Difference between revisions of "Charles Montgomery Burns"

|name = Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns

|image = [[File:Charles Montgomery Burns.png|250px]]

|gender = {{Male}}

|alias = [[Fruit Bat Man]]

|age = See [[#Childhood|age section]]

|job = Owner of [[Springfield Nuclear Power Plant]] (not [[Canary M. Burns|legal owner]])<br>World War II veteran

|relatives = '''Grandparents:''' [[Wainwright Montgomery Burns]] and [[Evelyn Graycomb]]<br>'''Parents:''' [[Clifford Burns]] and [[Daphne Burns]]<br>'''Adoptive father:''' [[Charles Montgomery Burns' adoptive father|Unnamed]]<br>'''Siblings:''' [[Cornelius Burns]], [[Cornelia Hernandez]], [[Zeph Burns]], [[Sarah Drew Linscott]], [[Dominique Burns]], [[Archibald Burns]], [[Clifford Burns Jr.]], [[Ernest Burns]] and [[George Burns]]<br>'''Great-Grandfather:''' [[Franklin Jefferson Burns]]<br>'''Son:''' [[Larry Burns]]<br>'''Nieces:''' [[Pepita Bernstein]] and [[Victoria Burns]]<br>'''Aunt:''' [[Doreena Burns]]<br>'''Grandchildren:''' Several, unnamed<br>'''Cousin:''' [[Lyla]]<br>'''Ex-wife:''' [[Persephone Odair]]

|appearance = "[[Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire]]"

|voiced by = [[Christopher Collins]] ([[Season 1]])<br>[[Harry Shearer]] (regular)<br>[[Nancy Cartwright]] ([[Angry Dad]])

'''Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns'''<ref>"[[Flaming Moe]]"</ref> is the owner and operator of the [[100 Industrial Way|Springfield Nuclear Power Plant]].

Mr. Burns frequently orders his aide, [[Waylon Smithers, Jr.]], to "release the hounds," so as to let his vicious guard dogs attack any intruders, enemies or even invited guests. Mr. Burns is Springfield's richest and most powerful citizen. His net worth has been stated to be in the billion-dollar range, although at one point it slipped to "only" $996 million, which led to his being demoted from Billionaire Camp to Millionaire Camp.<ref name="The Burns and the Bees">"[[The Burns and the Bees]]"</ref> Burns uses his power and wealth to do whatever he wants, usually without regard for consequences and without interference from the authorities. His fortune was once estimated to be $3 billion.<ref>"[[Hard Times]]"</ref>

Burns' birthday is September 15.<ref name="Rosebud">"[[Rosebud]]"</ref>

The Burns family has deep roots in the United States, with Montgomery Burns' great-grandfather [[Franklin Jefferson Burns]] throwing boxes of tea overboard in the Boston Tea Party.<ref name="trillions">"[[The Trouble with Trillions]]"</ref> His age and time of birth is contradictory. He said he was 81 in the 1990s<ref>"[[Simpson and Delilah]]"</ref> and said his age was a four-digit number in the 2000s<ref name="regina">"[[The Regina Monologues]]"</ref> and 2010s.<ref name="Them, Robot">"[[Them, Robot]]"</ref> Others in the 1990s and 2000s knew his age as 104.<ref>"[[Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)]]"</ref><ref name="Homer the Smithers">"[[Homer the Smithers]]"</ref><ref>"[[A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love]]"</ref> He once gave his place of birth as Pangaea.<ref name="The Seemingly Never-Ending Story">"[[The Seemingly Never-Ending Story]]</ref> Burns was either the youngest of his siblings which he outlived,<ref>"[[Double, Double, Boy in Trouble]]"</ref> or the older brother of [[George Burns]].<ref name="Rosebud"/> When the 108-year-old [[Cornelius Chapman]] died in 2000, Burns officially became Springfield's oldest living resident.<ref name="The Mansion Family">"[[The Mansion Family]]"</ref>

