Bill Murphy

## William Murphy

**William “Bill” Murphy** is one of the two tritagonists (alongside Maureen) of ***F is for Family***. He is the red-haired son of Frank and Sue Murphy. He is a foul-mouthed young man who lives with the fear of being harassed by resident bully Jimmy Fitzsimmons, until they later become friends. Although Bill shortly after must deal with the fear of being harassed by Bridget Fitzsimmons.

Bill is voiced by American singer Haley Reinhart.

## Biography

Bill was born in 1962, three years after his older brother, Kevin.

Bill was often terrorized by his neighbor, Jimmy Fitzsimmons, who once chased him up a tree and shot at him with a BB gun.

Bill's next encounter with Jimmy is on Halloween. On the way home from school, Jimmy emerges and threatens to beat up Bill and his friend Phillip if he catches them out trick-or-treating. After nearly an entire night of moping and watching the festivities from his window, Bill calls up Phillip and convinces him they should go out anyways, as Jimmy probably wouldn't even spot them in the dark.

Jimmy and the others ambush Bill immediately, delivering a merciless beating as neighborhood children gather around to gawk and cheer. Bill manages to sneak off back inside, where he breaks down in tears.

As revenge for this incident, Bill sucker punches Jimmy at school. This causes a fight, which Maureen intercepts, and Bill gets suspended. Maureen's involvement causes the bullying of Bill to become worse, being seen by everybody at school as a pussy. Maureen takes full advantage of Bill helping him hide the suspension notice by blackmailing and relentlessly emotionally torturing Bill throughout the episode. Finally, he decides he's had enough and needs to stand up for himself. He goes into the woods to find Jimmy, demanding a fight. He takes a firework from Jimmy's clubhouse in an attempt to get his attention but winds up causing a massive forest fire.

After his dad was fired and had to take another job, he began to get ignored as both his parents were working. Frank breaking a promise to take Bill to his hockey tryouts sends him over the edge, and he begins to engage in risky and cruel behavior such as stealing, skipping restaurant bills, and becoming a bully to his friend, Phillip. He sees the error of his ways with a little bit of help from his sister, and he and Phillip devise a plan to rid themselves of Jimmy Fitzsimmons. The plan goes horribly wrong, however, and Jimmy winds up being hit by Randy's van. Phillip, Ben, and Ken run away, but Bill takes Jimmy to the hospital.

Bill briefly dated Jimmy's sister, Bridget Fitzsimmons, but broke up with her as she was abusive and an even worse bully than Jimmy.

When Bill joins the hockey team, Bill sees how Jimmy's father, who is also the couch, treats his son. This causes Bill to feel empathy for Jimmy, and they eventually become friends.

## Personality

Bill appears to be like any other kid, respectful towards others, but being too nice or naive which causes people to take advantage of him (one example being when Maureen forced him to do her bidding to prevent his suspension from being revealed.) He does not like to be thought of as a wimp or a pussy and will stand up for himself on occasion with varying degrees of success.

Being bullied a lot, he seems to have a great fear of others. Frank brings this up when he refers to Bill as a "little pussy who needs to have his back rubbed during war movies". When Jimmy Fitzsimmons bullies him one too many times, he begins to stand up for himself and face any challenge towards him with no hesitation, despite still fearing him. Besides to risk getting beaten up by Jimmy when he refuses to get involved in Jimmy's plot to steal the church's golden chalices.

Bill tends to be traumatized/disassociate if he is exposed to something he can't handle.

* Witnessing the horrors of the stadium bathroom
* Being stuck under his parent's bed as they had sex, causing Bill to get a glimpse of Frank's testicles to his horror.
* Accidentally walking in on Kevin masturbating.
* Watching Scoop Dunbarton die in an explosion.
* Accidentally seeing Julie's vagina after walking into the women's bathroom to find Maureen.
* Witnessing Renee commit suicide.
* Seeing a homeless man defecate in a phone booth.
* His grandfather threatening to hit him.

The second one caused him to throw up at the mention of memory such as at the airport when Frank says Sue is an "absolute animal in the sack" Bill threw up when he said that. As a result of these Psychological Traumas, Bill sometimes has nightmares about them as shown in "Paul Lynde to Block".

Bill seems to be developing anger issues similar to his older brother and Father, mainly stemming from neglect. Bill is very sensitive being called a pussy by anyone and Bill often explodes with anger and loses his temper if someone calls him a pussy. He is a spectacle when really enraged, with his manner leaving others scared.

