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Principal Skinner

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Seymour Skinner (born Armen Tamzarian, 1953) is a fictional character on The Simpsons, voiced by Harry Shearer. He is of Armenian heritage.

Skinner is a stereotypical educational bureaucrat, the principal of Springfield Elementary School. He struggles to hold the crumbling school together and is constantly engaged in a battle against the school's inadequate resources, apathetic and bitter teachers, and largely rowdy and unenthusiastic students -- Bart Simpson being the standout example. He often tries to exploit Lisa Simpson's genius to make the school look good. Seymour Skinner's father, Sheldon Skinner, fought on Abe Simpson's WW II squad.

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Skinner lives in fear of the wrath of his boss, Superintendent Chalmers, who makes no effort to hide his disapproval of him. At one point Skinner was fired and replaced by Ned Flanders despite Flanders' thorough lack of administrative skill and experience. During this period Bart actually became friends with the unemployed Skinner, telling him about Flanders' rather lax approach, having gotten rid of formal punishments and putting the place on the honor system, terrifying the teachers to the point of locking themselves in the faculty lounge. Skinner eventually decided to rejoin the military as a drill sergeant, feeling that he would never be happy doing anything that wasn't related to being an administrator, and Bart found that he missed Skinner on two levels - on one level he missed Skinner as a friend, but missed him even more as an enemy. While Bart initially enjoyed the ease of pulling pranks on Flanders's watch, he ultimately found it unfulfilling because the overly laid back Flanders simply didn't have Skinner's uptight personality for Bart to play off of. Bart decided to get Skinner rehired by showing Chalmers how badly the school had fallen apart without him. Upon showing him the devastation, Bart points out: "You fired Skinner for way less than this." Chalmers initially scoffed at the idea, but changed his mind after hearing Flanders say: "Thank the Lord for this beautiful day" over the intercom, a comment he took to be a prayer, which is not allowed in public schools (technically incorrect; while organized prayer is not allowed in public schools, individual prayer is protected).

In the first few seasons, Skinner resembled Norman Bates, the main character from the Hitchcock film Psycho. Though this has been dropped, there are still hints, such as the house he lives in and his overbearing mother, Agnes. He is named for behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, whose work is often studied by professional educators, or Eugene Skinner, the founder of Eugene, Oregon.

In later seasons Skinner and Edna Krabappel started dating, and later got engaged. Later again they broke up, although it has been hinted that he still wants her and they may get back together in the future. He was a virgin until he started dating Krapabbel (or so he claimed at the time in order to save himself and Edna from being fired). He still lives at home with his mother. Principal Skinner frequently lapses back to the Vietnam war in many episodes.

His age has been referred to twice. Bart Simpson stated his age as 40, whereas Kent Brockman says he is 44. He was "born" in the year 1953, and in the same episode it is estimated that he will die in 2010, though he lived longer in several episodes about the future. In the episode "The Heartbroke Kid," Skinner's sign is Libra.

Outside of the school, Skinner often seems weak-willed and easily snowed over, perhaps because he wishes not to get into confrontation, but on one occasion he used his Vietnam training to beat up a lawyer and his two enormous bodyguards who were accusing him of copyright infringement because the school's fair unintentionally ripped off a tagline similar to the Disneyland theme park, dispatching them with disturbing efficiency. He also reveals here that he was apparently a green beret. There are occasional other moments where Skinner uses his military physical training as well, which all but proves that while he may be a pushover most of the time, he is quite deadly when angered or cornered, although others such as Bart or his mother never see him in this mode themselves. He also stood up to Montgomery Burns when Burns tried to get him to give over control of the school's newly discovered oil deposit, but Skinner refused to buckle - only to have Burns steal the oil from him later anyway.

