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Clancy Wiggum

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Chief Clancy Wiggum (voiced by Hank Azaria) is a fictional character from the animated TV show The Simpsons. Clancy's voice is based on that of Edward G. Robinson.

Contents

Profile

Clancy Wiggum was probably born in Baltimore, Maryland. He mentioned he used to sell ribbons there with his father Iggy, a war veteran who died in a parade float accident in 1979, along with Arnie Gumble, Sheldon Skinner, Etch Westgrin, and Griff McDonald, all members of Abe Simpson's Flying Hellfish.

Wiggum is Springfield's chief of police. He is an extreme stereotype: morbidly obese, dim witted, ignorant, grossly incompetent, lazy, and with a fondness for doughnuts and "Chintzy Pop" and little regard for individual rights or even public safety. 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. But he (along with the rest of the Springfield's government and police force) is also corrupt, having asked for or taken bribes several times. He does not get along well with Mayor Quimby, as the two men vie to have control over the city (once leading to a serious argument over who takes over during an emergency during the Monorail crisis) and have threatened to bring each other down on numerous occasions. Wiggum claims to have compromising photographs of the mayor, which may help to explain why he has retained his job despite a general lack of competence.

He is generally incompetent, but is often assisted by his more intelligent (but still quite lazy and often rather cocky) "top (and perhaps only) cops" Lou and Eddie who usually accompany him. He exhibits a great lack of knowledge of Springfield's laws and often quotes sayings from the police handbook which cannot actually be found in the book ('like the book says, if you can't beat them, join them'). His early attempts to get into the Police Force were unsuccessful on account of his asthma, so he took a job as a campus security guard at Springfield State University. Wiggum was present in one of the University's germ research labs (run at that time by Prof. C. Montgomery Burns) when Mona Simpson and the hippie activist group she was part of sabotaged the germ experiments. Wiggum inhaled the fumes, which had the pleasant side affect of curing his asthma but had no effect whatsoever on his acne. This allowed him to pursue his ambition to become a professional police officer, a position he received by being handed the badge on the street. He is the husband of Sarah Wiggum, whom he met when arresting her for possession of drugs that he planted on her to "make her notice him," and father of Ralph Wiggum. He has a cousin called Mark, who went to Penn State ("fat kid... played a lot of Tetris") His relationship with Ralph is surprisingly loving and possibly redeems his otherwise lazy and self centred character. Wiggum also has other redeeming moments as well, such as the episode Mother Simpson where it is implied that he leads the FBI (who are seeking out Mona Simpson) astray, allowing her to escape in gratitude for curing his asthma.

In early episodes, his hair is black as opposed to the usual blue. His blue hair is like that of many Springfieldianites, including The Van Houten Family and Marge Simpson.

In a recent episode, Marge Simpson informed Homer Simpson while they were in India, that Chief Clancy Wiggum had been mortally wounded in a bank robbery.

Marksmanship and use of standard equipment

Wiggum does not use his police handgun safely nor is he a very good shot on most occasions. There are many examples of his abuse, including the following:

Wiggum's actual skill with firearms is somewhat random in the series. There are some episodes where his aim and skill with guns is, quite frankly, atrocious, for instance when he has used all his ammunition, hurling the gun. Then in some other episodes, Wiggum shows some good skill by pulling off rather well-placed shots. The quality of Wiggum's use of various other tools at his disposal are also just as random, such as his use of a SWAT Team armored tank, the police helicopter, and various other firearms as well.

Springfield's finest

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 battering ram to knock down the suspect's door, only to find he has the wrong house. The occupant, Reverend 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 describes Snake's vehicle as "a car of some sort" and "heading in the direction of that place that sells chilli" ("Suspect is hatless! Repeat, hatless!"). He has been known to use Agatha Christie novels as crime-solving reference guides.

Wiggum also often fails to comply with his police duties in a real emergency. In one episode, he refused to believe calls from people saying that an elephant (Bart's pet elephant Stampy) destroyed their property. After two calls, he thought a call reporting a "liquor store robbery in progress, officer down" was also a fake call. In another episode he mocks people who come in to report crimes to him by telling them he will "write on his invisible typewriter." This includes a man with a lighter saying "I just torched a building down town and I'm afraid I'll do it again." He has also expressed annoyance at the citizens he's supposed to be protecting; "Can't you people solve these problems yourselves? I mean we can't be 'policing' (making air quotes with his fingers) the whole city." He has also refused to come to the aid of citizens, claiming that they were just too busy to help, when all he was doing was playing checkers with one of the police dogs.

Wiggum has a disturbing lack of legal knowledge. He once refuted Marge Simpson's claim that it was illegal to mail threatening letters, until the police handbook proved her right. At that moment, he also learned from the handbook that it was illegal to "put squirrels down your pants for the purposes of gambling", and immediately shouted to the rest of his officers to stop doing exactly that.

Despite his questionable competency at being an officer, Wiggum seems to be very attached to both the police force and his fellow officers. On the few occasions where Wiggum loses his commission, he breaks down shockingly fast, even degrading to the level of a common mugger (as seen in Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment), although he isn't particularly good at this either as he had to sell the trigger and handle of his gun to feed his family. This pathetic sight prompts Homer to help him get his job back. Once in a while Wiggum will have an argument with his fellow officers which often end in dramatic little tearful moments of reconcilliation. On one occasion, Lou had thought about leaving the force to pursue a career in home security, which leaves Wiggum nearly a tearful mess. In one of the Simpson's 'spin-off' episodes, Chief Wiggum stars in "Chief Wiggum P.I." where he is fired from the Springfield force and moves to New Orleans to start working as a private investigator.