Depending on the account, he was a child in 1909,<ref name="last exit">"[[Last Exit to Springfield]]"</ref> 1913,<ref name="circus">"[[Monty Burns' Fleeing Circus]]"</ref> or 1935,<ref name="bobby">"[[Bobby, It's Cold Outside]]"</ref> and was an adult in the 19th century,<ref>"[[My Mother the Carjacker]]"</ref> 1914 (with his 25-year college reunion taking place in 1939),<ref name="Baby Burns">"[[Burns, Baby Burns]]"</ref> between the wars,<ref name="Four Regrettings and a Funeral">"[[Four Regrettings and a Funeral]]"</ref> or in the 1920s.<ref>"[[The Great Phatsby: Part One]]"</ref> His parents were either affectionate<ref name="Rosebud"/> or cold and distant.<ref name="bobby"/><ref name="Dark Knight Court">"[[Dark Knight Court]]"</ref>

Burns used to have a penchant for reading comics as a child ("comical booklets"), but his father [[Clifford Burns|Clifford]] didn't like this. Clifford burned down the company that made the comics to teach his son a lesson.<ref name="Dark Knight Court"/>

Burns abandoned [[Bobo]], a teddy bear and the symbol of his lost youth, to live with a twisted billionaire,<ref name="Rosebud"/> who was his grandfather [[Wainwright Montgomery Burns]], who owned the [[Springfield Power Works]], where laborers split atoms by hitting anvils with sledgehammers.<ref name="last exit"/> Burns amused himself by injuring hapless immigrant laborers.<ref name="$pringfield">"[[$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)]]"</ref>

Whether or not Burns' mother [[Daphne Burns|Daphne]] was alive by the 1990s<ref name="Homer the Smithers"/> or dead in the 1930s was unclear,<ref name="bobby"/> as was whether or not the cause of his parents' death was getting in his way<ref name="The Mansion Family"/> or if his mother died from a lack of indoor plumbing.<ref name="fraudcast">"[[Fraudcast News]]"</ref>

He later attended [[Yale University]].<ref name="Baby Burns"/>

[[File:Mr. Burns WW2.png|thumb|left|Burns with Abe Simpson during WWII]]

=== Pre-World War 2 ===

For a time Burns lived in [[Paris]], where he met and fell in love with his cousin [[Lyla]]. At one point, he proposed, but she rejected him because of his evil ways, and they didn't speak for decades.<ref name="Four Regrettings and a Funeral"/>

In 1939, at Burns' 25-year college reunion, he became romantically involved with the daughter of an old flame. She would later bear his child, [[Larry Burns]], who was given up for adoption and would later enter Mr. Burns' life briefly.<ref name="Baby Burns"/>

Burns served in the [[Flying Hellfish]] during [[World War II]], holding the rank of private after being demoted for his involvement in a romantic scandal and attempting to block a probe from J. Edgar. Burns is proud of the fact that he manufactured shells for the Nazis, seeing himself as being superior to {{W|Oskar Schindler}} because "my shells worked, dammit!"<ref>"[[A Star Is Burns]]"</ref>

A member of Springfield's Flying Hellfish battalion (even though it was later shown that Mr. Burns was in the SS, the special forces of the Nazi army), he saw action in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge, serving under Sergeant [[Abraham Simpson]]. He was later transferred to the South Pacific with part of his squad. During the closing years of the war, when his platoon was clearing out a German-occupied castle, Mr. Burns came across several valuable portraits. Since they couldn't decide on who they should go to, they decided to enter into a tontine, which Mr. Burns was removed from decades after the war, after being dishonorably discharged when he tried to kill Abe. The paintings were later handed back to a German whose relatives owned them.<ref>"[[Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish"]]"</ref>

At the end of World War II he was personally hired by President [[Harry S. Truman]] to transport a specially-printed trillion-dollar bill to Europe as the United States' contribution to the reconstruction of the continent. As the United States' richest citizen, Burns was thought to be also the most trustworthy. Burns absconded with the bill and kept it in his possession for many years until it was lost to [[Fidel Castro]].<ref name="trillions"/>

