Groundskeeper Willie


 * For Willie Nelson, see that article. For the character Willie Nelson plays, see Willie Nelson (character).

"Och, back to the loch wi' ye, Nessie!"

- Willie

Dr. William "Willie" MacDougal, also known as G.K. Willington, and William MacMoran is the groundskeeper and janitor of Springfield Elementary School. Scottish by ancestry, Willie's job is to supervise the children of the School during recess, and clean the halls. He is recognizable with his red hair and thick Scottish accent. He is often either a formidable enemy or an invaluable ally to Bart and Lisa Simpson. Willie was born in Scotland.

Biography
Willie is the groundskeeper at Springfield Elementary School and is a stereotypical angry Scotsman with a heavy Scottish accent. He was originally hired at Springfield Elementary as "swim teacher Willie." Unfortunately, after Skinner was trapped in the worm-filled pool for three days, he had the pool destroyed, and made Willie a groundskeeper. During weekends and vacations, he also tends the Golfing greens, giving himself the appropriate name Greenskeeper Willie. He has claimed to originate from several different places in Scotland, and frequently gives contradictory accounts of his past life before arriving in Springfield. Willie once told a story of working at a mine that caved in, saying "No one made it out alive, not even Willie!" . Also Willie once told Skinner that he had seen his own father hanged for stealing a pig although both of his parents can be seen alive in Scotland later. It is possible that Willie has a murderous past as we are told he is the spitting image of the Aberdeen strangler, an affirmation which he doesn't deny, innocently whistling by. It is implied that he immigrated to America illegally, as he had to take a citizenship test.

Willie is incompetent and is quick to anger for little or no reason. He has shown great animosity towards both Principal Skinner and Bart Simpson, the latter of whom is often more than willing to make Willie the butt of his jokes. Willie once discovered an oil well by accident because he was attempting to bury the school hamster. Because of the school's new wealth, he requested a crystal pail. However, after Mr. Burns stole the oil, which not only resulted in the loss of the school's newly gained fortune, but also causing the school to go into an even worse financial state than before due to the cost of dismantling the oil tower, Skinner was forced to lay off Groundskeeper Willie, in order to preserve the remaining school budget, causing Willie to wish to murder Mr. Burns. When interrogated by the police, he answers that he wasn't able to because of arthritis in both of his index fingers, preventing him from utilizing a gun, which he got "from space invaders in 1977" and implying right after that he doesn't even know what a video game is, asking ignorantly "Video game?" and therefore pretending to have fought aliens for real. He once had a cache of "screw you money", but he ended up losing it all, presumably due to Artie Ziff cheating out ZiffCorp's shareholders.

Willie's hobbies include videotaping couples in cars, something which proves to the benefit of Homer Simpson when he is later wrongfully accused of sexual harassment. At one time, Willie was engaged to Sherry Bobbins until she recovered her eyesight—at which point, in Willie's words, "Suddenly the ugliest man in Glasgow wasn't good enough for her! " Willie was once given the job of teaching Bart Simpson. Lisa had taken a restraining order against Bart, so he couldn't legally go to the same school. Willie became Bart's teacher because, according to Principal Skinner, Willie's shack is the only place on Ned Flanders school grounds "outside all laws of Man and God ".

His years of heavy work have given him amazing strength and a very muscular physique, which has been observed many times as he often tears his clothes off, before accomplishing hard tasks or because of outbursts of rage. For example, he rescues Bart from a marauding Alaskan timber wolf by wrestling it into submission. Much like Ned Flanders, though, his physique is unremarkable when he is clothed, and seemingly morphs as soon as he is partially nude. Apparently, he has had sexual attractions to Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York (more commonly known as "Fergie"), as he had mentioned while hallucinating as an after effect of Seth and Munchie's Peyote-laced juice (which was thanks to Homer) that he waited a long time for the moment where he could embrace Fergie passionately. .

