Jimmy Five (originally Cebolinha – which means both chives and the diminutive for onion, in Portuguese) is one of Monica's Gang main characters. He was created in 1960, and currently has his own printed comic strips, called Cebolinha, which were first released in 1973.[1] His English name is Jimmy Five due to his hair composed of only five strands.
Mauricio de Sousa, creator of Monica's Gang, says he based the character on a child he knew while growing up in Mogi das Cruzes.[2] Jimmy's family name is "Cebola" (Onion in Portuguese) , and he has a little baby sister called Mary Angela (in Portuguese, Maria Cebolinha, after her brother's name), also based on a real person.[3]
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Jimmy Five is incapable of pronouncing the sound of the r letter, replacing it with the letter l, in the Portuguese comics, or with the letter w, in the English version. When the letter is used in the end of a word, however, he pronounces it normally (as in "car" or "freezer" - or... "fweezer"). He is also the youngest of the core cast (Smudge, Monica, Maggy, and Jimmy). The others are all seven years old, while he is six.
Out of the main cast of Monica's Gang he is the only one to regularly wear shoes (when barefoot, he is also one of the rare characters to be shown with toes). He often complains and despairs over his main physical feature - his lack of any hair other than five single strands. His madcap attempts to rectify this often causes him (and those around him) a great deal of grief. He was originally drawn with a full head of hair, which often becomes a topic in his laments to the comic artist to "help him out" and restore his full head of hair.
He is always plotting to steal either Samson or the title of "owner of the street" from Monica with his "infallible plans" (which were initially created by Specs), which always end in failure, mostly because Smudge (his best friend) accidentally reveals to Monica that she's in a trap. On some stories he gathers the other boys of the gang just to pick on Monica. His "eneminity" spawns from two points: the first being his secret crush on her, and the secondbeing that he was originally the main character of the gang until she came along and (quite literally) beat him to the curb.
In some earlier stories, he devised background plans to find out the secret of her strength, but he always ended up beaten solely by her. Even with these frictions, Jimmy and Monica are still friends to each other. In the futuristic special edition stories, they are often portrayed as married or dating each other. Indeed, in Monica Teen, they are seen kissing.[4]
It was once revealed that Jimmy is not the first one in his family to have his famous speech impediment and that it caused all his relatives (minus his father) to believe he will never be able to pronounce 'r'. However, this is disproven in the Monica Teen stories, where he is said to take up phonoaudiology sessions to correct his speech impediment;[4] however, he reverts to mispronounciation when under stress or close to girls (especially Monica).<refname="News at G1"/>
Whereas his family was always composed of his mother, father and little sister, he once had a little brother, introduced in a 1972 story[5]. Jimmy himself even ended the story asking his readers to send name suggestions to Editora Abril (which published Monica's Gangs' comics at that time), but the toddler ended up disappearing from the stories[5]. Mauricio stated that he simply didn't have time to plan the continuation of the his arrival, and the character was never featured again[5].
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