at least she gets a name! She can be briefly seen again in season 5's "Rosebud", laughing at Homer's antics:Complete stranger, on the other hand, seems to have no further appearances after this:The Laramie Cigarettes cowboy is meant to mirror the advertising of Marlboro, who...

0405 - Stanley Peterson

Stanley once almost sat next to Selma, which in her mind equates to them almost getting married.We can assume his surname is Peterson from the sign outside his wedding.We see a glimpse of him and his bride Martha on the happiest day of their life :And then we don't see them again until season 4's "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie", where they are still driving around in their wedding attire for some reason.I refuse to believe that they have separated and reacquainted in these two years, resulting in a remarriage - they seemed so ha...

Patreon Print - January 2025

A new print! Featuring a character that as far as I know only appeared once in the entirety of The Simpsons. But he's a popular guy! I'm not surprised people want to see him in A5 print form.If you'd like this A5 print delivered directly to you, please be a £10 or higher member for this month! Make sure your address is available there and they'll be sent out at the start of February. Thank you for your support!If you have any questions, let me know.

BONUS! Workout Marge, Queuers and Martha

We've got a bunch of bonuses in this episode - and a lot of them are at the start of our list, so we're gonna do two bonus posts this week! You lucky lucky people.Given that the show we are covering is called "The Simpsons", we actually discuss the main family quite rarely. I find myself easing off when it's a family-focussed scene, knowing there's less possibility of a new character popping up, but I'm still determined to catch alternate outfits, such as Marge here while she displays remarkable flexibility.When we a...

0404 - Hans Moleman

We're starting out "Principal Charming" with a MAJOR character. Ralph Melish himself!I'm taking his license here as semi-canon - no one in their right might would argue that his name is actually Ralph, but his date of birth being in 1921 seems more plausible than him being 31 (as he states in season 4's "Duffless".)Hans's skin colour is as inconsistent as his age, at least at first, but eventually they settle on Springfield-yellow being the standard.Hans has ended up having a lot of personal significance to me, a...

Homer Vs Lisa and the 8th Commandment - round up!

A mixed bag of characters here, but a fun episode! It has a down-to-Earth, straightforward plot and central conflict that resolves well, with plenty of good weird jokes throughout - and any episode is improved by at least 20% with Phil Hartman. That's just facts. AND it features one of my favourite Lisa drawings:Look at those eyes, so blank and dead but somehow still expressive and judgemental. Wonderful.The best and most important new character introduced in this episode is Troy McClure. We're getting at least one significant character...

0403 - Referee

It's a new year! A time for new beginnings and fresh starts, which is of course why we're commencing January with the final character from this episode.This is the third referee we've encountered in the show so far, and he's just as insignificant as the other two, despite his appearance on national TV. What an anticlimactic end to the episode.This post is part of my "Every Simpsons Character Ever" series. For a list of my rules in this project, click here.

January 2025 Print - Vote For Your Favourite Design!

Happy New Year! It's time for some good old fashioned VOTIN'.Over the next week or so we're going to select the January 2025 Patreon Print together! The winner of this poll will be sent out as an A5 print to people at that tier, so choose wisely!Before we get to the candidates, I'll note that there are THREE entries from Moevember here . I'm eager to hear people's thoughts on the Moe-dern Art print designs, as I don't want people to get sick of them (there are potentially 30+ designs). If you want more Moe, great! If...

BONUS! Boxing...Watchers

Nothing like a good group shot to stir things up in the ol' "Obscure Simpson Character" mines!Obviously there's a lot of faces here we recognise. We're 26 episodes in at this point, and a lot of the main movers and shakers of Springfield are now pretty established. But what I find interesting now is when I spot people who I would not have given a second thought to five years ago. There's Mr Fisk, Colleague, Newman(?)and even Larrywould qualify as an obscure character, may he rest in peace.I've focussed on the front r...

0402 - Drederick Tatum

Drederick Tatum looks very different in his first appearance from what we are used to:For comparison's sake, here's how he looks "normally", although this design doesn't appear until season 8's "The Homer We Fall":After his redesign (and a major appearance in "The Homer We Fall"), Tatum becomes the sort of Springfieldian that fans will recognise on sight, and as a result he appears too many times to mention. We'll revisit his main design when we encounter it in the show but for now let's focus on ...

