Don’t forget his bone

Mel is one of the most underrated secondary characters there is, his eloquent manner of speech and intriguing family history are all brilliant.

Don't let the flame die out

Duffman or Disco Stu next pleeaaase!! They're my absolute favourites, the writting of their one liners is absolutely genius and for me, they both have the ability to be the highlight of an episode with mere seconds of screen time, which is no mean feat! Oooh yeah!

I would love to see a history of Kent Brockman (Kenny Brockelstein). The cartoonish actions of characters like Burns and Krusty make them bad people, but Brockman might be the worst person living in Springfield. He is responsible for so much of the outrage rampant in town, often ‘picks a side’ on air, and most of his spotlight appearances are negative - yet he remains one of the funniest and charismatic personalities on the show. Thanks for another great video, looking forward to your future content!

Yeah, good point about his design, I had forgotten to talk about it. He has such a classic, early season design, with that lanky overbite and his Marge-like hair. It's a really great character design. We're so used to him and his personality that we don't even seem to notice how odd his appearance is compared to others in the crowd. We're just like, oh, it's Sideshow Mel

Yeah, now that you mention it, he does have a real "Life in Hell" vibe to him.

@@TheRealJims Now that you made that Marge comparison, I'm actually surprised that the Simpsons writers have shown enough restraint, or just not thought of it yet, to write an episode where it's revealed that Sideshow Mel is Marge's (and Patty and Selma) long-lost brother or a half-brother. We've got the episode "The Color Yellow", as well as Groening's extensive Simpson and Bouvier family trees in The Simpsons (Uncensored) Family Album that hints at an overlap (or two) between the families, because the writers are so obsessed with the status quo of "Homer and Marge were always meant to be" so just about every iteration of them has them hooking up, meaning Marge and Homer are related-- no matter how distantly that may be... so the sudden revelation of Marge and Sideshow Mel being related wouldn't be _that_ farfetched. (Plus according to all of the Simpsons fanboys, the writers don't care if they piss off the fans, so if they get the predictable backlash, they can just ignore it and reinstate the status quo in the very next episode and pretend it never happened! -Then we can get -*-more-*- people complaining about how the cartoon they totally stopped watching years ago is going down hill!- )

Kinda reminds me of Bongo the rabbit, design-wise.

@@KevlarNinja Speaking of which, I'd love to see TheRealJims do a video about Life in Hell. No one seems to know it exists.

Not Big Lenny Energy

​@@claymathewselevator8121How did this not get more likes???

He also has some of the best one liners.

Remember back when he was Kenny Brockelstein?

I for one support our alien overlords

I also think he's interesting because he was the punchline of a lot of the jokes about celebrity and fame in the Simpsons before the show started just featuring actual celebrities. He's in an interesting place as he's one of the recurring characters in the Simpsons who is an in-universe celebrity.

Yes I too would like to throw my support behind a video about beloved local news reporter -Kenny Brockelstein- Kent Brockman

gosh i remember that ! i'm glad someone brought it up, i had a vague memory of mel without his bone that i thought would come up here but i think it was from that comic

I remember that one! He got fired by Krusty for taking the attention away from him, the comic was characters at the unemployment office explaining how they lost their jobs.

@@humanperson6372 I read that one too! All the side stories where hilarious, especially the one where Patty couldn't drive anymore

Weirdly Dial N for Nerdur confirmed the long flowing hair thing.

My memory of that is similar, but I thought he changed the hairstyle so that he would stop getting cast in the vacuous love-interest role. He wanted to play something different.

I was thinking the same thing.

apparently Dan was told to do an imitation of Kelsey Grammer's Sideshow Bob voice for Mel.

Every second player, character, band, cartoon, food... is "underrated" nowadays.

@@GOLVEL ok

@@GOLVEL I agree with you but I also agree Mel is underrated. Because at least I basically never think about him as anywhere near my favorite character. This isn't like luigi where most people pick him over mario yet act like he is underrated because he's the second brother and mario gets more attention from nintendo itself.

He's no stamp the ticket man, but he's getting there.

Personally, I think he more-than deserves his own name. It's interesting how he aligns with the rich "villains" of the show.

Its like "just stamp the ticket" man but in a more legitimate manner

That lawyer with no name would be great to analyze

It was setup that way as a screw the audience joke we all expect mr Johansson to treat mel just as bad as krusty but in stead he kind demenor makes krusty look even worse

Don't fall for Mr Johansson's act. No good employer would have a spare taco come out of a worker's salary!

Sideshow Mel doesn't deserve respect, he's meant to be funny not treated right

Yeah, I think it’s related. Mel has one of the most outrageous character designs, based solely on the bone in his hair, and the distinctive voice he was given means he has a certain gravitas; the conjunction of the two makes him a great character to be the voice of the crowd.

