10 Best Simpsons Characters Who Debuted After The Golden Age

Frankie The Squealer first appears in Season 12’s Insane Clown Poppy, when Fat Tony is interrogating his gang to find the squealer. Giving him this ridiculous name (and partnering him with his opposite, Johnny Tightlips) is perfect for The Simpsons’ simplistically effective humour. True to form, he then squeals on himself because he ‘just likes squealing! It makes me feel big!’.

Even as he’s being beaten, he squeals on Fat Tony that his real name is Marion. Sadly for Frankie though, all appearances after his debut fail to live up to this initial charm.

Lou already has the slightly stupid henchman angle taken up, especially in sequences when he can’t work out Fat Tony’s mafia code. Struggling to understand which ‘take care of it’ his boss means and shooting an iPod to ‘fix’ it; ‘you know how it is with us! Everything means kill!’. This unfortunately limits Frankie’s effectiveness to be used in passing. He’s funny when the gags are written for him, but the main charm of background characters is their malleability.

Lesser featured Springfieldites like Sea Captain, Disco Stu and Cletus manage to crop up now and then, but Frankie is severely pigeon-holed by his defining characteristic.