The Worst Thing Mr. Burns Ever Did On The Simpsons

Plenty of people have bad bosses, but for over 30 seasons of The Simpsons, Homer (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) has had to deal with an employer who's a literal supervillain — Mr. Burns (Harry Shearer). It's bad enough Mr. Burns can never seem to remember Homer's name, but he's also made life increasingly difficult on residents of Springfield. In addition to subpar work standards at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant that cause toxic, radioactive waste to seep into the local environment, he's also tried to block out the sun and made Homer humiliate himself as his personal "prank monkey."

We suppose Mr. Burns isn't so much weirder than any other billionaire, but still — some of his antics over the years have really strained the bounds of good taste. Some of it is your standard cartoon villainy — like stealing Christmas from 1981 to 1985 — but in other instances, his bad behavior feels all too real. It's hard to narrow down his greatest hits to a singular moment where Mr. Burns crossed the line the farthest, but one moment from season 6 just might be it.

In the episode "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds," the Simpsons come into possession of 25 puppies after Santa's Little Helper gets himself a girlfriend. The family can't hang onto that many dogs, so they try to give them away while keeping them all together. Mr. Burns is interested, but when Lisa (Yeardley Smith) and Bart (Nancy Cartwright) are adamant he'd be mean to them, they turn him down. Of course, that doesn't stop a guy like Mr. Burns from just straight-up stealing the pups. As if that wasn't bad enough, ol' Monty reveals his plans to turn the dogs into a fancy suit. 

Attempted puppy murder is awful, but then, Mr. Burns goes into a whole musical number where he revels in all of the animals he's killed over the years — including an endangered albino African rhino. Assuming everything in his closet is made from an animal, he must've hunted hundreds of animals over the years, all to serve his selfish, sartorial ends. It's all the more disgusting considering we've never seen him wear any of these outfits outside of this episode. He's just a darn collector!

Mr. Burns has done a lot of terrible things in the past, but while he may have tried to block out the sun or become governor so that he could deregulate the nuclear power industry, he ultimately failed in those endeavors. There's no denying that he succeeded in killing countless animals to the point where we're surprised he hasn't gotten a visit from PETA yet. Mr. Burns is hands-down the most evil person in Springfield ... except for maybe Mr. Snrub. There's just something about him we don't trust.