Despite all this, there are occasional hints that Chief Wiggum has the potential to actually be a very good officer of the law if only he'd be less lazy and complacent. When investigating Mr. Burns's attempted murder, Wiggum displays an astonishingly skilled eye for ballistics and fingerprinting, enough to make positive identifications without any specialized equipment. In fact, Wiggum's entire investigation of the shooting is uncharacteristically dogged, showing the police talking to everyone from Seymour Skinner to Moe Syzlak to Tito Puente.

Another good example is the episode Pranksta Rap, where Wiggum is charged with finding a supposedly missing Bart Simpson. It is shown here as well that Wiggum is one of the few Simpsons characters that seems quite aware of his or her own incompetence, much to his dismay and an inevitable gorging on pancakes to lessen the blow. In the end, however, much to the shock of almost everyone in Springfield, including his own men, Wiggum finds Bart by using a rather cleverly tactical method and actually performs his job admirably. He is promoted to Police Commissioner here, and it seems things may be finally looking up for him. It is discovered eventually in the episode though that Bart's abduction was merely a hoax, distressing Wiggum greatly as he finally had done some great good but at merely the wrong time. Curiously, however, it doesn't seem that his position of Commissioner is taken away in the end of the episode, although he is never seen in this position of power again. This is most likely attributable to the series' rather notably loose continuity. Although they are far from competent, generally the Springfield police force seems to get the job done for the most part...albeit barely.

Are Wiggum, Lou, and Eddie the only cops in Springfield?

One of the biggest questions among fans of the show is whether the most often seen cops Wiggum, Eddie, and Lou are indeed Springfield's only police officers. Although this is specifically stated in an episode and often implied, there are many episodes where a much larger police force makes an appearance, usually to storm a house or make a major bust. As previously mentioned, when the police raid Lovejoy's home he is acompanied by a rather large force of SWAT team officers. Another sighting of this is in The Springfield Connection, where Marge walks into a police briefing room and many officers are present. Yet another example is in the episode Simple Simpson, when an army of police officers open fire on Homer's alter ego, the Pieman. The show has often made exceptions of long standing canon facts to make a point in the moment. If it were true, however, that this would at least explain some of Wiggum's faults as an officer as it is rather difficult to patrol an entire city with a force of three men.

Possible future, Wiggum P.I.

The episode The Simpsons Spin-off Showcase lightly suggests that Wiggum's marriage will eventually dissolve, by reasons unknown, leaving Wiggum to raise Ralph on his own by starting a private investigation business in New Orleans with Principal Skinner, who was born in that city. While this particular segment of the episode was far more plausible than the other two, it is still highly unlikely that this is the fate of the Wiggum family and is most likely to be treated as a parody (in this case, of old fashioned police/detective dramas from the 1970s and 1980s). Due to the series' status quo, this and another rather unusual possibility seen in the episode Future-Drama are merely possibilities and ideas to the future of the Wiggum family.

Quotes

The Simpsons characters
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The Simpsons and relatives
Homer Simpson | Marge Simpson | Bart Simpson | Lisa Simpson | Maggie Simpson | Abraham Simpson | Patty and Selma Bouvier | Jacqueline Bouvier | Mona Simpson | Herb Powell
Around Springfield
Jasper Beardley | Comic Book Guy | Maude Flanders | Ned Flanders | Rod and Todd Flanders | Professor Frink | Barney Gumble | Dr. Julius Hibbert | Lionel Hutz | Helen Lovejoy | Reverend Timothy Lovejoy | Captain Horatio McCallister | Hans Moleman | Marvin Monroe | Bleeding Gums Murphy | Apu Nahasapeemapetilon | Mayor Joe Quimby | Dr. Nick Riviera | Agnes Skinner | Cletus Spuckler | Squeaky Voiced Teen | Disco Stu | Moe Szyslak | Kirk Van Houten | Luann Van Houten | Chief Clancy Wiggum
Springfield Nuclear Power Plant
Montgomery Burns | Carl Carlson | Frank Grimes | Inanimate Carbon Rod | Lenny Leonard | Waylon Smithers
Springfield Elementary School faculty and students
Wendell Borton | Dolph | Lunchlady Doris | Elizabeth Hoover | Jimbo Jones | Kearney | Edna Krabappel | Lewis | Otto Mann | Nelson Muntz | Martin Prince | Sherri and Terri | Seymour Skinner | Üter | Milhouse Van Houten | Ralph Wiggum | Groundskeeper Willie
Media personalities Recurring villains
Itchy and Scratchy | Kent Brockman | Krusty the Clown | Troy McClure | Roger Meyers, Sr. | Sideshow Mel | Rainier Wolfcastle

Snake | Kang & Kodos | Sideshow Bob | Fat Tony
Miscellaneous Families
Recurring characters | Fictional characters | One-time characters | LGBT characters | Animals

The Simpsons | The Flanders | The Van Houtens | The Wiggums

 

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