Created by E. C. Segar | Gender Male Creator E. C. Segar | |
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Voiced by Charles Lawrence (original)Lou Fleischer (1934–1940)Daws Butler (1978)Sanders Whiting (Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy)Maurice LaMarche (currently)William Baldwin (animated film) Movies Popeye, Popeye the Sailor Meets Sin, Popeye's Voyage: The Ques Similar Bluto, Swee'Pea, Olive Oyl, Popeye, Sea Hag | ||
J. Wellington Wimpy, generally referred to as Wimpy, is one of the characters in the long-running comic strip Popeye, created by E. C. Segar in 1934 and originally called Thimble Theatre, and in the Popeye cartoons based upon the strip. Wimpy was one of the dominant characters in the newspaper strip, but when Popeye was adapted as an animated cartoon series by Fleischer Studios, Wimpy became a minor character; Dave Fleischer said that the character in the Segar strip was "too intellectual" to be used in film cartoons. Wimpy did appear in Robert Altman's 1980 live-action musical film Popeye, played by veteran character actor Paul Dooley.
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Inspiration
The character seems to have been inspired by more than one person whom Segar had encountered. Wimpy's personality was based upon that of William Schuchert, the manager of the Chester Opera House where Segar was first employed. "Windy Bill", as he was known, was a pleasant, friendly man, fond of tall tales and hamburgers.
Additional sources suggest that Segar composed the character's name from the names of two other acquaintances. According to fellow cartoonist Bill Mauldin, the name was suggested by that of Wellington J. Reynolds, one of Segar's instructors at the Chicago Art Institute. In a brief 1935 interview in The Daily Oklahoman, H. Hillard Wimpee of Atlanta indicated that he was connected to the character, having worked with Segar at the Chicago Herald-Examiner in 1917. It became a custom in the office that whoever accepted an invitation for a hamburger would pay the bill. According to Wimpee, after seeing the character in the newspaper, he wrote Segar in 1922 about Wimpy, "afraid of being connected with what [Segar] was doing with [the character]." He said Segar replied, "'You haven't seen anything yet.'"
Character
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 soft-spoken, very intelligent, and well educated, but also cowardly, very lazy, overly parsimonious and utterly gluttonous. He is also something of a scam artist and, especially in the newspaper strip, can be notoriously underhanded at times.
Hamburgers are Wimpy's all-time favorite food, and he is usually seen carrying or eating one or more at a time – e.g., in Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor he is seen grinding meat or eating burgers almost the entire time – however, he is usually too cheap to pay for them himself. A recurring joke involves Wimpy's attempts to con other patrons of the diner into buying his meal for him. His best-known catchphrase started in 1931 as, "Cook me up a hamburger. I'll pay you Thursday." In 1932, this then became the famous, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today". The phrase was also slightly altered in the episode "Spree Lunch" to "I'll have a hamburger, for which I will gladly pay you Tuesday." This phrase is now commonly used to illustrate financial irresponsibility and still appears in modern comedies such as The Drew Carey Show and The Office. The initial part of the phrase was even the title of Season 4 Episode 6 of Cheers, "I'll Gladly Pay You Tuesday".
Wimpy had other frequently used lines in the original comic strip. On some occasions, Wimpy tries to placate someone by saying, "I'd like to invite you over to my house for a duck dinner." He then moves away quickly to a safe distance and yells, "You bring the ducks!" Another such line was, "Jones is my name...I'm one of the Jones boys" – an attempt to defuse a hostile situation with a mistaken identity. To deflect an enemy's wrath, he would sometimes indicate a third party and say, "Let's you and him fight", starting a brawl from which he quickly withdrew.