Treehouse of Horror
Willie has a tendency to get killed in the Treehouse of Horror episodes, getting killed three times in Treehouse of Horror V (by Homer Simpson, Maggie Simpson and Principal Seymour Skinner), each time he attempts to be helpful or heroic, and each time he is felled by an axe in the back (he mutters, " Ach, I'm bad at this. " after the third time). He is also killed in Treehouse of Horror VI by being burned to death (and later attempting to get revenge on the PTA's children via their nightmares à la Freddy Kruger, although he somehow ends up being revived shortly after Maggie kills him in their dreams), in Treehouse of Horror XI by a dolphin, in Treehouse of Horror XVI he is strafed and killed by Burns, in Treehouse of Horror XVIII by getting his head cut off by the tractor, and in Treehouse of Horror XIX by being eaten by the Grand Pumpkin although he is saved later.

The Simpsons Game
Willie appears as one of the contestants in the Duff Ultimate Eating Challenge in the level Around the World in 80 Bites. He also appears in Mob Rules as one of the people Marge can use in her mob to protest the sales of the Grand Theft Scratchy videogame to minors.

Creation
Groundskeeper Willie's first appearance was in the season two episode "Principal Charming". Originally, the character was just written as an angry janitor, and the fact that he was Scottish was added during a recording session. Dan Castellaneta was assigned to do the voice. Castellaneta didn't know what voice to use and Sam Simon, who was directing at the time, told Castellaneta to use an accent. He first tried using a Spanish voice, which Simon felt was too clichéd. He then tried a "big dumb Swede", which was also rejected. For his third try, he used the voice of an angry Scotsman, which was deemed appropriate enough and was used in the episode. Originally thought by the directors to be a one-shot appearance, Willie has since become a common recurring character. Matt Groening would later reveal that the character was based on Angus Crock, a kilt-wearing chef from the sketch comedy show Second City Television, who was portrayed by Dave Thomas.

Development
A recurring joke, which was first shown in "Radio Bart", is that Willie appears to have a pot belly, but whenever he takes off his shirt, he is quite muscular. One of Willie's trademarks is a gruffly-spoken insulting retort, which take the writers a long time to come up with, although they do not consider them that funny.

Cultural influence and legacy
Groundskeeper Willie's description of the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" from the episode "'Round Springfield" has become widely used, particularly in the run-up to the war in Iraq. The New York Post used the phrase "Surrender Monkeys" as the headline for its December 7, 2006 front page, referring to the Iraq Study Group and its recommendation that U.S. soldiers be withdrawn from Iraq by early 2008. The line was "most likely" written by Ken Keeler.

The Times reported in late 2005 that "he is the most instantly recognizable Scot in the world: better known than Billy Connolly or Ewan McGregor, even Sean Connery." The same article quotes Simpsons creator Matt Groening as saying "We wanted to create a school janitor that was filled with rage, sort of our tribute to angry janitors all over the world".

In 2006, Groundskeeper Willie would be named the fourth best peripheral character in the history of the show by IGN, who said "high-points for the character were being trained to be civilized, wrestling a wolf that was let loose in the school and becoming a substitute for the French language teacher - 'Bon jourrr! You cheese-eating surrender monkeys!'" IGN would also name "My Fair Laddy", the only episode which centers around Willie, the best episode of the seventeenth season. Jim Slotek of Sun Media would call Willie the ninth best Simpsons supporting character, and also made a Top Ten quotes list, which included Willie's quote "Och, back to the loch wi' you, Nessie." from "Selma's Choice".

There have been some moments in the show where he has been known to imitate Montgomery Scott of Star Trek fame.

Trivia

 * In the Simpsons Comics, it is implied his last name is MacMoran. However, in "My Fair Laddy", he claims he does not have a last name.
 * Willie thinks movies and video games are real, such as an incident in the 70's when he thought he was saving the world from a real alien invasion by playing Space Invaders.
 * Willie Lives in a shack by the Elementary school.
 * Willie was implied to have a sociopathic hatred of the town, as when he was running for mayor during Do What You Feel Day, claimed in a stump speech that, as soon as he was made mayor, he will kill all of the citizens and then burn the entire town to the ground, and mentioning that he is fully aware that the microphone was on.
 * In "Bart-Mangled Banner", Willie claims to have been deaf all along, saying that any time he is seen replying to someone, he is simply reading their lips. He spends the rest of the episode misunderstanding most everyone who speaks to him despite the fact that Willie has never been shown having this problem before or since.