Harry Shearer, a Los Angeles native, began acting at the age of seven at the suggestion of his piano teacher-turned-agent. He made his film debut in the classic Abbott and Costello Go To Mars and had a small role in the first Cinemascope movie The Robe.

When the last days of network radio made way for the early days of live TV, the young thespian appeared often on The Jack Benny Show as well as appearances on GE Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and played the role of Eddie Haskell in the pilot episode of Leave It To Beaver.

Harry gained national recognition as one of the creators and stars of This Is Spinal Tap, where he portrayed heavy metalist Derek Smalls in the mock rockumentary. Harry was a writer and cast member of Saturday Night Live for two seasons. His on-screen performance as a NASA recruitment official in The Right Stuff shows that he can also support a convincing "establishment" persona as well. Harry's other film work includes Oscar, The Fisher King, Wayne's World II, Pure Luck, Godzilla (alongside fellow Simpsons cast member Hank Azaria), A Mighty Wind, and Teddy Bears' Picnic.

Harry is the voice actor behind many of The Simpsons characters including Montgomery Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, Reverend Lovejoy, and Herman the owner of Herman's Military Antiques.

So I was watching Forrest Gump one day and I couldn't help but notice the similarities between Herman and Lt. Dan. Take a look at this picture:

Physical similarities aside, note they both tend to exude paranoid and erratic behavior, and both smoke and have that grizzled appearance. Maybe one's based off the other, or maybe they're charicatures of Hollywood's typical war veteran. The mystery lives on...

The origins of Herman (and other amusing anecdotes)

Straight from the commentary for "Bart the General" and "Old Money" on the DVD sets:

- Matt Groening: Well, the design of this character is, other than the one arm, pretty much inspired by [Simpsons writer] John Swartzwelder. The voice for instance is a little George Bush.
- David Silverman: Thanks to Harry Shearer.

- Matt Groening: The original idea with Herman was that every single time we saw him on the show (the original plan was that he would be a regular character) he would explain how he lost his arm and it would be different every time. 'When you see a sign that says don't stick your hand in the ball return at the bowling alley, you believe it!'

- Harry Shearer's Official Site
- Review for Herman's Military Antiques Playset

About the Site

- Created by Vic Rome (aka SubSane) in April 2005.
- Contact: click HERE
- Support the site by using this image as a link:

Though officially opened in March 2005, this site's history dates back to March 2002 when I first gained an interest in web sites (and hell, the Internet in general). At the time I was also working on another little project called CBG's Video Game Collection, but my lack of ability or design sense meant I needed to focus my time on one thing at a time. The criticism about the first Herman site didn't help, and within a week of its creation I deleted all files and forgot about The Herman Files for a few years.

Forward to the present when I decided to give it another try and create a site for good ol' Herman. Now then, why Herman? It's simple; no one else has done it. When I first chose Herman there was a boom in Simpsons web sites, and I figured Herman would be a good character to create a site about. It's three years later and Herman is still site-less, so here ya go. He may not be as popular as some of the other secondary characters, but damned if he's not the funniest one-armed character on the show.