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I'm a knitter, not a quitter.
- Phillip Frond

Phillip Frond (more commonly known as Mr. Frond) is the guidance counselor at Wagstaff School. He takes an overzealous charge of anything school-related, even if it may exceed his purview and pay grade. Students, parents, and even coworkers often disregard and shun his devotion to education and counseling. He makes his first appearance in "Crawl Space."

He is voiced by David Herman.

Profile[]

Appearance[]

Mr. Frond has wavy auburn hair and wears round glasses. He wears a green sweater over a light yellow shirt with a dark yellow neck tie, along with brown pants and black loafers. He is stout and stands at a height of 5'7. Frond's appearance underwent redesigns for the fourth production season and ninth production season.

Personality[]

Mr. Frond is a geeky, nervous, often incompetent, and perpetually flustered guidance counselor. He is well-intentioned, but is also easily manipulated by his students, particularly Louise Belcher. He loves cats, dancing to 90's music, productive dialogues, and a variety of arts and crafts, such as quilting and theatre.

A keen knitter, he can be seen knitting leisurely in "Bob and Deliver," shopping for yarn in "Synchronized Swimming," integrates it in to his "scared fabulous" program in "The Runway Club," and even knits a doll for Gayle in her image out of yarn from his dead grandmother's shawl in "The Cook, the Steve, the Gayle & Her Lover."

Mr. Frond's approach to his job of counseling is somewhat childish, full of role play, puppets, musical numbers, and over-the-top concentration on feelings. The center of his practice are his therapy dolls, with names such as "Portion Control Joel" and "Repressed Memory Emily." He often provides counseling to students whose parents he predicts will get divorced, because he can "see it coming." He frequently attempts to come up with new ideas to improve the school or the students, usually met with indifference or irritation from the students and the faculty.

Frond also spends much of his time trying to "reform" his students, especially the Belchers, in episodes like "The Runway Club" and "Crawl Space." Throughout the series, he constantly fails to be cool in the eyes of his pupils, revealing his belief that the students will not respect him if they know he used to be uncool at their age ("The Secret Ceramics Room of Secrets"). He occasionally resorts to questionable behavior to cover up his shortcomings, such as faking the vandalism of his dolls to avoid taking the students on a trip to the water park they had earned in "The Silence of the Louise." due to him and other school staff blowing the money allocated for the trip on coffee pods, or removing the Belcher kids' stories from the "Why I Love Wagstaff" exhibition in "The Frond Files." ostensibly due to their inappropriate content, but mainly because of their unflattering depiction of him as antagonist. In the same episode, he admits his credentials aren't valid, and Frond also says that he's a "self-certified counselor" in "Bob Day Afternoon."

Bob describes Mr. Frond as a "tall drink of annoying." In the episode, "Bob Day Afternoon," the two get to know each other well as fellow hostages at First Oceanside Savings Bank. He subtly states his dislike for Bob, but Bob says they "hate each other." In "Bad Tina," he and Bob make a slight bond when they discover that they both like "Cake." In spite of his supportive tendencies, he gets mad about his failed ideas, refusing to acknowledge that they were bad.

Louise frequently describes Mr. Frond as "sad," "lonely," "pathetic" & unliked. The two are frequent enemies and occasional allies. Louise claims that Frond has it out for her, but in fact loves to mess with him as seen in episodes like "Broadcast Wagstaff School News" & "The Quirk-ducers."

A running theme throughout the series is how he wants to take the world by storm with his stellar and innovative counseling methods (often just suggested by Louise rather than original ideas), much to the annoyance of everyone else, including Principal Spoors and the school board. Mr. Frond annoys Principal Spoors so much that he would've fired him and replaced him with his brother-in-law, who knew nothing about counseling, not to mention counseling children. In "Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl," it's revealed that his dream is to win a "Conflicty" for conflict resolution.

Story[]

Main article: Phillip Frond/Story

Therapy Tools[]

Mr. Frond uses a vast arsenal of therapy tools which include crisis crayons and therapy puppets such a

  • Bunny & Hippo Grief Puppets
  • "Repressed Memory Emily"
  • "Distracts-His-Friendzo Lorenzo"
  • "Portion Control Joel"
  • "Processily-Cecily"
  • "B.O. Theo"
  • "Lynn-Secure"
  • "Security Blanket Hank"
  • "Pierre Pressure"
  • "Online Shamin" Damon"
  • "Self-Care Claire"
  • "Panicky Paul"
  • "Nervous Nellie"
  • "Worry Murray"
  • "Accountability Billy"
  • "Unpopular Parker"
  • "Buried Emotion Emma" (possibly, he states that he is mad at her meaning he might have gotten rid of her)

In addition to these tools, he also has many inspirational posters around his office including:

  • "Hop on the Self Es-STEAM Boat"
  • "Don"t Forget Your RESPECT-ACLES"
  • "Breach for the Stars"
  • "The best ELF is Your S-ELF"
  • "SMILE, it works"
  • "If you don"t study YOU SHALL NOT PASS"
  • "Be an independent thinker NOT A STINKER"

In "Spaghetti Western and Meatballs," he creates a conflict resolution system known as ABS. The eponymous acronym stands for:

A - access your feelings,

B - be apologetic &

S - slap it (a high five).

In "Synchronized Swimming," Louise convinces him that he created an independent study after allowing the kids to do synchronised swimming instead of PE. He becomes confident that his 'idea' will catch on, but the school board later 'kills' it after the kids performance fails to impress them.

