Professor Frink

Professor John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink Jr. is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Hank Azaria, and first appeared in the 1991 episode "Old Money". Frink is Springfield's nerdy scientist/professor and is extremely intelligent, though somewhat mad and socially inept. Frink often tries to use his bizarre inventions to aid the town in its crises but they usually only make things worse. His manner of speech, including the impulsive shouting of nonsensical words, has become his trademark.

Frink was originally depicted as an evil scientist in "Old Money", since he was trying to secure funding for a death ray. When Azaria ad-libbed a voice for the character, he did an impression of Jerry Lewis's Julius Kelp character from The Nutty Professor. The staff liked the voice and therefore changed Frink to be more like Julius Kelp, both in appearance and personality – he became more nerdy, and went from evil to just mad. Lewis later guest-starred on the show as Frink's father in the 2003 episode "Treehouse of Horror XIV".

The professor has received acclaim from critics, particularly for his bizarre inventions such as the hamburger earmuffs, and he has appeared on many reviewers' listings of their favorite supporting characters from The Simpsons. Frink has been featured in other media relating to the show, such as comics, video games, and The Simpsons Ride, a simulator ride at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood. The character's popularity has led to him giving the name to the computer programming language Frink.

John Frink is generally depicted as Springfield's stereotypical nerdy, mad, and socially inept scientist, inventor, and mathematician. He wears thick glasses, a white lab coat (which was green in earlier seasons), a blue bow-tie atop a white buttoned-up shirt, and pink pants, and has buckteeth and center-parted hair. Frink is a college professor at Springfield Heights Institute of Technology and runs his own astronomical observatory. He has an IQ of 197 – it was 199 before he sustained a concussion during the collapse of Springfield's brief intellectual junta – and is a member of the Springfield chapter of Mensa. Frink is generally very polite and friendly. He has a trademark mannerism of using Jerry Lewis-style gibberish when excited, such as "HOYVIN-GLAVIN!" and "FLAVIN" and impulsively shouting other words that have no relevance to the situation at hand. He also occasionally refers to the importance of remembering to "carry the one" in various mathematical calculations. When he rambles he often speaks incoherently in run-on sentences without pauses. Frink also has a tendency to over-complicate simple matters and use or invent scientific terminology while expressing various concepts, e.g. "Father and I got along like positrons and antineutrinos!" or "microcalifragilistics".

Frink often tries to use his mad and bizarre inventions to aid the town in its crises, but they usually do not work or only make things worse. Most of his inventions never function properly or are of no real use. He is the inventor of, among other things, a frog exaggerator (which grossly misrepresents the size of amphibians), automatic tapping shoes for tap dancing, the sarcasm detector, hamburger earmuffs, the 8-month-after pill, and a drilling machine that can cut through anything. Some of Frink's unsuccessful inventions include his small remote-controlled plane that carries babies as passengers (it crashed), the "Gamble-Tron 2000", a machine designed to predict pro football scores (after it predicts one team will win by 200 points, Frink physically attacks it on live television), and a burglar-proof house that sprouts legs and runs away from potential danger (the legs of which collapsed causing the house to crash to the ground and catch fire). As a scientist, Frink has discovered and cured "Frink's Disease" and discovered the element "Frinkonium". He has also mastered astrology to the point where he can use it to accurately predict the future, and has been shown to be capable of time travel.

The professor has a son who is seen in "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?" during a convention for infant and toddler products as a pilot of a remote-controlled plane (he flies out the window of the building while in the plane and crashes), and in "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot" at a robot battle (operating the robot). On the show, Frink has made mention of a wife, but there have also been jokes about him having had little contact with women in his life.

Frink often appears in the Treehouse of Horror Also, the Halloween episodes of The Simpsons, which are not accepted as canon and always take place outside the normal continuity of the show. Frink's bizarre inventions and understanding of advanced physics usually fit well into these supernatural plotlines. In "Treehouse of Horror VIII", Bart enters Frink's matter teleporter and – echoing the film The Fly – it results in an accidental mix between Bart's genes and the genes of a housefly that was also present in the transporter at the same time. In "Treehouse of Horror XIV", it is revealed that Frink had a father who was killed by a shark, whom he brings back to life in the episode by piecing together his body parts. Unfortunately, the man decides to steal body parts to improve himself after he is revived. In the latter episode, Frink is awarded a Nobel Prize.

Frink first appeared in the season two episode "Old Money" that aired on March 28, 1991. In that episode, Grampa Simpson inherits $106,000 from his girlfriend when she dies. He eventually decides to spend it on people who are in need of money and holds interviews. In one of these interviews, Frink introduces Grampa to his latest invention, the Death Ray, claiming that "it is just a prototype. With proper funding I'm confident this little baby could destroy an area the size of New York City!" Grampa responds with "But I want to help people, not kill 'em!", to which Frink replies "Oh. Well, to be honest, the ray only has evil applications. You know my wife will be happy, she's hated this whole Death Ray thing from day one."