The Armen Tamzarian Who Isn’t Principal Skinner from ‘The Simpsons’ Just Got a Promotion
We’ve all heard about how the Simpsons were named after Matt Groening’s real-life family, even though his dad, Homer Groening, was “an athletic, creative, intelligent filmmaker and writer” (he did enjoy donuts, to be fair). But Groening’s relatives aren’t the only people who have lent their names to Simpsons characters. In fact, the show borrowed the name of a total stranger for a highly-controversial episode.
Season Nine’s “The Principal and the Pauper” begins with a shocking revelation: Springfield Elementary’s Principal Skinner is, in fact, an imposter. The real Seymour Skinner went missing during the Vietnam War and was presumed dead, allowing a young troublemaker named Armin Tamzarian to hijack his identity after the war, Don Draper-style.
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Although this polarizing plot twist was effectively nullified in the final moments of the episode when Judge Roy Snyder compels residents of Springfield to never bring the issue up again under “penalty of torture,” the “real” Principal Skinner did briefly show up earlier this season.
During the episode’s DVD commentary, the writers revealed that the fake Skinner’s alias was lifted from a real guy named Armen Tamzarian, prefacing the discussion by stating, “If there’s a big silence after this, you’ll know that the lawyers cut it out.”
The episode’s writer, Ken Keeler, explained that when he first moved to Los Angeles, “on the day I was driving in, I got in an auto accident, and the adjuster that I dealt with was named Armen Tamzarian.”
Producer Bill Oakley pointed out that, coincidentally, “later, Mr. Tamzarian became a lawyer at a firm that represents (The Simpsons).” And, according to Oakley, he was pretty chill about the whole thing. “After this episode aired, we got a call from Mr. Tamzarian who was very interested that his name had appeared on the show and was pretty friendly about it,” he recalled.
Keeler found that story “puzzling” because he had a “completely different” experience with Tamzarian. “I got a letter from Mr. Tamzarian on legal stationery, and it was very curtly-phrased, saying, ‘Where’d you get this name?’ I was worried.” So Keeler contacted Fox’s lawyers, who made him take them through the details of exactly how he came upon the name. Keeler eventually reached out to Tamzarian, who “wrote back a very polite letter saying, ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you or threaten you, I just wondered where the name came from.’”
The non-cartoon Tamzarian ended up becoming a judge, seemingly weirding out every Simpsons fan who dealt with him in court. And just this week, he received a promotion, having been nominated “to serve as an Associate Justice of the Second District Court of Appeal, Division Four.”
And as far as we know he’s never tied up any war heroes and threatened to torture whistleblowers.
