Waylon Smithers

Biography

Smithers was once shown to be a baby when Homer Simpson was 12 years old, while in other episodes he was in grade school and high school at the same time as Homer. It's possible that the corpse of Waylon Smithers, Sr., who died when his son was 4 months old, was never found for at least 12 years, but if that were the case and reality were to apply, the corpse would be much more decayed than it appeared to be, and possibly nothing but dust, as Waylon Sr. died of radiation poisoning, which causes corpses to decay faster than normal. His life was also on a floating timeline. He once said he was born 25 years after the 1929 stock market crash, in 1954, yet in a flashback, he was in high school in 1999. This may be partly because the show itself is on a floating timeline, with the characters continuously staying the same age despite time marching on as usual. When Smithers was a baby, his real father, Waylon Smithers, Sr., was Burns' assistant until he died of radiation poisoning after saving Springfield from a potential nuclear meltdown. Smithers never learned the true cause of his father's heroic death until Mr. Burns ended up telling the truth to the Simpsons family years later, with Burns instead claiming Smithers Sr. was killed by Amazonian warrior women (whether or not this played a role in his sexual orientation as was hinted in the scene remained unknown). Smithers wore glasses even as a baby. In grade school, he was a target for bullies (including Homer Simpson). He was the announcer for the high school gymnastics competition, giving particular emphasis on the male gymnasts over the female gymnasts. Eventually, he became Burns' personal assistant.

Biography

As a (not very well) closeted gay man, Smithers has had a crush on Burns for as long as he has worked for him, but Burns is almost always oblivious. Smithers was once married to a woman, but it fell apart when she wanted to have sex with him, and also referred to Mr. Burns as "awful". At one point it was implied that Smithers was linked romantically to John, the owner of Cockamamie's thrift shop. After coming out he later dated Julio, although Smithers' continuing feelings for Mr. Burns interfered with their relationship. Aside from his heavily implied homosexuality, Smithers was also implied to have at least some gender confusion and transvestite tendencies, as, when smoking weed to allow Homer to not violate his vow of never smoking it again, Smithers ended up cross-dressing as Judy Garland and suggesting that Homer pose as Mickey Rooney of 60 Minutes fame until Homer's reference to where Mickey Rooney came from had him realize that Mr. Burns (who had earlier left to take a bath after sweating) had been gone for over an hour, and his asking for bottles of estrogen from Marge during a drug sale claiming it was for "a friend trapped in the body of another friend" (which is implied to be his way of avoiding directly stating that he wanted them for himself), and also his asking Kim Basinger for a copy of the red pumps that she used in LA Confidential, which was implied to be so he could use them to dress up as her.

Biography

Smithers collects Malibu Stacy dolls, was implied to be a frequent attendee of the StacyCon at San Diego, writes a newsletter about the doll, and was the author of a Malibu Stacy stage musical that played in New Mexico; he played Stacy's boyfriend. In the episode "Lisa the Skeptic", when the people of Springfield believe that an apocalypse is upon them, Smithers takes the opportunity to show Mr. Burns how he feels and kisses him. However, when it becomes apparent the "apocalypse" was just a hoax, Burns still remains oblivious to Smithers' feelings, while Smithers covered up his actions by claiming it was a sign of respect. He also came close to coming out to Mr. Burns during the Do What You Feel Day festivities in the episode "Bart's Inner Child", though he quickly covered himself by claiming he meant that he loved the Hawaiian shirt Mr. Burns was wearing at that time, and then privately lamented that he should have come out to Mr. Burns in the boat house earlier. Despite his crush on Mr. Burns and several times coming close to coming out, he also was shown to be horrified when someone implies they know his sexual orientation, as evidenced by the episode "The Springfield Files", when Mr. Burns, when asking Smithers what he was doing on the weekend, he said "something gay, no doubt", causing Smithers to stammer and be taken aback by the question until Mr. Burns revealed he meant the antiquated definition of gay that meant doing something fun or happy (apparently being unaware of the definition change to be a euphemism for homosexuality), with Smithers then laughing nervously after confirming Mr. Burns' question.