Skinner is apparently very intelligent as well, at least when it comes to book smarts. He is one of the members of Springfield's branch of Mensa. However, when Lisa steals the teacher's editions, he is just as helpless as the teachers, which means that he, too, relied on the books and didn't know anything for himself. He is also clueless when it comes to bullies. In New Kid on the Block, Bart remembers a time when Jimbo was giving him a swirly while Skinner was waiting outside the stall and questioned Jimbo if there was a problem( thinking that Jimbo was just going to the bathroom), since Jimbo had been flushing for twenty minutes. When Jimbo replies " No, Principal Skinner (stupid laugh)", Skinner says " Alright, I'll continue to wait" and begins whistling while the toilet continues to flush in the background as Jimbo gives Bart swirlies and Skinner is clueless about the whole thing with no suspicion. Before becoming principal, he worked as a fourth-grade science teacher, presumably at Springfield Elementary. As a result, he has an incredible ability to identify chemical reactions by sense of smell, such as sodium tetrasulfate bonding with chlorophyll.

Seymour Skinner's personal history, like that of many Simpsons characters, is somewhat convoluted. It was long known that he was a Vietnam War veteran; having been a prisoner of war, he often goes into flashbacks of how the guards mistreated him. He lives alone with his domineering elderly mother (his father having died in a parade float accident in 1979, along with Arnie Gumble, Iggy Wiggum, Etch Westgrin, and Griff McDonald, all of the Flying Hellfish). However, in the episode "The Principal and the Pauper," it was revealed that Skinner is actually Armen Tamzarian (Armenian). Armen was a troublesome orphan until he joined the Army and was befriended by Sgt. Skinner, whom he came to idolize. Believing himself responsible for the real Skinner being killed, he returned to Springfield to tell Skinner's mother, but she mistook him for Seymour. At the end of the episode, Judge Snyder granted Tamzarian Skinner's "name, and his past, present, future, and mother," and decreed that no one will mention his true identity again under penalty of torture (this, after the Springfielders ran the real Seymour, voiced by Martin Sheen—who had been alive after all—out of town by way of railroad). This bears some resemblance to the tale of Martin Guerre. The Simpsons writers have occasionally mocked the subsequent inconsistencies themselves in later episodes, most notably when Lisa buys Snowball V but: "To save money on a new dish, I'll call you Snowball II." Skinner says: "Isn't that a cheat?" to which Lisa replies: "I guess it is, Principal Tamzarian." (see Reset button technique)

In The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase, Skinner acompanies Clancy and Ralph Wiggum to Clancy's new job as a Private Investigator in New Orleans. While the canon relevancy of this sequence is disputable due to the episode's parody like nature, Skinner says that he was born in New Orleans and was always something of a small-time street hustler. This fits rather perfectly with his canon story, as its not difficult to imagine that Skinner/Tamzarian went from New Orleans to Capitol City, and eventually his unusual fate in the military.

In the episode "Girls Just Want To Have Sums", Skinner was demoted after he made a disparaging remark about women's and girls' ability in mathematics. This is in imitation of a firestorm created by Lawrence Summers, the outgoing president of Harvard University. In this episode, Skinner found himself demoted to Assistant Groundskeeper, a humiliation for the erstwhile Principal, having, in previous episodes, made it clear that he considered Groundskeeper Willie to be the lowest status employee in the school.

In the episode "Please Homer, Don't Hammer 'Em...", it is revealed that Skinner is severely allergic to peanuts.

Although a humorless and bureaucratic individual (he once observed of himself "I'm a small man in many ways. A small, petty man"), Skinner can be more kindly interpreted as a genuinely dedicated public servant. He appears to have no friends and no hobbies outside of his job (other than an interest in astronomy) yet despite being utterly dominated by his often cruel and sneering mother, and living in constant fear of Superintendent Chalmers, he is able to summon up enough character to keep the underfunded and failing Springfield Elementary functioning through his own, often thankless efforts.

Episodes starring Skinner

This is a list of Simpsons episodes in which Seymour Skinner plays a substantial role in driving the plot, not simply a supporting role.

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