13 Greatest Mr. Burns Quotes In The Simpsons

The Simpsons’ writers have plenty of iconic characters to work with, but Mr. Burns might be the most fun character to write for. A lot of The Simpsons’ comedic archetypes only drawn from one comedic well — Ned Flanders is a caricature of Christian hospitality, Chief Wiggum is a caricature of inept American policing, Principal Skinner is a caricature of uptight educators, etc. — but C. Montgomery Burns is three comic caricatures rolled into one: he’s absurdly wealthy, unquantifiably old, and shamelessly evil, so the writers have a lot to play around with.

Mr. Burns is responsible for some of The Simpsons’ funniest moments, and most memorable quotes. Every line is delivered perfectly by Harry Shearer, with razor-sharp comic timing.

13

“Are You Saying ‘Boo’ Or ‘Boo-urns’?”

Season 6, Epiode 18, “A Star Is Burns”

Mr. Burns is more of a middleman in this gag, but it’s one of the funniest bits in Simpsons history. When Mr. Burns screens his propagandic, self-aggrandizing biopic at the Springfield Film Festival, it’s met with boos from the crowd.

Smithers assures Mr. Burns that the crowd is chanting, “Boo-urns,” and when Mr. Burns checks with the audience, it turns out one of them actually was saying, “Boo-urns.” The M.V.P. of this scene is Hans Moleman, but Mr. Burns sets up his punchline.

12

“Hello, My Name Is Mr. Snrub… Yes, That’ll Do.”

Season 4, Episode 12, “Marge Vs. The Monorail”

Perhaps the greatest Simpsons episode ever made, “Marge vs. the Monorail,” begins with the Environmental Protection Agency fining Mr. Burns $3 million for dumping nuclear waste in a public park. Mayor Quimby holds a town meeting to determine what to do with the money, and Mr. Burns tries to get it back.

With a fake mustache on his upper lip, Mr. Burns introduces himself as “Mr. Snrub” and suggests that they reinvest the money in the power plant. The tag of “Yes, that’ll do” makes it so much funnier, because it suggests that Mr. Burns knows reversing the letters of his own name isn’t a very convincing alias, but believes all the townspeople are rubes who won’t notice the low-effort moniker.

11

“Want It Black, Don’t You? Black Like Your Heart!”

Season 3, Episode 24, “Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?”

It’s always funny when Mr. Burns takes the moral high ground, because he’s so flagrantly amoral. But he made a good point about lawyers. In the season 3 finale, Mr. Burns tells his legal team that he’ll pay for their services, but he considers them subhuman “vipers” profiting off of human suffering.

At the end of his rant, Mr. Burns offers his lawyers a coffee, then launches straight back into another tirade. He turns a black coffee order into an opportunity to tell his head lawyer that his heart is black.

10

“Ahoy Hoy!”

Every time Mr. Burns answers the phone in The Simpsons, he says, “Ahoy hoy!” This is one of the most obscure running jokes in the series; it’s yet another example of Mr. Burns using archaic language.

“Ahoy hoy!” was Alexander Graham Bell’s preferred greeting for his invention of the telephone, whereas his rival, Thomas Edison, favored the more familiar “Hello.” But the genius of the line is that it’s funny enough on its own, even if you don’t know the history behind it.

9

“Have The Rolling Stones Killed.”

Season 5, Episode 4, “Rosebud”

When the Ramones perform at Mr. Burns’ birthday bash, they give a typically boorish on-stage performance. Most rock ‘n’ roll fans would kill to have the Ramones play for them, but Mr. Burns is unimpressed by their punk antics.

During the performance, Burns turns to Smithers and tells him to “have the Rolling Stones killed.” Smithers tries to save the Stones’ lives, and inform Mr. Burns that they’re not the ones on stage offending him, but Mr. Burns won’t hear it: “Do as I say!” So, in the Simpsons universe, the Rolling Stones died needlessly.

8

“Ooh, Sounds Delish! Let Me Just Toss Some Jeans On And… Wait A Minute, Who Is This!?”

Season 5, Episode 6, “Marge On The Lam”

In season 5’s “Marge on the Lam,” Marge befriends the Simpsons’ new neighbor, Ruth Powers, leaving Homer feeling lonely and neglected. As Homer calls around to find a friend of his own, he calls his boss.

This leads to one of the funniest visuals in Simpsons history: Mr. Burns, cozying up on a shaggy pink rug, acting like a teenage girl. It’s a wildly unexpected left turn, and then Burns snaps out of it.

7

“Usually, The Blood Gets Off At The Second Floor.”

Season 6, Episode 6, “Treehouse Of Horror V”

The Simpsons’ fifth Halloween special is one of its best. It kicks off with a spot-on spoof of Stanley Kubrick’s movie adaptation of The Shining, including one of its most striking visuals: gallons of blood gushing out of an elevator.

Mr. Burns quips that the blood usually gets off on the second floor. This hilariously deflates the horror of Kubrick’s mind-bending image by applying real-world logic: why would blood be riding the elevator?

6

“Cause Of Parents’ Death: Got In My Way…”

Season 11, Episode 12, “The Mansion Family”

In the season 11 episode “The Mansion Family,” the Simpsons are house-sitting for Mr. Burns while he’s going in for a medical checkup. As he’s filling out the forms, Mr. Burns has to write down his parents’ cause of death.

The doctors are trying to figure out if Mr. Burns might have hereditary illnesses, but he writes that his parents died because they “got in my way.” This darkly suggests that Mr. Burns murdered his parents because they tried to mitigate his destructive influence on the world.

5

“Family, Religion, Friendship. These Are The Three Demons You Must Slay If You Wish To Succeed In Business.”

Season 8, Episode 21, “The Old Man And The Lisa”

Mr. Burns makes an unlikely partnership with Lisa in season 8’s “The Old Man and the Lisa.” The episode kicks off with Mr. Burns coming in to give a speech to Lisa’s class about succeeding in business.

When he starts off listing “family, religion, friendship,” it seems like he’s naming all the most valuable things in life. But then, he describes those core human tenets as “demons you must slay” on your way to the top of the financial food chain.

4

“It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Blurst Of Times? You Stupid Monkey!”

Season 4, Episode 17, “Last Exit To Springfield”

When Homer becomes the union boss, Mr. Burns invites him over to his mansion to schmooze him. He shows him a room where he has a dozen monkeys working on typewriters to create a great piece of literature.

It’s a hilarious literalization of the old thought experiment that if you put a monkey in front of a typewriter for an infinite amount of time, eventually it would produce the completed works of Shakespeare (just because it would eventually write every sequence of words possible, which would include the collected Shakespeare plays). But when Mr. Burns takes a look at what his monkeys have written, he finds that they’ve misspelled the iconic opening line of A Tale of Two Cities.