Dr. Nicholas "Nick" Riviera M.D. is a recurring character on The Simpsons.

Dr. Nick Riviera is a quack physician who studied at dubious medical schools, although he claims to be "just as good as Dr. Hibbert M.D." He is inventor of Juice Loosener and Sun & Run[1]. He is also a doctor in charge of vocal chord scraping for Mr. Burns in his weekly treatment to cheat death. Although seemingly killed in The Simpsons Movie by a giant shard of glass, he appears in several episodes afterwards, and it was eventually confirmed by Al Jean that the character had not been killed off as many had thought.

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Biography

Riviera is of Hispanic descent and in the European Spanish dub, he is specifically given an Argentinian accent. He has a medical degree from Hollywood Upstairs Medical College (where he apparently spent much of his time using his ability to acquire prescription drugs to impress a succession of attractive women back in the 1970s), and a great deal of luck. Thus far, none of the patients he has swindled, maimed, or given useless or dangerous medical advice seems to have sued him (although a few have come after him in person. For example, a large angry man once grabbed him, and Nick says "Well, if it isn't my old friend Mr. McGregg — with a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg"; the man has an arm where a leg should be and a leg where an arm should be [2]. Dr. Nick is a stereotypical shady, immoral doctor who performs medical procedures for money with little or no regard for medical ethics, or their patients' well-being. He was once seen digging up corpses in the graveyard for body parts, presumably to use in operations on patients [3]. Although his competence and ethics are frequently called into question, he does have some decent reasoning skills, as he ended up discovering that Mr. Burns' claims of "Homer Simpson" after awakening were just a variation of his vegetative state and not actually him identifying his shooter.[4]

He is seen taking a citizenship test, implying he is not a citizen of the United States [5]. Some of his exclamations hint that he may be Argentinian, though there is no direct evidence of this. In Homer's Triple Bypass, he watches a video on how to perform open-heart surgery and is disgusted by all the blood, implying that he may be hemophobic.

His degrees read "Mayo Clinic Correspondence School", "Club Med School", "Female Body Inspector" and "I went to medical school for four years and all I got was this lousy diploma" [6]. He frequently appears on infomercials, pitching all sorts of bizarre medical offers, and has often turned his operations into TV spectacles. He is also shown as an inventor/huckster (in the style of Ron Popeil) on the television show I Can't Believe They Invented It! His "Walk-In Clinic" is based at; 44 Bow Street. Its phone number is 555-NICK. He can also be called at 1-600-DOCTORB ("The B is for 'Bargain'").

Goofs

Colored with blue hair instead of black

Colored with light brown hair instead of black

Non-canon Appearances

The contents of this article or section are considered to be non-canon and therefore may not have actually happened/existed.

Video Games

He has operated on the Simpson family a couple of times (when they cannot afford Doctor Hibbert ) notably when Homer needed a heart bypass Lisa Simpson attended the live audience for the operation and saved the day by guiding the obviously clueless Dr. Riviera through the operation. He also worked with Hibbert as the anesthesiologist during Bart's appendectomy and showed a large amount of shocking incompetence as he first failed to anesthetize Bart and subsequently passed out from the leaking gas.During Trappuccino in The Simpsons Movie Dr. Riviera was impaled by a large shard of glass and says "!" and then "faints", making him one of the few casualties of the Trappuccino incident. However, he somehow survives, as he appears after the events of the film.

In The Simpsons Road Rage, he says "Send me to the hospital, I pretend I work there".

A mission in The Simpsons: Hit and Run involves Bart seeking Dr. Nick's monkeys who have run away due to Dr. Nick's treatment of them. He also says a number of things if a player runs him over, such as "Hey! You drive as well as I practice medicine!" and "Don't come crying to me if you need a sex change!" He also appears in the bonus mission for level three, where Lisa retrieves Principal Skinner's 'personal items'. Dr. Nick says,"Hello, little girl! Here is the principal's anti-fungal cream!"

In The Simpsons: Tapped Out, He is a premium character. You can buy him for 90 donuts.

Dr. Nick appears in The Simpsons Game. Prior to it, he once put Lenny's artificial heart upside down and later gets confronted by Lenny. Dr. Nick just tells him he's a wondering tinker. Lenny says he loves it, and that he wears warm sleeves when it's Winter. Dr. Nick seems happy by it until Lenny says he gave him the wrong brain when he got a brain transplant which he knows he's Lenny but he has all these dreams about a 80 year old french women he's dating. Dr. Nick says he has a lot of brains lying around, so he's not saying he did it, it's just possible.

In "Treehouse of Horror IX" segment Hell Toupée Dr. Nick gives Homer a hair transplant.

In "Treehouse of Horror XIII", during the final segment Dr. Nick is transformed into a squirrel by Julius Hibbert.

In the second segment "Treehouse of Horror XXIV", Dr. Nick's head get attached to Julius Hibbert.

Behind the Laughter

The character design of Dr. Nick is based somewhat on Gábor Csupó, of Klasky Csupo studios, who was originally from Hungary—the animators mistakenly believed Hank Azaria was impersonating Gabor, when in fact the voice was actually a bad imitation of Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy.[7]

His name came from George Nichopoulos, nicknamed Dr. Nick, Elvis Presley's personal physician who was indicted on 14 counts of overprescribing drugs to Presley and several other patients.

He also has a sign in the new HD opening theme that says "If I kill you, you don't pay".

Catchphrase

Dr. Nick is notable for his exclamation upon entering a room of “Hi, everybody!”, which is immediately followed by a response of “Hi, Dr. Nick!” from the other characters present with varying degrees of enthusiasm. There was an Austrian version of Dr. Riviera in the episode "Margical History Tour", where he portrays the doctor of the ailing Mozart, played by Bart, and his exclamation is "Guten Tag, everybody!" Another variation is an episode where Mel Gibson says, "Hi, everybody!", and Dr. Nick responds with "Hi, Mr. Gibson." Another episode featured a Jewish version of Dr. Nick during Homer's flashback to the first Christmas. Dr. Nick says: "Shalom, everybody!" In Lisa the Simpson, Dr. Nick greets a refrigerated Jasper Beardly with "Hi frozen body!", when entering the Kwik-E-Mart.

Appearances

Note: Most of his appearances are brief background roles. Episodes where he has a role in are in bold.

Gallery

The full image gallery for Nick Riviera may be viewed at Nick Riviera/Gallery.