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Kent Brockman

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Template:Simpsons character Kent Brockman is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer and first appeared in the episode "Krusty Gets Busted". He is a local Springfield news anchor.

Profile

Kent Brockman hosts the Channel 6 weekday news, Springfield News (Scott Christian is the weekend news anchor and Kent's fill-in) as well as Smartline, a local current affairs show, Eye on Springfield (A parody of Eye on LA) which focuses mostly on Springfield's entertainment news, and "My Two Cents," his own personal commentary segment.

Brockman represents the worst of his profession; frequently judgmental, careerist to the point of absurdity, and more than willing to film and sensationalize a schmaltzy, emotion driven puff piece for the sake of a few extra ratings points. (As with most Simpsons characters, Brockman's ethics and competence vary according to the needs of the episode.) He has been seen throwing tantrums because he cannot find certain snack foods, and in an episode in Season 8 blithely announced that the boom operator on his news program was being fired the next morning (for which he took a clout on the head from the angry soon-to-be-ex-employee). He seems to command excessive levels of power within Channel 6, even having a segment of the news programme to air his own (usually highly reactionary) opinions on current issues called My Two Cents. Despite all of this, he has won a string of media awards, but is most proud of his unspecified trophy from Del Monte. He was also a war correspondent during the Vietnam War, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and the Gulf War (although, as he just says "Iraq", he could have been referring to the Iran–Iraq War). He also frequently uses botox, having a saggy face without it. He also shows signs of unprofessionalism, in which he once shouted at Homer "I get to say that!", after he said "We'll be right back!".

In a flashback to the 1960s in the episode "Mother Simpson", Brockman was known as Kenny Brockelstein early in his career. Brockman has a daughter, and has jealously mentioned his sister, who is a White House correspondent for CNN. Brockman owns a collie named Jessica, whom he had "fixed", and drives an old Pontiac.

In "Dog of Death", Brockman won the multi-million-dollar ($130 million) state lottery jackpot and left the news desk while still on the air. However, he remained a news anchor because he was under contract, though he also admitted that he likes making $500,000-a-year. He has an ongoing feud with traffic reporter Arnie Pie, and has been shown to criticize Pie's reporting and also even chuckle when it was thought Pie had died in a helicopter accident. He mentioned to Pie that he made some smart investments when Arnie complained about the size of Brockman's house.

He is characterized by using news-speak in everyday language, for example, "This just in, go to hell!"(spoken to a beligerent crowd). In "Tennis the Menace", it was revealed that his "wit" is provided by a microphone, earpiece and a communications team in a nearby van. He has been seen, more than once, stretching his face and removing wrinkles by clipping a clothes-pin to the back of his head. In addition to his news career, Brockman writes a column for PC Magazine called "Making the Most of Your Modem". In "Homerazzi" Brockman is revealed to have a "thing" for bondage.

Brockman's most famous phrase, repeated in various guises on internet message boards and within popular culture is "And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords". Another notable quote is "I've said it before and I'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work".

File:You Kent Always Say What You Want.png
Brockman interviewing Homer in "You Kent Always Say What You Want"

Brockman has been shown to have no problem with using bad or otherwise offensive language on air, and a few times he has been fired for doing so. In "Krusty Gets Kancelled", Brockman was fired for muttering, "That oughta hold those SOBs," after reporting on Gabbo using foul language while the cameras were on. In the newspaper headline following that scene, it read that Kent Brockman was fired, though he still remained a newscaster the next time he was shown. Conversely, on "Bart's Inner Child", Kent Brockman reports that because of Brad Goodman exploiting Bart's irreverent personality, people in Springfield are becoming more open with themselves, then says, "...and this reporter thinks it's about ****ing time!" (the profanity was bleeped) and isn't fired for his remark. A similar incident occurred in "Bart's Comet" where he decided that he would report all of the people he had discovered were gay during his reporting over the years, under the grounds that it didn't matter, as he was going to lose the job anyway.[1]

Brockman's penchant for using offensive language works against him in the 400th episode, "You Kent Always Say What You Want", where, after Homer accidentally spills coffee on Brockman's crotch, he shouts, what Ned Flanders calls, a "super swear" that shocked everyone who watched it. Brockman was demoted to weather man due to the station paying a fine to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and was soon fired when the network executives deliberately mistook a ring of Splenda in Brockman's coffee for cocaine. Brockman was later given his job back to silence him (after doing an expose that was seen on YouTube uncovering the real reason the FCC is cracking down on obscenity in the media), with a 50% raise, making his new salary $750,000-a-year.