Biography

He once owned a Yorkshire Terrier named Hercules. When Mr. Burns convinced Sideshow Bob to run for mayor, it was Smithers who revealed to Bart and Lisa a clue that would lead them to the truth about Bob's not-so-honest victory in the mayoral election, hinting that his reasons were due to Sideshow Bob planning on enacting policies that were oppressive to his orientation. He intended to supply them with the information anonymously, although his efforts were spoiled by Homer driving up and then activating his headlights.

Biography

In 1995, when Burns tried to steal oil from Springfield Elementary, although Smithers nominally had Mr. Burns' back, he secretly was disgusted with what Mr. Burns was doing, even going as far as to, after surveying the closure/damages to the Springfield Retirement Castle, Moe's Tavern and Springfield Elementary as a result of his slant drilling operation, sarcastically "congratulate" Mr. Burns for wiping out his "enemies" in thinly veiled contempt, and when Mr. Burns attempted to block the sun from Springfield after stealing oil from the elementary school, Smithers objected and was fired. This droves him into a nightmare of alcohol abuse and Comedy Central viewing. He was the main suspect in the subsequent shooting of Mr. Burns, but he was cleared due to it becoming obvious that, as he had been watching Pardon My Zinger at the time of the shooting, he couldn't have been the one who did it. However, he did, in a drunken stupor, shoot Jasper in his wooden leg while trying to rush home to watch his favorite TV show. No charges were pressed in this case, mostly because Jasper already forgot about it. After Burns is shot, Smithers goes to church where he admits to God he isn’t a Catholic, although he did try to march in the Saint Patrick's Day Parade. Chief Wiggum was listening due to it being a police trap and arrested Smithers, who was later exonerated. He also went behind his boss' back earlier, although a lot more reluctantly, regarding Sideshow Bob as aforementioned. Similarly, after Mr. Burns rejected Smithers' feelings for him despite the latter coming out to him, Smithers quit on Mr. Burns and, due to having come up with the traps in Mr. Burns' office in the first place, also outwitted Mr. Burns by not only dodging all the trap doors Mr. Burns placed in his floor, but also manipulated him into dropping himself.

Biography

In "Midnight Rx", Burns cancels his employees' prescription medication plan. After a while, Smithers' thyroid starts to swell because he can't afford his medication. Burns accompanies Homer to Canada in his airplane in order to get Smithers's medicine before he passes on. Smithers' official job at the power plant appears to be that of executive assistant, which he says is "actually about 2,800 smaller jobs", responsible for monitoring employee attendance, is often a disciplinarian and has won dozens of "Employee of the Month" awards. He has often hinted at wanting to be promoted to the position of executive vice president, but Burns has repeatedly squashed this dream, while whimsically bestowing the vice presidency on Homer and a dog. He was once, however, made the CEO of the Nuclear Power Plant in Burns' stead when Mr. Burns was arrested for stealing paintings from an art museum, a position that is arguably better than vice president, although he hints that he didn't want the job. He initially tried to be an employee-friendly boss, but after overhearing a conversation between Lenny, Carl, and Homer while meeting at Moe's Tavern that revealed that they were abusing his employee-friendly nature to in essence goof off, he became a worse CEO than Mr. Burns (even going as far as to release wolverines in the house instead of hounds). He eventually gave up on the position willingly after Burns was released by Lenny, Carl, and Homer.

Biography

Smithers has the largest collection of Malibu Stacy dolls in the World and is the president of the Malibu Stacy fan club. As such, he also implies that he is a regular attendee at the annual StacyCon at San Diego in Airport Hilton with his statement of "Hello, Malibu Stacy Fans. I'll be seeing you at StacyCon '94 at San Diego Airport Hilton." It was implied once that something laid eggs in Smithers' brain and was considered serious enough of a medical issue that Mr. Burns, who had himself been discharged from the Mayo Clinic with a clean bill of health (relatively speaking) apologized to Smithers about his news, with Smithers himself stating that, since he considered the mere fact that even one egg was laid in his brain was "too many," he would "prefer not knowing" how many eggs were in his brain. Aside from his suspected shooting of Mr. Burns, as well as any acts he did on Burns' behalf, he also did a very bad thing in a park during the night at one time while Chief Wiggum had been on patrol, although the latter did not arrest him during this time. Wiggum later alluded to this incident when Smithers was unable to wear a hat despite one of the old laws mandating that he wear a hat during the day time, citing that if he didn't arrest him for "that night in the park", he certainly wouldn't have arrested him for what was implied to be a misdemeanor by comparison.

