Simpsons Histories - Kent Brockman
this is kent brockman real name kenny brocklestein he is the anchorman for channel 6 news responsible for hard-hitting investigations fluffy entertainment gossip televised debate programs and overly sentimental human interest pieces kent tries to maintain his professionalism but has been known to lose his composure on occasion his relationship with his coworkers is frosty at best kent is married to stephanie the weather lady and they have several children together but we all know kent's real love is for our new insect overlords this is the history of kent brockman wow a lot of people in the comments last time really wanted to run it back to another tv personality huh feels like we've hit up almost everyone at channel 6 by now kent brockman is an interesting candidate for simpson's histories as he's someone who shows up in a ton of episodes and directly influences so many stories but almost entirely from afar kent brockman is all business he's gonna jump into the plot describe what's happening or steered a new direction and then get out of there not a lot of hangout moments or relationship stories for him so today let's try to uncover some hidden depths is kent brockman merely a vehicle for media satire or is there more to him than meets the eye as usual let's kick things off by going back to the early days kent's first appearance was in season one's krusty gets busted in which he does a news report entitled krusty gets busted he lays out what has happened so far and provides a quick history of krusty's career kent would have appeared earlier in the episode but he was off that night thanks scott season 2 introduced the other side of the kent brockman coin trickly human interest pieces yes kent is the king of soft news delivering this simultaneously pandering and insulting thanksgiving moral this episode is not shy about portraying the insincerity of the media with kent gleefully speeding away after getting his story we also learned that kent is dating the weather lady her name is stephanie and kent confirms he's married to her later in old money however it's not all puff pieces in season two he questions krusty about his product recalls and in itchy and scratchy and marge we get our first episode of smartline kent moderates these debates but is generally more agreeable with roger myers and gives marge very little time to speak it's clear later that he's only having her on again because he thinks she's a wacko and when the debate is cut short preps for tomorrow's debate on which religion is the real one other than learning about his marriage ken's appearances are all about that media satire how news stories are reported and how debate shows are manufactured for our entertainment season 3 brought us to kent brockman's staples first we have my two cents introduced in homer defined the simpsons take on these short televised editorials here kent directly provides his opinion on topics like whether homer is a hero that after a riot maybe they should ban all music and how the threat of a warmer winter won't stop him from driving his old pontiac kent regularly slips his opinion into his reporting but this more direct approach allows for more of his personality to shine through in later seasons he's filling his mouth with whipped cream asking where's his elephant gloating about itchy and scratchy going downhill and going on a soapbox about childhood obesity the other new segment is of course ion springfield the writer's favorite way to start an episode here's where kent can tackle the softest of soft news the entertainment industry also because this is season 3 the intro is full of tna he has done groundbreaking stories about a hiccuping man the history of itchy and scratchy animal nudist colonies whacking day cheating presidents the killbot factory rapping rabbis and a two-story outhouse i should also mention this interview which was recently pointed out to me which makes drederick tatum actually the first character to be bleeped on the simpsons sideshow mel is the second i think these ion springfield segments are kinda odd in how they reuse the same opening but will cut a bit of new footage alongside that season 3 animation it's not that weird in seasons 5 and 6 but by the time they're doing it in season 14 it's super jarring these animation differences totally ruin the strong arms of the maw season 3 is probably the biggest year for kent brockman in terms of new development homer alone introduced his rivalry with arnie pie in the sky in dog of death kent wins 130 million dollars in the lottery but don't worry he won't quit his 500 000 a year job he is a journalist but it is refreshing seeing kent away from his job even if we do have to witness him whining to bart in a spray tan and speedo season three also contains a big media circus episode in radio bart we get kent covering the actual news hitting up some entertainment stuff with krusty blaming the parents then completely abandoning the story for something much more important as the show became punchier with more cutaway jokes kent's news segments became bouncier with more comedic whiplash season 4 loved starting these segments with a super serious topic like the vice president mysteriously being in charge before pivoting to a totally pointless story there are honestly dozens and dozens of examples of this joke format the writers love pointing out these abrupt pivots in the evening news however season 4's big new thing was kent's frustration with his staff here is where they're putting up that