Ned Flanders

The Simpsons's good neighbour

In the early years of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson generally loathed Ned, because Ned's family, job, health and self-discipline are of higher quality than he could ever hope to attain himself.^[4] Homer is often shown "borrowing" (stealing) items from Flanders, such as a weather vane, a camcorder, a diploma, a toothbrush and an air conditioning unit. Even the Simpsons' couch came from "the curb outside Flanders' house". Homer has since come to have a love-hate relationship with Ned, sometimes being his best friend, partly due to Ned's selfless tolerance of him, and other times treating Ned with complete disregard.^[5] Homer seems to genuinely care for Ned, despite still expressing and often acting on feelings of loathing.^[6] Nowadays Homer seems to regard Ned as more of a nuisance. An early running joke was that Marge considers Flanders to be a perfect neighbor^[2] and usually sides with him instead of her husband, which always enrages Homer.^[7] Flanders is normally oblivious to Homer's disdain for him.

Religious fanaticism

Flanders as the devil in "Treehouse of Horror IV", portrayed as such due to being "the one you least suspect"

Ned Flanders is a genuinely well-meaning good-natured person and is one of the few in Springfield to whom that description applies. Firmly religious, he can be timid and something of a pushover. He is a Republican^[8] and a devout Evangelical Christian who strictly follows the Bible literally and is easily shocked when challenged on any point of dogma. This has led to his frequent calls to Reverend Lovejoy, who has become increasingly frustrated with and uninterested in Flanders.^[9]

Flanders has been shown to call Reverend Lovejoy for advice often, even over minuscule things, to the point that Lovejoy has stopped caring and has even suggested that Flanders try a different religion.^[10] This was a running joke in the early seasons, but has been used less in the later episodes.^[7] In the eighth season, the episode "In Marge We Trust" would examine the relationship between Lovejoy and Flanders, and shows the history of their relationship and how Lovejoy became increasingly uninterested in Flanders' problems.^[9] Flanders is shown to have a room in his house filled with memorabilia of The Beatles. He claims that this is because they were "bigger than Jesus".^[11]

Family and job (at the Leftorium and later as Bart Simpson's fourth grade teacher)

Ned is a double widower, having been married to the equally religious Maude. They had two children together; the sheltered and naive Rod and Todd Flanders. In the eleventh season, Maude died an untimely death in a freak accident involving a T-shirt cannon, leaving Flanders alone and grieving.^[6] While still married to Maude, Ned married Ginger, while on a drunken bender in Las Vegas.^[12] Ginger came to live with Ned and his sons for a brief period following Maude's death in a later episode, but she quickly grew tired of the Flanders' sickly-sweet personalities and fled. Despite his outward nerdishness, Flanders has also been connected romantically with a beautiful Christian-rock singer, Rachel Jordan,^[6] movie star Sara Sloane and eventually marrying local teacher Edna Krabappel until she died as well.^[13]

Ned got his diploma from Oral Roberts University in an unspecified field and worked as a salesman in the pharmaceuticals industry for the bulk of his adult life. Having saved much of his earnings, Flanders decided to quit his job and invested his family's life savings into a store in the Springfield mall called "The Leftorium" specializing in products for left-handed people.^[2] In the fifth season episode, "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song", Superintendent Chalmers fires Ned Flanders, who has become principal after Skinner being sacked, only because he freely expresses his religious views in the school. However in Season 29, the Leftorium closes leaving Flanders unemployed, until he returns to Springfield Elementary School finding a new job as Bart Simpson's new teacher and substituting the void left by his deceased second wife Edna Krabappel, as well as honoring her life dream.^[14][15]

A young Ned seen with his beatnik parents

In the episode "Hurricane Neddy" a flashback to 30 years earlier shows Ned as a young child despite the fact that he later said to the church congregation that he was actually 60 years old, attributing his youthful appearance to his conformity to the "three Cs"—"clean living, chewing thoroughly, and a daily dose of vitamin church".^[12] Ned grew up in New York and was the son of "freaky beatniks" who did not discipline Ned (as they did not think it was right) and let him run wild. Eventually they took him to Dr. Foster, a psychiatrist, who put the young Ned through the University of Minnesota Spankalogical Protocol, which involved eight months of continuous spanking. The treatment worked so well that it rendered Flanders unable to express any anger at all and resulted in his trademark nonsensical jabbering at moments when he was particularly close to losing his temper, causing Ned to unknowingly repress his anger.^[16]

Creation

Series creator Matt Groening named the character after Flanders Street in his hometown of Portland, Oregon.

