Montgomery Burns: Encyclopedia II - Montgomery Burns - Biography

Montgomery Burns - Biography

Montgomery Burns - Early Life

Occasional flashbacks show his early life. When he was very young he lived happily with his loving, natural parents, little brother George, and his teddy bear Bobo, which he recovered from Maggie Simpson. Apparently his parents even called him "Happy." He soon chose to live with a twisted billionaire, again reminiscent of Citizen Kane. His mother is still alive, despite her likely age being in the area of 120-140, and is very resentful of her son; it is mentioned that she had an affair with US President William Howard Taft, which Burns has never forgiven her for. His memories of his own childhood are generally shown in sepia, in the style of late nineteenth-century cinema. Some time after this Burns was filling out medical papers and under cause of parents' death put: got in my way.

The Burns family owned "atom mills" at the start of the 20th century, employing strong labourers to split atoms by repeatedly hitting anvils with sledgehammers (his grandfather once had an employee walled up alive in an abandoned coke oven for stealing six atoms). As a privileged child, Burns amused himself by injuring hapless immigrant labourers (one episode showed a very young Monty kicking a Coney Island worker.) Burns imagines that such activity is still a socially-acceptable amusement for the well-to-do. He and his family members are usually portrayed as archetypal early capitalist exploiters - he employs immigrant workers at slave-labour wages, he claims to have ridden a fat man to work for a time, and when Marge suggested "theme days" to improve worker morale, he leapt at the idea of "Child Labour Day". When spying on his workers via his security camera network, he inevitably refers to them using archaic, derogatory terms.

At Yale, he was tapped for the infamous Skull and Bones secret society. He may have had an affair with Countess von Zeppelin. He claims to have personally known President Calvin Coolidge.

In 1939, Burns went to his 25^th college reunion and met Lily Bancroft, the daughter of an old flame. Their brief affair resulted in Lily giving birth to Larry Burns. Her family forced her to give up Larry to an orphanage, then, according to Burns, they "bundled her up to a convent in the South Seas." He did not meet his son until an adult Larry's quest to find his biological father brought him to Springfield. When it became obvious that Burns was more than a bit embarrassed by his boorish progeny, Homer hatched a crazy scheme to "kidnap" Larry in an effort to get Burns to love him. However, the plan backfired, and Larry left Springfield.

In "C.E. D'OH," Burns reveals that he had a fiancée named Gertrude. But he was such a workaholic, he not only missed the wedding but their divorce, too: "She died of lonliness."

Montgomery Burns - Post-WWII

Burns served in the United States Army in World War II, seeing action in Europe under Sergeant Abraham Simpson (see also: Flying Hellfish squad). However, Burns may also have worked for (or traded with) Nazi Germany, as he remarks, "Schindler and I are like peas in a pod. We're both factory owners, we both made shells for the Nazis; but mine worked damn it!". Burns's close relations with an anachronistic version of Germany are supported by the fact that an Otto von Bismarck lookalike, complete with handlebar moustache and pickelhaube helmet, was the only guest on his side in his failed attempt to marry Jacqueline "Jackie" Bouvier. When Burns meets with a German business consortium to discuss selling the nuclear plant, it is revealed that he speaks fluent German.

At the end of the war he was personally hired by President Harry S. Truman to transport a specially-printed trillion-dollar bill that was the American Government's original contribution to the reconstruction of Europe, but this bill vanished for many years. Though it was discovered to be carried on his person, besides a single failed arrest attempt there was no known investigation or attempt to retrieve the stolen bill. The bill is currently in the hands of Fidel Castro, who stole it when Burns attempted to buy Cuba.

During the 1960s Burns operated a biological weapons laboratory until it was destroyed by peace activists including Mona Simpson (the laboratory's motto was When the H-Bomb isn't enough). Shortly thereafter he built the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

Montgomery Burns - Present day

He has owned the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant for the last 50 or so years (except breifly when Homer and Lisa staged a hostile takeover), obtaining a monopoly over Springfield's energy resources. He also owns the water works and the hotel on Baltic Avenue. Burns has been known to use his control over the city's energy to blackmail mayor Joe Quimby, and the town in general.

He has occasionally run other businesses in Springfield, most notably the Monty Burns Casino which operated for several years after Springfield legalized gambling. He co-owned the "Li'l Lisa" slurry recycling plant and once slant-drilled for oil under Springfield Elementary School. There has also been reference to possible control of an anti-democratic rebel force in South America (he mentions this to the SNPP workers before realizing he's giving the wrong speech).

Burns resides in a vast, ornate mansion on an immense estate called Burns Manor, located at the corner of Croesus and Mammon streets in Springfield (his address is 1000 Mammon Street). His estate is also the site of the annual company picnic.

Burns's sprawling estate is protected by a high wall, electrified fence, attack dogs (the source of one of his catchphrases, "Release the hounds"), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz-style guards, and his personal paramilitary force. The estate includes a robotic Richard Simmons (only seen in out-take footage in The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular), a room with a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters, a bottomless pit, a human chessboard (formerly a tennis court), the largest television in the free world, a Hall of Patriots commemorating his ancestors, and rare historical artifacts including the only existing nude photo of Mark Twain, the suit Charlie Chaplin was buried in, King Arthur's mythical sword Excalibur, and a rare first draft of the Constitution with the word "suckers" in it. His home also contains "the playroom" - a theatre showing round-the clock plays (regardless of whether or not anyone is actually watching), a laboratory filled with bizarre equipment, and a safe containing a Beefeater guard. Instead of making his bed, Burns drops the bed through the floor into an incinerator and after the floor closes, a brand new bed comes out of the wall. Various other contraptions in his home include automatic metal restraints on his dining chairs, an elaborate miniature railway and an automatic dresser. Burns also controls a unit of paramilitary riot police which he uses to intimidate people, including using them to beat up guests at his birthday party.