## Family and Relationships

### Frank Murphy

Frank is Bill's father. Like any child, he is in need of his father's love and approval. Bill is very pleased whenever he can manage to get this, such as when his dad let him watch the fight on TV and have a sip of beer, or when Frank took him out to a football game. Bill is also fearful of his father, which is the reason he didn't want to admit he had broken the new TV. When Bill overheard his dad calls him a pussy, and describe him as overly sensitive and fearful, he became less trusting of what Frank said to his face. Especially when he told Bill to be the man of the house while his parents and Kevin were out. He went to go challenge Jimmy to a fight in order to prove to everyone, including Frank, that he wasn't a pussy. This led to him starting a forest fire, something that left Frank horrified. Bill became trusting of Frank again when he and the rest of the family defended him against the Fitzsimmons on Christmas Eve.

In season 2, Frank was proud of Bill for being responsible and earning money with a paper route, and Bill seemed to appreciate the help his father would give him with customers who didn't want to pay. When Frank began working the night shift as a vending machine stocker however, he started to neglect his family, including Bill. He was especially hurt when Frank couldn't take him to his hockey try-outs. This had a clear effect on Bill, as he began to get angry and act cruelly towards others, including his best friend, Phillip.

In Season 4, Bill's relationship with Frank takes a turn for the worse when Frank neglects his fatherly duties and blames everything on his own father. While out with his grandfather, Bill witnessed a moment when Big Bill was abusive and now understands why Frank became the angry, vindictive man he is today. A series of flashbacks show that Frank was once like Bill (respecting his father, being kind and carefree, having a sensitive side).

### Sue Murphy

Sue is Bill's mother. The two haven't interacted much on screen, but they seem to have a normal mother-son relationship. In a heated argument with Frank, he brought up the fact that Bill is too sensitive because Sue "coddles" him way too much. Bill is also the Murphy kid who takes after Sue the most, as he is kind, soft-spoken, and easy to upset.

### Kevin Murphy

Kevin is Bill's older brother. In the first season, Bill and Kevin share a bedroom and are fairly close to each other. In the first episode, Kevin is shown as being protective of Bill (albeit begrudgingly at times). He leaves his girlfriend to go and save Bill from a group of bullies, and also helps Bill hide the fact that he broke the new TV from their parents. Later, he also takes the fall for breaking it (though Bill tells the truth shortly after). A few episodes later, Kevin helps Bill hide his suspension notice and even forges Frank's signature on it so he won't find out. Although Bill seems to appreciate this help, even when it backfires, he would prefer to be able to stand up for himself rather than have Kevin do it.

During Season 2, Kevin and Bill's fraternal relationship deteriorates when Kevin needs more privacy and Bill steals one of Kevin's records. They fight a lot during this time, with Bill making fun of Kevin in front of his friends and Kevin retaliating by punching him and throwing his hockey stick up a tree. Later when Sue forces them not to talk to each other for the rest of the night, they eventually cool down and tell one another their plans to help the family financially.

In season three, Kevin attempts to save Bill's life when he gets thrown into the river and in season four Bill defends Kevin, confirming Frank did indeed call him a dope.

### Maureen Murphy

He is often put in charge of watching her, and she rarely listens to him. On Saturday, Bloody Saturday he claims "I don't care if you get hurt, but dad does." When she winds up falling off a roof and asks Bill to carry her, it's made clear that he really does care about her. In general, Maureen and Bill tend to fight a lot. Such as Bill flicking cereal at her, or Maureen pouring syrup on his hair. Despite her teasing, Maureen will sometimes offer good advice to Bill, such as apologizing to Phillip.

### Big Bill Murphy

When Bill met Big Bill for the first time, he was happy to discover he had another grandfather. Soon enough, Bill and the rest of his siblings came to respect Big Bill. He doesn't understand why Frank is so hateful towards his father and comes to prefer Big Bill, since he seems to be more reliable and loving on the surface.

One day Big Bill offered to take Bill out to lunch before his hockey game. On the way, he stops to buy Bill new hockey skates as a gift. At first, Bill is excited, but when Big Bill meets up with his old friends in the store they carry on for a very long time. Eventually, Bill asks his grandfather if they can go because he's hungry. This interruption irrates Big Bill. He berates and insults Bill, which causes him to walk into a baseball bat display and knock it over. When this happens, Big Bill threatens to hit him which scares Bill and causes him to see his grandfather the same way Frank does.

During Maureen's play, Bill, like everyone else, witnessed Frank punching his grandfather in the face. Later, he confronts Big Bill about this incident and tells him it was his fault and that he instigated the fight.

