Difference between revisions of "Krusty the Clown"

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"Hey hey hey,kids!" -Krusty's catch phrase

Herschel Pinkus Yerucham Shmoikel Krustofsky (Template:Lang-he, born c.1935), more commonly known as Krusty the Clown, is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons, voiced by Dan Castellaneta. He is a world professional clown who is currently signed to Krustylu Studios clowning on its enterprise brand. Krusty is the long-time clown host of Bart and Lisa's favorite TV show, a combination of kiddie variety-television hijinks with a sidekick, and cartoons (including the Tom and Jerry parody Itchy and Scratchy). One of Krusty's trademarks is changing the spelling of many words that begin with C to instead begin with K, as evidenced by the occasional spelling of his name, Krusty the Klown, and with such events as the unfortunately-named Krusty's Komedy Klassic show (KKK), performed at the Apollo Theater.

Creation

The character was inspired by TV clown "Rusty Nails" whom The Simpsons creator Matt Groening watched as a child while growing up in Portland, Oregon.^[1] Dan Castellaneta based his voice characterization on Chicago television's Bob Bell who portrayed WGN-TV's Bozo the Clown from 1960-1984.^[2] Krusty's appearance and design is just that of Homer Simpson with clown make-up, and one dropped concept saw Krusty being revealed as Homer's secret identity.^[3] Groening said that "The satirical conceit that I was going for at the time was that The Simpsons was about a kid who had no respect for his father, but worshiped a clown who looked exactly like his father," a theme which became less important as the show developed.^[1] Krusty was originally just a normal man wearing clown makeup, but David Silverman noted that "at some point, we decided he looked [like a clown] all the time."^[2]

Biography

Template:Splitsections2 Template:Fiction There are inconsistencies in Simpsons episodes regarding the many references to Krusty's age, but in the episode "Day of the Jackanapes", Krusty announces the end of his entertainment career (again), which he says has lasted 61 years. He also revealed in one episode that he got where he was "by naming names in the [19]50's" (most likely a reference to McCarthyism). These years added to the approximate age at which he would have started would lead people to believe he is in his late seventies. This is one of several jokes throughout the long run of the series about the changing timeline.

The episode "Like Father, Like Clown" (based on the film The Jazz Singer), first released on October 24, 1991, expanded on his origin. According to it, he was born Herschel Schmoeckel Krustofski and is of Jewish heritage (an idea by Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky which had not been part of the original concept^[1]).

His name Herschel Schmoikel Krustofski (הרשל שמויקל קרוסטופסקי) has changed since the episode "Today I Am a Clown". It is possible his full name is Herschel Schmoekel Pinkus Yerucham Krustofski.^{[citation needed]} The spelling of the first and last name has been confirmed in "Bart the Fink".

Krusty is a third generation American. In 1902, Krusty's grandfather Zev Krustofski left Imperial Russia for the United States and gained entry through Ellis Island.^[4] As seen in Bart the Fink, Krusty retained Zev's suitcase as a family heirloom.

Zev's son Hyman Krustofski became an Orthodox rabbi and a leader of his community, whose wise counsel (such as if it is right to buy a Chrysler) is continually sought. Rabbi Krustofski, voiced by Jackie Mason, hoped that his son would follow in his footsteps (he brags that Herschel is at top of his yeshiva class). However, Herschel wanted to become a clown because he wanted to make people laugh. Consequently, the Rabbi disowned him. Decades later, Krusty memorably reconciled with his father with the assistance of Bart and Lisa.

It was later revealed Krusty did not have a Bar Mitzvah service, because Hyman feared he would violate the sanctity of the rites by "acting up." Krusty had two adult Bar Mitzvah ceremonies: a Hollywood gala, then a simple ceremony intended to reconnect with his father.

After leaving the Lower East Side of Springfield (a reference to New York City's Lower East Side, a famously Jewish neighborhood in the early 20th century), Krusty started his 50-year show biz career as a street mime in Tupelo, Mississippi. He then appeared on a variety of Laugh-In style variety shows, but in the 1950s was banned from television for 10 years after saying "pants" on the air, which was not allowed at the time. In the 1960s he finally got his own television show, The Krusty the Klown Show, which featured Krusty discussing current events with serious guests (an episode of the show dated February 6, 1961 featured AFL-CIO president George Meany and a discussion of the "labor crisis in America"). The interview format began to increase in wackiness from that point on — while interviewing Robert Frost, he dumped a load of snow on the poet. Much of this loss of prestige may have been due to Krusty's substance abuse problems: he was clearly stoned when Ravi Shankar played on the show less than a decade after Meany's appearance, and he once exclaimed "what was I on?" while watching a clip of himself howling a drugged-out version of The Doors' "Break on Through (to the Other Side)." By the 1980s the show had devolved into a children's entertainment show.

Although he came back to Springfield to live and produce his show, Krusty was still a very prominent celebrity, making friends with stars ranging from Johnny Carson to Hugh Hefner to Bette Midler (with whom he owned a racehorse named "Krudler"), Alfred Hitchcock, the Beatles and Elizabeth Taylor, and being the half-brother of TV star Luke Perry, much to his chagrin. He also had the displeasure of having Ray Jay Johnson as his co-host for a week.

