Thursday, November 25, 2010

Hamburgers X Intellectuality : Mr. Wimpy

in conjunction with the campaign on Facebook

From20 to 27 November change your profile picture 

for a cartoon of a hero of your childhood

and invite your friends to do the same.

These days will celebrate

WEEK OF THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILDREN!

For a week we will not see a single face ... "real"

but it is an invasion ...of childhood memories!

Come back to us kids!"

 

and Thanksgiving today

something delightful for the day

 

ladies and gentlemen

please put your hands up for

J. Wellington Wimpy,

generally referred to as Wimpy

J. Wellington Wimpy

 

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 more minor character;

Dave Fleischer said that the character

in the Segar strip was "too intellectual"

to be used in film cartoons.

aww.. Popeye & Olive and Wimpy too

 

Wimpy is Popeye's friend.

playing 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 (frugal)

and utterly gluttonous.

Happy and Content Wimpy

 

He is also something of a scam artist and,

especially in the newspaper strip,

can be notoriously underhanded at times.

scam artist he is

 

Wimpy loves to eat hamburgers,

and 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.

Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor

 

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".

 

This phrase is now commonly used to

illustrate fiscal irresponsibility

and still appears in modern comedies such as

The Drew Carey Show and The Office.

I Would Gladly Pay You Tuesday For A Hamburger Today

 

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!"

forever eating Hamburgers

 

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

Wimpy is always driving everyone mad

 

During World War II,

"Wimpy", in reference to the character,

was the nickname given to the Vickers Wellington bomber

Vickers Wellington bomber a.k.a. Wimpy

 

Wimpy is also the inspiration and name

of a large chain of UK hamburger restaurants

which was founded in 1954

and has maintained operations overseas since 1967.

Wimpy - The Home Of Fresh Cooked, Nutritional Meals

 

Wimpy made a cameo appearance

(as an in-gag to both his facial features;

in the context of beef related heart disease

and affinity for hamburgers)

in the Family Guy episode "McStroke"

 

Wimpy has appeared in two episodes of

the Adult Swim animated series Robot Chicken

and not forgetting

Carl’s Jr. burger ad featuring Wimpy

 

Wimpy with his

poetic hamburgers

from <What – No Spinach> 1933

 

(biodata adapted from Wiki)