Groundskeeper Willie
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| The Simpsons character | |
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| Groundskeeper Willie | |
| Age | 53 |
|---|---|
| Gender | Male |
| Hair color | Red |
| Job | Groundskeeper at Springfield Elementary School |
| Relatives | Cousin: Gravedigger Billy Parents: Both unnamed |
| First appearance | Principal Charming |
| Voice actor | Dan Castellaneta |
Groundskeeper Willie (a.k.a. G. K. Willington, Esq.) is a fictional character on The Simpsons, voiced by Dan Castellaneta. He is head groundskeeper at Springfield Elementary School.
Willie is a Scottish immigrant, and immensely proud of his homeland. He is easily identifiable by his flaming red hair and beard, as well as his exaggerated Scottish accent. His alias was invented by Lisa Simpson in episode My Fair Laddy from season 17.
Willie is a stereotypical Highland Scot, and The Times reported in late 2005 that "he is the most instantly recognizable Scot in the world: better known than Billy Connolly or Ewan McGregor, even Sean Connery". The same article quotes Simpsons creator Matt Groening as saying "We wanted to create a school janitor that was filled with rage, sort of our tribute to angry janitors all over the world".
According to an issue of Simpsons Comics, his full name is William MacMoran; the facts mentioned in comics or trading cards are not canonical, and in any case Willie reveals that he does not have a second name in My Fair Laddy.
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[edit] First Appearance
Willie made his first appearance in the season 2 episode Principal Charming. Originally, the character was just written as an angry janitor and Dan Castellaneta was assigned to do the voice. According to the DVD commentary for the episode, Castellaneta first tried using a Spanish voice, which the writers felt was too clichéd. He then tried an angry Swede, which also rejected. Finally, he used an angry Scotsman, which was deemed appropriate enough and was used in the episode. Originally thought by the producers to be a one-shot appearance, Willie has since become a common recurring character.
[edit] Willie's roots
In many ways, Willie is an unpleasant, though harmless character. He has claimed to originate from several different places in Scotland (including, but not limited to: Glasgow, Loch Ness and "North Kilt-town"), and frequently gives contradictory accounts of his past life before arriving in Springfield. A darker side to Willie emerges when Homer Simpson hires a private investigator to spy on Lisa, who, on seeing Willie, remarks on his resemblance to "The Aberdeen Strangler", at which Willie nervously gulps and scurries away. Willie apparently ran over a kid with a lawnmower once, as hinted in an episode when he runs over a red dodgeball, mistakes the pieces of the ball for blood, and says, "Oh no! I've shredded a child! Again!"[citation needed]
Willie has been seen to instigate a soccer riot with some previously unseen Scottish friends. He has also betrayed Milhouse Van Houten by allowing the boy to confide in him, and then donning his distinctive spectacles and performing unkind impressions of him behind his back, much to the merriment of the school staff. One of Lisa's main motivations for doing well at school is so that she does not end up like Willie.
Willie claims to be deaf from a mishap with a boiler and reads lips (though somewhat unsuccessfully). He has also revealed that he wears contact lenses and has crippling arthritis in his index fingers, which he got from "space invaders" in 1977. When Chief Wiggum told Willie that Space Invaders was an addictive game, Willie looked surprised and said, "video game?" In The President Wore Pearls, Superintendent Chalmers referred to Willie as "an escaped mental patient".
Willie, along with the members of the Van Houten family, is one of the few Springfield residents who actually has eyebrows; moreover, he is one of the only two characters to have synophrys, the other being Maggie Simpson's rival, Baby Gerald - 'the baby with one eyebrow'.
Willie, along with several other Springfielders, was originally an illegal alien who stood to be deported once "Proposition 24" was passed. All of the illegal immigrants except him succeeded in getting their citizenship before the Proposition was approved, and he was its only victim. Of course, he is seen back in Springfield in later episodes.
[edit] Life goals
Willie's limited ambitions in life are beautifully captured in one episode. We see a sleeping Willie snoring in his cold and empty shack with an empty whisky bottle next to him. We then see that the "real" Willie is actually sleeping in a puddle next to a bottle of turpentine, dreaming of the above scenario. He also dreams of one day owning a "crystal slop bucket" for his mop.
