Rod Flanders

Rod Flanders is voiced by Pamela Hayden, Aurelia Bruno in French and Gabrielle Dhavernas in Canadian French. Rod prays often, first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. He prays for God to watch over him and his little brother, Todd. He prays for the success of his father's business. He also prays for all of the naughty little boys and girls, like his neighbor Bart Simpson, who are too bad to pray for themselves. Aside from praying, Rod enjoys playing wholesomely with his brother and eating lots of "Nachos, Flanders-Style" (cucumbers with cottage cheese). His one regret is that he cannot pray at school. His favourite song is "Bringing in the Sheaves", followed closely by "Noah and the Arky-arky" and "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart". Rod has diabetes and has described being quiet during trips as one of his favourite hobbies, including clapping during songs.

Background
Rod, like his parents, is very religious. He enjoys attending church, Bible stories, watching religious cartoons, and playing religious-themed board games. These games include Good Samaritan - though they do not use dice because Ned says that dice are wicked. Instead they just move one space at a time - he believes "It's less fun that way".

Maude and Ned prohibit them consuming foods containing sugar, as they fear it will make them behave badly, in which it does or send them into diabetic shock. He is also extremely entomophobic (particularly with moths and ladybugs), a behavior probably learned from their father, who considers an insect flying near someone a "bug attack". They enjoy stories about robots named Rod and Todd, though these also frighten them.

Rod prays often, first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. He prays for God to watch over him and his little brother, Todd. He prays for the success of his father's business. He also prays for all of the naughty little boys and girls, like his neighbor Bart Simpson, who are too bad to pray for themselves. Aside from praying, Rod enjoys playing wholesomely with his brother and eating lots of "Nachos, Flanders-Style" (cucumbers with cottage cheese). His one regret is that he cannot pray at school. His favourite song is "Bringing in the Sheaves", followed closely by "Noah and the Arky-arky" and "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart". Rod has diabetes and has described being quiet during trips as one of his favourite hobbies, including clapping during songs. In the episode "Crook and Ladder", Rod appears to have gray hair in the whole episode. His French voice actor is Aurelia Bruno, and his Canadian French voice actor is Gabrielle Dhavernas.

Rod's largest role was in "Bart Has Two Mommies", where he obtains new climbing skills and rescues Bart from a gorilla atop a church. This episode also reveals Rod thinks of Marge as the most fun they've ever had ever since Maude died.

He may also be a transvestite as in 'Tis the Fifteenth Season he says he is jealous of girls because they get to wear dresses, and Ned responds by saying "One problem at a time boy."

Age discrepancy
There is also some controversy as to which of the two is the elder. In "Dead Putting Society" the commentator at the golf tournament states that Todd is 10. In Homer Bad Man, one of the corrections that the TV-magazine show Rock Bottom makes is to their claim that "the older Flanders boy is Todd, not Rod". (although this could have been included purely to stir up fans). Later, in Bart Sells His Soul, the Flanders family eat out for Rod's "big ten-oh", suggesting the two are of similar age (however, the present time in at least one other Simpsons episode has been set two years before that of others, as shown by All's Fair in Oven War). However, in "My Sister, My Sitter" Lisa, when babysitting Rod and Todd, tells a story about a robot named Todd who "had a brother named Rod, who was two space years older than him". Todd responds by saying, "I don't like this story!"

As Rod is shown to be quite a bit taller than Todd, the claim that Todd is the older brother is disputed. Both Rod and Todd were born after Lisa (who is eight), Todd appearing a younger age than Bart (who is 10) in the episode "Lisa's First Word" (when Bart was entering "the terrible twos"). This suggests that Rod Flanders is slightly older than the Simpson children.

Despite these discrepancies, the Simpsons official website states that “Todd is the youngest and most impressionable member of the happy Flanders clan”. This seems to trump any inconsistency concerning age seen in the episodes. On the other hand, the character profile for Rod Flanders in The Simpsons: A Complete Guide To Our Favorite Family describes him as the "youngest of the Springfield Flanders." Another possible reason for the variation is that, in the DVD commentaries for show, the writers have stated that they are never sure which Flanders sibling is Rod and which one is Todd and are often forced to check character models to be sure. According to the commentary, early show writers used two different mnemonics to identify the taller brother; first that Todd started with T and was Taller, or that Rod was long like a rod and hence taller.

Episode Appearances

 * The Call of the Simpsons
 * The Frying Game