"Here comes a giant greaseball!" "Hey, Luigi bring you kids'a free pizza, why you have ta make'a the fun, uh?"

I second the Luigi Vote 😉

Thats easy. His marios brother and lives in the mushroom kingdom

@@jordon8658 don’t forget, owning a haunted mansion

Nice homestar runner pfp

He did one on the State

There’s also this vague feeling of the writers turning against her for no reason at some point. Early on, there’s more focus on Apu’s failings in their marriage, such as his overworking and his affair, but slowly she just started to become a more vindictive, negative character; this development isn’t unrealistic, seeing as her husband cheated on her and she has to raise octuplets, but it’s a bit jarring when they introduced her as this very sweet natured and pleasant character.

Manjula is some kind of space ship

Pretty sure they're brothers, I swear I've heard "uncle" come up a few times with Sanjay's kids in the early seasons

I thought Sanjay was Apu’s nephew?

@@cjgray8825 Jamshed is Apu's nephew, though he goes by "Jay" in a later season.

Sanjay is his brother

Apu refers to Sanjay as his brother in the episode where Homer is stealing cable. Apparently, he deplores violence of all kinds.

Burns, Flanders, and Skinner are all voiced by Shearer and are some of the characters who have appeared the most in the show, after the [immediate] Simpsons family and Moe. It would be great to see a video highlighting their interactions with each other.

He did kind of get a spotlight episode in an episode from about 10-15 years ago where Lisa became famous; he served as the narrator and we got to see a bit more about his life even though the plot of the episode was ultimately about Lisa

i like the idea of doing mr.largo too. he isn't in too many episodes but he has a prominent role in the intro so he always stands out.

If his ethnicity we anything other than "yellow" he would have been canceled by now regardless of his three dimensional character. In 2022 we judge everything by the color of its skin and not the content of its character.

Is there something funny about the word thomboner?

Something is either three-dimensional or not. It's not possible to be more three-dimensional than another thing.

That would be interesting because she is in almost every episode as part of Marge's outfit but she probably only has like 40 plot points

Maggie would make a great episode

Simpsons Mysteries: How Old Is Kearney?

I think Maggie would make great histories to release around "April's Fools". She is a real member of the family but there are a lot of real jokey plot point surrounding her, in a good way. She is an infant who may or may not be half alien, who is proficient in firearms.

@@thegeecyproject most definitely! It's like in one episode, he has a father that's like a full-grown version of him, in another, he's shown to own a car (specifically a Hyundai. "Hey, get away from my car!"), and another, he's a divorced father with a son who looks like a younger version of him.

If I am going to have to find him in that episode, I am gonna use that screencap, dang it 😛

well, it’s here now

Quimby kind of dried up because he evolved into a Bill Clinton parody (the womanising obviously, but also the "say whatever is popular" attitude) and then Clinton stopped being president so it became less relevant.

Quimby was a mockery of the kenndy esque politican the last being bill clinton. He was used a lot in the early years when the show was much more aggressive and willing to do social commentary and quimby was the tool used to highlight political corruption, along with wiggam to show police incompentence and the recipracal nature between them

For me, I started wheezing at “Yes, yes. But the house. I-iawa..a.. WHAT?!”

They also reported about a new doll sooner than the news about the president murdering someone

What about Sideshow Luke Perry and Sideshow Ralph Wiggum

Here it is!

Castellaneta confessed at some point that he tries (or tried at first stage) to imitate Grammer delivery in Bob's role, to show how one Sideshow isn't at all different from another (thus hinting at Mel potentially also going Bob's route).

There’s a theory that Eddie is Ralph’s real father

Moe is the character with the highest number of episode appearances, outside of the Simpsons family, so it would be a monumental task. However is Moe is definitely my vote as well. I think "...Jims" is trying to stick to more niche characters, not only to make it easier on him but to give us insight into the characters we see don't think much about, but I would really enjoy the occasional deep dive into a top tier character history. I'd be thrilled to see someone on the top of the appearance rankings pop up once a year.

Me too.

I have to agree, I'm honestly surprised he hasn't done an episode on Willie yet! He's one of my favorites! "Nah you keep Studyin'. I'll scream this out. YAHHHHHH"

@@aprillittle7131 Yeah.

He keeped the word, even if it was at the last minute

not really

I feel like Herman and Munroe are these 80's tropes that spilled over into the early seasons before fading away.

@@KronetHjort yeah, that makes sense. Haha

I think the characters that fall into this most are the Winstons, the Simpsons' other neighbours (not the Flanders), who sort of had this Statler and Waldorf vibe where they never really interacted with anyone else, the camera just cut to them and they went on about how the Simpsons sucked.