A tribute to Lionel Hutz: The Simpsons resident shady lawyer
By Grant Butler
While The Simpsons has many great recurring characters, Lionel Hutz is one of the show’s very best.
Lionel Hutz isn’t a supporting character so much as he’s a recurring one. The difference is that he’s not one of the main members of the Simpson family, nor is he one of the characters the Simpsons constantly interact with. Recurring characters also typically don’t have a clear back story, but in Lionel Hutz’s case that’s easy to forget. But Hutz himself is not forgettable at all, which is essential because the entire point of a recurring character is to be memorable and enhance the story.
While every character on the series is a clever parody of some idea, Lionel Hutz is a particularly funny one. As Springfield’s resident shady lawyer, the trouble he gets into knows no bounds. He is every lawyer joke you’ve ever heard come to life. The fact that the incredibly talented Phil Hartman managed to make him so unsavory and yet likable is no small feat.
What makes Hutz so amusing is that he’s so awful at being shady. He doesn’t even have the basic animal cunning of your typical sleazy lawyer. His law office is titled “I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm!” and that’s hard to argue with. In fact, odds are good that Hutz himself can’t even believe he has a law office.
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Lionel Hutz was also acting like a sleazy lawyer decades before Saul Goodman. By coincidence the two characters have a connection because Bob Odenkirk (who plays Saul Goodman) is the older brother of Bill Odenkirk, who is a longtime writer and executive producer of The Simpsons.
But while Saul Goodman is a terrific character, he is a bit more clever than Lionel Hutz could ever be. Even Marge managed to be a better lawyer than him on one occasion. Not to mention the entire reason Marge had to do this in the first place was because Hutz snuck out through the Simpsons’ bathroom window
While we may not want Lionel Hutz to represent us in Court, he is still incredibly entertaining and that’s why he’s a great recurring character.