Principal Skinner - The Principal and The Pauper

The Principal and The Pauper

The controversial season-nine episode "The Principal and the Pauper" revolutionises Skinner's back-story, revealing that Skinner is an imposter. Born Armin Tamzarian, it emerges that he was a troubled orphan with a taste for "Swank" magazine, cheap booze and motorcycles until he was forced into the United States Army during the Vietnam War. There, he was befriended by Sgt. Seymour Skinner, whom he came to idolize. When Skinner was reported missing and presumed dead, Tamzarian returned to Springfield to tell Skinner's mother, but she deliberately mistook him for Seymour, so he assumed his identity and followed Skinner's dream of becoming a school principal. The real Seymour Skinner (voiced by Martin Sheen), had been alive after all, and briefly returned to Springfield to take his rightful place as Springfield Elementary School Principal, but had proved hopelessly unpopular and the Springfielders ran him out of town on the railroad. Judge Snyder granted Tamzarian Skinner's "name, and his past, present, future, and mother", and decreed that no one will mention his true identity again "under penalty of torture" (although Lisa uses the real name in the episode I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot). The episode provoked a very negative reaction both from fans and the show's staff. A clip from the episode was used in season eleven's "Behind the Laughter" as an example of the show's increasingly "gimmicky and nonsensical plots".