In a later episode, Lisa made Willie into a refined gentleman, getting him a new job as maitre d' at the snooty and exclusive restaurant "The Gilded Truffle". Willie was miserable in his refined role, and realized he was happier as a janitor. This suggests that Willie's job as a custodian does not seem to bother him, and it is likely that he is simply a naturally angry man, possibly playing into the stereotype of Scots being fiery-tempered and quick to anger.
He also has been saving up generic grease in the school for his retirement. He aptly names it his "retirement grease".
[edit] Willie's role
His years of heavy work have given him amazing strength and a very muscular physique, which has been observed many times; for example, he rescues Bart from a marauding timber wolf by wrestling it into submission.
[edit] Springfield Elementary
Bart is more than willing to make Willie the butt of frequent jokes. Girly Edition, which involved creamed corn and a pump, actually destroyed Willie's tarpaper shack on the edge of campus and broke his leg; Willie sought a violent revenge, but Lisa smoothed things over.
For the most part, Willie gets very little respect from anyone. Principal Skinner attempted to punish Nelson for theft by getting him to perform what he refers to as the most degrading task ever, janitorial work. Willie expresses that he is right there listening. Nelson has also taken shots at Willie, using a rake to launch a beehive at Willie yelling, "Hey Willie, catch the football!" Willie apparently believed it was a football until the last minute.
According to Superintendent Chalmers, Willie is an escaped patient from a mental hospital that Principal Skinner hired. According to Willie, he has worked at the school for 20 years, just as long as Principal Skinner, so he was likely hired soon after Skinner began his job. Skinner even once made Willie the village idiot at the school's Medieval Festival, and was forced to sit in a small raised cage where the children would continuously throw tomatoes at him; Willie then got his revenge by putting swarms of rats in the pool-sized pie the children almost ate.
In another episode Willie was asked by Skinner what he had done in the summer vacation and he replied that he had made a fortune building a software company but blew it all at the track.
[edit] Community involvement
Sometimes Willie wears a kilt, usually due to a formal occasions; a true Scotsman, he does not wear anything underneath. At Scotchtoberfest, Bart attaches a number of balloons to Willie's kilt, which leads to the kilt flying up. The gathered crowd gasps and a woman faints. In response, Willie cried, "Ach! 'Tis no more than what God gave you, you puritan pukes!" (a reference to the song "The Scotsman", by Bryan Bowers). In the second part of Who Shot Mr. Burns?, Willie has his kilt on while being interviewed by the police. During the interview Willie uncrosses and then recrosses his legs. In response, the officers point a gun at Willie with a warning to stop doing that. The scene was a grotesque spoof of Sharon Stone's character's interrogation scene in Basic Instinct.
[edit] Family issues
[edit] Parents
In the episode Monty Can't Buy Me Love, Willie is re-united with his mother and father on the banks of Loch Ness in Scotland (although it is revealed in an earlier episode that Willies parents are in fact dead) where Mr. Burns leads a successful expedition to catch the Loch Ness Monster and bring it to Springfield. Willie tells Homer Simpson that his parents own a pub which still has the same pool table on which he was conceived, born, and educated. This is somewhat of a contradiction to another episode that Willie claims that he hails from a seemingly stereotypical and made up city called "North Kilt-town". This was named by Homer as a ruse to avert Willie's attention.
However, in the episode I Love Lisa, Willie says his father was hanged for stealing a pig, and in the first part of Who Shot Mr. Burns? he states that his father's body was thrown in the bog, instead of receiving a proper burial. Willie has come from a long line of underachievers as shown in the episode My Fair Laddy when he reveals his grandfather's job was to check the safety of mines before the canary was sent down.
[edit] Acquaintances
At one time, Willie was engaged to Sherry Bobbins mentioned in "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious" (a parody of Mary Poppins), until she recovered her eyesight—at which point, in Willie's words, "suddenly the ugliest man in Glasgow wasn't good enough for her anymore."
