Krusty the Clown


 * For Krusty's TV show, see The Krusty the Clown Show

""Hey Hey Kids!""

- Krusty's catchphrase

Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofski (better known by his stage name, "Krusty the Clown," or simply known as "Krusty") is the long-time clown host of Bart and Lisa's favorite TV show, a combination of kiddie variety television hijinks and cartoons including The Itchy & Scratchy Show. Krusty is often portrayed as a burnt out, addiction-riddled smoker who is made miserable by show business but continues on anyway. He has become one of the most common characters outside of the main Simpson family and has been the focus of several episodes, most of which include Bart.

Childhood
Herschel Krustofski had Jewish parents, living with his father in the Jewish community. As a rabbi, his father heavily criticized his sons carer choice as a comedian. Although this didn't stop Krusty, who continued to entertain people, although this plan fundamentally failed when his father came to one of his shows. After this event, his father stopped talking to him, and they didn't make contact until many years later.

Entrance in Media
After leaving New York, Krusty started his 50-year show-biz career as a street mime in Tupelo, Mississippi. He then appeared on a variety of Laugh-In-style variety shows, but in the 1950s was banned from television for 10 years after saying "pants" on the air, which was not allowed at the time. In the 1960s he finally got his own television show, The Krusty the Klown Show, which featured Krusty discussing current events with serious guests (an episode of the show dated February 6, 1961, featured AFL-CIO president George Meany and a discussion of the "labor crisis in America"). The interview format got increasingly wacky, and by the 1980s the show had devolved into a children's entertainment show. He also briefly took up stand-up comedy, and during the Gulf War, he tried to entertain the soldiers (in a manner similar to Bob Hope) by making an off-color pun off of Saddam Hussein's name ("Saddam Hussein?! They should call him "So Damn Insane!!" Hahahaha!" "Hey, you're just fanning the flames of hatred!"), as well as having the Cincinnati Bengal Cheerleaders entertain the soldiers, which was controversial at best ("Hey, I can't watch this! I have a girlfriend at home!" "This is an insult to our Muslim hosts!"). However, the show was unexpectedly shut down due to a sandstorm, so he was forced to take refuge in a tent which coincidentally had a female soldier whom he later slept with. However, the night of passion quickly turned sour after he ruined her chance at assassinating Saddam Hussein [as well as destroyed an entire shipment of Duff beer to the camp, due to his jumping on her and her bazooka's aim going awry as a result.]. As a result of the one-night stand, he became the father of Sophie.

Fame
Krusty quickly became a multi-millionaire – mostly by mass-marketing his name and image to a variety of suspect products and services. In the Simpsons' world, there are everything from Krusty alarm clocks, to Krusty dolls, Krusty eye wash, and Krusty Klown Kollege (which Homer attended), many of which are owned by Bart. The more dangerous ones include: the Krusty home pregnancy test, which "may cause birth defects"; Krusty's brand of bubble gum, which contains spider eggs (which they knew about) and hantavirus (which they didn't know about); and Krusty's brand of cereal, which in one episode has a boast on the box first for a jagged metal Krusty-O in each box, and then flesh-eating bacteria in each box. There is only one known lawsuit to date regarding these products, the time that Bart ate a jagged metal Krusty-O and had to have his appendix removed. However, it was suggested at the end of the episode that he would sue Krusty again after he ingested the flesh-eating bacteria that was put into the cereal. At one time, he had his own brand of Pork Products. This might have lead to his almost fatal on-the-air heart attack. He also has Kamp Krusty, which was a living hell for anybody who went there. A list of Krusty-related products is attached at the end of this page. Krusty also operates his own television production company, Krustylu Productions (a pun on Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz's Desilu Productions).

Show Cancellation
His show was canceled once after the debut of Gabbo the ventriloquist dummy, who was so popular, Krusty was driven out of business. Bart managed to get the Gabbo show cancelled in two ways: when he sneaked into the studio and switched on the camera during what was supposed to be a commercial break, revealing ventriloquist Arthur Crandall saying "All the children in Springfield are S.O.B.s" through Gabbo, and helping Krusty with creating a comeback special for Krusty was ultimately held (Parody of the Elvis comeback special), in which Krusty's many Hollywood friends bailed him out.

