Milhouse Van Houten
fictional character from The Simpsons franchise
Milhouse Mussolini Van Houten (Dutch: Milhuis van Houten Dutch pronunciation: [mɪlˈɦœy̯s vɑn ˈɦʌu̯tən]) (West Frisian: Milhûs Fan Houten West Frisian pronunciation: [mɪlˈɦuːs̠ fɔn ˈɦɔu̯tən]) is a fictional recurring character in the Fox animated television series The Simpsons voiced by Pamela Hayden until her retirement in 2025 and created by Matt Groening. Milhouse is Bart Simpson's childhood best friend in Mrs. Krabappel's fourth grade class at Springfield Elementary School. He is insecure, gullible, and is often led into trouble by Bart, who takes advantage of his friend's naivety. Milhouse is a regular target for school bully Nelson Muntz and his friends Jimbo Jones, Dolph Starbeam and Kearney Zzyzwicz. He has a crush on Bart's sister, Lisa, which is a common plot element.
Milhouse debuted in the 1988 commercial "The Butterfinger Group" while The Simpsons was still airing as a cartoon short series on the Fox variety show The Tracey Ullman Show. When The Simpsons was greenlit for a full series by Fox, Milhouse appeared in the first episode of the first season, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", becoming one of the series' most prominent recurring characters. Groening chose the name Milhouse (the middle name of President Richard Nixon was Milhous) because it was the most "unfortunate name [he] could think of for a kid". Milhouse's appearance is based on that of Rob Cohen.
The public source identifies “Milhouse Van Houten” as fictional character from The Simpsons franchise. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Milhouse, Houten and fictional.
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This entry incorporates text from “Milhouse Van Houten” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.