Cletus Spuckler
Cletus Spuckler
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Character Information
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Cletus Del Roy Spuckler, (voiced by Hank Azaria), also known as Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel is a stereotypical hillbilly/redneck, though usually good-natured, he is thin, has brown hair in an indeterminate style but shaved in the back, a meager attempt at a moustache, and several fewer teeth than even the average Springfield resident. He is nearly always depicted wearing a white tank top or "wifebeater" which exposes a tattoo of a snake and skull on his left arm.
Role in the Simpsons
Cletus was introduced in an episode of season five, "Bart Gets an Elephant", in which he is shown as one of the "slack-jawed yokels" gawking at Bart's elephant Stampy. (Cletus' voice is slightly deeper in this initial appearance than in later episodes.) He, like Captain Horatio McCallister before him, was the go-to character for a quick laugh on the show, and is a staff favorite. As he was once introduced in song in "22 Short Films About Springfield", accompanied by bluegrass-style banjo music and a follow-the-bouncing-ball:
- Some folk'll never eat a skunk
- and then again some folk'll,
- like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel!
After a short vignette featuring Cletus was shown, there was a closing verse:
- Most folk'll never lose a toe
- and then again some folk'll,
- like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel!
More recently, Cletus has apparently suffered from some sort of illness caused by his drinking the mercury out of a thermometer. It has badly affected his memory, but he now whittles what he observes in wood, with a penknife. Chief Wiggum was able to track down Bart after his unintentional escape from jail through Cletus' wood carving of Bart and Gina Vendetti. Cletus also claimed that he possessed precognitive vision ("sometimes I whittles the future"), and indeed his prophetic wood carving of Wiggum being savaged by a bear was fulfilled later in the episode.
Relationship with/to Brandine
Cletus has an ongoing relationship with Brandine, who is generally represented as either his girlfriend or his wife, although the nature of their exact relationship is somewhat vague. It is often implied that the two are siblings (for instance, in "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily" at an auto racing event, Brandine remarks "Dang, Cletus! Why'd you have to park so close to my parents?" to which Cletus responds, "Now honey, they's mah parents too!"). This plays into the stereotype that incest is prevalent among hillbillies/rednecks.
In the Season 16 episode, "There's Something About Marrying", Homer (ordained over the Internet as a minister) is preparing to marry Cletus and Brandine. Looking at a form, he asks "Wait a minute… are you two brother and sister?" Brandine coyly replies, "We's all kindsa thangs." To complicate the issue further, Brandine remarks to Cletus in another episode ("The Italian Bob") "Yer tha best husband – and son – I've ever had." If all this is correct it is to be assumed that "Maw" is his stepmother and Brandine is his natural mother, his father being Brandine's father making him her half-brother and son. Further confusing matters, the episode "Little Big Girl" features a hand-drawn family tree created by one of Cletus' sons. According to this diagram, Brandine is the child of Cletus and an alien. Cletus and Brandine have thirty-nine children, one being a sheep and another being a walking hot dog.
Children
Cletus seems to be the father of a large number of children: when he presents Marge with 300 coupons for free pretzels from her pretzel business, he calls out to "Tiffany, Heather, Cody, Dylan, Dermot, Jordan, Taylor, Brittany, Wesley, Rumer, Scout, Cassidy, Zoe, Chloe, Max, Hunter, Kendall, Caitlin, Noah, Sasha, Morgan, Kyra, Ian, Lauren, Q-Bert, and Phil".
Cletus and Brandine also have a daughter named Condoleezza Marie, who was somehow switched with a bag of sugar that Homer was carrying as part of a parenting exercise, and a daughter named Rubella Scabies, whose middle name was inspired by a word spelled by Lisa in her audition for the annual spelling bee. They have another daughter, Gummy Sue, introduced in "Helter Shelter". In the episode "Lost Our Lisa", Lisa encounters Cletus gathering up roadkill for a hillbilly wedding feast. In the short dialogue that ensues, Brandine is implied to be giving birth to a new child in the truck's cab.
In a "Treehouse of Horrors" issue of Simpsons Comics, Brandine (off-panel) is attempting to give birth to a child to completely fill out a set of Seven Dwarfs costumes. The episode "Yokel Chords" features seven Spuckler children, named Birthday, Crystal Meth, Dubya, Incest, International Harvester, Jitney, and Witney, as central characters. However, Brandine reveals that Cletus is the father of only two of these children (casting doubt on the paternity of the other children of the Spuckler household). In one episode Brandine was seen to give birth in a car, apparently with very little pain, and asking Cletus to cut the "Umbrellical cord."
Last name
Cletus' family name is "Spuckler"; in the episode "Sweets and Sour Marge", Cletus signs this as his name (in surprisingly elegant cursive, which is reminiscent of the signature of John Hancock) to Marge's petition to ban sugar from Springfield, and in "Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens, and Gays" his name is given as "Cletus Spuckler" in a news report. A mailbox standing outside Cletus' shack in the video game The Simpsons: Hit and Run reads "Spuckler". But his last name was given as "Del Roy" in the episode "Behind the Laughter". In "All's Fair in Oven War", Brandine (his child-bearing partner)'s surname is said to be "Nolastnamegiven". In "Yokel Chords" Brandine refers to him as Cletus Del Roy Spuckler, implying that Del Roy is his middle name.
