In the television series, The Simpsons, the Wiggum family consist of Clancy (father and police officer), Sarah (mother), and Ralph (child).
Family Members
Ralph
Ralph Wiggum (voiced by Nancy Cartwright), son of Police Chief Wiggum, is a classmate of Lisa Simpson at the Springfield Elementary School. Ralph is a good-hearted child, but has learning and social difficulties, which are evidenced by his tendency to utter hilarious and stupid sayings - such as "I bent my Wookiee" and "I'm going to live with my underground grandma" - throughout the course of the show. Ralph Wiggum is a caricature of a stereotype -- in this case, he is a caricature of the "'special' kid" archetype. Ralph can't understand where the world goes when the drapes are closed, indicating he has the mentality, roughly speaking, of a three-year old. He has a slight crush on Lisa, though her feelings for him are best described as platonic pity.
An often-quoted bit of Ralph wisdom: "That's where I saw the leprechaun... he told me to burn things!!"
It's debatable if he suffers a simple learning disability, is socially awkward or is actually borderline psychotic or a sociopath, as evidenced by his hearing voices (such as the aformentioned pyromaniac leprechaun) or his putting of thumbtacks in a sandwich which his father eats.
One (actually this happens many times) particularly revealing example is a sequence where Ralph's class is doing craft activities, and Miss Hoover tells Ralph to "please stop eating the paste." He is regularly bewildered by the teasing he receives when he reveals his ignorance to his more clued-in classmates. His cat's name is Mittens, which is strange because he considers that word to be a "swear." Ralph also has a pine cone which he claims is his "baby brother.'
When Ralph originally appeared on the Simpsons, he wasn't associated with the Wiggum family (he also had a different voice & personality). He was actually envisioned as a mini-Homer. It was later on in the series that the writers decided that he would be perfect as the son of Police Chief Wiggum.
In the game The Simpsons Hit and Run, it is revealed that the Wiggum family lives right down the road from the Simpsons, which explains his ease of travel to the Simpsons' house and his bed washing in front of their house when Cecil, Sideshow Bob's brother, blew up the Springfield Dam. He's also Bart's "drinking buddy" in the future, when Lisa is President.
Some of Ralph's memorable quotes:
- Hi, Principal Skinner. Hi, Super Nintendo Chalmers.
- I'm learnding (sic).
- I'm Idaho!
- When I grow up, I want to be a principal or a caterpillar.
- (upon eating poisonous berries) They taste like... burning!
- Hi Lisa. We're gonna be in a pie.
- My cat's breath smells like cat food.
- This is my sandbox. I'm not allowed to go in the deep end.
- Me fail English? That's unpossible. (sic)
- Bart: (smells an electric chair) You smell that Ralph? That's the smell of justice.
- What's a battle?
- The leprechan told me to burn things
- Chocolate Microscopes?
Ralph: (smells it) Smells like hot dogs.
Ralph Eating Things He Shouldn't:
- 8F15 Paste
- 9F10 Paste
- 9F13 His red crayon
- 2F02 Grass
- 2F04 The caps from his cap gun
- 3F03 His worm
- 3F10 More paste
- 4F12 His knob
- 5F11 Purple berries
- AABF07 A thumbtack
- BABF15 "Plastic candy" (the set and props for his dance recital)
Clancy
Chief Clancy Wiggum (voiced by Hank Azaria) is the archetype of a dopey doughnut-eating cop, who is also not overly concerned with constitutional rights, being pushed to absurd levels. He has pig-like facial figures (pig being a common epithet directed toward police officers). Wiggum once complained that Sideshow Bob once called him "Chief Piggum." He is disturbingly uninformed on several issues ("Some Chinese people claimed they were celebrating New Year's in February ... good food though.") and flaunts his power, albeit with good intentions most of the time. He does not get along well with Mayor Quimby. He is generally incompetent, but is often assisted by his more intelligent (but still quite lazy and often rather cocky) "top (and only) cops" Lou and Eddie who usually accompany him. Clancy's voice is based on that of Edward G. Robinson.
Wiggum does not use his police handgun in a safe manner. Nor is he a very good shot with his handgun. There are many examples of his abuse. These include,
- Firing into a cloud on a city street.
- When Joan Rivers told a joke about him over the TV, he attempted to shoot out the TV screen by firing his gun three times. The shots all missed, but woke up his wife, who said, "Clancy, use the remote."
- Using his handgun to crack open nuts. And firing his gun at a nut when he was unable to crack open the shell of that nut.
- Attempting to shoot the Third Dimension.
- Using a shotgun to shoot a piņata, but with a blindfold: "Am I getting warmer?"
- At the wedding of Sideshow Bob and Patty Bouvier, he left his handgun on the table with the wedding cake.
- In Treehouse of Horror 15, he lent his handgun to Homer instantly upon request.
Wiggum's incompetence is brilliantly showcased in Homer's Triple Bypass . In a parody of FOX's Cops, Wiggum investigates a cattle rustler and uses a tank to knock down the suspect's door ... only to find he has the wrong house. The occupant, Rev. Lovejoy, is very angry, especially since the cattle are in the neighbor's yard. Snake, the suspect that Wiggum is after, is able to make a clean getaway; Wiggum fails to give a coherent description of Snake or his direction of travel.
Sarah
Sarah Wiggum is Clancy Wiggum's wife. Sarah rarely speaks in the shows, but she does often appear in crowd scenes, Sarah is a soft housewife whose nickname is "Poppin' Fresh". Not coincidentally, this is also the name of the Pillsbury Doughboy.
Clancy met Sarah by arresting her. He actually planted evidence to arrest her just to meet her since Clancy was so shy.
External Links
Last updated: 05-07-2005 16:45:24
Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04