Biography

Although he is the sidekick of one of the biggest villains on the show, Smithers has a relatively friendly relationship with the Simpson family. He gets along well with Lisa as well as willingly aided her in tracking down Stacey Lovell, and is good friends with Marge, with whom he has a lot in common. As for Homer, there is usually tension when the two interact (likely due to Homer having bullied him), though after Homer unintentionally knocked Mr. Burns out of a three story office onto the parking deck in an earlier fight with Smithers, the latter proceeded to send a gift fruit basket to Homer and the rest of the Simpson family in gratitude since it allowed Smithers to be re-hired by Mr. Burns (Smithers had earlier been fired in a backfired attempt at ensuring he didn't get upstaged as Burns' assistant due to his pick, Homer, being so terrible at his job that Burns was forced to become self-reliant).

Sexual orientation

Smithers frequents Springfield's gay section. He is arrested for trying to obtain opium for Mr. Burns while in Morocco. Burns says to Homer "I've never seen someone take to a Turkish prison so quickly." Smithers once went on vacation to a male-only resort. He is passionate about Mr. Burns and has at least occasional fantasies about the older man. In one, Burns appears flying through Smithers' bedroom window, or jumping out of a birthday cake and singing "Happy birthday, Mr. Smithers". When Smithers powers up his computer, the screensaver is clearly a de facto nude Mr. Burns saying "Hello Smithers. You're quite good at turning me on." On one occasion, Smithers is forced to go to Dr. Nick's "no questions asked clinic", having apparently put something in his butt which was now stuck there. Smithers has declared his love for Burns on some occasions, such as kissing Mr. Burns on the lips after saying "Oh, what the hell!", believing the world was ending, later explaining it to him as "merely a sign of my respect". Smithers once said; "I think women and seamen (semen) don't mix".

Sexual orientation

Burns himself has been involved with several women, much to Smithers' frustration, such as Marge Simpson's mother, Jacqueline Bouvier, Marge herself, and Gloria. He was disgusted by strippers who danced in front of him in a strip club and was noticeably disgusted when Burns started looking for a female companion. Burns, for his part, views (and refers to) Smithers as a lackey, albeit a highly valued one for his competence and toadying. He has "rewarded" Smithers' devotion with the future "honor" of being buried alive with him after he dies. Smithers has been shown to be somewhat dependent on his relationship with Burns, like the occasion when Burns orders Smithers to take a vacation and Homer is hired as a temporary replacement. When Homer loses his temper and punches Burns in the face, Mr. Burns learns to become self-reliant and this results in Smithers being fired. Smithers chooses that he needs to be Burns' assistant and eventually gets his job back. For all his sycophantic devotion to Mr. Burns, Smithers has been willing to challenge him on some occasions. When he opposed his employer's various evil schemes, Burns fired him. As a result of his firing, Smithers became a "hideous drunken wreck" and when Mr. Burns was shot later, Smithers thought he might have done it while he was drunk. When it was proven that he had not, Smithers seemingly forgave Burns and demanded that the culprit be brought to justice, offering a reward for the capture of the perpetrator. A lesser demonstration of this challenging him was when he aided the Simpson children in giving a vital clue towards how Sideshow Bob won the mayoral race, with his reasoning behind this being implied to be disagreement with Sideshow Bob about restricting those of his "sexual lifestyle."

