Milhouse Mussolini Van Houten is a fictional character featured in the animated television series The Simpsons, voiced by Pamela Hayden. He is Bart Simpson's best friend, the son of Kirk and Luann Van Houten, and is most distinctive for his extreme nearsightedness requiring thick glasses to correct. Despite being considered a nerd, Milhouse is shown to have just-average intelligence with poor people skills. He is constantly led into trouble by the mischievous Bart, who is not shy about taking advantage of his naïve and trusting friend. On one occasion, Bart got Milhouse placed on the America's Most Wanted list. Milhouse is one of the few residents in Springfield that has eyebrows, a trait he shares with his parents. His birthday is sometime in October as he once stated he was 3 months younger than Bart.

Milhouse harbors a hopeless crush on Bart's younger sister, Lisa, and he is usually clumsy around females. However, in one episode's flashback (during the time that Bart and Milhouse were in kindergarten), a school counselor accidentally revealed that he had assessed Milhouse to be gay, and indeed, the show often implies Milhouse may be homosexual despite his attraction to Lisa.

Milhouse was named after Richard Nixon (whose middle name was Milhous) and, apparently, Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten. (There is also a street named Van Houten Avenue in Portland, Oregon, where Matt Groening grew up.) His middle name (established in "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas") is Mussolini, presumably named after former Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Presumably his mother's side of the family is Italian, while his father's side, judging from the last name, is likely Dutch. The family name was first used in the third season episode "Homer Defined."

Milhouse is frequently the target of the bullies Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney. They often put him into situations in which Milhouse comes out extremely hurt. He is the subject of Nelson's cruelty: "stop (hitting, zapping, etc.) yourself".

Milhouse is fluent in Italian due to visiting his English language-hating grandmother Sofie two weeks every year in Tuscany. His uncle Bastardo was the illegitimate child of Milhouse's grandmother and a U.S. Army soldier during World War II. Due to his grandmother's beatings, Milhouse learned Italian and started to wet his bed. He has also demonstrated that he is a skilled Vespa rider, although is obviously not legally entitled to operate one on public roads. It is also in this episode that Milhouse had come closest to wooing Lisa, as she even kept a picture of Milhouse in her room while practicing Italian. It is implied that she is captivated by his impressive command of the language, and a rather romantic outing to the local Italian immigrant establishment. However, he once again reaches a roadblock due to his ongoing fatal flaw when it comes to girls. Milhouse has exhibited a tendency to begin acting rather ridiculously masculine complete with clichéd catch phrases and mannerisms. This case of social anxiety has lost him Lisa's heart three times, as well as a relationship with Rainier Wolfcastle's daughter.

Milhouse's first girlfriend was Samantha Stanky, a new student who had moved to Springfield from Phoenix, Arizona in the episode "Bart's Friend Falls in Love". After her father catches her and Milhouse kissing, he sends her to an all-girls catholic school.

The future

In various episodes set in the future, Milhouse has been seen as a balding manager at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a Cabinet secretary to President Lisa Simpson, and (in Bart's words) a teenaged "emotionally-crippled mini-Hulk". It has also been suggested that Milhouse will betray Bart, causing severe religious turmoil one thousand years later. If the predictions made by a fortune teller in "Lisa's Wedding" come to pass, it is also hinted that Lisa loses her virginity to Milhouse, but, according to Marge, he "doesn't count."