Fake Death
In 1996, after an IRS bust for tax avoidance, which resulted in his bankruptcy, Krusty crashed his plane into a cliff to fake his death. A memorial service is held for Krusty at which Bob Newhart offers condolences, though he had "...never actually watched the show..."

Krusty lives briefly as Rory B. Bellows, salvaging sunken barges for scrap iron. Bart and Lisa discover Krusty's identity and convinces him to come back.

Krusty insures Bellows's life in his own name and then blows up his boat in order to kill Bellows; collecting the money to rebuild his life.

Retirement
Krusty often retires from and then returns to showbiz throughout his career. One of his attempts was almost a permanent one because of recently-paroled Sideshow Bob's latest scheme – wiring plastic explosives to a hypnotized Bart and sending him up on stage to kill Krusty. However, a last minute change of heart at Krusty's touching mention of him in a speech waylaid Bob's plan (as well as a last-minute rescue by Krusty's chain smoking chimp, Mr. Teeny).

Personal life
Krusty is a hard-living entertainment veteran who has been down and out several times (always being rescued by the Simpson children) and remains addicted to cigarettes and alcohol (and, in one episode, Percodan). He seems to suffer from bipolar disorder, and, in a Soupy Sales parody, asked children to send him spare lithium from their parent's medicine cabinets after the nuclear power plant cut off its perscription drug plan. He says that his tolerance levels are so high from years of excess he has to smoke ground-up moon rocks to get high. Krusty – minus his trademark clown-hair, pale "facepaint" and red nose – bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Homer Simpson. However, there also differences such as his cow-skull birthmark, his superfluous third nipple, and his small feet. Krusty, like Homer, has apparently faced heart problems in the past as he currently has a pacemaker. The pacemaker has since permanently made his face white. He also seems to be disturbed at even the mere mention of someone having an affair, as when Homer tells Krusty the Clown that Apu was cheating on Manjula (due to his thinking he'd joke about it), he reacted quite opposite of what Homer expected by saying in a remorseful tone that it was sad, and feeling sorry for all of their kids. Krusty lives in his mansion in the upscale residential area of "Springfield Heigths", which is also resided by Mob boss "Fat" Tony D'Amico and actor Troy McClure.

Family
Krusty's father is Rabbi Hyman Krustofski, and his grandfather was Rabbi Zed Krustofski. He also has an unnamed sister and a nephew named Josh. Through his unnamed mother, Krusty is supposedly an older half-brother to actor Luke Perry, and Mia Farrow is his ex-wife. He has several illegitimate children, one of which is named Sophie.

Friendships
Krusty is known to be best friends with Sideshow Mel, but Sideshow Mel is really just Krusty's sidekick. Krusty's real best friend is known to be Mr.Teeny, his helper monkey. He also is friends with Sideshow Bob when he is out of jail, even though Bob tryed to kill him! He also shares a relationship with Bart, who is Krusty's biggest fan and calls him his hero. But while Krusty is fond of Bart and will often help Bart when he can, Krusty almost never remembers who Bart is and requires his memory to be coaxed and often just calls him 'kid' rather than taking he time to use his real name.

In the episode "Once Upon a Time in Springfield" Krusty looks to be in a relationship with Penelope, his ex co-host.

Problems
Despite his wealth, Krusty is frequently depressed when offstage; the contrast between these two personae is often used as a source of comedy by the writers. Krusty also exhibits laziness, irresponsibility, and promiscuity, amongst other negative traits. He smokes heavily and appears to have a low standard of health. Krusty revealed that he was illiterate during a court case after being framed for armed robbery by Sideshow Bob. His illegitimate daughter Sophie was the result of a one-night stand between Krusty and a female soldier during the Gulf War. Now estranged, her mother has developed a bitter hatred of clowns and displays it with her choice of artwork (depicting violence being performed against clowns), this being because his actions caused her to fail in her mission. Krusty is said to have married 8 different wives, with each wife leaving him. At one point he tried to pick up a girl at some point until he discovered that the chick was actually male, in which the morning after, he tries to get a friend to get him out of the relationship. Outside of personal problems, he has also shown himself to have medical problems. As noted above, he once suffered a Heart Attack on the air. He was also implied to have had heart surgery from another relapse during the time New Springfield was being blacked out by Old Springfield. He also mentioned that he was diabetic once to his daughter. He also implied once that he has several organ problems, causing him to get worried when everyone decided to remove their organ doner stickers upon Bart's point after getting a drivers license at an early age due to saving Springfield from a fire.