Sexual orientation

In Squeam, Smithers plans to ditch his own "gay ways", and is the main guy who dresses up like ghost face along with Lovejoy every 15 seconds. It reveals he loves Fox shows and hates that they got canceled and kills Lovejoy by accident. He is later killed by the real killer and falls on Lovejoy as if kissing. As seen on Professor Frink's future machine, eight years from the present, Smithers has to inject himself with some concoction every 10 minutes with a syringe to be heterosexual (upon taking the injection he waves his arms in the air and shouts "I loves boobies!"). In one possible future, 15 years from the present, he thawed out Mr. Burns and had his seventeen stab wounds to the back cured. He attended Lisa Simpson's wedding with him. In the year 1,000,000 AD, Smithers's head is on a robotic dog body and follows Mr. Burns's head everywhere. Smithers appears in The Simpsons Arcade Game as the first boss of the final level, as well as one of the main antagonists. Smithers, presumably under Mr. Burns' command, broke into a jewelry store to steal a diamond. As he and his fellow henchmen were making their escape, he (quite literally) bumped into the Simpsons family, causing him to lose the diamond, and for Maggie to catch it. Due to this setback, Smithers ends up kidnapping Maggie, and, after a few misadventures, he makes it back to the Nuclear Power Plant, although not without the Simpsons family following him. He then fights the family, remarking "Welcome to my world!" He lobbed several explosives at the family. When sensing that he would soon lose, he opened his cape, revealed to be filled with explosives, cackling maniacally only to react in shock as he discovers that the explosives had activated, causing him to be caught in the explosions. For unknown reasons, Smithers in this game actually sounds much higher pitched than in the regular series (most of the other characters usually have more or less the same voices in the game).

Sexual orientation

In The Simpsons Game, level "Lisa the Tree Hugger", Smithers was involved in Mr. Burns's plan of trying to cut down the entirety of Springfield Forest, and is comforting him about doing better next time when the plan fails due to Lisa and Bart's interference, as well as phoning some goons to beat up Al Gore. In Mob Rules, he appears as one of the people Marge can use to protest the sales of the Grand Theft Scratchy video-game to minors, although it's implied that he had a different aim in mind for doing the mob protest, including trying to celebrate gays. In Medal of Homer, a squad of sailors resembling Smithers protects Private Burns on board his personal naval carrier where he protects the stolen paintings from the village of St. Capitulons. According to Abe Simpson during the briefing for the level, the sailors in question fight neither for country nor for God, solely for love. Waylon Smithers was partly based on how numerous Fox executives and staff members acted towards Barry Diller. The idea for Smithers's orientation came from Sam Simon, who proposed that Smithers should be gay, but the writers should never draw too much attention to it and should try to keep it in the back of their heads. The script for "Blood Feud" originally featured Smithers saying "Just leave me enough to get home to my wife and kids," but the line had to be cut for time. Smithers is voiced by Harry Shearer, who is also the voice of Mr. Burns. Shearer is often able to perform dialogue between the two characters in one take. Dan Castellaneta occasionally fills in for Shearer at table reads and voices Smithers.

Sexual orientation

Smithers made his first appearance in "Homer's Odyssey," which was the third episode of the first season, although he can be heard over a speaker in The Simpsons series premiere "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". in his first visual appearance in "Homer's Odyssey", Smithers was mistakenly animated with the wrong color and was made darker than most characters by Gyorgyi Peluce, the color stylist. In a 2014 interview, the show's creator Matt Groening claimed that the character was always meant to be yellow, but animators painted him the wrong color and, because they were low on funds, they could not afford a retake. David Silverman has claimed that Smithers was always intended to be "Mr. Burns's white sycophant," and the staff thought it "would be a bad idea to have a black sub-subservient character" and so switched him to his intended color for his next episode. The first appearance of yellow Smithers was "There's No Disgrace Like Home", the fourth episode of the first season. Smithers's relationship with Mr. Burns has long been a running joke on The Simpsons. Smithers is an obedient and sycophant assistant to Mr. Burns. There have often been strong hints about Smithers's true feelings for his boss, with one of the earliest references being in the season one episode "The Telltale Head". Smithers's sexual orientation has often come into question, with some fans claiming he is a "Burns-sexual" and only attracted to his boss, while others maintain that he is obviously gay. During the Bill Oakley/Josh Weinstein era, they still tried to keep his sexuality difficult to pigeon-hole. There was debate among the writers about his orientation. Al Jean, who thinks of Smithers as being a "Burns-sexual", felt that had Mr. Burns been a woman, then Smithers would not be gay. David Silverman, a former supervising director has said, "[Smithers] seems to be focused on one particular human, as opposed to anything beyond that. [Rather than being gay], he's sort of 'Burns-se