Quotes by Milhouse Van Houten

• "Everything's coming up Milhouse!"
• "There's Lisa! Stay cool Milly."
• Milhouse: "Don't you hate that we have to go back to stupid school tomorrow?"
  Lisa: "I like school."
  Milhouse: "Me too."
• "So this is what it feels like when doves cry."
• "Look out Itchy! He's Irish!"
• "I'm not a nerd, Bart. Nerds are smart."
• "Remember Alf? He's back! In pog form!"
• "Why do you have a social worker? I'm the one with stigmata."
• "It's called lice, and it's nothing to be ashamed of!"
• "I'll kick your butt! (pauses) At Nintendo."
• "Remember the time Santa's Little Helper ate my goldfish? And you lied and said I never had goldfish. Then why did I have the bowl, Bart? Why did I have the bowl?"
• "Not only am I not learning, I'm forgetting stuff I used to know."
• "But I'm all Milhouse! Plus, my mom says I'm the handsomest guy in school!"
• Bart: "Well, if your soul's real, where is it?"
  Milhouse: "It's kinda in here... and when you sneeze, that's your soul trying to escape. Saying 'God bless you' crams it back in. And when you die, it squirms out and flies away!"
  Bart: "What if you die in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean?"
  Milhouse: "Oh, it can swim! It's even got wheels, in case you die in the desert and have to drive to the cemetery."
• "How could this happen? We started out like Romeo and Juliet, but it ended up in tragedy."
• "You said there'd be fudgicles, Bart. Where's the fudgicles?"
• "A movie with just two women?! Who'd want to watch that?"
• Bart: "So how's it feel to ride a girl's bike?"
  Milhouse: "It's disturbingly comfortable."
• "I'm a real human boy! I have feelings, just like you!"
• "But my mom says I'm cool."
• "Their hands were everywhere."
• "I can't wait until we're teenagers. Then we'll be happy."
• (Sitting at gun controls of jet fighter plane) "BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM!!! Take that Mom! Take that Dad! Send me to a psychiatrist would you?! Take that Dr. Sally Waxler!" (presses the eject button)
• "The Statue of Liberty? Where are we?!"
• "The 'House always wins!"
• "I'm cool!" (after Dolph says that biking with your eyes closed is cool...leading to an accident involving a train)
• Milhouse: "Hey, Bart. Check out my new earring. Pretty cool, huh?"
  Bart: "Milhouse, my Mom wears earrings. Do you think she's cool?"
  Milhouse: "No! I think she's hot! Sorry, it just slipped out."
• "I can't go on, you two go. And carry me with you!"
• Mexican Milhouse: "Once again I must sugar my own churro."
• "You told me we were going to Red Lobster!"
• "Hey, Bart, the cookie factory downtown caught fire! Wanna go smell?"
• Edna: "What happened to my little class coward?"
  Milhouse: "What do you care, Mrs. Krabappel? Or should I say Mrs. Crab-Apple? Hahaha."
  Kearney: "Crab-Apple?"
  Jimbo: "I never thought of that..."
  Girl: "It toally works."
  Dolph: "Oh, how could I have been so blind?"
• Milhouse: "Then let's just say I don't care what people think of me anymore."
  Bart: "You mean up until now you did care? Then why did you wear that tutu to school last week?"
  Milhouse: "What about all the times I didn't wear a tutu? Nobody ever brings those up."
• "Those Cap City kids don't think I'm cool anymore. We were having a sleepover and a robber came and wet my bed. Then he folded the bed back into the couch and disappeared into the night."
• Milhouse: Bart, I think I'm finally ready to tell you why I was crying that day...
  Bart: Let's see what's on TV!
• Homer: Do you know how to cook dinner?
  Milhouse: DO I?!?!? (Rummages randomly about in the pots and pans).
• Milhouse: (In an attempt to copy Bart) The status quo!? Ay carumba!
  Skinner: That's just sad.
• "I'm free next weekend! There's plenty of Milhouse to go around!"

Trivia

• It is possible that Milhouse is based on The Wonder Years character Paul Pfeifer (played by Josh Saviano).
• In the episode Mom and Pop Art, Bart says that he "was a little attracted to Milhouse," although he might have been deliberately lying in order to make Homer mad.
• Lisa claims that one of Milhouse's favourite delicacies is "Vaseline on toast".

See also

• List of characters from The Simpsons

References

• The Milhouse File

Simpsons characters | Fictional nerds | Fictional victims of abuse | Fictional Italian-Americans

Milhouse van Houten