0401 - Watson

When Simpsons fans think of boxers in Springfield, there's only one name that comes to mind:WATSON (first name not available.)His appearance is much more distinctive than that of his opponent (who we'll get to on Monday), but he is never seen again after his humiliating defeat in the ring.Does his pointy head indicate he is some ancestor of Professor Farnsworth from Futurama? Unlikely, but what is this project if not wild speculative fan-canon made fact in our collective conscious?This post is part of my "Every Simpsons Character Ev...

0400 - Boxing Commentator

Here is the best gift a Patron could ask for this Christmas: the four HUNDREDTH speaking character on The Simpsons! He joins the legacy of similarly great characters 100, 200and 300by being a forgettable single appearance nobody.I had to check with the referee (myself) on this one, as he could definitely be confused with Golf Commentator, from "Dead Putting Society", but I think that despite their near identical voices, they look different enough to qualify as two separate characters. What evidence do I have to support this? VERY LITTLE...

0399 - Boxing Commentator

Another chance for Harry Shearer to use a commentator type voice, in a legacy that began with Dave Glass.He speaks before the big fight that the climax of the episode centres around, and then again later to announce the winner. Shearer will certainly voice many characters like this going forward, but most announcers and commentators do not have an on screen appearance, so it'll be up to us, the savvy viewers, to decide if any of them are this guy specifically.He is perhaps best known for his signature pink mug, seen in every shot that he ap...

BONUS! Man, Drunk and Kid

We're gonna cross some 't's and dot some 'i's today, really fill in some of the blanks on some obscure Springfieldians.First up is this guy in the grocery store, a witness to Marge's terrible grape theft.He is not especially noteworthy by himself, but I found him more interesting when the camera pulled out.A few years ago I would have paid no mind to this group, but now I recognise them all as Howard's mother, Bill Dandy, and mother (and baby)! The guy at the bottom is an off model Skinner, and I'[m not sure if I...

0398 - Cashier

This surly employee looks like he would be a recognisable recurring design, at least for a background character. The spiky hair would make him stand out to me in crowd scenes, I think.As far as I can tell, he only ever appears once more, in season 8's "The Old Man and the Lisa", escorting Mr Burns away from his ketchup/catsup issue.Hair colour aside, he actually does look like he's aged six years, somehow.This scene also marks the first appearance of the generic Grocery Store.(The Simpsons Wiki lists the Tracey Ullman short &#34...

0397 - Tina

Wait a minute David. I'm a little confused. Did you say there are twonew characters in this infomercial?There's no confusion, Tina. Just good science!Sadly, Tina did not grip the Simpsons fandom the same way her colleague Troy did, and never appeared again, as far as I can tell. But at least she got a name, that puts her above most of the single-appearance characters we encounter here!This post is part of my "Every Simpsons Character Ever" series. For a list of my rules in this project, click here.

BONUS! Man and Audience Members

We're going to skip back ever so briefly in the episode to have a look at this churchgoer, a front facing character who looks more like he's out of a Sunday comic strip than The Simpsons.The oddity of the rare front-facing Simpson character is well documented, I think people's uneasiness towards this phenomenon comes down to two factors: the noses are usually designed in profile and do not easily rotate to this angle, and the underbites are difficult to communicate from the front. Look at the mouths above, they do not look like Simp...

0396 - Troy McClure

Troy is the most important character introduced in this episode (sorry Moses) and is certainly one of the most important characters of the season, although he's barely featured here.His only other appearance in season 2 is in "Bart's Dog Gets An F", in which the above shot is reused and Dan briefly voices Troy - almost sacrilegious in retrospect.The focus here is on parodying the corny infomercials of the time, not Troy's career as a washed up actor, but soon the writers will see the value in adding a little Phil Hartman to ...

BONUS! Other Presenter

The other "Hear Me Roar!" presenter does not appear to have any quick-change shapeshifting ability, but also, crucially, she does not talk.Why can't they all be this easy?This post is part of my "Every Simpsons Character Ever" series. For a list of my rules in this project, click here.

