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The contents of this article or section are considered to be non-canon and therefore may not have actually happened or existed.
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The Penalizer was Principal Seymour Skinner's supervillain alter-ego. He went on a brief spree in Springfield until he was stopped by Bartman.
Description[edit]
Costume[edit]
The Penalizer's costume was a green coverall with a puma logo on the chest. The Penalizer's face was covered by a brown hood equipped with eyeholes and held in place by a grey cord. The costume's gloves and boots were also brown, and the costume had utility pouches at the waist, wrists and boot tops.[1][2]
Modus Operandi[edit]
The Penalizer's motive was to ensure that people who committed crimes that went against society's norms received what he felt were appropriate punishments. Equipped with a pair of night-vision binoculars, he patrolled the streets of Springfield at night looking for offenders. After catching them in the act, he confronted the offenders, orchestrating his reveal for frightful effect. He then made them inflict ironic punishments on themselves by using a rare working Hypno-Coin.[2]
History[edit]
The Penalizer's origin is rooted in post-traumatic stress from Seymour Skinner's wartime Army service in Vietnam.[1] The experience of intense combat situations, plus having been a prisoner of war,[3][4] left him prone to flashbacks.[5] After becoming principal of Springfield Elementary School, Skinner developed a penchant for rules and details, which intensified during tense situations and resulted in him treating students as though they were soldiers under his command.[2][4]
It is unknown what specific event led to Skinner's becoming The Penalizer. However, it is known that The Penalizer's spree began sometime after the Hypno-Coin was used to make the teachers think they were chickens. Martin Prince later found the coin on the playground and turned it in to Principal Skinner, who stored it in his office safe with other items he had confiscated. Evidently, at some point after that, Skinner stole the Hypno-Coin from his safe and the puma emblem from the school flag and embarked on his supervillain career as The Penalizer.[2]
The Penalizer's spree was at first relatively low-profile, garnering no media attention yet tallying enough victims that Springfield General Hospital was obligated to re-open its previously closed west wing in order to treat them. The word about the Penalizer gradually got around through the grapevine, to the point where he was known to law enforcement and to the general public and Bartman had taken to patrolling Springfield at night looking for him. Bartman's search bore no fruit until he found Nelson Muntz behind the Kwik-E-Mart, traumatized but still able to identify his attacker as The Penalizer.[2]
Shortly after that, Channel 6 News aired a Special Report about the Penalizer's spree. Bartman, watching the news coverage as Bart Simpson, thought there was something familiar about the punishments the Penalizer was inflicting on his victims, but was unable to conclude exactly what it was. The next day, Bart, along with Nelson, Jimbo, Kearney and Dolph was summoned to the Principal's Office where Skinner told them that the puma emblem had been stolen from the school flag and threatened to court-martial all five of them if the emblem wasn't returned. The accusation left Bart confused, as he hadn't even known that the school had a flag.[2]
Channel 6 News aired another report about The Penalizer, where some of The Penalizer's victims were interviewed and could only remember fragmentary details about him. The report also included video footage of the Penalizer, showing a puma symbol on his chest. Bart, watching the coverage, realized that whoever had stolen the emblem from the school flag was probably also the Penalizer.[2]
Later, in the Bartcave, Bartman and Milhouse used a supercomputer to analyze The Penalizer's attacks and discovered that they were centered on Springfield Elementary School. The discovery, plus the Channel 6 news coverage, led Bartman to suspect that Principal Skinner was The Penalizer and that he was using the Hypno-Coin to carry out the attacks and punish the victims. His suspicions were confirmed when he sneaked into Skinner's office and found that the Hypno-Coin was missing from the safe.[2]
Victims[edit]
The Penalizer ran up a large enough count of victims that Springfield General Hospital was forced to re-open its previously closed west wing in order to treat the influx of hypnotically traumatized patients. Bartman began investigating, going on nightly patrols in search of The Penalizer, but with no results until he found Nelson Muntz. From that point, The Penalizer's victims were as follows:[2]
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Name
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Offense
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Punishment
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Nelson Muntz
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Attempting to spray-paint graffiti on the back wall of the Kwik-E-Mart
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Forced to write "I Will Not Deface Private Property" all over the wall; left at the scene in a traumatized trance.
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Jimbo Jones
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Loitering
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Forced to stand with his nose against a wall for twelve hours.
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Kearney Zzyzwicz and Dolph Shapiro
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Making faces out the window of a city bus
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Forced to make hideous faces; then not allowed to return their faces to normal expressions.
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Barney Gumble
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Belching excessively in public, outside Moe's Tavern
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Forced to perform twenty thousand jumping jacks.
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Unnamed moviegoers
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Cutting in line
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Unknown. During the Channel 6 News coverage of The Penalizer's spree, Chief Wiggum said of their punishment, "He made it pretty ugly for them!" However, Kent Brockman was already traumatized from seeing what had happened to Jimbo, Kearney, Dolph and Barney, so the moviegoers' punishment was neither described nor shown.
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Bart Simpson (attempted)
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Leaving the "El Barto" graffiti tag at the House-O-Donuts (then under renovation)
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Not applicable. Bart's leaving the tag was a trap deliberately laid by Bartman so he could confront and stop The Penalizer.
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Behind the Laughter[edit]
The Penalizer is a parody of the Marvel Comics character Punisher.
Appearances[edit]
References[edit]
Comic story – Where Stalks... The Penalizer! 
Merchandise – 1994 SkyBox Simpsons Trading Cards 