Burns's office at the nuclear plant contains similarly odd features. One wall can be raised to reveal various things, including his team of highly-trained lawyers, a special microbe-resistant chamber in which he plans to shelter during a flu epidemic, and a two-seat escape pod—Smithers assumes the second seat is for him, but in fact Burns likes to put his feet up. The office also contains a ceiling-mounted suction tube which he can use to transport dissident workers to Morocco. A gigantic stuffed polar bear can be seen in the corner and the floor opens up to a miniature scale model of Springfield. He uses this model to demonstrate his sun-blocker in "Who Shot Mr. Burns?". He also riddles the office with trap doors and giant metric weights for use against workers. Apparently his entire office can be rotated so that his window has different views. A sliding wall reveals the headquarters of the "League of Evil", a cabal which consisted of a mad scientist, a WWI-era German officer, a cowboy, a US Air Force officer, and a samurai. When Burns calls upon them, however, he finds nothing but their skeletal remains sitting at a conference table, apparently having asphyxiated after decades of neglect. Mr. Burns also had a unit of winged monkeys. However, these were little more than live monkeys with what looked like wings. When Burns unleashed them to go after Homer and Mindy, they jumped out the window and fell to their deaths. Burns then looked at Smithers and said "continue the research".

Burns's telephone number is 636-555-0001 in 'Lisa's Date With Density', and 636-555-0113 in 'A Tale of Two Springfields'. His Social Security number is 000-00-0002. The specific number is also intended to imply that Roosevelt himself was the first person to be assigned a social security number and Burns was the second, so Burns is irritated that someone got to the 'first' number ahead of him.

In 1995 Burns built an elaborate contraption to block out the sun in Springfield, thus ensuring that citizens would have to use his electricity 24 hours a day. The move earned him widespread animosity, and he was ultimately shot, accidentally as it turns out, by Maggie Simpson. Before Maggie was revealed to be the shooter there was a widespread investigation of nearly every citizen in town, as Burns had angered just about everyone with some of his policies over the years. (see: "Who Shot Mr. Burns?") There have been subsequent indications that Maggie might have shot him intentionally.

Burns is a staunchly conservative Republican and is the head of Springfield's local Republican Party (other members have included Sideshow Bob, the Rich Texan, Rainer Wolfcastle, Dr. Hibbert, Krusty the Clown, Bob Dole, Ralph Nader, and Count Dracula). In a parody of Rupert Murdoch, he once attempted to buy every media outlet in Springfield but his plans failed after Lisa started her own newspaper.

It is not known who presently stands to inherit his wealth (his manservant and sole confidante, Waylon Smithers, is to be buried alive in Burns' coffin). He chose Bart Simpson as his heir for a period — Burns attempted to isolate Bart from his family and mold him into his own image, but this failed when Bart still displayed loyalty to his family by refusing to fire Homer, and Burns disowned him. Burns may leave his money to the Egg Advisory Council, as he stated he would do this when he felt he had failed to find a suitable heir. He has been engaged at least twice in recent years, to Jacqueline Bouvier and a policewoman named Gloria, but both women left him before the marriage actually took place.

In an attempt to lure people away from the growing cult of the "Movementarians", Burns attempted to start his own religion, with himself as its god. After Smithers advised him not to adopt a "Special K" or a Mickey Mouse-style symbol as its motif, the religion's symbol was decided as a Christmas Tree with a giant "B" on the front. At the grand opening of his new religion, Burns used special effects and his riot police to try and awe the crowd. However, a spark from a Catherine wheel ignited his fake beard and body suit, resulting in him falling from his balcony after Smithers tried to extinguish the flames.

Burns is apparently an important figure in an obscure Latin American state. When addressing his workers at the power plant, he mixes up his speeches and tells the crowd "Compadres, it is imperative that we crush the freedom fighters before the start of the rainy season. And remember, a shiny new donkey for whoever brings me the head of Colonel Montoya"

Montgomery Burns - Health

Because of his age, Burns is very physically weak, often to the point where he seems to straddle the line between life and death. He often has great difficulty doing the most basic physical tasks, such as giving a thumbs-up or stepping on an ant. A single high-five is capable of knocking Burns off his feet. Though he often gets hurt, in one episode it was shown that he undergoes a lengthy weekly procedure, which in the words of Smithers allows Burns to "cheat death for another week." His organs have grown immensely weak over the years: his heart is desiccated and shrunken to the size of a cherry, and on one occasion, Burns' brain fell out through his ear. Another time, his lungs came out through his mouth and acted like an airbag. It has been hinted that Burns can survive without his heart - he stated that when some paper money struck his chest, "had my heart been inside at the time, it could have been fatal". This seems to be a reference to the Russian tale of Koschei, who hid his heart (or soul) to achieve immortality. He is also light enough to be pushed over by an ant. Once, accidentally, Smithers let a bathing sponge fall atop Burns' head, leading him to sink in his bathtub (this time, to the point his life flashed before his eyes). He is so old he bleeds dust if his finger is pricked. He wears dentures, as evidenced in "Homer the Smithers" ("Hmm... I think I'll have fangs today"). Another time, he tells Smithers he must have his brain flushed out with vinegar and his eyes "re-balled". Smithers then tells Burns his knees will be "back from the shop tomorrow". Burns also suffers from juvenile diabetes, hysterical pregnancy, and a number of other diseases (some newly discovered within him), but with the Three Stooges Syndrome, the multitude of diseases balance each other out.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki