Bobby Peterson

Bobby Peterson is the Dean of Springfield University. He prefers to be called "Bobby."

Description
Bobby is a young go-getter—very mellow, hip, and easy-going. He plays bass guitar and encourages the Springfield University students to call him by his first name. Bobby is also very much not a hard-nosed disciplinarian, but is willing to take the blame for being too strict if disciplinary issues arise at the university. In fact, Bobby had never expelled anybody from school, prior to kicking out, and  for kidnapping Sir Oinks-A-Lot. Even then, Bobby only did it because of the influence of the pig's powerful friends (such as ).

History
In spite of Bobby's likeability and other positive qualities, Homer Simpson took an instant dislike to him, and spent most of his time at Springfield University nurturing an unreasonable resentment for the dean. Due to watching college comedy movies such as School of Hard Knockers, Homer formed a stereotypical image of a college dean as an inflexible old fuddy-duddy before he even set foot on campus. When Homer met Bobby, the image persisted, even though Bobby was clearly younger than Homer and bore no resemblance to the stereotype.

But when Homer became remorseful for his part in getting the nerds expelled while he himself got off scot-free, he confessed everything to the dean: kidnapping Sir Oinks-A-Lot, hitting the dean with his car (in a gone-awry scheme to get the nerds re-admitted to school), and the other pranks that he and the nerds had pulled. Bobby, for his part, conceded that he may have been "a bit of an ogre" and rescinded the nerds' expulsions, although as a result of being hit by Homer's car, he ended up needing a prosthetic hip replacement. After that, Bobby and Homer got along reasonably well, partying together and even teaming up to prank and Springfield A&M.