Agnes Skinner
Agnes Skinner
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Character Information
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Agnes Skinner (voiced by Tress MacNeille) is Principal Seymour Skinner's mother, with whom he still lives. Her voice and her laugh are reminiscent of Phyllis Diller. She represents the overbearing harridan of a mother who emasculates her son.
When Agnes makes an appearance, she is usually controlling some aspect of Skinner's life, often snapping "Seymour!" in order to get his attention. Agnes Skinner shares a clearly unhealthy relationship with her son, which often borders on psychosis. Examples include Agnes having slashed Seymour's inflatable bath pillow as part of an argument, covering up "her half of the television" with cardboard to spite Seymour, spending her Friday nights in the house with Seymour drawing silhouettes, forcing him to perform a "daily mole check".
When Seymour is out of the house, Agnes phones him regularly demanding to be taken out of the bath, shielded from the glare of car lights on the street, and other such quotidian necessities. Seymour has been heard commenting that his mother hid his car keys as a punishment for his talking to a woman on the phone. On the episode were Seymour proposes to Edna Krabappel, Agnes then says "Great now there is going to be three in the bed", revealing that Seymour still sleeps in his mothers bed.
Her hobbies include making silhouettes, collecting pictures of cakes (though she does not like the taste - she considers it "too sweet"), and causing trouble. She often makes harsh comments towards other characters, especially Marge Simpson and Edna Krabappel, such as "These people can smell weakness. Weakness named Marge!", "Gimbel's is gone, Marge. Long gone. You're Gimbel's!" and "Go spend time with your floozy ... [s]he knows I'm kidding! (whispering) I'm not kidding!"
She is a member of the Springfield Investorettes Club and is a member of the National Rifle Association.
Footage exists of a young Agnes as a flapper and engaging in a wingwalking display. At that time, she was an attractive young woman with a bob haircut. Many years later however, she sports a wig (revealed in "All's Fair in Oven War") and wore Jennifer Lopez's infamous green Grammy Awards dress at Homer's roast. Sideshow Mel remarked that the dress was kept in place due to the collective will of everyone in the room. To which she responded "You fruits wouldn't know what to do with it!"
Agnes originally appeared in the season one, "The Crepes of Wrath", as an apparently kindly old woman who embarrassingly called her son "Spanky". According to the DVD audio commentary it is thought that her current mean streak can be attributed to an incident involving Bart that took place in that episode in which, while sitting in a urinal stall, Bart caused the toilets to explode.
In the episode "The Principal and the Pauper", it was revealed that Skinner is actually Armin Tamzarian, a troubled orphan that Agnes mistook for her son when he showed up at her door to tell her that Seymour, with whom he served in the Army in Vietnam, was dead (he believed himself the cause). However, when the real Seymour (voiced by Martin Sheen), returns to Springfield, she not only rejects him, but violently opposes his usurping Armin's place in her life.
With a cutting "You don't need me!", she and the other Springfielders (whom he has also rubbed the wrong way) run him out of town on a rail, and Agnes orders Armin to move back into her house.
The Simpsons Hit and Run
In the game The Simpsons: Hit and Run, Agnes can be seen in the angry mob of the cinematic halfway through the first level. Also, after completing the bonus mission which allows you to drive as Seymour Skinner, when you play as him she also appears in the car and criticizes your driving.
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