Mayor Quimby

Template:Simpsons character Joseph Fitzgerald O'Malley Fitzpatrick O'Donnell The Edge "Joe" Quimby, a.k.a. "Diamond Joe" Quimby, or simply Mayor Quimby, is a recurring character from the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta, and first appeared in the episode "Bart Gets an F". A member of the Democratic Party, Quimby is the mayor of Springfield, and is a composite parody of former U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy and certain other members of the Kennedy family who have entered politics. Joe Quimby's name references NW Quimby Street in Portland, Oregon, the hometown of show creator Matt Groening, and also pays homage to Tom and Jerry's producer Fred Quimby. Dan Castellaneta improvised the accent for Quimby.

Role in The Simpsons

Personality

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 other forms of corruption, including embezzling tax money, taking bribes from Fat Tony, the local Mafia Don, and giving monthly kickbacks to Police Chief Wiggum. The seal on the wall of his office reads "Corruptus in extremis".

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. One of the women he impregnated is Cookie Kwan, whose baby is remarkably similar to Quimby in both looks and mannerisms. Quimby also is frequently noticed in bed with the same or similar blonde woman/women, at least one of whom was Miss Springfield.

Despite being mayor for such a long time, 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.

If bending the law will suit Quimby's purposes, he will likely do so. 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 Bülow".

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

Character biography

Quimby was elected Mayor of Springfield in 1986. He has been re-elected several times since, despite rather open admissions of fraud and wrongdoing. In one episode, he admits to using taxpayer dollars to fund the murder of his enemies, but thanks to a clever use of a popular Gabbo catch phrase ("I'm a bad wittle boy"), he is re-elected in a landslide. His political stranglehold on Springfield has earned him 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 nominates Sideshow Bob as its mayoral candidate, Bob rigs the election, briefly deposing Quimby. He is re-instated when Bob is found guilty of fraud and imprisoned. Later, he is briefly deemed to have "abandoned office" and is replaced by a short-lived "council of learned citizens" headed by Lisa Simpson, Professor Frink, Comic Book Guy, Lindsey Naegle, Dr. Hibbert, and Principal Skinner. He also survives a recall election, with no candidate in the race against him (candidates include Rainier Wolfcastle (another Schwarzenegger reference), Kent Brockman, and even Homer Simpson) garnering the five percent necessary to force a recall.

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

In the future Springfield shown in 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 embarrassment and shame of being thrown out of office. Due to there being many "future-episodes" in The Simpsons, this cannot necessarily be considered canon.

In the Treehouse of Horror III we find out that the Mayor had a 'beer-swilling' brother called Clovis who had run over Lisa's pet cat Snowball 1 though we have never heard of him in any other episode. In the season 16 episode The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star, he is shown to be affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, as he is attending their monthly pancake dinner.

Comparison to Ted Kennedy & the Kennedy Family

Mayor Quimby is a conspicuous parody of members of the Kennedy family.

Despite being absent in other Simpsons characters, Quimby has a distinct Boston accent, in a style most resembling that characterized by Sen. Ted Kennedy-like cadences in his speech, commonly separating words with "er" and "ah".

The mayor is a Democrat, like the Kennedys.

He enjoys lavish wealth.

His vacations take place on a coastal estate "The Quimby Compound", a parody of the Kennedy compound in Hyannis, 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 Derrière. She may be also related to actor Rainier Wolfcastle, who is modeled after Arnold Schwarzenegger (husband of Ted Kennedy's niece, Maria Shriver); Wolfcastle has been spotted at Quimby family functions.

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.

One of his many middle names is Fitzgerald, which was president John F. Kennedy's middle name.

During the USA Today.com contest to choose which Springfield would host the release of The Simpsons Movie, Ted Kennedy himself appears in a video in which he invited "Diamond Joe" Quimby and the film to premiere in Springfield, Massachusetts, and even mocked his own oft-mocked pronunciation of the word "Chowder" (as "Chow-Dah"); however, Springfield, Vermont was chosen instead.

In addition to the clear Kennedy connection, Quimby also has similarities with Charles Foster Kane, including having built an opera house for his girlfriend, although Citizen Kane references in the show are most often related to Montgomery Burns.

External links

• Official site of Joe Quimby's 2000 presidential election campaign
• Template:Imdb character

See also

• Politics in The Simpsons