Ned Flanders Is a Metal God

There’s a metal band called Okilly Dokilly devoted to Ned Flanders. They made White Wine Spritzer as a hymn to his wholesomeness. This is real.

Everyone hates Ned Flanders. He’s aggressively, relentlessly good - the cardigan, the church, the diddly-diddly voice. He exists to show you that you’re not living right, and you resent him for it.

But The Simpsons needs him. Without Ned there’s no balance to Homer’s chaos, no straight man to push against. He’s the still point that makes everything else work. Everyone hates him and he’s indispensable.

Which is why a metal band took him as a deity. Metal worships what everyone respects by treating it wrong, or treating it so sincerely it loops back into truth. Ned is perfect - the most uptight, Christian, boring guy alive becomes a metal god. You sing about him seriously and the joke folds into something earnest.

Maybe you understand him better this way. The character everyone despises becomes somebody’s perfect god, and there’s something honest in that.