[edit] Lookalikes
Willie has an older cousin named Gravedigger Billy. At the elementary school in the adjacent town of Shelbyville, there is a female groundskeeper who strongly resembles Willie. Willie's archenemy is Seamus, another groundskeeper that speaks with a heavy Irish accent. The two blame each other for whatever goes wrong with their lives, and engage in fistfights every now and then. Seamus resembles Willie, except that he is taller, thinner, and wears a hat.
[edit] Personal issues
Perhaps Willie's oddest piece of history was that he has apparently died before. When talking to Skinner and Chalmers about a strike, he says that he and a group of miners went on strike because they wanted little lights on their hats. He then tells that there was a horrible mine collapse and that "... nobody made it out. Not even Willie!" at which point he nervously looks around the room.
[edit] Life as a Scotsman
Willie's nationality is also hinted to be the cause of his hostility. An example from the episode Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore:
- Willie: "Brothers and sisters are natural born enemies! Like Englishmen and Scots! Or Welshmen and Scots! Or Japanese and Scots! Or Scots and other Scots! Damned Scots! They ruined Scotland!"
- Skinner: "You Scots sure are a contentious people."
- Willie: "You just made an enemy for life!"
In Lard of the Dance Homer pretends to be a Scot to distract Willie. When Homer claims to hail from "North Kilt-town", Willie responds, "No foolin'!? I'm from North Kilt-town! D'ye know Angus McLeod?". This goes on until Homer accuses Willie of not being Scottish and makes a mess of the situation with his ignorance by saying, "Wait a minute. There's no Angus McLeod from North Kilt-town. Why, you're not from Scotland at all!". At that point, Willie realizes what Homer is up to and, enraged, physically attacks Homer, accusing him of stealing his "retirement grease". In this episode he is also seen cleaning himself with Ajax and Brillo pads.
[edit] Hobbies and vices
Willie's hobbies include ultimate frisbee and videotaping couples in cars, something which proves to the benefit of Homer Simpson when he is later wrongfully accused of sexual harassment. He says America thinks it's wrong but "every single Scottish person does it!". He also appears to enjoy taking part in football riots, as in "The Cartridge Family" he says, "They call this a football riot? Let's take 'em to school, lads!"
Willie has made a sculpture out of children's lost retainers. He gives this to Marge, who tries not to look disgusted before getting rid of it.
He may also be a supporter of Aberdeen F.C. as he is heard while asleep exclaiming "Go Aberdeen!".
[edit] Quotes and special appearances
One of his best-known quotes is "There's nary an animal alive that can outrun a greased Scotsman!". He was also responsible for labeling the French as "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys!", which was referred to in the Stephen Clarke novel A Year in the Merde. Additionally, he has educated others on the role of various forms of Scottish dress: "Now the kilt was only for day-to-day wear. In battle we donned a full-length gown covered in sequins. The idea was to blind the opponent with luxury!"
Willie has since appeared in many episodes but only as a minor character, usually with a few lines of dialogue per episode. He was featured prominently in the Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace segment in Treehouse of Horror VI, in which he is portrayed as a parody of Freddy Krueger. Willie had a large role in Treehouse of Horror V in which he was killed by an axe in every segment. He would also figure prominently in the season 9 episodes The Joy of Sect and Girly Edition, season 10's Monty Can't Buy Me Love (in which he, Homer and Mr. Burns go to Scotland and we meet his family) and the season 15 episode The President Wore Pearls. It would not be until Season 17's My Fair Laddy that he would finally be central to an episode.
[edit] Trivia
- Despite being a fictional character, Groundskeeper Willie came eighth in The Glasgow Herald's 2003 poll, The Most Scottish Person in the World.
- In Bart: Son of Homer Willie was in a band called "The Weasels" and were very sucsessful.
- He got offered a job to be Chewbacca in Star Wars.
[edit] External links
- The strange world of Oor grown-up Wullie
- Dan Castellaneta at the Internet Movie Database
- SNPP.com - a Simpsons fansite
