For fans of The Simpsons, Dr. Nick Riviera is usually a favorite. He is just one of many one-note characters that, over the years, we have grown used to seeing pop up in the most odd and hilarious of situations. Be it a TV Infomercial hawking a Juice Loosener or showing up to help anesthetize Bart (but failing miserably) during his appendectomy. His catch phrase, “Hi, everybody!” followed invariably by a hearty, “Hii, Dr. Nick!” is a part of The Simpsons’ lexicon. It’s fair to say that Dr. Nick Riviera is to The Simpsons generation what Norm was to The Cheers generation, at least as far as entrances go.
Which is why his apparent death in The Simpsons Movie last summer was both funny (he uttered a modified, “Goodbye, everybody” before dying) and sad, because we had become used to his quirky incompetence and Hollywood Upstairs Medical College smarts. But we got used to the absence of Dr. Marvin Monroe and Bleeding Gums Murphy, and we were kids when they passed on, so we should be able to handle this loss just fine. Besides, with every season through #10 already on DVD and the show itself in re-runs once, twice and in some places even three times a day, it’s not like we’d never hear Dr. Nick again.
But you can imagine my surprise when I was watching the new episode “Lost Verizon” last night and saw this:
Yeah, that’s Dr. Nick Riviera alright. No ifs ands or buts about it. He’s not even on the job and never even utters a word, much less a well-worn, “Hi, everybody!”
My wife and I, new recipients of a DVR, paused the TV and stared at each other in disbelief.
“Isn’t he dead?” she asked.
“Yeah, in the movie, he died. What the hell?” I grabbed my laptop and did a quick wikipedia search and pulled up Dr. Nick’s entry, only to find this tidbit:
Death
In The Simpsons Movie, Dr. Nick is impaled by a large shard of glass that falls from the dome covering Springfield and says, in his normal voice, “Bye everybody!” before passing out. James L. Brooks and Al Jean have confirmed that Dr. Nick is dead, but will be brought back to life “à la [in a way similar to] Dr. Marvin Monroe“.[6]. He has recently returned alive and well without any explaination working as Dr. Hibbert’s caddy in Lost Verizon.
You can’t do that! You can’t tease us like that, taking away a beloved character and then just deciding to insert him wherever seems convenient for you. There was no comeback for Bleeding Gums Murphy, there was no shout out to Lionel Hutz after Phil Hartman died. Even Dr. Marvin Monroe, long dead, had his reintroduction happen several season after his “death.” And even his reappearance was brief and didn’t lead to any further appearances.
We need time to grieve for Dr. Nick before you can just bring him back. We need time to slowly forget the hilarity of “Hi, everybody!” before it comes back into our lives. Have a heart, Mr. Groening.
