Secondary in Name Only: Milhouse Van Houten

I spent a long time \trying to figure out how to start this piece about Milhouse Van Houten, Bart's perpetual sidekick on The Simpsons. I considered going deep into the social hierarchies and niches of Springfield Elementary School. I envisioned going through each layer, from the bullies at the top, all the way down to the perpetual victims like Ralph and Martin Prince. I would have used this to point to where Bart and Milhouse sit, which is somewhere towards the lower middle of the hierarchy. It would have taken several paragraphs, but it would have left you with a very accurate picture of who exactly Milhouse is.

Instead of doing all of that puffed up nonsense about a fictional schoolyard, I found this clip.



Besides giving me one of my favorite quotes, that clip from "Mom and Pop Art" totally shows what kind of character Milhouse is. My work here is done.

...Oh wait, you mean I need to write a bit more? Well, crap.

From that clip, you can tell that Milhouse is both eternally optimistic, choosing to focus on the appropriateness of his pants rather than the disaster of his house flooding and a big dork, as only big dorks would have flood pants. All you need to round out his character is toadying up to Bart and swooning over Lisa.

My favorite episode involving Milhouse likely has to be "Lemon of Troy". I was't able to find my favorite Milhouse clip from the episode, where he imagines his camouflage working much better than it actually does. However, my second favorite Milhouse does have a clip.



I love how angry he gets about the "Shelbyville Milhouse", who clearly is just stealing his personality from Milhouse. Of course, what makes that so much better is how when they finally confront each other, they fight at first, until discovering how similar they each are, and commiserate in their shared troubles.

Another great episode for Milhouse is season seven's "Radioactive Man". In this episode, Milhouse becomes the ultimate sidekick, playing the role of Fallout Boy in the movie version of Radioactive Man. Of course, he ends up hating acting and abandons the set, leading to one of the greatest (often-misquoted) lines of the show ever.



Sure, he's not part of that scene, but it all happens that way because he wasn't there. In the end, in part because Springfield robs the production blind, and in part because Milhouse decides not to act, the movie is a total disaster.



Of course, I could continue going for many more paragraphs about my favorite episodes, showing clips which may or may not have a damn thing to do with Milhouse. But as this is not the "Let's endlessly talk about The Simpsons" feature, I will spare you that.

If the character of Milhouse did not exist, The Simpsons would still be a great show. However, there is little doubt it would be as great as a show as it is if he weren't there. Making a good show great, while not being essential to making it good, is the hallmark of secondary characters. Milhouse fits this idea perfectly.