Phillip Frond

Bob's Burgers character
Phillip Frond
Gender	Male
Hair	Brown
Age	40-41
Occupation	Wagstaff School Guidance Counselor
Relatives	Unnamed mother; Unnamed aunt
Behind the scenes
First	"Crawl Space"
Voiced by	David Herman

“	I'm a knitter. Not a quitter.	”
	— Mr. Frond

Phillip Frond (more commonly known as Mr. Frond) is the school guidance counselor at Wagstaff School. He first appeared in "Crawl Space". He is voiced by David Herman.

Profile

Appearance

Mr. Frond has wavy brown hair and wears round glasses. He wears a green sweater over a light yellow shirt with a dark yellow neck tie, brown pants and black loafers. He is stout and is 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 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."

Frond also spends much of his time trying to "reform" his students, especially the Belchers, in episodes like "The Runway Club" & "Crawl Space". Mr. Frond is seen throughout the series as trying and failing to be cool in the eyes of his pupils, revealing his belief that the students will not respect him if they knew he was 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 he might not actually be licensed as a guidance counselor in the state where the series takes place.

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".

He had a major role in the episode, "Synchronized Swimming", when the Belcher kids come up with the bogus independent study of synchronized swimming and forge Linda's signature for the papers. Mr. Frond approves of the independent study, unaware that they were exploiting their way out of gym class.

In "The Fresh Princ-ipal", it is revealed that he was to be fired by Principal Spoors and being replaced by Don. Louise, the acting principal in the episode, re-hires him after Don quits due to being unable to cope with the students.

Relationships

Friendships

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

Love Interests

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.

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".

Family

Frond's mother is first seen 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.

Therapy Tools

Mr. Frond uses a vast arsenal of therapy tools which include crisis crayons and therapy puppets such as 'Repressed Memory Emily', 'Distracts-His-Friendzo Lorenzo', 'Portion Control Joel', 'Processily-Cecily', 'B.O. Theo', 'Lynn-Secure', 'Pierre Pressure' & 'Online Shamin' Damon.'

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', '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.

A running theme throughout the series is how he wants to take the world by storm with his stellar and innovative counseling methods (which actually are often just suggested to him by Louise rather than original ideas), much to the annoyance of everyone else, including Principal Spoors and the school board. In "Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl", it's revealed that his dream is to win a Conflicty for conflict resolution.

Trivia

He is a vegetarian ("Crawl Space").
Mr. Frond drives a blue hatchback ("A Few 'Gurt Men").
He used to sell hand-knitted Doctor Who scarves on Etsy until a PBS lawyer sent him a cease and desist letter ("Tweentrepreneurs").
He doesn't drink, but made an exception while on a date with Gayle ("The Cook, the Steve, the Gayle, & Her Lover, Mission Impos-slug-ble").
He is believed to have several cats ("A Few 'Gurt Men"), one is called Dr. Bojangles ("The Cook, The Steve, The Gayle, & Her Lover").
He loves to dance to 90's music ("Mission Impos-slug-ble").
He once undertook a solo vacation to Singapore and brought home seaweed candy ("Full Bars").
According to Gayle, he smells like pencils ("The Cook, The Steve, The Gayle, & Her Lover").
He doesn't drink until Linda makes him drink wine in "The Cook, The Steve, The Gayle, & Her Lover".
It is implied he lives with his mom in "Carpe Museum". They talk on the phone at least once a day ("A Few 'Gurt Men").
He is "shoe twins" with Mr. Dowling, manager at First Oceanside Savings Bank ("Bob Day Afternoon").
He attended Harverdton Community College ("Every Which Way but Goose").
As well as being a guidance counselor, he also has other duties such as overseeing detention, ("Spaghetti Western and Meatballs", "The Runway Club", "Large Brother Where Fart Thou?"), teaching child rearing ("O.T.: The Outside Toilet") and overseeing the Hormone-iums vocal group.
He is a former student of Wagstaff School as shown in a flashback in "Y Tu Ga-Ga Tambien" and in "The Secret Ceramics Room of Secrets" where it was revealed that he was elected seventh grade class secretary after hiding votes for his opponent, Dave Titus, in the secret room. Frond was in seventh grade in 1983, likely being 12 or 13 at the time, suggesting a 1970-71 birthdate. Since the show takes place in the present and most characters remain the same age as they did 2011, he is likely 40 or 41.
He bears a strong resemblance to Michael Bolton, one of the main characters from the 1999 movie Office Space; both characters are played by David Herman.
Mr. Frond is extremely similar to the unnamed instructor in Hank Hill's anger management class in The King of The Hill episode, "The Texas Skillsaw Massacre."
Mr. Frond has the most redesigns in the series with it being 2.
In various situations, he never seems to be on good terms with Wagstaff's Principal Spoors or the Superintendent. In "Synchronized Swimming", the school board cuts independent study. In "The Runway Club", Principal Spoors informs Frond of his disapproval to "Scared Fabulous," warning him not to call on the weekends; he most likely did not have the authority from Principal Spoors to have the kids redo the school's mile run, and in "The Frond Files", he mentions to Bob & Linda how he is on thin ice with the superintendent because his "credentials aren't valid in the state."
Despite claiming to not eat meat in "Crawl Space", he eats spaghetti and meatballs in "Spaghetti Western and Meatballs" and is seen attending lobsterfest in the episode "Lobsterfest".

Quotes

"Call me. If my mother answers, hang up." ("Carpe Museum")
"Come children, follow me into the pit!" ("Y Tu Ga-Ga Tambien")
"Those who forget to learn history are doomed to repeat it, and those who touch history will be suspended for three days." ("Carpe Museum")
“Alright, close that curtain Louise, you are in big trouble.” ("The Quirkducers")
"I will tuck my junk so fast." ("Bob Day Afternoon")
"I will often do divorce counseling for kids whose parents aren't divorced because, you know, I can see who's not going to make it." ("The Cook, the Steve, the Gayle, & Her Lover")

"In the beginning, there was no math. Until one teacher said, 'Hey, what about math?' I think independent study synchronized swimming is the next math." ("Synchronized Swimming")
"This is my tough voice, so when you hear it, you better fear it." ("The Grand Mama-pest Hotel")
"I can help. I am a self-certified counselor after all." ("Bob Day Afternoon")
"I know. It's over. You don't throw up in the bathroom, wipe your mouth on a maxi-pad, and get a third date." ("The Cook, the Steve, the Gayle, & Her Lover")