Products
Krusty's profligate spending has resulted in encounters with the local Mafia, not to mention schemes such as running a clown college to turn out proxy Krustys to appear at birthday parties, and running a concentration-camp-like summer camp called "Kamp Krusty". He willingly sells out to commercial interests to sell all manner of second-rate goods – he even has a generic spoken endorsement: "I heartily endorse this event or product!". His lack of care towards the quality of his merchandising is evidenced by the little attention he pays to the names of events he stars in: his Christmas show, "Krusty Kinda Kristmas"; his TV special, "Krusty Komedy Klassics"; and a tennis tournament he sponsored, the "Krusty Kharity Klassic" all use the unfortunate acrostic "KKK" (as in Ku Klux Klan). Unfortunately, the only instance of this he notices is the TV special, and that was only because the initials are shown behind him. In a hindsighted booking decision, Krusty was live at the Apollo Theater at the time.

Political Life
In 2003, Krusty was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Republican (though he once joked of voting for Bill Clinton in 1992 whilst campaigning for the GOP) after Bart suggested he run in order to stop Air Traffic problems over their house, and with some difficulty, and some underhanded tactics from The Simpsons family with the help of a Janitor, managed to get the bill passed. A year later, he served on a House committee to investigate Ziffcorp – run by Artie Ziff until he lost 98% of the company to Homer for corporate malfeasance (he ironically was a former tax-fraud). Apparently back in showbiz (despite having retired several times), he balances a political career with his local cable shenanigans.

Physical Appearance
Krusty the Clown has aqua-green tufty hair, as well as a white face (which he once revealed was not makeup). He also wears a light purple short-sleeved suit over a yellow shirt, lime green clown pants with red clown boots, a light blue bowtie and white gloves.In the treehouse of horror XIII he was turned into a Cat.

He has the same body and shape as Homer.

Behind the Scenes
The character of Krusty was partially inspired by real-life clown "Rusty Nails" whom Simpsons creator Matt Groening watched as a child while growing up in Portland, Oregon. Some of his biographical details echo those of comedian Jackie Mason, who voices Krusty's father, including being the son of an orthodox rabbi, and being temporarily banned from television due to a controversial performance.

Krusty's appearance and design is basically just that of Homer Simpson with clown make-up. Groening said that "The satirical conceit that I was going for at the time was that The Simpsons was about a kid who had no respect for his father, but worshipped a clown who looked exactly like his father," a theme which became less important as the show developed. One concept initially saw Krusty being revealed as Homer's secret identity but the idea was dropped for being too complex and because the writers were too busy developing the series. The idea of Homer as Krusty, however, was revisited in Homie the Clown, where Homer takes a job as a Krusty double, only to get abducted by Fat Tony, who mistakes Homer for Krusty partly due to the resemblance.

It has been stated by Groening that the voice of Krusty was based on the long-time Chicago version of Bozo played by Bell.

Krusty products
Krusty's popularity in Springfield led to real-life merchandising (e.g., Krusty Burger, Krusty-O's cereal, etc.) Main Article: List of Krusty Products

Trivia

 * Krusty stated that he weighs almost 200 pounds in Pranks and Greens, but he also has 30 pounds of makeup on, and he also carries heavy weapons.
 * In Colonel Homer, when Krusty was throttling Sideshow Mel, he shouted "I thought I told you to stay away from my sister!" -- so it appears he has an unnamed sister

Links

 * The Original Krusty the Clown Homepage
 * The Simpsons.com Character files

Krusty