J. Wellington Wimpy

J. Wellington Wimpy, or just Wimpy, is one of the characters in the long-running comic strip Thimble Theater, and in the Popeye cartoons based upon the strip.

Wimpy was created by newspaper cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar. He became one of the dominant characters in the newspaper strips. When "Popeye" was adapted as an animated cartoon series by Fleischer Studios, Wimpy was made a more minor character; Dave Fleischer said that the character in the Segar comic strips was "too intellectual" to be used in film cartoons. The character was soft-spoken and generally cowardly, or a "wimp", hence his name. According to fellow cartoonist, Bill Mauldin, Wimpy took his name from one of Segar's instructors at the Chicago Art Institute (Wellington J. Reynolds) [Bill Mauldin, "The Brass Ring", New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1972] .

History

Wimpy is Popeye's friend. In the cartoons he mainly plays the role of the "straight man" to Popeye's outbursts and wild antics. Wimpy is very intelligent, and well educated, but very lazy and gluttonous. Wimpy is also something of a scam artist and (especially in the newspaper cartoons) can be shockingly underhanded at times.

Wimpy loves to eat hamburgers, and is usually seen with one (e.g. in "Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor," where he eats burgers almost the entire time) but is usually too cheap to pay for them. A recurring joke is Wimpy's attempts to con other patrons of the diner into buying him his lunch. Wimpy often tries to outwit fellow patrons with his convoluted logic. His famous line, which was first introduced to the cartoons in the 1934 cartoon "We Aim to Please", is "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today". Wimpy had other frequently used lines in the original comic strip, usually invoked to someone or a group of people who are after him for some shenanigan he's pulled. On some occasions, Wimpy tries to placate the angry person or mob by saying "I'd like to invite you over to my house for a duck dinner." The angry person or persons are usually satisfied with that line and Wimpy moves away quickly to a safe distance and yells, "You bring the ducks!", the only one who doesn't grow angry at this is Popeye. Another such line was, "Jones is my name... I'm one of the Jones boys"--an attempt to defuse a hostile situation with a falsified case for mistaken identity.

Other Media

* Wimpy made two appearances in the animated sketch comedy program "Robot Chicken". In the episode The Sack, Wimpy (voiced by Scott Adsit) is shown what the world would be like if he never existed, in a parody of "It's a Wonderful Life". (It turns out that the world would indeed be much better without him.) In the episode Yancy the Yo-Yo Boy, in which a hamburger addicted Wimpy (voiced by Seth Green) faces violent retribution from Popeye after he is unable to "pay him Tuesday for a hamburger today."
* Wimpy made an appearance in the "Family Guy" episode "McStroke", after Peter Griffin had a stroke eating hamburgers.
* World of Warcraft character Topper Mcnab found in Stormwind also repeats Wimpy's famous line "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today".
* Wimpy was featured in Alton Brown's "Good Eats" episode "A Grind is a Terrible Thing to Waste" (Season 2 Episode 8) which featured recipes for hamburgers and meatloaf.

Trivia

* During the Second World War the RAF Wellington bomber was nicknamed the "Wimpy".
* There is a chain of "Wimpy" hamburger restaurants which are named after him, originally launched in the United Kingdom in 1954 by J. Lyons and Co.
* In the 1980 film directed by Robert Altman, Wimpy is played by character actor Paul Dooley.
* The Italian full name for this character is "Poldo Sbaffini"; his 'surname' refers to his scrounging habits.
* Wimpy sometimes goes by the nickname "Wimpy Burgleton".
* The name of Wimpy in Latin America and Spain is "Pilón" (Pestle), which may refer the character's body shape. In Mexican comics he often played second fiddle to Professor O. G. Watasnozzle in short skits in which Watasnozzle would try to convince him to be the test subject for his latest invention.
* A Detroit tavern called "Wimpy's" is located at the corner of East Warren Avenue and Outer Drive. The eatery contains caricatures and other likenesses of the popular character.

External links

* [http://www.popeye.com Official Home Port of Popeye the Sailor and his Friends website]

References