Mervin Monroe - Herman

Herman

Herman Hermann, voiced by Harry Shearer, is the owner of Herman's Military Antiques. He is a right-arm above-elbow amputee; he tells Bart that the arm was lost when he stuck it out the window of a moving bus as a kid. In the episode To Cur, With Love, he is seen in a flashback losing his arm hitch hiking when he is side swiped by an animal control van. A brilliant military tactician, Herman was instrumental in Bart's victory in water balloon combat against Nelson and in the negotiation of the peace treaty between the two combatants in "Bart the General", which is his most significant and first appearance.

He is friends with Abraham Simpson, to whom he sold a fez, claiming it was previously owned by Napoleon; Herman then advertised Abe's old hat as "the hat McKinley was shot in". He also tried to sell counterfeit jeans out of the Simpsons' garage, but was foiled by Marge Simpson. He once captured Chief Wiggum and Snake and held them hostage, but was accidentally knocked out by Milhouse with a medieval mace, rescuing them.

Harry Shearer does an impression of George H.W. Bush for the voice. Herman's facial appearance is modeled after Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder. The original idea behind Herman, said Groening, was that each time he appeared, he would give a different explanation for how he lost his arm. However, the second joke, involving Herman having stuck his arm in a ball return at a bowling alley, got cut, and the writers never pursued the idea.