Sexual orientation

"Waylon Smithers" is actually an anagram of "Wants him sorely". In a 2006 study conducted by the "Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation", it was determined that nine of the 679 lead and supporting characters on scripted broadcast television were gay or lesbian. Smithers was not included among these nine characters, and it caused a mild online controversy. Patty Bouvier, Marge Simpson's lesbian sister, was included on the list. The debate is referenced in "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular", when the episode host, Troy McClure is answering viewer questions, and one that is asked is "What is the real deal with Mr. Burns's assistant Smithers? You know what I'm talking about." A montage of various clips that shows Smithers's lust for Mr. Burns follows, and in the end, McClure says "as you can see, the real deal with Waylon Smithers is that he's Mr. Burns's assistant. He's in his early forties, is unmarried, and currently resides in Springfield. Thanks for asking!" Several of the allusions to Smithers's sexuality have turned into battles with the censors. For example, in Smithers's fantasy of a naked Mr. Burns popping out of a birthday cake in "Rosebud", the censors had not wanted Mr. Burns to be naked. Another example is "Marge Gets a Job", which has a dream sequence where Smithers is sleeping and Burns flies through a window. The sequence shows Burns flying towards him and Smithers looking happy, but originally it went on for a few seconds longer. It had to be trimmed down due to scenes that showed "Mr. Burns landing on a particular position on Smithers's anatomy". There were also issues with "the lump in his bed", which the animators had been drawn as his knee, but the censors had misinterpreted. He also dressed up as a drag queen once.

Sexual orientation

In the early seasons, Smithers has an occasional catchphrase, which comes from a recurring joke that Mr. Burns never remembers who Homer is. In some scenes, Smithers and Burns would watch Homer over a security camera Burns will ask, "Who is that man?", to which Smithers would reply, "That's Homer Simpson, sir, one of your [insert drones, organ banks, carbon blobs, etc.] from sector 7G." In the second season, the writers started to enjoy writing about Smithers and Burns's relationship, and the writers often pitched episodes with them as the focus, but many never came to fruition. In 2004, Simpsons producers announced that one of the characters was going to come out of the closet. Speculation on who it would be was printed in newspapers throughout the United States and Canada (even claiming Smithers's "sexual orientation was about the worst-kept secret in Springfield,") as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, (the Irish Independent called Smithers "too obvious" a choice) and the United Kingdom. Despite Matt Groening joking that it would be Homer, The Boston Herald calculated the odds of several characters being gay with Smithers at a million to one. PlanetOut hosted an online poll in the weeks prior to the episode to determine based on "cartoon gaydar" who was gay on the Simpsons, with 97% of the respondents choosing Smithers. Jenny Stewart, the entertainment editor at the site said of the poll, "We've never had such an avalanche of people voting in any of our polls as we did on The Simpsons." After the guessing, it was Patty Bouvier who came out.

Gender identity

It was first hinted that Smithers was, or is looking into becoming, transgender when Marge was selling prescription medication at a garage sale, and he bought bottles of estrogen for "a friend...who's trapped in the body of another friend." He also hints at transgender tendencies in "When You Dish Upon a Star" when he asks Kim Basinger where to get red pumps similar to those her character wears in LA Confidential, and also in "Weekend at Burnsie's" where Smithers, while stoned from smoking a joint of marijuana in order to allow Homer to keep his vow of not using marijuana after quitting it, proceeded to dress up as Judy Garland and suggested that Homer dress up as Mickey Rooney before realizing after Homer noted that the latter was of 60 Minutes fame that Mr. Burns had been gone for over an hour, far too long regarding his bath. Although not a true hint, the end credits for "Dial "N" for Nerder" had among the "cast" Smithers dressed up in drag as the "wife" of Mr. Burns. (However, these may simply be because drag is relatively common in Springfield's gay community.)

Gender identity

In "Frink Gets Testy", when Jonathan Frink searches for Bart's file, Smithers’ file is seen for a brief moment, saying "soon to be Wanda."

Personality

clever and kind. Despite working for (and loving) the most evil man in Springfield, he often shows a strong moral backbone. For instance, when Mr. Burns tries to block Springfield from the sun, Smithers stands against him, resulting in his (short-lived) termination. He was subsequently accused of shooting Mr. Burns, but was quickly acquitted when it became clear that the gentle Mr. Smithers couldn’t hurt a fly.

Hair Color Gray/tan, glasses, brownish open jacket, white button up shirt, purple bow tie, blue pants, black dress shoes