Burns spent time as a biochemist and bioterrorist before owning the [[Springfield Nuclear Power Plant]]. When Homer was six<ref>"[[Gone Abie Gone]]"</ref><ref name="to cur">"[[To Cur, with Love]]</ref> or nine,<ref>"[[Mothers and Other Strangers]]"</ref> Burns operated a biological weapons laboratory until it was destroyed by peace activists - including [[Homer]]'s mother, [[Mona Simpson]].<ref>"[[Mother Simpson]]"</ref>

Burns raised money to build the [[Springfield Power Plant]],<ref name="to cur"/> which opened when Homer was either 12<ref>"[[The Blunder Years]]"</ref> or a senior in high school.<ref>"[[The Way We Was]]"</ref> When he arrived in Springfield this time (for what [[Marge Simpson]], who was a child at the time, thought was the first time) he promised cheap electricity for all. He came into town riding an elephant and a young [[Moe Szyslak]] asked to touch the elephant, which Mr. Burns allowed him to do.<ref name="Them, Robot"/> However, other accounts showed Burns living in Springfield with his grandfather in the 1900s<ref name="last exit"/> and with his mother in the 1910s.<ref name="circus"/> Burns currently owns the plant, although he has parted with it several times, including when he sold it to German investors, when the bank foreclosed on it and put [[Lenny]] in charge, when he lost all of his money in a bet with [[The Rich Texan]], and when Homer and [[Bart]] staged a hostile takeover of it. In each of these instances, Burns regained ownership of the nuclear plant.

His plant was almost destroyed, but Waylon Smithers Sr. sacrificed himself to save the plant. His young son, Waylon Smithers Jr., would grow up to work for him and be his second in command. He is unaware that Smithers is gay and has had a crush on him for years. Their relationship has had its rough spots, as Smithers was one of the prime suspects in the shooting of Mr. Burns in 1995. Mr. Burns has grown to be the oldest man in Springfield.

[[File:Evil Burns.png|thumb|Mr. Burns in his typical evil mood]]

Burns embodies a number of stereotypes about Corporate America, as he has an unquenchable desire to increase his own wealth and power. Burns also embodies the stereotype of a manager by forgetting his employees' names (especially Homer's, despite it appearing that they interact more than Burns does with most of his employees), though this can be attributed to his senility. Burns is also unconcerned for their safety and well-being. His aspirations to apply obsolete technology to everyday life or references to Victorian-era people or places provide a common source of humor on the show. Recently, he has become less evil and more eccentric.

Burns has a vast amount of money, he doesn't do charity, and simply releases "The Hounds" at any charity collectors coming to his mansion. He seems to enjoy bossing his assistant, Waylon Smithers, Jr., to do everything for him, from getting him dressed to driving him about.

[[File:Ketchup catsup.png|thumb|Mr Burns struggles to understand Ketchup and Catsup]]

At times, Burns appears to be completely removed from modern conventions and, sometimes, reality. He continually fails to recognize Homer Simpson or remember his name despite all the major events in Burns' life on the series have revolved around him in some way, similar to [[Krusty]] not remembering Bart's name. Burns is also for the most part unaware of the townspeople's general dislike of him. Burns uses archaic phrases and antiquated expressions that have either changed meanings or fallen out of common usage in American English, including score (meaning 20), twain (two), post-haste (quickly), petroleum distillate (gasoline), gay (jolly), dean (principal), velocitator and deceleratrix (a car's accelerator and brake), aeromail (post by air), lollygagger (slacker), fourth form (fourth grade), ahoy-hoy (hello), jumping box and picto-tube (television), Autogyro (helicopter), DictaBelt (dictation machine), the New York Nine (New York Yankees), horseless sleigh (snowmobile, although it could just mean that he was trying to be a mysterious character), crackleberries (peanuts), talkie (movies with sound), thrice (three times), and mater (mother). He also answers the telephone in the same way that the man widely credited for the ''Invention'' of the Telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, is purported to have answered it ('Ahoy, Hoy?'). In one episode he also rings Smithers and says "Smithers, come here, I want you.", a take on what are reputedly the first words spoken by Alexander Graham Bell on his telephone ("Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you").

