Mayor Quimby: Difference between revisions

Template:Simpsons character Joseph Fitzpatrick Fitzgerald Fitzhenry "Joe" Quimby, a.k.a. "Diamond Joe" Quimby, or simply Mayor Quimby (voiced by Dan Castellaneta), is a fictional character featured in The Simpsons animated series, as the mayor of Springfield. He is a composite parody of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy and certain other members of the Kennedy family who have entered politics.

Origin of name

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 is from Portland mobster and chief of police, "Diamond" Jim Purcell.

Profile

Quimby has long served as the mayor of the fictional city of Springfield. He appears as a slick, opportunistic politician whose chief 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.

He is known to be a womanizer, and to occasionally amuse himself with pornographic playing cards during town meetings. 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. Quimby also is frequently noticed in bed with the same blonde woman who is illiterate, who was later revealed to be Miss Springfield in "See Homer Run".

Despite being mayor, Quimby does not know or care much about his city, often privately (or even publicly) showing his outright contempt for Springfield's citizens. 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.

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. He also resorted to bribing witnesses when assault charges were brought against his nephew, leading Bart Simpson to observe that "the system works: just ask Claus Von Bulow".

He does not get along with local Police Chief Clancy Wiggum. 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.

Quimby was once labeled as illiterate by conservative talk radio personality Birch Barlow, as well as "tax-cheating," "wife-swapping," and "pot-smoking." Quimby retorted back towards the radio, "Hey! I am no longer illiterate.", as he watered plants in his office closet. The plants in question are shown as a rather large cannabis plants.

His catch phrase is "Vote Quimby", which he always finds an opportunity to say, even during sex or in situations where it would be disadvantageous to identify himself, like inadvertently being caught by Homer in a motel room with his mistress.

Political career

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. His political stranglehold on Springfield has earned Quimby 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. Later, he briefly was deemed to have "abandoned office" and was replaced by a short-lived "council of learned citizens" headed by Lisa Simpson, John Frink, and the Comic Book Guy among others.

He also survived a recall election 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.

He once accidentally allowed his mistress, "Miss Springfield", to wear his mayoral sash, causing him to exclaim with horror that during the "five seconds" she wore it, she was "legally the mayor."

Comparisons to the Kennedy family

There are many things about Quimby and his family that are similar to Ted Kennedy and the Kennedy political family such as:

• He speaks with a Boston accent, in a style most resembling that of Ted Kennedy, commonly separating words with "er" and "ah".
• He enjoys moderate wealth.
• He 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, whom he met while she was working in Maison Derriere.
• The episode "Homerazzi" shows actor Rainier Wolfcastle-a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger-marrying a woman named Maria Shriver Kennedy Quimby; Schwarzenegger's wife is journalist Maria Shriver, the niece of Ted Kennedy.
• The mayor's nephew, Freddy Quimby, was once tried for assault (a reference to the William Kennedy Smith rape trial) during which Mayor Quimby tried to bribe witnesses.

During the USAToday.com contest to choose which Springfield would host the Simpsons Movie premiere, Ted Kennedy himself appears in a video in which he invited "Diamond Joe" Quimby to Springfield, Massachusetts, and even mocked his own oft-mocked pronunciation of the word "Chowder" (as "Chow-Dah").

In addition to the clear Ted Kennedy connection, Quimby also has a similarity with Charles Foster Kane, having built an opera house for his girlfriend.

In the future Springfield due to a fortune teller's vision of Lisa's future, Lisa is shown riding in a taxicab driven by a now indicted Quimby, whose license falsely identifies him as Mohammed Jafar in a weak attempt to deflect the embarrasment and shame of being thrown out of political office. It remains to be seen whether or not Lisa's future will come true, although it is taken as canon by many Simpsons fans.

External links

• Official site of Joe Quimby's 2000 presidential election campaign
• Mayored to the Mob: A Mayor Quimby Tribute
• Template:Imdb character

See also

• Politics in The Simpsons