Jim Hope

Jim Hope (voiced by Tim Robbins) is the president of Kids First Industries and appeared in "Grift of the Magi". In the episode, Springfield Elementary School is bankrupted and closed. Kids First Industries buys the school and privatizes it. At the school, an all-new staff teaches students classes about toys and marketing, which makes Lisa suspicious when her class is asked to name a new toy that they will sell for Christmas. Bart visits Lisa writing lines on the blackboard. When Bart leaves and turns off the classroom lights, Lisa finds light shining through the blackboard. Lisa later discovers that they are a toy company that uses children for research to make a toy, through the use of hidden cameras, tape recording and clear, two-way blackboards. She brings in her parents and Chief Wiggum to investigate, but they do not believe her because the room used for spying on the children was taken out and replaced. Later on, the new toy is named Funzo with traits that the students had suggested during a brainstorming session. They visit Jim Hope's office and he gives them a free Funzo. Bart and Lisa like it at home, until they discover that Funzo is programmed to destroy other toys. On Christmas Eve, with Homer's help, they steal all the Funzos in Springfield.