The American animated television series The Simpsons contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities and even animals. The writers intended many of these characters as one-time jokes or for fulfilling needed functions in the town of Springfield, where the series primarily takes place. A number of these characters have gained expanded roles and have subsequently starred in their own episodes. According to the creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, the show adopted the concept of a large supporting cast from the Canadian sketch comedy series Second City Television. This article features the recurring characters from the series outside of the five main characters (Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson). Each of them are listed in order by their first name.
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Agnes Skinner Agnes Skinner (voiced by Tress MacNeille in most appearances, Maggie Roswell in "Lisa's Rival") is the mother of Principal Skinner and first appears in the first-season episode "The Crepes of Wrath" as an old woman who embarrassingly addresses her son as "Spanky". However, as episodes progress, her character turns bitter. She is very controlling of her son and often treats him as if he is a child, insulting and ridiculing him every chance she gets. Despite him saving her from danger, Skinner hates her because she is still controlling him. She hates Edna Krabappel due to her son's feelings for the other woman because she is jealous at her. Agnes has been married four times and has dated Comic Book Guy and Montgomery Burns. Many Springfield residents, including the Simpsons, are afraid of her. When "the real Seymour Skinner" arrives in Springfield in "The Principal and the Pauper", Agnes ends up rejecting him, in part because he stands up to her but also because, unlike Skinner/Tamzarian, her biological son is independent and does not need her anymore, while Skinner immediately reverts to a good-for-nothing without her. Agnes's first name was revealed in the seventh-season episode "Bart the Fink". Before that, the character was known as "Mrs. Skinner". In the beginning of the series, the writers make several references to Agnes and Seymour's unhealthily close relationship as similar to that of Norman Bates and his mother. In "Boy Meets Curl", it is revealed that Agnes's resentment toward Seymour may have begun even before her son was born—during the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Agnes competed in the pole vaulting event while nine months pregnant. When Seymour makes his first kick, he hits the bar, thus making Agnes lose and crushing her dreams (contradicting the earlier episode in which Seymour is not her birth son). In "Grade School Confidential", it is revealed that Agnes enjoys collecting pictures of cakes that she cuts out of magazines, a hobby she began in 1941. However, she does not care for the dessert itself, finding it "too sweet". In the 26th-season episode "Sky Police", she mentions that she has a brother named Stevie.
Akira Kurosawa Akira Kurosawa (voiced by George Takei in "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Bluefish" and "What Animated Women Want", Hank Azaria voice-matching the latter in "When Flanders Failed", "In Marge We Trust" and "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?") works as a waiter at The Happy Sumo, a Japanese restaurant in Springfield. He first appears in the second season episode "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish". Actor George Takei originally voiced Akira in "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish". Since Akira's speaking role in "When Flanders Failed" where the character is depicted as a karate teacher, Hank Azaria has voiced the character, doing an impression of Takei for the voice. Takei returned to voice Akira in season 24's "What Animated Women Want". The character's name is a reference to the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.
Allison Taylor Allison Taylor (voiced by Winona Ryder in "Lisa's Rival", Maggie Roswell in "Lard of the Dance", Tress MacNeille in "Moe Goes from Rags to Riches", and Pamela Hayden in later episodes) is in Lisa's class but skipped a grade and has a lot in common with Lisa. She first appeared in "Lisa's Rival", in which Lisa feels threatened by Allison's talents and abilities. During a school competition, Lisa has Bart sabotage Allison's Tell-Tale Heart diorama with a cow's heart in a box and hide the original diorama beneath a floorboard. Wracked with guilt, Lisa returns Allison's real diorama. Lisa and Allison both lose to Ralph Wiggum and his Star Wars figurines. Afterwards, Lisa apologizes, and the two make amends. Allison has had a few speaking roles since and has been friends with Lisa, Janey, Sherri and Terri at school.
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Arnie Pye Arnie Pye (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) is a disgruntled, somewhat eccentric helicopter traffic reporter for Springfield's KBBL-TV (Channel 6). He dislikes pompous anchorman Kent Brockman, with whom he often gets into arguments on the air. Brockman once snarled that Pye was a "jackass", with Arnie responding that he believes Kent's soul is "as black as the ace of spades". On a few occasions when Kent has gotten fired from KBBL, Arnie has taken the job and done well while sounding very different from how he sounds the rest of the time (Arnie's traffic reporter voice is high and reedy, while his anchorman voice is deep and sonorous). Arnie seems to be resigned to never surpassing his nemesis as his reaction to Kent getting the job back in "Trust But Clarify" was a resigned "Go on, go do whatever it is you do" before sulking away from the set.
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