In "The Runway Club," he integrates his favorite pastime, knitting, into a new program he calls "Scared Fabulous" in an attempt to satisfy the students in detention after hearing that the argument that led to their punishment was about fashion. The program is essentially a fashion competition between the students which Principal Spoors hates.

Relationships[]

Family[]

His Mom[]

Frond's mother first shows up in "Thelma & Louise Except Thelma is Linda," where he takes her to the podiatrist and to Wonder Wharf after he catches a glimpse of Louise. Gayle mentions that he is visiting his aunt for Thanksgiving in "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled." In "A Few 'Gurt Men," Ms. Selbo reveals that Mr. Frond gets a call from his mother to the front office at Wagstaff School everyday.

Love Interests[]

Madeline Greenberg[]

In "Carpe Museum," he takes an interest in museum director, Madeline Greenberg. Eventually, he gives her his phone number after finding out she wants to be asked out by him.

Gayle Genarro[]

In "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled," it is revealed that he and Gayle are dating, when Gayle spends the holiday worried that he has dumped her. The true reveal of this information, however, is in "The Cook, The Steve, The Gayle, & Her Lover" when Gayle goes on a 2nd date with Phillip and an enraged Louise devises a scheme to break them up. Despite her initial anger at the match, Louise helps get Gayle and Frond together, and they end the night making out in the Belcher's hallway.

In "Lice Things Are Lice," It is implied that Frond may be dating someone else now, as he mentions a date he has that night to avoid getting shaved, and when asked by Tina if it is someone other than her aunt Gayle, he responds 'maybe.' Nothing is mentioned about his relationship with Gayle in her next appearance in "There's No Business Like Mr. Business Business."

Cassie[]

As of "Crystal Mess," he is now dating a woman called Cassie.

Friends[]

Mr. Frond is in the same quilting circle as Edith Cranwinkle & Lillian ("Bobby Driver").

Acquaintances[]

The Belchers[]

Generally speaking, he has a strained relationship with all of the members of the Belcher Family. In particular, he often comes into conflict with Louise and Bob. Linda often comes to blows with how he treats her kids and often thinks he's boring and causes more harm then good. Frond finds Linda annoying and dislikes working with her because of it. Of all the Belchers, Mr. Frond generally seems to get along best with Tina, as Tina's the least likely to get into trouble and rarely talks back to him. He respects her dedication to her hall monitor duties and usually treats her with the most amount of empathy and respect. Despite this, Tina has said that for the most part, Frond is "usually awful." However, despite all of their mutual dislike of the other, the Belchers have been shown to have some level of respect for Frond on occasion.

Coworkers[]

His coworkers have multiple social gatherings outside of school but don't appear to invite Frond to any of them. Ms. LaBonz, Mr. Ambrose, and Mr. Branca have "Martini Tuesdays" that they try to hide from Frond because of his persistency despite abstaining from alcohol and telling them he's concerned about their drinking.

Ms. LaBonz[]

Mr. Ambrose[]

Mr. Ambrose doesn't like Mr. Frond and has personally said that nobody likes him ("A Few 'Gurt Men").

Mr. Branca[]

Mr. Branca seems to like Mr. Frond the most out of all his coworkers or at least dislikes him the least. The janitor believes that Mr. Frond is cute and endearing because of how uncoordinated he is ("Mother Daughter Laser Razor"). Branca also emailed him a recipe for the "ultimate cinnamon rolls" ("Y Tu Tina También").

Principal Spoors[]

Mr. Frond frequently attempts to get approval for his plans from Principal Spoors, often barricading him with emails or messages. Spoors mostly ignores Mr. Frond and seems to find him annoying, at one point even attempting to replace him with his brother-in-law, Don ("The Fresh Princ-ipal").

Wagstaff Students[]

Jimmy Pesto, Jr.[]

Zeke[]

Tammy Larsen[]

Jocelyn[]

Pets[]

In numerous episodes, Frond is said to have cats. In "Mother Author Laser Pointer," Mr. Frond’s cat, Dr. Bojangles, is brought to school, as he needs allergy medication every three hours. Mr. Frond has supposedely done this multiple times.

Appearances[]

Appearances for Seasons 1-8
Season 1 (3/13)
"Human Flesh" "Crawl Space" "Sacred Cow" "Sexy Dance Fighting" "Hamburger Dinner Theater" "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?" "Bed & Breakfast" "Art Crawl" "Spaghetti Western and Meatballs" "Burger War"
Absent Appears Absent Absent Absent Absent Absent Absent Appears Absent
"Weekend at Mort's" "Lobsterfest" "Torpedo"
Absent Appears Absent
Season 2 (3/9)
"The Belchies" "Bob Day Afternoon" "Synchronized Swimming" "Burgerboss" "Food Truckin'" "Dr. Yap" "Moody Foodie" "Bad Tina" "Beefsquatch"
Absent Appears Appears Absent Absent Absent Absent Appears Absent
Appearances for Seasons 9-15

Season 14[]

Other (2/4)
"The Demo" "Bored" My Butt Has a Fever The Bob's Burgers Movie
Absent Absent Appears Appears

References[]

  1. s9e15 "The Fresh Princ-ipal" Principal Spoors hires Don to replace Mr. Frond, but as acting-principal-for-a-day, Louise scares Don away and rehires Mr. Frond before the end of her shift.
  2. s5e8 "Midday Run" Mr. Frond demonstrates how he's able to promote and fire the hall monitors, particularly Tina.
  3. s6e14 "The Hormone-iums"
  4. s9e14 "Every Which Way but Goose" Mr. Frond chooses Tina's theme for the eighth-grade dance. He also keeps reminding her to attend the committee meetings, suggesting he's in charge of it.
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