clip of that goat causing kent to storm out in anger when asking for a source for a fight downtown it's ipfreely also hey kent brockman's got double godzilla references in season 4. i guess this is the kaiju era of the simpsons however the best season of kent brockman by far is season 5. this was a year all about these larger than life stories so kent was naturally all over this thing and not even just minor joke appearances like the teddy bear the unemployment line or trying to sneak into the freddy quimby trial we've got the fear-mongering of homer the vigilante asking if it's time to panic and then having this hilarious sack beating statistics debate on smartline bark gets famous shows off his childish petulance over his danish in march on the lamb he crumbles even further ranting about women rising up and declaring it's in revelations people in homer in a poo he hosts bite back and teams up with homer lisa versus malibu stacy introduces his daughter who convinces him to do a 28-minute segment on her doll i mean she was right about the berlin wall in bart's inner child kent curses on air making him the third simpsons character to be bleeped i think and finally season five's got deep space homer i for one welcome our iconic kent brockman quotes seriously kent is so dang good in this episode we've seen his fear-mongering and his fragile mental state long enough that we expect him to do something like this i'm not surprised at all when he declares that democracy simply doesn't work in the following year although to be fair when the dolphins take over in season 12 he does at least try to fight back space ants are scarier than dolphins i guess seasons 6 through 8 never quite reached the dizzying heights of season 5 brockman but there are still are plenty of memorable moments season 6 focused more on the media's satire angle giving us 24 7 scandal coverage in homer batman complete with infrared camera technology and an audience poll we get a live death count in an action news segment and in the future working for a cnn bcbs after some media consolidation now there have been a lot of mergers since lisa's wedding aired but the simpsons really whiffed on this one season 7 has kent covering notable cases like who shot mr burns a bear roaming around springfield and the springfield 7. this is where we learn kent's real
name kenny brocklestein this joke is meant to imply that kent may be jewish and had changed his stage name at a later date in trials of horror six kent gets murdered by a giant billboard version of himself don't worry he gets better in bart the fink we discover that kent doesn't say evasion he says avoision fun fact avoision is actually kind of a word coined in the 1970s as a legal gray area between tax avoidance and tax evasion i think in a technical sense krusty was committing tax evasion but i don't want to provoke kent any further anyway there's also that crusty stamp joke in this episode season 8 is kind of a hodgepodge of news stories he covers campaign 96 the larry burns kidnapping the tanker spill hurricane barbara homer seeing an alien the springfield squid port drunk bart the school standoff and mr burns down in the gutter on a personal level we learn from jon that kent cheated at the springfield marathon and in the canine mutiny he's walking his dog jessica and tries to arrange a doggy booty call at this point you can probably tell that kent brockman isn't the kind of character that personally evolved that much over the course of the series he didn't have a status quo change like barney gumbel or kirk van houten he doesn't directly interact with the simpson family either so it's not like his relationships evolve much now that the show has established his most typical themes and plot functions let's see how the middle and later seasons reiterated and developed these concepts one development in these middle seasons was that we got more context about how kent views his work and the level of respect he gets from his peers season 9's girly edition portrays him as jealous of his sister the cnn anchor while he instead racks up local emmys doing emotionally manipulative human interest pieces season 16 demonstrates his inability to ask challenging questions and when mocked by a big time reporter responds with a gimmicky promo about the weather girl in a tube top or winning a free pizza in season 18 kent gets his very first spotlight episode which doubles as the season finale in episode number 400 well that's a weird choice for a milestone anyway this one actually contradicts earlier characterization in that initially kent is bitter about doing this dumb ice cream interview instead of reporting on the middle east after homer spills coffee on him he curses loudly and gets fired he stays with the simpson family and works with lisan at expose about fox funding the republican party however since this is kent brockman we're dealing with we get a very cynical ending where he's hired back with a 50 raise even in an episode where kent has standards he has no standards we do find out why kent is so jaded in general in season 24 we flash back to when he was a child reporting as kenny brocklestein in a tape recorder while visiting a theme park kenny brocklestein returns good job continuity department they know their kent brockman references anyway he goes to interview a cast member on break and is traumatized when he removes his oversized head kent loses both his hair pigment and his childhood innocence in season 25 we learned that he used to host ion springfield with rachel maddow