Herb Powell

Herbert "Herb" Powell is a fictional character on The Simpsons television show introduced in the episode "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?", which premiered on February 21, 1991. Physically, he looks similar to Homer, except that he is somewhat less fat, and has significantly more hair.

Related Topics:
Fictional character - The Simpsons - Television show - Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? - February 21 - 1991

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Herb (voiced by Danny DeVito) is Homer Simpson's half-brother, a product of a short-lived affair between Homer's father Abraham and a carnival prostitute. (Abraham justified this to Homer by explaining, "She did things your Mother would never dream of doing...like have sex for money.") He was put up for adoption shortly after birth, and was kept secret from Homer. However, Herb pulled himself up from the bottom, working his way up and eventually founding Powell Motors, a car company based in Detroit of which he was CEO. He always found an emptiness in his life, however. Later, after Homer was told of his existence and sought out and found him; he lost his entire fortune and became a homeless person when he unwisely asked Homer to design his new model car for him. Homer managed to virtually duplicate the commercial failure of the Edsel. (But the creators of the show actually missed the greatest irony for the car Homer actually designed was an SUV which soon after the episode took the market by storm. Evidently Homer understood the American ethos far better than they did.)

Related Topics:
Danny DeVito - Homer Simpson - Abraham - Carnival - Detroit - New model car - Edsel - SUV

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Herb apparently spent the following year living as a street vagrant. He re-appeared in "Brother Can You Spare Two Dimes?," first aired on August 27, 1992. He briefly settles in the Simpson household despite his intense dislike of Homer due to the car fiasco. Herb borrows some of the family money to develop a device that can analyze baby speech and translate it into comprehensible English language. Herb tests his invention on Maggie and it proves to be functional. He proceeds in the distribution of his new product and thus manages to regain his fortune. Herb then left the Simpson residence. Aside from making the mistake of letting Homer design a car, Herb appears not to suffer from the effects of the Simpson Gene, which ordinarally guaruntees that the male members of the Simpson family will turn out to be incredibly stupid and unsuccessful.

Related Topics:
Brother Can You Spare Two Dimes? - August 27 - 1992 - Baby - English language - Maggie - Distribution - Product

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"Unkie Herb" has yet to make a third appearance, though Homer glowingly mentioned him in "The Heart-Broke Kid", and the camera panned to a portrait of him on the wall.

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See: Characters from The Simpsons

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