Nelson Muntz - Role in The Simpsons

Role in The Simpsons

Nelson is a student and bully at Springfield Elementary School. He is known to have terrorized virtually everyone in Springfield at one point or another. Most often, however, it is the school nerds, such as Milhouse and Martin, who are the subject of his cruelty. Nelson shows the occasional glimpse of humanity, though, and other characters have occasionally warmed to him; Lisa dates him briefly in "Lisa's Date With Density", Marge informally adopts him in "Sleeping with the Enemy," and Bart is shown as a friend to him several times, such as in "The Haw-Hawed Couple."

His family life is dysfunctional. While some early episodes offer inconsistent histories (such as Nelson's dad going insane and abandoning him, Nelson's parents divorcing because of his mom's cough drop addiction, or Nelson's dad in prison while his mom "has bigger problems"), the canon story that has evolved is that he lives in a dilapidated house with his mother who works on the fringes of the sex industry, either as a waitress at Hooters or in a topless bar. The character design and voice portrayal of both parents has varied throughout the course of the series.

It is shown in many episodes that Nelson's father abandoned him and his mother at an early age when he "went to pick up some Pop-Tarts" although, later on in the series, he was said to have gone to pick up a pack of cigarettes. In the fourth-season episode "Brother from the Same Planet", Nelson's father is the children's soccer coach who awards Nelson with a free trip to Pele's Soccer and Acting Camp. Nelson's father also appears briefly in the sixth-season episode "Bart's Girlfriend"; depicted capturing Nelson with a leash as the children run through the cornfields in an attempt to avoid attending church. He also appears in the ninth season episode "Bart Star" to congratulate Nelson after a football game victory and take him to Hooters (with Nelson turning down the invitation because he "doesn't want to see Mom at work"). Nelson's father returns in the sixteenth season episode "Sleeping with the Enemy". It turns out that he did not leave Nelson deliberately; he bit into a chocolate bar, not knowing it had peanuts and had an allergic reaction that gave him neurofibramatosis which impacted his wisdom tooth in the upper left corner with a large bone coming out of the jaw which went into his spine, covering 90% of his body with large tumors of chronic bronchitis. Looking like Joseph Merrick, he ran out of the store and encountered a circus that made him a part of its freak show. At performances, circus attendees threw peanuts at him, which perpetuated his reaction, preventing him to return to normal. When the circus came through Springfield, Bart recognized him and brought him home to rid himself of Nelson (who had been taken into the Simpson home by Marge).

Nelson is also a natural athlete. In the episode "Bart Star", Nelson almost singlehandedly carries the entire Springfield Pee-Wee football team. As the team quarterback, he also on one occasion catches his own pass and plows through the opposing team with extreme ease. In various episodes, he gives off the impression that he is a lot smarter than he may first appear. Nelson often points out painfully obvious things to adults and kids alike that take them longer to grasp. Another example is a running joke where Nelson does a class assignment which is implied to be of high quality. However, he is always brushed off by the teachers before he gets to show them his work. Another running joke, though, is Nelson presenting ridiculously simple assignments, such as repeatedly showing a can of tomato paste in Show and Tell, and a presentation on The Grapes of Wrath, consisting of himself crushing a bunch of grapes with a hammer, stating "Here's the grapes, and here's the wrath!" In later episodes, Nelson shows signs of being a tormented artist type, even submitting a film to the Sundance Film Festival about his life as a child living in poverty with a single, unfit mother and no strong father figure. He memorably says in the documentary, "I like to cry at the ocean, because only there do my tears seem small."

In the episode "Little Big Girl," it is revealed that Nelson is German. Ironically, in "Much Apu About Nothing," Nelson picks on foreign exchange student Üter for being German during Springfield's anti-immigration mania. He is shown to be a big fan of Andy Williams as he, Bart, Milhouse and Martin went to a concert performed by him in Bart on the Road.