A funny article on the much-abused, frequently-killed character from The Simpsons: The Enigma of The Simpsons’ Hans Moleman
My all-time favorite Moleman bit was when Dr. Hibbert left him in the X-ray machine all weekend.
Huh. I never noticed he was ever killed, let alone repeatedly. I just assumed he escaped from the exploding truck with EAP’s home. (Maybe I haven’t seen all the others?)
But the dime-store philosophizing is a bit much. “…how he sees Moleman in philosophical terms, calling the character “a symbol of the crushing anomie and loneliness of modern existence — but also of man’s indomitable will to confront those horrors. He’s straight out of Samuel Beckett…”. That’s kind of a bit much, wouldn’t you say? One could say the same about Disco Stu, or Skinner, or especially Frank Grimes (or Grimy, as he liked to be called) who had the misfortune to be a real person in a cartoon world. He died and stayed dead, but no one mourned him like Maude.
His deaths are all pretty much like that - the events would clearly kill someone, but you usually don’t see an actual death so you’re free to imagine what you want.
And he always comes back and is never fazed by his impending death, so we can enjoy laughing at his fate without guilt. He’s a great character for the “throwaway gags,” as they describe him.
Sure, it’s a bit much, but it came across to me as a joke. The character is a running gag, and describing him as a Beckett character is part of that gag.
I don’t get why they say his driver license pegs him as a commercial driver. It says Class 4, which, AFAIK means he’s licensed to operate a motorcycle.
I don’t know any state in the U.S. that uses numbers for classes (I believe it’s all standardized as A-C under 49 CFR, with additional letters in some states). So maybe the writer of the article thought it was an “A”, or maybe they’re from British Columbia, where Class 4 is commercial.
I’ll also note that in Oregon (Matt Groening’s home), “4” isn’t a class, but it is a restriction indicating the holder can only drive golf carts.
For elderly minor Springfieldians, I’m a Jasper man.
On the other hand, however, it’s like kissing a peanut.
Show within a show characters don’t count. I&S aren’t “real”.
But Dr. Marvin Monroe was more or less dead, until he wasn’t. Though he only “died” once.
Thanks! Makes me hanker for a big ol’ bowl of Moleman’s Gruel.
Is Hans really only 31 or was that a gag?
Anyone who’s died as often as he has can be whatever age they want him to be. Continuity is not a virtue when it comes to The Simpsons.
A character in an animated show who dies counts as being dead, but a character in an animated show inside an animated show doesn’t count?
Nevertheless, let’s also consider Homer Simpson, who is “the luckiest man in the world. . . now that Lou Gehrig’s dead.”
That’s a paddlin’.
Are they talkin’ about the bordello?
Help yourself but keep it above the equator.
This sidewalk’s for regular walkin’, not your fancy walkin’.
You shot who in the whatnow?
Is that you, Apu? Time has ravaged your once youthful looks.
And one of my favorites: That’s real spruce.
When I read that Elendil’s Heir’s favorite Moleman scene was the x-ray, I immediately thought of the frozen geezer in the Kwik-E-Mart. But no, that was Jasper, so Hans (and Homer) are not the only ones from Springfield with multiple lives. AND he survived a dangerous bullet to his wooden leg.
…an interesting aside to this story: a clickbait website essentially plagiarized this story, and when someone dug a bit deeper into the website the story developed into this amazing twitter thread. (TLDR: the site that plagiarized this story is a serial-plagiarizer, the person who wrote the story doesn’t seem to be a nice guy)
Just like how the Wilhelm scream and the Howie scream are sneaked into movies, I’d like the same to happen to the Hans Moleman scream.
'Member the time Moleman was hit in the groin with football and later robbed of his rightfully earned film award?
