Jonathan Frink
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John Nerdelbaum I. Q. Frink, Jr
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Character Information
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Professor John I.Q. Neidelbaum Frink, Jr. is Springfield's 41-year-old local scientist and college professor, and is extremely brilliant, though somewhat socially inept. Frink often tries to use his bizarre inventions to aid the town in its crise, but they usually only make things worse.
Contents
Profile
Professor John Frink (referred to as Dr. Frink in the episode "Future-Drama") is Springfield's local mad scientist. He has a trademark mannerism of using tourettes-like gibberish when excited, such as "GLAVIN!" and shouting other words that have no relevance to the situation at hand. He also occasionally refers to the importance of remembering to "carry the one" in various mathematical calculations. He is almost never seen without his glasses and has only taken them off once [1].
Frink is said to have an IQ of 197; 199 before he sustained a concussion during the collapse of Springfield's brief intellectual junta. He is a member of the Springfield Mensa [2] and a college professor at Springfield Heights Institute of Technology.
Frink is fond of flubber, a material with enhanced bounce properties which his basketball shoes are made out of.
Professor Frink is the inventor of, among other things, hamburger earmuffs and the 8-month after pill. Some of Frink's inventions, such as the automatic phone dialer, work better than others, such as his radio-controlled plane, which carries babies as passengers under their parents' control, or a secure house that sprouts legs and runs away from potential danger (the legs of which often collapsed causing the house to crash to the ground and catch fire). Frink has also discovered and cured "Frink's Disease" and discovered "Frinkonium."
In the 1960s, Professor Frink made napalm to drop on Da Nang [3]. He once predicted that computers would be so large and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe would own them, a paraphrase of Thomas J. Watson's misquote.
Professor Frink has frequent contact with Lisa Simpson better than the rest of the Simpsons family because she is more interested in science and makes more frequent visits to places such as the Natural History Museum and the Observatory.
Family
Frink has a wife, though they may be separated or divorced, and a young son who looks similar to him. When his son crashed through a window during a demonstration of a remote controlled airplane, he says "my wife is going to kill me" [4]. But since his son is seen alive later, it's suggested that this is either a different son or that his son survived the accident.
Non Canon Appearance
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In Treehouse of Horror XIV, it is revealed that Frink had a strained relationship with his father (voiced by Jerry Lewis). Frink said they got along like "positrons and antineutrinos." The senior Professor Frink was a "he-man" scientist who, according to his son, worked on the atom bomb by day, slept with Marilyn Monroe by night, and sold secrets to the Russians at lunch. Frink brought his father back to life after he died from a Shark Attack, but he went on a rampage and younger Frink was forced to kick the elder in the nuts, killing him. It is indicated in this episode that their shared middle name is "Neidelbaum". The two rebuild their relationship when the elder Frink is proud of his son for stopping him like a man.
In "Future-Drama", an episode set eight years into a possible future of Bart and Lisa's, a bespectacled skeleton dressed in a lab coat is observed hanging on a rope from a rafter in Frink's basement laboratory—indicating the professor has committed suicide in the interim - although this could be a clone or his aforementioned son - , his death gone unnoticed by family and friends. However, another episode set further in the future, "Lisa's Wedding", shows him alive and well as he leads a team trying to discover the cure for seventeen stab wounds in Mr. Burns' back, stating "Well, we're up to fifteen!".
In The Simpsons Game, he marries a Koopa Troopa from Super Mario Bros.
Behind the Scenes
Professor Frink has not had a large role in the series, though he has been seen in many episodes. Professor Frink does not make any appearances in Season One and has only one speaking role in Season Two. However, in Season Three he has several speaking roles, and becomes a recurring character from then on.
Appearances
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