they discover that krusty hit a giant pileup of tires in the woods and rachel leaves to report on real hard-hitting news kent stays behind because he's completely addicted to soft news this is also the origin story of the tire fire by the way upon reflecting on his past kent goes to new york to work for fox news but after being told to do fox news things kent decides he has scruples i guess even kent has his limits he decides in the end he is happy covering the local news as small as it may be it's weird as the local news became increasingly less relevant the writers fell in love with kent brockman in these later years the guy went from having absolutely no spotlights to one every three or four years in season 28 trust but clarify kent brockman basically gets brian williams he goes on this late night show and makes up a story about an army helicopter in basra he attempts the apology of the century but gets fired anyway this episode follows the season 18 framework pretty closely in that after applying to a couple places he ends up teaming up with lisa for a comeback story this time about krusty this episode has a slightly less cynical ending though this news story successfully gets his old job back in which he happily reads off the lotto numbers in season 32 kent gets down in the dumps because everyone cares more about true crime podcasts instead of the news so if you can't beat them join them kent starts his own podcast covering a mysterious disappearance that grandpa was involved with also he meets the real life yardley smith in this episode one of the few characters to meet a simpson's cast member in the end when prevented with evidence of grandpa's innocence kent does the noble thing and declares he will no longer do sensationalist podcasts anymore he immediately becomes irrelevant it is interesting though that over the years they did balance kent's personality in these spotlight episodes he's still strictly small time has an addiction to soft news and makes stupid mistakes but he's not a mr burns or anything he will eventually find his sense of integrity eventually kent brockman is fundamentally a reflection on the various ways we feel about the media all of these later examples fall into the various satire buckets sometimes reporters are uncovering new information so the simpsons will have kent confidently getting in skinner's face about a cheating scandal or questioning a farmer about tainted crops sometimes it feels like they might have an agenda so they'll have kent asking slippery slip questions about marriage and openly mocking people's political views sometimes it just feels like the media doesn't really care and is just chasing ratings marge is snapped at kent on two separate occasions for asking such insensitive questions when mr burns buys channel 6 it's curious how quickly kent changes his tune about his new boss kent's a mercenary he has some journalistic standards but if there's an opportunity to get ahead like advertise his own candidacy for mayor he'll take it he's happy to report on krusty and mr burns scandals and then turn around and work with them on awards and stuff i like the versatility of kent brockman as a character that he can fall into a lot of the washed up celebrity tropes that krusty has like getting facelifts doing community service or going to rehab but unlike krusty kent's industry has higher ethical standards there's a bit of lisa simpson in his characterization too it's fun seeing him pulled in different directions i think that's why he makes such dramatically different decisions at the end of those spotlight episodes for such a self-serving character the writers have to pick and choose where his limits are so now that we have a better idea of kent brockman's journalistic standards and why he is the way he is let's take a detour into some of his relationships i gotta say one of my favorite character duos in the entire show is kent brockman and arnie pie i wish we got more of their dysfunctional relationship because it's so consistently great like they're reporting on a kidnapping and arnie angrily tells him that he can't see through metal and that he's making the news and that you're not the time kent or they'll get into a scuffle about real estate with arnie bitter that kent bought in at the right time i even love the small stuff like kent calling arnie a jackass and refusing to chip in on his birthday cake in both of those spotlight episodes where kant is fired arnie pie takes over as anchorman and oh boy is he delighted to report on his termination arnie pai even claims to have made out with kent brockman's daughter the adult one but by far my favorite kent arnie moment happens in season 14's pray anything arnie's frustrated by the slow news day and being told to film people coping with the loss of their church arnie asks do i have a magic lens that can see into people's souls well yours would be black kent black as the ace of spades god arnie pie is so great i would totally watch a five-part documentary about their feud i mean don't get me wrong kent sucks but i also get the impression that arnie is kind of a pain in the ass to deal with other than that we don't get much detail about kent's personal life and his relationships in the podcast episode we briefly meet kent's kids including his adult child who i am thankful exists we've seen him play tennis with homer and marge being fed witty one-liners by the writers i guess you could say i'm iraqi in the island of dr hibbert he turns into a rhino i guess that's appropriate given all