Professor Frink
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Professor Johnathan I. Q. Frink, Jr. is a fictional character, a scientist and professor on The Simpsons. He is named after John Frink, a writer and producer for the show.
Character information
Professor John Frink is Springfield's local mad scientist voiced by Hank Azaria. His character is a mild parody of Jerry Lewis' character, The Nutty Professor. He has a trademark mannerism of using gibberish when excited, and he's often excited. For example, when a meteor is approaching Springfield he exclaims, "That meteor is headed straight for us! With the fire, and the impact, and the hundred percent chance of PAIN! PAIN IN THE GLAVIN!"His nickname is J-L-V!!
His laboratory phone number is 555-5782.
He is said to have an IQ of 196, but it was 199 before he sustained a concussion during the collapse of Springfield's brief intellectual junta (see They Saved Lisa's Brain). This makes him one of the 6 smartest people on the planet, the odds of having an IQ of that value being roughly 1 in 1,000,000,000, or in the 99.9999999th percentile of intelligence. He is a member of the Springfield chapter of Mensa International.
He holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology. This was found out in Treehouse of Horror VI when Homer get trapped in the 3rd dimension.
He is fond of flubber, a fictional material with enhanced bounce properties originating in the movie The Absent-Minded Professor. Professor Frink has basketball shoes made of flubber.
He is also the inventor of, among other things, hamburger earmuffs. Using his famous method of combining two already existing inventions, he soon had a hot, marketable product on his hands. However, Homer Simpson also thought up this "brilliant" idea while attempting (in vain) to come up with an invention of his own. Frink was sure that Homer wouldn't finish the creation before Frink did and quoted, "Hey, WAIT! - oh, easy there, Frinky. *puts on hamburger earmuffs* These babies will be in stores while he's still grapling with the pickle matrix. Goyvinglaving!"
Frink never had a good relation with his father (whose character was voiced by Jerry Lewis). Frink said they got along like "positrons and anti-neutrinos." The senior Professor Frink was a "he-man" scientist who, according to his son, worked on the atom bomb by day, slept with Marilyn Monroe by night, and sold secrets to the Russians at lunch. In the 14th Halloween episode, Frink brought his father back to life, but he went on a rampage and younger Frink was forced to kill the elder.
Frink has a wife (though in later episodes they may be separated or divorced) and a young son who looks similar to him.
In Future-Drama, an episode set eight years into a possible future of Bart and Lisa's, a bespectacled skeleton dressed in a lab coat is observed hanging on a rope from a rafter in Frink's basement laboratory—indicating the professor had committed suicide in the interim, and his passing had gone unnoticed by his family and friends. However, another episode set farther in the future, Lisa's Wedding, shows him alive and well as he leads a team trying to discover the cure for seventeen stab wounds in Mr Burns' back.
A programming language/calculating tool called Frink has been named in honor of Frink [link].
The Vision Lab at Skidmore College has created [objects used in shape perception experiments] called 'Glavens', in tribute to Frink.
Inventions
Astrological Video Playback Machine
Software that analyzes the stars to show you video footage of your future. Also features a sporty TiVo-esque interface (complete with sounds). In "Future-Drama" (GABF12) Frink uses this device to show Bart and Lisa what will happen to them in high school.