Ned Flanders, who was designed by Rich Moore, first appeared in the season one episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". The episode was the series premiere, but not the first episode produced.^[17] The first episode in which Flanders and his family were prominent is season two's "Dead Putting Society", which also contained the first appearance of Maude and Rod Flanders.^[18] The character was named after Flanders Street in Portland, Oregon, the hometown of Simpsons creator Matt Groening.^[19] Groening described the inspiration for Flanders as "just a guy who was truly nice, that Homer had no justifiable reason to loathe, but then did". It was not until after the first few episodes that it was decided Flanders would be a faithful Christian.^[20] Mike Scully noted that Flanders is "everything Homer would love to be, although he'll never admit it".^[20] Flanders had been meant to be just a neighbor that Homer was jealous of, but Harry Shearer used "such a sweet voice" and Flanders was broadened to become a Christian and a sweet guy that someone would prefer to live next to over Homer.^[21] Flanders is known for his nonsensical jabbering. His first use of the word "diddly" was in "The Call of the Simpsons".^[22]

Development

The writers found Harry Shearer's voice for Flanders so sweet that they decided to make the character a Christian.

Ned Flanders' religion was not mentioned in his first few appearances and in the first few seasons he was only mildly religious and his primary role was to be so "cloyingly perfect as to annoy and shame the Simpsons", whereas Homer Simpson has always hated Ned Flanders and always tries to undermine him.^[23] There has been a consistent effort among the show's writers to make him not just "goody good and an unsympathetic person".^[18] In the later seasons, Flanders has become more of a caricature of the Christian right, and his role as an irritating "perfect neighbor" has been lessened.^[23] For example, some recent episodes Flanders has appeared to show rather prejudiced attitudes towards gays and people of religions other than Christianity.

Ned's store "The Leftorium" first appeared in "When Flanders Failed".^[21] It was suggested by George Meyer,^[24] who had had a friend who had owned a left-handed specialty store which failed.^[25]

There have been at least two occasions where Flanders was not voiced by Harry Shearer. In "Bart of Darkness", Flanders's high pitched scream was performed by Tress MacNeille^[26] and in "Homer to the Max", Flanders comments about cartoons being easily able to change voice actors and on that occasion he was voiced by Karl Wiedergott.^[27]

"The Adventures of Ned Flanders"

The Adventures of Ned Flanders is a fake series of animated shorts starring Flanders. The only episode, "Love that God," appears at the end of the fourth season episode "The Front".^[28] The segment was added when because "The Front" was too short and the producers had already tried "every trick in the book" to lengthen it.^[29] Although the episode was scripted by Adam I. Lapidus, "Love That God" was written by Mike Reiss, Al Jean and Sam Simon.^[30]

Most fans were confused by the short,^[29] but Bill Oakley and several other writers loved it so much that they wanted to do more. Later, Oakley and Josh Weinstein decided to produce an entire episode that was nothing but loosely associated shorts, which became the season seven episode "22 Short Films About Springfield".^[31] The Flanders/Lovejoy segment of that episode was written by David X. Cohen. "22 Short Films about Springfield" in turn inspired the Futurama episode "Three Hundred Big Boys".^[32]

"Flanderization"

Ned Flanders' significant evolution of his Christian fanaticism has led to the term dubbed "Flanderization". This has since expanded to refer to the exaggerated characterization of any character throughout a TV series,^[40][41][42] including characters outside of The Simpsons.

Merchandise

Flanders has been included in The Simpsons merchandise. In 2008, the Flanders' Book of Faith, part of the Simpsons Library of Wisdom was released by HarperCollins. The book takes a look at Flanders' life and his ever enduring faith.^[43]