53 Facts About Sideshow Bob

Sideshow Bob is voiced by Kelsey Grammer and first appeared in the episode "The Telltale Head".

Sideshow Bob began his career as a sidekick on Krusty the Clown's television show, but after enduring constant abuse, Bob framed his employer for armed robbery in "Krusty Gets Busted", only to be foiled by Bart Simpson, and sent to prison.

Sideshow Bob started seeking revenge against Bart while in prison, and the two became feuding arch-enemies.

Bob made his second major appearance in season three's "Black Widower"; the writers echoed the premise of Wile E Coyote chasing the Road Runner by having Bob unexpectedly insert himself into Bart's life, threatening to disrupt and end it through murder.

Episodes in which he is a central character typically involve Sideshow Bob being released from prison and executing an elaborate revenge plan, usually foiled by Bart and Lisa.

In season 27 during the first segment of "Treehouse of Horror XXVI", entitled "Wanted: Dead, Then Alive", Sideshow Bob finally gets his wish of killing Bart, commenting that he spent 24 years trying to kill a ten-year-old child; however, he becomes bored with Bart dead, so he brings him back to life so that he can repeatedly kill Bart over and over again.

Sideshow Bob appears in the Simpsons Comics, the 2007 video game The Simpsons Game, and stars as the main antagonist in The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios' theme parks.

The character of Sideshow Bob began his career as the non-speaking sidekick who would only use a whistle on Krusty the Clown's television show.

Sideshow Bob first appears in "The Telltale Head".

However, after repeated instances of abuse, including being shot from a cannon and hit constantly with pies, the Yale-educated Sideshow Bob became angry at Krusty and resentful of the clown's success.

In "Krusty Gets Busted", Sideshow Bob disguised himself as Krusty and framed him for armed robbery of the Kwik-E-Mart.

However, Sideshow Bob's reign is short-lived; Bart exposes him as the robber, Krusty is released, and Sideshow Bob is fired and sent to jail.

Sideshow Bob follows them to their hideout, a houseboat on Terror Lake, and, after subduing the family, prepares to kill Bart.

Sideshow Bob is put on trial and claims himself innocent, but is tricked by Bart and Lisa to expose himself guilty, leading to another incarceration.

Sideshow Bob is thwarted when he finds out that the bomb itself is a dud, then kidnaps Bart and flies the Wright Brothers' plane in an attempt to kill himself, Bart, and Krusty.

Sideshow Bob is discharged from prison into the care of Cecil, who is Springfield's chief hydrological and hydrodynamical engineer.

However, the scheming Cecil, still smarting over his failed audition for Krusty, tries to frame Sideshow Bob by sabotaging the Springfield Dam by having it burst across Springfield.

Everything goes just as Bob had planned, and just when Bob was about to succeed in murdering both his enemies, he overhears Krusty publicly holding himself responsible for turning Bob into a criminal, expressing his regret of mistreating Bob during his years as Sideshow.

Sideshow Bob's aid is sought by Springfield police in "The Great Louse Detective".

However, Sideshow Bob finds he is "accustomed to his [Bart's] face" and cannot do it.

In "The Italian Sideshow Bob", it is revealed that Sideshow Bob had moved to Italy to make a fresh start.

Sideshow Bob is angered enough to change his dream of killing Bart to killing the whole Simpson family.

In "Wedding for Disaster", Bart and Lisa initially suspect Sideshow Bob of kidnapping Homer to prevent him from attending his second wedding with Marge, but Krusty provides him with an alibi, explaining to the kids that Sideshow Bob was with him the whole day.

Sideshow Bob reappears again in the episode "The Sideshow Bob Next Door".

Sideshow Bob appears in "At Long Last Leave", the 500th episode of The Simpsons.

Sideshow Bob attends a town meeting to decide if the Simpson family should be banished from Springfield, and is one of many who express their desire for it to happen.

Sideshow Bob makes a silent appearance in "Moonshine River", where he runs across the train tracks trying to kill Bart, but ends up getting hit by a train.

Several episodes later, Sideshow Bob returned in "Blazed and Confused", where he meets Mr Lassen, Bart's former teacher, who was now reduced to working in prison as a guard after Bart's earlier actions at a "Blazing Guy" festival got him fired.

In "Treehouse of Horror XXVI", in the first segment called "Wanted: Dead, then Alive", Sideshow Bob uses Milhouse's phone to trap Bart in the band classroom and successfully kills him.

Sideshow Bob appears in the episode "Gal of Constant Sorrow", grunting in annoyance as he wipes off Bart's graffiti from Hettie Mae Boggs' promo poster on the wall along with Snake Jailbird and other inmates.

In "Havana Wild Weekend", Sideshow Bob appeared in the backgrounds at the Cuba's check-in.

Sideshow Bob makes a non-speaking cameo appearance in "The Nightmare After Krustmas" ; he is amongst the crowd witnessing Krusty nearly drowning in a frozen lake while holding up a sign saying "Die Clown".

Sideshow Bob finds Bart and proceeds to kill him and Milhouse, but saves them at the last minute due to the influence of the prison therapist's lessons of potentially moving on from wanting to kill Bart.

The epilogue features an older Sideshow Bob, now known as Elder Sideshow Bob, being an lighthouse keeper and still having regrets of not killing Bart.

Sideshow Bob has made regular appearances in the monthly Simpsons Comics, and several of Kelsey Grammer's singing performances have been included in The Simpsons CD compilations.

Sideshow Bob appears in the 1991 The Simpsons Arcade Game, on the fifth level where he is pulling a cart containing a roast chicken health pick up.

Sideshow Bob was included as a level boss in the 1991 video game Bart vs the Space Mutants.

Sideshow Bob plays a lead role in The Simpsons Ride, which opened at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood in May 2008.

Sideshow Bob first appeared in "The Telltale Head", the eighth episode of season one.

Sideshow Bob's design was relatively simple compared to later incarnations, and his hairstyle was rounded.

Sideshow Bob has no lines of dialogue during the first half of "Krusty Gets Busted"; the character's only communication takes the form of a slide whistle.

For season three's "Black Widower", the writers echoed the premise of Wile E Coyote chasing the Road Runner from Looney Tunes cartoons by having Bob unexpectedly insert himself into Bart's life and attempt to kill him.

However, by the seventh season, Sideshow Bob had already been the focus of four episodes, and writers were having trouble developing new ways to include him.

In "Black Widower", Sideshow Bob notes that he is a "life-long Republican".

Kelsey Grammer initially expected Sideshow Bob to be a one-time role, and calls him "the most popular character I've ever played".

Sideshow Bob decided to incorporate elements of Grammer's other show into the character of Sideshow Bob, and designed Cecil to resemble Grammer's brother on Frasier.

Sideshow Bob has a wife named Francesca and a son named Gino, both of whom were introduced in season 17 episode "The Italian Sideshow Bob" and returned for "Funeral for a Fiend".

In 2006, Grammer won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his role in "The Italian Sideshow Bob"; he had previously won four awards in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series category for his portrayal of the title role on Frasier.

In December 2009, Robert Canning of IGN ranked the ten episodes to feature Sideshow Bob that had aired at the time.

The first five Sideshow Bob episodes took up the top five, with "Cape Feare" being ranked first.

In Planet Simpson, author Chris Turner writes that Sideshow Bob is built into a highbrow snob and conservative Republican so that the writers can continually use him as a strawman and pincushion.

Sideshow Bob represents high culture while Krusty represents low culture, and Bart, stuck in between, always wins out.

Sideshow Bob believes that by exposing the kids to high culture he will improve their lives.