Krusty quickly became a multi-millionaire, mostly by licensing his name and image to a variety of sub-standard products and services (many of which are owned by Bart). In the Simpsons' world, there are everything from Krusty alarm clocks, to his own brand of legal documents, to Krusty dolls, to Krusty eye wash and Krusty's Clown College, which Homer attended. The more dangerous ones include: the Krusty home pregnancy test, which "may cause birth defects"; Krusty's brand of bubble gum, which contains spider eggs (which they knew about) and hantavirus (which they didn't know about); Krusty Kologne, which may cause "severe chemical burns"; and Krusty's brand of cereal, which in one episode boasted a jagged metal Krusty-O in each box, at first, and then flesh-eating bacteria in each box. One of many lawsuits regarding these products was launched by Bart, who ate a jagged metal Krusty-O and had to have his appendix removed. It was suggested at the end of the episode that he would sue Krusty again after he ingested the flesh-eating bacteria that was put into the cereal. Other lawsuits have resulted from defective products, such as a number of parents suing Krusty for one of his defective balloons exploding and taking out the eyes of "every kid in the room", Krusty's sexual harassment of any number of women, accusations that his theme park is a "death trap", and for illegally selling Tonya Harding's honeymoon video. Krusty avoided further trouble over Kamp Krusty by personally taking the campers to the "happiest place on Earth" - Tijuana.

The "Krusty Korporation", the company responsible for Krusty's licensing, has also launched a series of disastrous promotions and business ventures: Sponsoring the 1984 Summer Olympics with a rigged promotion that backfired when the Soviet Union boycotted the games, causing Krusty to personally lose $44 million; building a series of Krusty Burger outlets on unmanned oil rigs, leading Krusty himself to observe "I'm taking a bath on this"; and recording "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well", a "We Are the World"-type charity song meant to raise funds for a little boy that was supposedly trapped down a well. When the boy being trapped down a well was exposed as one of Bart Simpson's pranks, the song instantly plunged from #1 down to #97 on the music charts. Given that Krusty mentioned that they would need to pay for "promotion, shipping and distribution", and the limos used to transport the celebrities that contributed to the recording, it stands to reason that Krusty lost a fortune in producing an album that suffered from miserably low sales. Krusty is also known to have recorded at least two albums of his own: Krustophenia (a play on the album Quadrophenia by The Who) and S'Wonderful, S'Marvellous, S'Krusty. The degree of their commercial success is unknown, however he did mention that while Simpsons Christmas Boogie went platinum, "Krustophenia [sat] on the shelf".

At one time, he had his own brand of pork products (somewhat ironic, considering his Jewish heritage); this might have led to his almost-fatal on-the-air heart attack and subsequent pacemaker in 1986. Krusty operates his own television production company, Krustylu Productions (a pun on Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz' Desilu Productions).

His much-abused sidekick Sideshow Bob framed him for armed robbery in 1990, which resulted in Krusty's brief incarceration. In the interim, Bob ran the show, but was fired and arrested when Bart identified him as the real culprit. Bob was then replaced with Sideshow Mel, who has remained faithful to Krusty to date.

Krusty is a hard-living entertainment veteran who has been down and out several times (always being rescued by the Simpson children) and remains addicted to gambling, cigarettes, alcohol, Pepto, and Xanax (and, in one episode, Percodan). He instantly becomes depressed as soon as the cameras stop rolling. He seems to suffer from bipolar disorder; in a Soupy Sales parody, asked children to send him spare lithium from their parents' medicine cabinets after every employer in town cut off their prescription drug plans. In "The Heartbroke Kid" he says that his tolerance levels are so high from years of excess he has to smoke ground-up moon rocks just to feel normal.

Krusty's vices have affected American foreign policy. In the episode "Insane Clown Poppy", it was revealed that he (accidentally) prevented Saddam Hussein's assassination by US forces during the Gulf War. After meeting a beautiful soldier during his USO tour, he sleeps with her ("Maybe it was the anthrax in the air," he said). Awaking the next morning, she panics because she is late for her mission and pushes off Krusty who wants her to stay. When he finds out she is planning on killing Saddam with a missile launcher, he tackles her and knocks the explosives off course. Saddam was a great source of his comedic material, he claims. Since then she's hated him despite them having a daughter, Sophie (voiced by Drew Barrymore). Her home is filled with a variety of artwork depicting clowns being killed.

His show was briefly canceled after the debut of Gabbo the ventriloquist dummy, who was so popular that Krusty was subsequently driven out of business. Bart tried to get the Gabbo show canceled when he sneaked into the studio and switched on the camera during what was supposed to be a commercial break, revealing the ventriloquist Arthur Crandall saying "That oughtta hold the little S.O.B.s," referring to his audience, through Gabbo, a reference to a famous radio urban legend about Uncle Don. Krusty then returns to the air with an Elvis-style comeback special in which his many celebrity friends appear and reignite his career.