### Phillip Bonfiglio

Phillip is a boy in Bill's class, and his best friend. Bill and Phillip are both wimpy and appear to be social outcasts among their peers. They are both fans of the cartoon *Nickel and Pickle* and both fear local bully, Jimmy Fitzsimmons. Bill's friendship with Phillip temporarily became strained when Bill became a much more rude and rebellious person. Luckily, they made up after Jimmy Fitzsimmons returns from Catholic Military School.

### Jimmy Fitzsimmons

Jimmy Fitzsimmons is Bill's bully who enjoys tormenting him, making Bill fear him. Jimmy beats him ruthlessly on Halloween, and once shot at him with a BB gun. For obvious reasons, Bill does not like Jimmy at all. He was fearful of him, though, after the Halloween incident, he was after revenge. Despite this, when Bill was forced by his dad to be an altar boy with Jimmy, Bill tried to remain on friendly terms with him. Although it started off fine due to Jimmy respecting Bill's recent courage towards his bullying, this proved difficult as Jimmy kept pressuring Bill into doing things he didn't want to, such as stealing from the church. Jimmy is scared of Bill's brother, Kevin, his mother Sue, and Bill's boss Randy.

By Season 2, Bill decides he doesn't want to be Jimmy's victim and had no problem throwing Jimmy under the bus when he stole a hockey stick. This caused Jimmy to be sent to military school, giving Bill more confidence without him around. When he returns, he finds out Bill was responsible for sending him there, threatening to kill him over this. In spite of their animosity towards one another, Bill still helped Jimmy out by taking him to the hospital when he was the victim of a hit and run by Bill's boss, Randy.

In Season 3, it looks like at first Jimmy had reverted back towards his Bullying ways , but later in the season, this would be proven wrong. Jimmy seems to be nicer to Bill and sees him as a Friend. He even goes so far as to tell Bill to stay away from his sister because she's more of a psycho than him and their father put together.

In season 4, we see that Jimmy still considers Bill a friend, even calling him his best friend at one point. He grows to resent Bill when his dad pays more attention to Bill, but Bill gets intentionally sidelined in order to let Jimmy regain his rat reputation in his dad's eyes.

### Girls

In season 2, Bill began to show an interest in girls romantically. This was first shown when Bill was making fun of Kevin in front of his friends, he blushes when Claire laughs and tells him he's funny. Later on, in the season, he stops to stare at Cutie Pie, along with Kevin, as she kisses Vic. Like with Claire, he seems infatuated with her.

At the end of Season 2, he makes a fool of himself in front of Bridget Fitzsimmons, showing an instant attraction to her as well. This is the first girl his own age Bill has shown interest in, and it's hinted he has a crush on her. During Season 3, Bill and Bridget begin to date, but she eventually proves to be even more aggressive than her brother and he can't break up with her for this reason. As pointed out by Kevin and Maureen, Bill and Bridget's relationship is similar to Frank and Sue's marriage. When they try to run away together, she abandons him at the last second.

By the next school year, Bill is over Bridget and rejects her attempts to get back with him.

## Extracurricular Activities

* Hockey
* Shop Class

## Trivia

* Bill’s character is based on Bill Burr, producer of the show and the voice of Frank.
* Despite being a well-behaved kid, Bill is often the one who Frank threatens to put through a wall, presumably due to Bill always getting caught doing something bad or even at the right place at the wrong time.
* Bill was born prematurely as Frank stated that Bill "Came Early" and that he looked like 'a shaved guinea pig without ears'.
* His eyes are revealed to be green when we see his eye in extreme close-up during his traumatized state in The Trough.
* He gets his red hair from his paternal grandfather, William Murphy.
* He is often used as the scapegoat of the family.
* Bill shares the same name as his grandfather, William "Big Bill" Murphy. This is due to the fact that Sue named him (Frank never told her that William is his father's name).

## Quotes

* "It was an accident"
* "I love Halloween. It's like Christmas for kids."
* "I am not a Pussy! I hate you! I hate this whole family!"
* "What kind of a Dildo fucks his hand?"
* "Leave us alone, you monkey-earred asshole!"
* "Smart one, Kevin. Did you learn that in fuckhead class?"
* "Hey Kevin! Wanna watch cartoons? Oh, that's right. Today's your first day of dumber school!"
* "Nice try, Psycho. Nobody flicks the rat's dick but me."

## Gallery

Bill as an altar boy with Jimmy Fitzsimmons"Fucking Asshole!"Bill vomits thinking about Frank and Sue having sex