Hans Moleman

Template:Simpsons character Hans Moleman is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta, and first appeared in the episode "Principal Charming". He normally appears in a running gag, where he usually suffers unfortunate, seemingly fatal events. As a result, Moleman is often compared to Kenny McCormick from South Park.

Role in The Simpsons

Biography

Hans Moleman is the retconned name of an earlier character named "Ralph Melish." Although apparently elderly, he claims to be only 31 years old (in 1993's "Selma's Choice", his driver's license says he was born August 2, 1961, and in "Duffless", Moleman confessed his real age at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, implying that his grotesque appearance has been caused by severe alcoholism), though Moleman has been seen at the Springfield Retirement Home on season ten's "The Old Man and the "C" Student" and in the season 13 episode Little Girl in the Big Ten. He has cataracts and is almost entirely blind (which has severely impaired his reading ability and has led to repeated revokings of his driver's license), and uses medicinal marijuana for several severe illnesses. He carries a brown cane with him everywhere, which has once been shown to contain a giant hidden knife. In the episode "Burns' Heir", Hans was brainwashed into thinking that he's Bart due to a professional de-programmer's mistake. On "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife, and Her Homer", it is revealed that Hans Moleman slept with Lars Ulrich's grandmother, and is considered by Metallica to be a "real fan".

His home address is 920 Oak Grove, Springfield. He has also been seen living at the Springfield Retirement Castle and (in a deleted scene) he is shown to live in a small house directly below the dam that was erected (and subsequently destroyed) in "Brother from Another Series".

Careers

Like many recurring characters, Hans Moleman has had a wide variety of careers over the course of the series. He runs an early morning radio show, on Springfield's jazz station KJAZZ-FM, in which he introduces himself unenthusiastically as "This is Moleman in the Morning, Good Moleman to you". In A Star Is Burns, Moleman enters a film entitled 'Man Getting Hit By Football' into the Springfield Film Festival. The film depicts him getting hit in the crotch by a football. Later, George C. Scott is shown winning a Best Actor Academy Award for a film of him being hit in the crotch by a football. It is implied that the idea for the film was stolen from Moleman's original. One of his other jobs was driving a truck filled with sugar (which he subsequently flipped onto its side, spilling its contents, much to Homer's delight). He is often seen driving other types of trucks as well. In one episode, he flattens Homer with a car falling from his vehicle transport truck. In another episode, he is seen transporting the birthplace of Edgar Allan Poe in a truck. He could also be seen driving a truck in The Simpsons Movie, during Bart's nude skateboarding scene. He also teaches an orange-eating class at the Adult Learning Centre in Springfield. On another occasion, it is implied that he works at a bird sanctuary, as he has to order "the biggest bird seed bell you have... no, that's too big". He once worked as a postal worker. He was also a librarian for the Springfield jail. He once worked as a janitor at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and received a severe head wound from Mr. Burns when Moleman asked Burns for seventeen dollars for a push-broom rebristling; Burns, high on ether, mistook him for the Lucky Charms leprechaun and went to his skull with a power drill. He has also been seen representing a Solar Power company in The Last Temptation of Homer. In Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder, in a reference to the 1956 film The Mole People, Homer stumbles across Hans Moleman, dressed in the Elinor's, the High Priest of the Sumerians, robes in an underground fortress complete with earthquake machines. He also has been spotted in "The Blunder Years" in a kissing booth with Agnes Skinner and Seymour. He was temporarily an Olympic gold medalist due, in part, to a set of replacement mechanical legs (which he wore in the episode "Moe 'n' a Lisa" but was never seen in again.)

Most recently, he has been sighted working as a teller at the First Bank of Springfield and as a marriage-license clerk at Springfield Town Town Hall. Aside from these, Hans has a tendency to be a cheery man, and has made a living of giving people compliments; though in a deleted scene from season 8, Hans threatens God at gunpoint, and forces him to keep it raining money.

Unfortunate events

Much of the humor associated with Hans has involved him cheating death innumerable times, usually highly improbably. He survived his car blowing up, catching on fire due to the powerful magnifying effect of his glasses, a hallucinating Montgomery Burns drilling into his brain, capital punishment (in a local jail) after Homer eats his last meal, left inside an X-Ray machine for possibly an entire weekend, being buried alive, being left forgotten and alive in a purgatory and being engulfed by an "anti-escape bubble" that was attempting to catch Marge (a parody of a similar device from the '60s show The Prisoner), and he also was run over by Homer in The Parent Rap, after the whole family promised they wouldn't commit any crimes for a whole year. Homer ran over Hans once again while he was carrying a sign saying "YOU SUCK" in a field of signposts saying "No Dumping" in regards to Lake Springfield in The Simpsons Movie. Many times people will totally disregard him, usually leading to something like death, or simply imprisonment, but since he appears, even after "dying", those later appearances could indicate he survived. He has also had several accidents where he was not severely injured. He further angered the crowd at Bart and Lisa's junior hockey final because he fell down the steps then shouted 'We paid for blood!'. He also crashed his 1959 Cadillac into the side of Springfield's Planet Hype restaurant (which Marge mistook for a clever decoration). Recently in E Pluribus Wiggum, he was crushed by debris of fast-food boulevard, and three episodes later in The Debarted, suffocated by a car's airbag. In Treehouse of Horror IV, his AMC Gremlin is run off the road by Otto Mann and stops just short of a tree. As Moleman expresses his relief, the car explodes. He appears in the new opening sequence, peeking out of a sewer grate, but Marge runs it over with her car. In Treehouse of Horror XV, in the Ned Zone sketch, Hans is eaten by sewergators. In an episode called Double, Double, Boy in Trouble he is eaten by Vac-u-bots. He is also the worlds first professional midget juggler. Also in yet another accident he crashes his car and fires a flaregun hoping for help, which Homer mistakes for the Star of Bethlehem, and wolves approach in an aggressive manner but Moleman mistakes them for rescue dogs. Hans has also been kept as a prisoner by Moe Szyslak in The Computer Wore Menace Shoes. In the 23rd season premiere, he was flipped over the top of Homer's car in a Taiwanese video game. And most recently, in an episode where Lisa controls a web empire, Homer is texting while driving. Unaware that Hans is in front of him, he crashes into Hans. As Hans is flying through the air he texts Homer "dislike" a number of times and when he hits the ground an ambulance comes and takes his cellphone to the hospital.

Character

Moleman first appeared as a character model for the season two episode "Principal Charming", but he looked so shriveled and unrealistic that someone proclaimed to look like a "mole man". However, he was used in several episodes and later became a recurring character. According to the episode "Principal Charming", his name was Ralph Melish, which is a reference to the Monty Python sketch "The Adventures of Ralph Melish: Hot Dog and Knickers" from The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief. According to a DVD commentary for one episode, some number of viewers were offended by Moleman's appearance, and he was reused in order to annoy people of such a viewpoint. Matt Groening has claimed that Hans Moleman was inspired by Tex Avery's Droopy, who shares many of Moleman's deadpan and unassuming mannerisms.

External links

• Template:IMDb character