Creation and inspirations

Brad Bird designed Brockman.

Kent Brockman first appeared on television in the first season episode "Krusty Gets Busted", which originally aired April 29, 1990.[2][3] The character was based on Los Angeles anchormen Hal Fishman and Jerry Dunphy.[4] The director of "Krusty Gets Busted", Brad Bird, designed the character and modeled him after anchorman Ted Koppel.[5] Another influence on the character was The Mary Tyler Moore Show's Ted Baxter, played by Ted Knight.[6] Dunphy was proud of the fact that Brockman was based on him and would tell people that he was Kent Brockman.[4]

Cultural influence

Reception

The author of the book Planet Simpson, Chris Turner, said that "if the institution of the News has a single iconic face on The Simpsons, it's Brockman's"[7] and that "in Brockman's journalism, we see some of the modern news media's ugliest biases", of which he says are glibness,[7] amplification, and sensationalism.[8] MSN called Brockman one of the worst TV news anchors.[9]

"You Kent Always Say What You Want" was well received by critics. IGN called it the second best episode of the season[10]

Idiom

Brockman is the source of the idiom I, for one, welcome our new [fill-in-the-blank] overlords, which is commonly used on Internet forums when a "participant vastly overstates the degree of oppression or social control expected to arise from the topic in question", or to express mock submission, usually for the purpose of humor.[11] The term has been used in the media, such as New Scientist magazine.[12] Brockman's harangue about the Corvair spacecraft being taken over by a master race of giant space ants in "Deep Space Homer", which generated the meme, is considered to be one of the show's classic moments. Turner called it "perhaps his finest hour as a journalist"[13] and said that it is "simply among the finest comedic moments in the history of television."[14]

Merchandising

Playmates Toys created a Kent Brockman action figure for its World of Springfield toy line which was released in July 2001.[15]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Bart's Comet: Kent Brockman: Now, over the years, A newsman learns a number of things that, for some reason or another, he just simply cannot report. Doesn't seem to matter now, so... the following people are gay.
  2. ^ Krusty Gets Busted, BBC.co.uk. Retrieved on 2008-12-30.
  3. ^ "Krusty Gets Busted". The Simpsons.com. Retrieved on 2008-12-31.
  4. ^ a b Groening, Matt; Jean, Al (2003). Commentary for "Homer Defined", in The Simpsons: The Complete Third Season [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
  5. ^ Bird, Brad; Wolodarsky, Wallace (2001). Commentary for "Krusty Gets Busted", in The Simpsons: The Complete First Season [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
  6. ^ Woo, Stephanie. "The Scoop on The Simpsons: Journalism in U.S. Television's Longest Running Prime-Time Animated Series", pp. 5-8. Retrieved on 2008-12-31.
  7. ^ a b Turner, p. 400
  8. ^ Turner, p. 402
  9. ^ Semel, Paul. "The Best & Worst TV News Anchors". MSN. Retrieved 2008-12-30.
  10. ^ Canning, Robert. "The Simpsons: "You Kent Always Say What You Want" Review: Number 400 delivers a classic". IGN. Retrieved 2008-12-30.
  11. ^ Turner, p. 293-294
  12. ^ "The British government welcomes our new insect overlords". New Scientist. Retrieved 2008-12-30. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  13. ^ Turner, p. 403
  14. ^ Turner, p. 69
  15. ^ "Series 5". The Simpsons Action Figure Information Station. Retrieved 2008-12-31.

References

Template:Simpsons characters

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