In 1996, after an IRS bust for tax "avoision", (sic), according to Kent Brockman, which resulted in his bankruptcy, Krusty faked his death and lived briefly as sailor Rory B. Bellows. Krusty insured Bellows' life in his own name and then staged an accident to "kill" Bellows, collecting the money to rebuild his life. Krusty otherwise wastes money almost as fast as he earns it: lighting his cigarettes with hundred-dollar bills, pearl necklaces and priceless copies of Action Comics; eating condor-egg omelets; hiring Kenny G to play for him in his elevator; sending a thousand roses to Bea Arthur's grave, even though she is still alive; buying clean houses to replace his dirty ones; settling plagiarism lawsuits with other comedians (see below); spending huge sums on pornographic magazines (which Apu says kept him in business his first year); losing a fortune gambling on everything from horse races to operas to betting against the Harlem Globetrotters ("I thought the Generals were due!"); and buying a ruby-studded clown nose.

He seems to retire from and then get back into show biz repeatedly throughout his career. His last retirement (a parody of Johnny Carson's final show) was almost permanent because of recently-paroled Sideshow Bob's latest scheme – wiring plastique explosives to a hypnotized Bart and sending him up on stage (a parody of The Manchurian Candidate). A last minute change of heart at Krusty's touching mention of him in a speech (as well as a last-minute rescue by Krusty's chain smoking chimp, Mr. Teeny) stopped Bob's plan. Bob and Krusty later reconciled, with Krusty exclaiming that Bob's attempts at Krusty's life make his ratings shoot through the roof.

Krusty – minus his trademark clown-hair, pale "facepaint" and red nose – bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Homer Simpson. There are some differences, such as his cow-skull birthmark, his pacemaker scar (real pacemakers usually are inserted through a small incision under the (usually left) clavicle (collarbone), not in the midline, as is Krusty's scar), his superfluous third nipple, and his small feet. In addition, in the episode "Bart the Fink", he was seen apparently sans clown makeup, but while he was swimming, yellow face paint washed off to reveal his trademark clown features, indicating that the look is actually permanent. This reference to The Joker from Batman would seem to confirm a remark that Krusty once made to Homer Simpson, in the episode Homer's Triple Bypass, in which he noted the aftereffects of his heart attack and pacemaker implant by pointing to his face and saying, "This ain't make-up!" Krusty's physical similarity to Homer was discussed in an interview with Matt Groening, who explained that he wanted Krusty (who Bart idolizes) to demonstrate a close resemblance to Bart's own father (who he doesn't).

Krusty shares a number of parallels with certain real-life celebrities. His addiction to Percodan mirrors that of Jerry Lewis. Like Lewis, he also holds children's telethons (raising funds for motion sickness), and easily believed that the French government would award him the Legion of Honor (actually a trick invented by Bart and Lisa in an attempt to reconcile him with his estranged father). Krusty also shares Sean Penn's tendency to punch members of the paparazzi. His third nipple seems to be based off of Francisco Scaramanga, the fictional James Bond villain in The Man with the Golden Gun.

Krusty's show is patterned after the Tonight Shows of Johnny Carson and Steve Allen; it has both the opening monologue and conversations with guests made famous by Carson and the madcap stunts popularized by Allen, even going so far as to directly plagiarize some of Allen's jokes. Krusty has mentioned how, like Carson, many other people have come after him in an attempt to become the number-one children's show in America, but that he buried them all, including "hobos, sea captains, Joey Bishop" (Bishop was one of many would-be usurpers to Carson's throne, all of whom Carson thwarted without difficulty) and "slaughtered" the Special Olympics. Krusty has been threatened with lawsuits by other entertainers, such as George Carlin and Steve Martin, for stealing their material, which Krusty resolves with $10,000 payments to each.

To his credit, after his show was harshly criticized by educators and parents for its "mindless TV mayhem", Krusty responded by supporting child literacy through his show, encouraging children to read books (despite being unable to read himself). Some of Krusty's guests have included biologists who bring wild animals onto the show (including timberwolves and condors), and he even paused during one broadcast when he learned that the Falklands War had begun, stopping to give the viewers a brief overview of the disputed islands-something that Krusty later forgot when he used that particular 1980s episode as a rerun over a decade later.

In the comic books

In Simpsons Comics #113, Krusty is revealed to have four illegitimate sons who are all at the orphanage. These kids have yet to appear in an animated episode. However, in Marge vs. the Monorail, a slight gag is derived from Krusty being confronted by a mother who claims that Krusty fathered an illegitimate child with her. In Simpsons Comics #41, Krusty has a Brand Fun Factory which will introduce the making of Krusty's products and the in-prison plot by Sideshow Bob. In #40, Krusty (like every celebrity in Springfield) owes Fat Tony money he swears he won't pay. Krusty gets the idea of filming at the Simpsons' house after seeing the family as his sidekicks in a hallucination after falling down the stairs.

Links

• The Original Krusty the Clown Homepage
• The Simpsons.com Character files