Mr. Burns

"Excellent..."

- Mr. Burns' most famous quote

Charles Montgomery "Monty" Burns, better known as Mr. Burns or simply Burns, is one of the main antagonists of the famous long-running adult animated comedy television series, The Simpsons.

He serves as a minor antagonist in the 2007 theatrical film, The Simpsons Movie, the final boss and main antagonist of the popular beat-em up video game, The Simpsons Arcade Game and the main antagonist of the side-scrolling platform game, Bart vs. the World.

He is an old, wealthy, greedy, cruel and selfish businessman, and is the richest and most powerful citizen of Springfield. He is the founder and chairman of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a member of the inner circle of the Springfield Republican Party, the boss of Homer Simpson, Lenny, Carl and Waylon Smithers and, finally, as the arch enemy of Lisa and Bart Simpson.

He was voiced by the late Christopher Collins (who also played Starscream and Cobra Commander) in his first appearance, then by Harry Shearer for the rest of the series.

Biography
Charles Montgomery Burns was born on September 15, 1881 to Clifford and Dephane Burns. Unlike his current personality, Young Charles was so happy he was nicknamed "Happy", until his grandfather, Colonel Wainwright Montgomery Burns, lured him away from his parents and raised him as his own son. When growing up, Burns attended Yale University and studied nuclear physics and business.

In 1939, he met Lily Bancroft at his Yale reunion. They would coproduce and Lily would give birth to Larry Burns, who would enter Mr. Burns's life years later. By 1943, he had enlisted in the United States Army, and served in the Flying Hellfish, under Abraham Simpson. He entered a tontine where the last surviving member of the Flying Hellfish would gain a group of priceless German paintings, which he would break when he was discharged from the group after trying to murder Abraham Simpson.

After being released from military service, Mr. Burns became chairman of a germ warfare lab. By 1965, he worked as a biochemist and started developing diseases to use against the people of Springfield. His germs were killed when a group of hippies set off and antibiotic bomb in the lab. When they trampled over him, one of the hippies, Mona Simpson (Homer's mother and Abraham's wife), went to help him up, he saw her and angrily declared that she should be arrested. In 1966, he hosted a fundraiser to help finance the construction of his nuclear power plant.

In 1968, when Homer (twelve years old), Lenny, Carl, and Moe camped out near the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, it suffered a near meltdown and almost exploded. However, the meltdown had been averted through unknown means. It was later revealed that during that time, Waylon Smithers Sr., Burns's best friend and assistant, sacrifice himself to save the plant, and his infant son, Waylon Junior.

Burns currently owns and manages the power plant, although he had lost control over it many times.

Personality
Mr. Burns embodies a number of stereotypes about corporate America, as he has an unquenchable desire to increase his own wealth and power, even through criminal means if necessary. This was shown when he briefly tried to run for Governor in order to prevent his plant from being shut down, and the time when he tried to sell uranium rods to terrorists for profit. Burns also embodies the stereotype of a manager by forgetting his employees' names (especially Homer's, despite it appearing that they interact more than Burns does with most of his employees), though this can be attributed to his senility. Burns is also unconcerned and dispassionate for his employees' safety and well-being, even laughing at the sight of a window washer falling from a great height of a building. His aspirations to apply obsolete technology to everyday life or references to Victorian-era people or places provide a common source of humor on the show.

Despite his evil nature, Burns is able to shed a sense of kindness, as he sympathized over Homer's loss of his new hair as everyone in the plant only took Homer for granted because of his hairstyle. He is also pretty close to his right-hand man Waylon Smithers due to the latter's loyalty; even taking him in as his own son following the death of Waylon's father, who sacrificed himself to prevent a meltdown during the 1960s. He also cherished his lost teddy bear Bobo as it reminds him of the innocence that he lost when he was a child, even telling Homer's youngest daughter Maggie to hold on Bobo after seeing how much she loved it.

Health
Due to his unnaturaly long life span, Mr. Burns is shown to have numerous physical ailments that has passed up to him throughout most of the series, such as being infertile with a green glow due to many years of running his plant. Because of this, he is shown to be physcially weak in nature as he is unable to perform any normal physical tasks, such as wrestling a teddy bear from an infant, taking a picture of several school students, or even crushing a tiny ant with his foot.

Despite his poor health, Mr. Burns has utilized his wealth to provide himself the best health care in Springfield that anyone can receive; he even had to provide himself painful medical treatments that involves chiropractics and painkillers which leave him disoriented in order to cheat death ever single week. In the episode The Fool Monty after having amnesia, a recovering Burns is surprised to learn that the feeling of spite is what keeping him alive due to his enjoyment of making people's lives miserable and earning their hate.

Trivia

 * Along with Sideshow Bob, Kang & Kodos, Mr. Burns serves as one of the main antagonists of the franchise; however, in The Simpsons Movie, they are all outranked by Russ Cargill.
 * Mr. Burns' net worth is arguably $1,800,037,022, as mentioned in the episode, The Burns and the Bees.
 * Mr. Burns signs his will as "Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns" in the episode of season 22, "Flaming Moe", which implies that he is related to Adolf Hitler and a descendant of the House of Plantagenet.
 * He is also one of the many Simpsons characters who guest star on the Family Guy episode "The Simpsons Guy".
 * Burns seems to be modeled after Jacob Rothschild and Janez Janša. He also shares a few similarities with both of them.
 * Some sources say that instead of Burns opening the plant (which actually happened), he purchased it in 1974.
 * Although he served in the Flying Hellfish in the 1940s, it has been implied that he served with the Nazis in the Schutzstaffel.