Burns appears unaware of 20th century political and social developments, such as Fidel Castro replacing Fulgencio Batista as the President of [[Cuba]], Siam changing its name to Thailand, the [[Belgian Congo]] changing its name to the Congo-Kinshasa, Prussia being absorbed into the [[Germany|German]] Empire, [[India]] gaining its independence from the British Empire, New Mexico entering the [[United States]], the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Idlewild Airport changing its name to JFK Airport, the disbanding of the Negro Leagues, the desegregation of the Major Leagues, [[Joe DiMaggio]] no longer being a rookie, the extinction of the dodo, the demolition of the Polo Grounds, the ceasing of publication of Collier's Weekly, the demise of the DuMont Television Network, believing tires need to be revulcanized, confusing {{Chs|Ramones}} with [[The Rolling Stones]] ("have the Rolling Stones killed"), thinking cars are still operated by levers, believing mail may still be delivered by autogyro (once asking for a package to be delivered by autogyro to the Prussian Embassy in Siam), and the 1939 World's Fair.

Burns' investment portfolio includes long-defunct shares in "Confederated Slaveholdings, Transatlantic Zeppelin, Amalgamated Spats, Congreve's Inflammable Powder, U.S. Hay", and an "up-and-coming Baltimore Opera Hat Company". Burns commonly refers to deceased persons as if they were alive, including Al Jolson, Tallulah Bankhead, Louise Brooks, Greta Garbo, Honus Wagner, Cap Anson, and Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown. He believes some social institutions and inventions are novel or nonexistent, such as musicals about "the common cat" and "the King of Siam", the Packard automobile, the Fire Department, ice cream (or "iced cream"), vending machines, recycling, strip clubs, hamburgers, the DuMont, the word "into", silent films like the 1929 ''Lulu'', and the synonymity of ketchup and catsup. While trying to chat up a young woman, Burns offers to play the clavichord and show stereopticon images of the Crimean War.

[[File:Mr burns hurts homer.jpg|thumb|left|Mr. Burns strangling Homer, in a menacing fashion]]

Burns has numerous physical ailments and health problems, or more accurately he has nearly 'every' physical ailment and health problem. He is often to the point where he seems to straddle the line between life and death. On prior occasions, Burns may have died. Presently, Burns has a condition known as "Three Stooges Syndrome" where a delicate state of homeostasis is created by the presence in his body of every disease known to man and other newly-discovered diseases unique to him, which, when all trying to invade his body simultaneously, cancel out each other. Mr. Burns took this as being invincible, although the doctor who told him this implied that the slightest breeze could kill him.<ref name="The Mansion Family">"[[The Mansion Family]]"</ref>

Physically weak, he often has great difficulty performing the most basic physical tasks, such as giving a thumbs-up, receiving a hug, crushing a paper cup, or stepping on an insect. He is weak enough to be pushed over by an ant or a high-five, or pushed down by a sponge scrub on his head (although he was able to eventually get up in the latter case). Bunting a baseball sends him flying to the backstop. The weight of Toothpaste on his Toothbrush is enough to pull him over.<ref>This is shown in [[The Simpsons Movie]].</ref> He has a hunched back and his vertebral column is visible when he is viewed from the side. His exposure to radiation has given his skin a green glow (though seen in only one episode) and left him infertile. Once a 1000 dollar bill bruised him leaving a reverse imprint of Grover Cleveland on his chest.<ref name="regina"/> When Burns was incarcerated at Springfield's penitentiary, when he was getting a mug shot, the camera flash was able to slam him against a wall and knock him out.

