Are Mr. Burns and Smithers modeled after anyone in particular?
I don’t think so. I’ve been told that Sam Simon actually was the one who drew Burns. While some have said Burns was supposed to be an amalgam of Barry Diller and James L. Brooks and certain things Burns and Smithers did were certainly based on the real-life actions of James L. Brooks and his devoted executive, Richard Sakai, I don’t think there was ever a conscious decision to base the look or the feel of those characters on any one person. Burns has come to be a tremendously malleable character; he can embody everything from capitalism, to old age, to the Republican Party. I think Burns works best when he’s just the owner of the power plant, the robber baron caught in the wrong time period. It allows him to do unspeakably evil things, but with this antiquated comic edge: “Loafers, former gophers…” How brilliant is that? Find The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History on Amazon or at your favorite local bookstore.
