Difference between revisions of "Groundskeeper Willie"

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Groundskeeper Willie, alias G.K. Willington, is the groundskeeper of Springfield Elementary School. Scottish by ancestry, Willie's job is to supervise the children of the School during recess, and clean the halls. He is recognizable with his red hair and Scottish accent. He is often either a formidable enemy or an invaluable ally to Bart and Lisa. Willie is physically muscular and in one episode wrestles and beats an Alaskan timber wolf.

The Groundskeeper, however, is usually a foe. He once befriended Milhouse, then stole his glasses and made fun of him behind his back. He is also often seen yelling at the kids for doing something minor. He often talks about his Scottish past before he came to Springfield, and actually claims to be from many towns in Scotland, including Glasgow, Loch Ness, and North Kiltown.

It seems Willie is homeless and mentally insane, as Skinner hired him after he escaped from an asylum. Nevertheless, Willie gets the job done, whether it may be crawling through vents to retrieve Santa's Little Helper or watching back school video tapes for Lisa's benefit.

Role in The Simpsons

Willie is the groundskeeper at Springfield Elementary School and is a stereotypical angry Scottish man with a thick Scottish accent. In many ways, Willie is an unpleasant, though essentially harmless, character. He has claimed to originate from several different places in Scotland, and frequently gives contradictory accounts of his past life before arriving in Springfield. These contradictions are referenced in "The President Wore Pearls" when Willie tells a story of working at a mine that caved in, saying, "No one made it out alive, not even Willie!" Willie is portrayed as being incompetent and is quick to anger for little or no reason. He has shown great animosity towards both Principal Skinner and Bart Simpson, who is often more than willing to make Willie the butt of his jokes. Willie once told Skinner that he had seen his own father hanged for stealing a pig.

Willie's hobbies include videotaping couples ("Homer Badman") in cars, something which proves to the benefit of Homer Simpson when he is later wrongfully accused of sexual harassment. At one time, Willie was engaged to Sherry Bobbins as mentioned in "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious", until she recovered her eyesight—at which point, in Willie's words, "Suddenly the ugliest man in Glasgow wasn't good enough for her!" Willie was once given the job of teaching Bart Simpson in "On a Clear Day I Can't See My Sister." Lisa had taken a restraining order against Bart, so he couldn't legally go to the same school. Willie became Bart's teacher because, according to Principal Skinner, Willie's shack is the only place on school grounds "outside all laws of Man and God." 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 Alaskan timber wolf by wrestling it into submission. Much like Ned Flanders, though, his physique is unremarkable when he is clothed, and seemingly morphs as soon as he is partially nude.

Groundskeeper Willie has been a regular character since the second season, but has only been central to one episode: season 17's "My Fair Laddy", although he has played minor roles in several episodes, including "Treehouse of Horror V", "Treehouse of Horror VI", "Girly Edition" and "The President Wore Pearls".

Character

Creation

Groundskeeper Willie's first appearance was in the season two episode "Principal Charming". Originally, the character was just written as an angry janitor, and the fact that he was Scottish was added during a recording session. Dan Castellaneta was assigned to do the voice. Castellaneta didn't know what voice to use and Sam Simon, who was directing at the time, told Castellaneta to use an accent. He first tried using a Spanish voice, which Simon felt was too clichéd. He then tried a "big dumb Swede", which was also rejected. For his third try, he used the voice of an angry Scotsman, which was deemed appropriate enough and was used in the episode.^[1] Originally thought by the directors to be a one-shot appearance, Willie has since become a common recurring character.^[2] Matt Groening would later reveal that the character was based on Angus Crock, a kilt-wearing chef from the sketch comedy show Second City Television, who was portrayed by Dave Thomas.^[3]

Development

A recurring joke, which was first shown in "Radio Bart", is that Willie appears to have a pot belly, but whenever he takes off his shirt, he is quite muscular.^[4] One of Willie's trademarks is a gruffly-spoken insulting retort, which take the writers a long time to come up with, although they do not consider them that funny.^[5]

Cultural influence and legacy

Groundskeeper Willie's description of the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"^[6] from the episode "'Round Springfield" has become widely used, particularly in the run-up to the war in Iraq.^[7] The New York Post used the phrase "Surrender Monkeys" as the headline for its December 7, 2006 front page, referring to the Iraq Study Group and its recommendation that U.S. soldiers be withdrawn from Iraq by early 2008.^[8] The line was "most likely" written by Ken Keeler.^[9]

The Times reported in late 2005 that "he is the most instantly recognisable 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".^[10]

In 2006, Groundskeeper Willie would be named the fourth best peripheral character in the history of the show by IGN,^[11] who said "high-points for the character were being trained to be civilized, wrestling a wolf that was let loose in the school and becoming a substitute for the French language teacher - 'Bon jourrr! You cheese-eating surrender monkeys!'" IGN would also name "My Fair Laddy", the only episode which centers around Willie, the best episode of the seventeenth season.^[12] Jim Slotek of Sun Media would call Willie the ninth best Simpsons supporting character, and also made a Top Ten quotes list, which included Willie's quote "Och, back to the loch wi' you, Nessie." from "Selma's Choice".^[13]