His organs have grown immensely weak over the years. His heart is black, desiccated, and barely beats or does not beat at all. It is shrunken to the size of a cherry. Burns' blood type is double-O negative.<ref>"[[Blood Feud]]"</ref> When his finger is pricked, he bleeds dust, and when his arm is poked with a needle, the needle passes through his arm like Meringue as his doctor described it. On one occasion, a chunk of Burns' brain fell out through his ear. Another time, his lungs came out through his mouth and acted like an airbag. On another occasion, he indicated in an off-hand manner that he only has a single lung. If he is not careful, fluid can build up in his hands, causing them to swell to enormous proportions, and his fingers have been shown to flap in the breeze released from a bowling ball dispenser. It has been revealed that if Burns sweats even one drop, he could die of dehydration unless he takes a bath immediately. He has lost body parts due to leprosy (one example is when he lost an entire fingernail in a cup). Both his legs have a crease in them, down the entire length. When he learnt he had the [[House Cat Flu]] and he had only 6 months to live, he decided to announce all Springfieldians. However, after seeing nobody cared about him, he tried to jump from a cliff to kill himself. He didn't die, but did lose his memory and people then tried to take revenge on him.  

[[File:Burns in The Fool Monty.png|right|thumb|Mr. Burns when Bart brought him to his home after he tried to kill himself]]

Burns' medical treatment includes a weekly procedure which includes chiropractics, a painful vocal cord scraping, and an injection of pain-killers; its purpose is to postpone his death for one week. This makes his eyeballs grow to an unnatural size, and he becomes temporarily "nice". He also glows green, a result of working in a nuclear plant for ages. This once caused Homer to mistake him for an alien, though no one believed him, thinking him to have been drunk (he drank about ten bottles of a new type of beer, '[[Red Tick Beer]]' made out of beer and dog fleas). [[Lisa]] tried to prove that Burns was not an alien, by pointing a flashlight at him, which revealed him in his "nice" form.  

The townspeople still believed he was a monster and wanted to kill him anyway, but Smithers rushed in and stopped them, explaining that it was really Burns. He has his brain flushed out with vinegar and his eyes "re-balled". His knees are also sent out to be repaired at a "shop." His dentures replace themselves.<ref>"[[The Springfield Files]]"</ref> In the future, Burns may be kept alive by cryonics.

Burns once broke all his bones (though this was understandable, as he was knocked down onto the street below his main office, and besides which, he also had his stuffed Polar bear statue fall on top of him due to a fight between Smithers and Homer).

On rare occasions he has displayed great strength and skill, such as when he managed to single-handedly capture the Loch Ness monster "Nessie" (though it was never explained exactly how he did so) and when he rescued his girlfriend Gloria from a burning building (although she wound up carrying him out of the blaze).

At the nuclear plant, Burns spends most of time in his office, monitoring his workers via closed circuit cameras. In his office he keeps a team of ten high-priced lawyers, a scale model of Springfield, a special microbe-resistant chamber, a two-seat escape pod, and the "League of Evil" - a sinister cabal whose members are long deceased but whose skeletons remain. The boobytraps in Burns' office include cricket poison, a secret trapdoor (though he sometimes forgets where it is), a catapult that fires 100&nbsp;gram weights, and a ceiling-mounted suction tube which he can use to transport dissident workers to [[Morocco]]. He is also a loan officer at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant Employee's Credit Union.<ref>"[[Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire]]"</ref>

[[Kent Brockman]] also credits Burns with having stolen Christmas from 1981 to 1985.

He also claims to have participated in the Boston Tea Party.

Burns has also owned or co-owned a number of business ventures in Springfield, including the [[Monty Burns Casino]] (later demolished),<ref name="$pringfield"/> Li'l Lisa" recycling (an ocean slurry manufacturing plant),<ref>"[[The Old Man and the Lisa]]"</ref> and [[Burns Slant Drilling Co.]],<ref>. Burns owned this in "[[Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)]]"</ref> Burns Media, the electric company, the water works and even a hotel on Baltic Avenue.

In ''The Simpsons: Hit & Run, ''it is implied that he had a business partner that he killed. He stated this in level 7, mission 4, when Homer goes to his office, Mr. Burns mistakes him for the ghost of his former partner, and is relieved when Homer tells him that it is just him.

[[File:Homer the Smithers promo.png|thumb|right|Burns' bedroom in Burns Manor]]