0395 & 0395.5 - "Hear Me Roar" Presenter

WAIT! Read the post before you start yelling at me.Homer convinces Marge of the benefits of illegal cable by showing her the "Hear Me Roar!" network, where this presenter introduces a segment about making your own band aids.The camera cuts to an interested Marge, then back to the TV, where we see:This sounds exactly like the same woman from the first shot (I'm pretty sure it's Tress MacNeille providing the voice), she's barely taken a breath between lines, but her appearance has completely changed. So...what's going on h...

Patreon Print - December 2024

As has basically become tradition at this point, we end the year with a celebration of Moe-vember. It may be over for now, but we'll always have the Moe-mories. This is the fourth of these type of prints, and people seem to like them, so I'm happy to keep doing them!If you'd like this A5 print delivered directly to you, please be a £10 or higher member for this month! Make sure your address is available there and they'll be sent out at the start of January. Thank you for your support!If you have any questions, let me know.

0394 - Comedian

He hates it when you go to the toilet and there's no toilet paper.He's not quite Jerry Seinfeld, but he's close enough in appearance and performance that he appears to be intended as a Pseudo-Seinfeld, akin to not-Siskeland not-Ebertfrom a while back. At this point Jerry Seinfeld's popular sitcom (I think it was called "The Seinfeld Chronicles"?) had just started its second season - not yet the comedy juggernaut of the 90s - so this moment is more of a reference to his role in the 80s stand-up comedy boom.Jerry has yet t...

BONUS! Poopsie the Clown

You know I had to do it.Is Poopsie a rival to Krusty? Does his shoddy merchandise litter the rooms of other Springfieldian lads? Or is Krusty merely a local TV clown, with Poopsie taking a national stage? Poopsie will never come up again, I think, so devote part of your day to Poopsie meditation, considering all your Poopsie observations carefully.I have said Poopsie far too many times.Poopsie.This post is part of my "Every Simpsons Character Ever" series. For a list of my rules in this project, click here.

0393 - Shopping Channel Presenter

These are the moments we live for here on "Every Simpsons Character Ever".All we hear from this lady is that "...the clown is a treasure that will last a lifetime!", but she has a line and an appearance, so she qualifies for a spot in the hallowed halls on Simpsons characterdom, meaning I have to make up 95% of her appearance. Is this what the animators and actress (I think it's Tress MacNeille) had in mind when they conjured her up? Have we already put more thought into her existence than they ever did? The answer to both q...

0392 - Cable Guy

This is Phil Hartman's second episode, and he's already on his fourth character. We remember him mainly for Lionel Hutz and some actor guy we've not encountered yet, but it's easy to forget he was also the voice accompanying the heavenly escalator in "Bart Gets Hit By A Car", Moses (remember him?) and now, this guy.He's a constant presence through this episode, but didn't catch on the way Hutz or to-be-revealed-actor did because he's quite sinister, and less fun. He won't appear again.There's somethin...

Moevember, Week 4!

Moevember draws to a Moe-se for the fourth year. Every year I think it's the final year and then I keep just...doing it again. Is this healthy behaviour? Perhaps I need to psych-Moe-analyse myself.Week 4 features Danger Moe, BatMoe, Moe-bin, Moe-at, Shad-Moe the Hedgehog, Johnny Brav-Moe, Junk-Moe and Moe-ster Freeze.Thank you all for indulging this nonsense. I hope you enjoyed Moevember and Moe-dern Art, which is still available to order here.

Patreon Subscription Gifts!

Hello, you handsome devil, you.Patreon have recently added an option where you can gift a subscription of between 1 and 12 months to a friend/lover/relative/colleague/nemesis of your choice!If you've been enjoying reading about Every Simpsons Character Ever but wish someone in your life was following along too, buy them a gift subscription IMMEDIATELY atTHIS LINKand make them happy for between 1 and 12 months! If you're feeling particularly generous, you can also splash out on paper/ink costs and print out one of the above coupons to gi...

0391 - Moses

It's almost unfair when these larger than life historical figures show up in this project. I came here to learn trivia about the squeaky voiced teen or whatever, now I have to research one of the cornerstone Biblical icons?In the Old Testament, Moses freed the Israelites from slavery, and jotted down the ten commandments from God. You probably know who Moses is, and if not, you can read all about him, or join Bible Studies, or watch season 10's "Simpsons Bible Stories", in which Moses is portrayed by Milhouse:In terms of his rel...