Joe Quimby
Joe Quimby
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Character Information
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Joseph "Joe" Fitzpatrick Fitzgerald Fitzhenry Quimby, a.k.a. "Diamond Joe" Quimby, or simply Mayor Quimby (voiced by Dan Castellaneta), is known for his unusual manner of speaking, commonly separating words with "er" and "er, a", much like President Kennedy. When Kennedy was portrayed in an episode, they shared the same voice.
He has long served as the mayor of the city of Springfield. He appears as a slick, sleazy politician whose only priorities seem to be keeping himself in office, womanizing, and various forms of corruption, including embezzlement of tax money and taking bribes from mobster Fat Tony.
Joe Quimby's name partly comes from NW Quimby Street in Portland, Oregon, the hometown of show creator Matt Groening. The rest of the character's name, as well as his character, is from Portland mobster and chief of police, "Diamond" Jim Purcell.
Quimby is a composite caricature of several of the members of the Kennedy family, who have long been active in American politics. He speaks with a Boston accent, in a style most resembling that of Ted Kennedy. The mayor is apparently a Democrat, like the Kennedys, enjoys sizable wealth, and lives on a coastal estate (the "Quimby compound") with his family—not unlike the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. Quimby is married to a woman who wears a pink suit and pillbox hat similar to one Jacqueline Kennedy made famous. She may be also related to actor Rainier Wolfcastle, who is modeled after Arnold Schwarzenegger (husband of JFK's niece, Maria Shriver); Wolfcastle has been spotted at Quimby family functions. The mayor's nephew, Freddy Quimby, was The Boy Who Knew Too Much tried for assault during which Mayor Quimby tried to bribe witnesses. Mayor Quimby does not get along with local Police Chief Clancy Wiggum. Few other members of the Quimby clan have been specified, although in the episode Treehouse of Horror III Lisa refers to Quimby's brother, Clovis Quimby, as the "beer-swilling" driver who ran over the first Simpson family cat - Snowball I.
He is known to be a womanizer, and to occasionally amuse himself with pornographic playing cards during town meetings. He frequently takes overseas vacations, which take him out of town for extended periods of time, leading to the headline "Mayor Visits City" in the Springfield Shopper. He once referred to Springfield as Springfeld at a public meeting.
Quimby's corrupt personality and love of overseas junkets is perhaps most amusingly highlighted during one episode where he announces that after a three-month "fact-finding mission", he has concluded that it is NOT feasible to build a high-speed rail link between Springfield and the tropical paradise resort of Aruba.
It has been implied on occasion that he is connected to Fat Tony, the local Mafia Don. It is certain that Quimby will bend the law if it suits his purposes: he once arranged Marge Simpson's release after she was arrested for blocking traffic on a bridge after suffering a nervous breakdown, claiming that if she went to jail, Quimby could kiss the "chick vote" goodbye.
Quimby was elected Mayor of Springfield in 1986. He has been re-elected several times since, despite rather open admissions of fraud and wrongdoing. He once admitted to using taxpayer dollars to fund the murder of his enemies, but thanks to a clever use of a popular catch phrase ("I'm a bad wittle boy"), he was re-elected in a landslide. Further evidence of his apparent political ideology, Quimby has earned himself the hatred of Springfield's small but vocal Republican elite, themselves portrayed as mostly dark, ghoulish figures who meet in a castle.
When the party nominated Sideshow Bob as its mayoral candidate, Bob rigged the election, briefly deposing Quimby. He was re-instated when Bob was found guilty of fraud and imprisoned. He also survived a recall election in See Homer Run in 2005, with no candidate in the race against him (candidates included Rainier Wolfcastle (another Schwarzenegger reference), Kent Brockman, and even Homer Simpson) garnering the 5% necessary to force a recall. Quimby also is frequently noticed in bed with the same blonde woman who is illiterate. Quimby himself was once labeled as illiterate by talk radio personality Birch Barlow, as well as "tax-cheating," "wife-swapping," and "pot-smoking." Quimby retorted back towards the radio as he watered his plants, "Hey! I am no longer illiterate." The plant in question appeared to a cannabis plant.
Quimby was once the subject of 27 separate paternity suits; a result, no doubt, of his frequent womanizing. One of the women he allegedly impregnated was Cookie Kwan, who held up a baby remarkably similar to Quimby in both looks and mannerisms. With characteristic evasion, Quimby immediately passed the baby to one of his handlers, instructing him to "Raise the child as your own." Presumably, the paternity suits are still ongoing.
In the episode Lisa's Wedding, set in the future, we find out that Quimby eventually relinquished his position as mayor after being indicted for an unspecified crime (presumably fraud) and ends up being a taxicab driver for Otto's taxi company using the alias "Mohammed Jafar", a likely reference to disgraced former West Virginia Governor William C. Marland's turn as a cabbie in Chicago after leaving office.
His catch phrase is "Vote Quimby", which he always finds an opportunity to say, even during sex. On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart sometimes says this catchphrase after doing an impression of a Kennedy.
In Simpsons Comics #113, Quimby is revealed to have four illegitimate sons who are all at an orphanage. These children have yet to appear in an animated episode.
In the video game The Simpsons Hit and Run, Quimby, when he was faced with a mob angry about mysterious wasp cameras cropping up all over town, he quoted, "These cameras are an outrage! Spying in our women's bathrooms, change rooms and laundry rooms. I think I speak for all Springfield when I say, where is the sexy footage?!"
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