AT-5000 Autodialer
Originally designed to alert children of snow days and such, the device is a simple counter system (with the format 000-0000) which is designed to call every number in a given range, playing the recorded message before moving on to the next number. In "Lisa's Date With Density" (4F01), Homer finds it in a dumpster and used it in a telemarketing scam urging people to send him $1 for eternal happiness. After calling Dr. Frink, Frink attempts to reclaim the device by entering a code that activates its hidden wheels and homing device. Unfortunately, Homer catches the device in time and snaps off the wheels.Deathray
In "Old Money" (7F17), Frink attempts to get funding to finish developing this device from Grandpa Simpson (who inherited the money from a lady friend at the Springfield Retirement Castle). With funding the device could level cities, but for now it barely warms flesh.Gamble-Tron 2000
In "Lisa the Greek" (9F12), Homer is lamenting his bad luck betting on football and channel-surfing through a series of programs and ads relating to gambling on football. One of these shows Frink standing in front of a large computer called the "Gamble-Tron 2000" which he claims can predict the results of NFL games in the blink of an eye. When the machine predicts Cincinnati to win by 200 points, Frink proclaims the machine a "worthless hunk of junk" and kicks it violently.Gastro-Matagraph
A machine seen in Flaming Moe's, it can determine the ingredients and alcoholci drinks. After it determines the secret ingredient in the Flaming Moe to be "love", Frink demands "who's been screwing with this thing?"Hamburger Earmuffs
In "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace" (5F21), Homer blurts out the idea while getting advice on inventing things from Frink. However, Frink had already invented that concept. (Not listening) Homer runs off to invent them himself, but Frink implies that he will have trouble when he has to "grapple with the pickle matrix" (while trying on his pair).Hover Car
Appears on The Simpsons Road Rage and The Simpsons Hit and Run. It is a hovering death machine with high speed and good handling. In Road Rage, it is the fastest vehicle but it can only take a few hits before blowing up. In Hit and Run, It will become invisible at high speeds.Hover Bike
Appears in the episode Lemon of Troy. Frink asks Bart if he would like to try out his 'flying motorcycle. Bart flatly refuses. Later when he is being chased he wishes he had the bike now and then Frink appears on it saying "You had your chance!"Like the hover car, it also appears in The Simpsons Hit and Run. As with the hover car it is destroyed easily.
Matter Transporter
In "Treehouse of Horror VIII" (5F02) second segment, Fly vs. Fly, The Simpson family is at Professor Frink's yardsale (including such objects as mood pants and an impossible shape). Homer innocently walks into a large metal object, and is instantly teleported to an identical object many feet away. Homer offers him $.35, and Frink takes it, attempting to warn Homer of its danger. Homer ignores him. Later at home when Bart is playing with it he accidentally crosses the front and hind ends of Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II. Seeing a fly land on his hand he figures he could transform himself into a superhero, but the experiment ends up backwards with Bart's shrunken head on the miniature fly, and the fly's gigantic head on Bart.Sideburns in a Can
These only appear on the videogame The Simpsons Hit and Run. Apparently, they "Make ya handsome and loveleyyy!"Choice quotes
- "Either there is a stationary front hovering over Springfield, or God is BOWLING! With the shoes, and the pins, and the bad tasting cheese pizza that comes in squares!"
- "As you can see, this airport souvenir responds to any percussive noise in a certain distance with the exuberant shaking of its groove thing, yeah yeah."
- "Professor Frink, Professor Frink/He'll make you laugh, he'll make you think!/He likes to run, and then the thing/With the... person? Oh boy, that monkey is going to pay..." - Professor Frink's theme song, written by Professor Frink
- "Good morning ma'am, good afternoon sir. ...It passed noon while I was speaking, so that was technically accurate."
- "Here is an ordinary square. But, suppose we extend the square beyond the two dimensions of our Universe along the hypothetical Z-axis, there. This forms a three-dimensional object known as a "cube", or a "Frinkahedron" in honor of its discoverer. Ingle-hey, mwa-hey."
- After Grandpa Simpson attempts to enter the third dimension: "No Pops! It's too dangerous! There could be cubes in there the size of gorillas!"
- "Well, sure, the Frinkiac-7 looks impressive [to student] Don't touch it! [back to class] But I predict that within 100 years computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings in Europe will own them."-1970's Professor Frink to Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.
- "Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok in an orgy of blood and kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving."
- "No, you can't 'play with it.' You wouldn't enjoy it on as many levels as I do. The colours, children! Look at the colours! Mw-hey!" - As a substitute teacher, after a child asked him if he'd let her play with his bubble mower.
- "Great Glaven in a Glass!" - upon learning his hammer/screwdriver earned him a Nobel Prize
- "My ass is on fire!"
- "Riboflaven glaven!"
- "Let the commencement...beginulate!"
- (in a conference where nobody is paying attention to him) "Pi is exactly three!" (several scientists gasp in horror) "I'm sorry it had to come to that..."
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