of his rhino coverage there's a really odd run-in with homer in season 18 where he's super sexist and declares he would destroy his new gazebo if he found out a woman built it then he demands they take off their shirt and wrestle so now we know kent beats homer but willie beats kent in the hd seasons the simpsons do their very favorite thing in the world and suggest kent marriage to stephanie is on the rocks up to that point we only have a passing reference to him making out with selma during 9 11. then in season 31 he's hitting on a caterer who rejects him because she knows he's married in season 32 he confides to bart that stacy is a great meteorologist but he's been dodging her calls for three months now i don't know what's going on here whether stacy and stephanie are the same meteorologist or if he's talking about an affair or he's not married in this episode his marital status is somehow more confusing than sideshow mels i'm just relieved that for once today's video subject doesn't have any skeletons in the closet he's hiding really i can't cover the news guy without this happening really this just in the springfield leather company is reporting record profits but enough gossip this isn't ion springfield let's abruptly pivot to a super serious topic now simpson's continuity kent brockman reminds me of dr hibbert in that reviewing his appearances it puts a spotlight on how utterly ridiculous 30 plus seasons of simpson's continuity would be kent has reported on the simpson family so many times by now their slanted house their christmas time misfortune they're feud with the flanners and the van houtens and their miracle tree in their backyard after a while it's funny seeing him come up to homer asking for an interview about the isotopes or something kent brockman has practically discussed homer's entire life let's see he's covered his return from mental hospital his trip to space his sexual harassment scandal his mother's crimes kidnapping larry burns hijacking nuclear sub bowling a perfect game his claims about the albuquerque isotopes another kidnapping yet another kidnapping his mother again being afraid of a bear hiding during a prison riot his doomsday predictions being a giant blob his gravy politics his chili dog chase and multiple homers in halloween homer's been on the news so much he has his own customized graphic in addition homer's been on smartline at least three separate times marge has also been on the show and lisa supposedly liked 13 times now still waiting on bart although kent certainly covered plenty of bart stories too including two different school lockdowns and two kidnapping scares what is with all the kidnapping on this show what is this season 12 kent brockman is a surprisingly influential character on the simpsons you know what i mean you think of him as just the reporter guy but he instigates a lot of action pushing the episode suddenly toward its main topic bart's drunkenness leads to kent endorsing prohibition as a solution childhood obesity has kent suggesting pee-wee football his piece on frank grimes is what brings old grimey to springfield he ends up being patient zero in a munchery's outbreak i was actually kind of skeptical about doing a simpsons histories on kent brockman because of how plot driven his role is kent the exposition guy the framing device and the jump off of a new plot point it's not at all surprising that kent is the very first person we hear from after a commercial break to kick off the next act summarizing kent brockman's work on the simpsons is kinda like summarizing the entire history of the simpsons no matter what is going on in the show kent brockman is right there to comment on it that being said kent very easily could have been one of the most boring characters on the simpsons the writers have done such a great job over the years adding all that snarky commentary since he's such a straight man archetype he's a good vehicle for random silliness these newsroom bloopers about sobs and golden showers i think our personal experiences with the news makes him such a familiar character that we all have our own kent brockman in fact sometimes we're almost too familiar with media tropes where they don't even seem that funny or novel anymore observational jokes about 24 7 news coverage obsessive courtroom recording or a satellite interview from vienna it's like yeah that's just how the news is now so while kent isn't necessarily that intricately defined in terms of his actual personality he's an incredibly important mirror character on the simpsons he's a reflection of both the media and the show itself when a media figure is throwing a pathetic tantrum so is kent when the simpsons stories get sillier and more outlandish so will kent's coverage of them by now kent brockman has seen it all no wonder he's so damn jaded let me know in the comments what your favorite kent brockman moments are as well as how he's been used over the years or your second favorite moment after those space ants i was pleasantly surprised by how many iconic moments this guy had kent is definitely in that underrated tier of funny simpsons characters and as always let me know who you'd like to see for the next simpsons histories this was very nearly a video about the sea captain but the support behind kent was undeniable we've done a lot of entertainment type people lately so let's try to find someone more down to earth for the next one let your voice be heard i am the real gems and that's the way it is thanks for watching [Music] you
2022-03-03 21:55
