MOVE OVER FELLAS… IT’S MY TIME TO SHINE

Hey y’all!  How you be doing round abouts that der game which be going all tappity tap.  Y’all ready fer anuther posty dealy about dem yellar people?

Wow… who knew it’d be hard to write all white trashy mctrasherson?  I guess I can thank my mom for all my edumacashun.  It’s more than a love of The Simpsons which has helped me be so S-M-R-T.  So… Alissa and Bunny have been so entertaining with their lady character posts every Sunday (Real Housewives of Springfield) and I’ve been slacking.  To remedy this, I thought I’d talk about good ol’ Cletus Delroy Spuckler aka Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel.  Click continue reading to get started and see an image of Cletus mooning you.

Sorry, couldn’t help myself.  So, for those of you acquainted with Mr. Spuckler, you may be confused about his name.  Some say his last name is Delroy because of Season 11, Episode 22: Behind the Laughter.  Still others insist it is just Cletus Spuckler because of his ornate signature in “Sweets and Sour Marge (S13:E8).  He is again identified as Cletus Spuckler in a news report in “Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens, and Gays” (S15: E8).   In “Yokel Chords” (S18:E14), Brandine yells at him calling him by his full name, Cletus Delroy Spuckler.  Dab gum, just what is his proper Christian name?  The reality is, your all as right as you want to be.  Heck, in one episode he signs his name with an X so we could call him that too if we like.

I’m so happy that X is in the game and arriving early on in Level 5, he’s someone everyone sees on the regular.  Coupled with his farm (located on Rural Route 9 in the show), he’s so great.  What town doesn’t need its very own yokel?  Now, with the 2014 Valentine’s Day Event and the addition of his sister-mother-wife Brandine, it seemed only natural to write a little bit about this amazing country cousin.

Here are some quotes and a picture about Cletus’ “relationship” to his wife/family.

“Alone Again, Natura-Diddly “ (S11:E14)
Brandine: “Dang, Cletus! Why’d you have to park so close to my parents?”
Cletus: “Now honey, they’s mah parents too.”

“There’s Something About Marrying” (S16:E10)
Homer: “Wait a minute… are you two brother and sister?”
Brandine: “We’s all kindsa thangs.”

“Little Big Girl” (S18:E12) – Family Tree

I’m gonna pass on any further discussion about possible incestuous-ness and just for giggles, define some other terms you might think of in conjunction with Cletus.  NOTE: These were all found by typing “define _______” in Oogle.

Hillbilly: an unsophisticated country person, associated originally with the remote regions of the Appalachians.  An old-fashioned term for country music.

Redneck: a working-class white person, esp. a politically reactionary one from a rural area.

Yokel: an uneducated and unsophisticated person from the countryside.

Bumpkin: an unsophisticated or socially awkward person from the countryside.

Wow… any one else see the running theme of unsophisticated.  Poor Cletus.  What’s unsophisticated about being a farmer? All of these are definitely terms used for folks that live in the countryside, rural or mountainous areas.  Up to you whether you think they apply.  Yokel is a term associated with him from the show as early as his first appearance in Season 5, Episode 17: Bart Gets an Elephant.  Cletus is seen among the other “slack-jawed” yokels gawking at Stampy.

You know, anyone can go to Oogle and find info about this hilarious character voiced by Hank Azaria, but I thought it might be cool to show you something different.  In 2001, a series of trading cards was released by Inkworks for The Simpsons.  The series was called SimpsonsMania!.

Check out this sweet card for Cletus.

On the back of the card were these details for him.

*Bowling Team: The Stereotypes

Wife: Brandine

Children: Tiffany, Heather, Cody, Dylan, Dermot, Jordan, Taylor, Brittany, Wesley, Rumor, Scout, Cassidy, Zoe, Chloe, Max, Hunter, Kendall, Katlin, Noah, Sasha, Morgan, Kira, Ian, Lauren, Q-Bert, and Phil

Bio: A fifth generation dirt farmer, Cletus spends his off-hours whittling “Piney Babies” for his kids, managing a successful chain of moonshine stills, and shooting at IRS agents. He is also a good provider for his ever-burgeoning family and can often be found picking up dinner from the middle of rural roads outside Springfield.

Social Faux Pas: Once showed up at a party with the same tattoo as another guest (Snake).

Pretty nifty.  While Mr. Spuckler is a stereotypical hillbilly in his jeans and “wife-beater”, he is so much more.  I love in “Marge Gamer” (S18:E17) when after being called a dumb hillbilly by Homer he replies, “That’s Hill William to you sir.”  Cletus’ first featured episode was in “22 Short Films About Springfield” (S7:E22).  In this episode, we get to see him lose a toe and eat a skunk all to the knee-slapping sound of bluegrass music played on a banjo.  I originally thought this episode was where we learned Cletus’ name but reader Johnny shared this cool info:

Cletus first appeared in “Bart Gets an Elephant”.  Later he appeared in various episodes before “22 Short Films About Springfield”, like “Itchy and Scratchy Land”, “Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily” (in this episode we learn his name is Cletus), “Team Homer”, “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield” and maybe others.  

Thanks Johnny!

A regular go-to for a quick laugh, Cletus has been in a ton of episodes.  One of the biggest running gags besides his low IQ (he’s the go-to idiot in The Simpsons Movie and admitted to once being beaten at tic-tac-toe by a chicken) is his ginormous amount of children.  How many kids does he have exactly?  Completely up to debate and depends on whether you include the comics and video games into the equation.  Names I found were Tiffany, Heather, Heather (intentionally twice), Cody, Dylan, Dermot, Jordan, Taylor, Brittany, Wesley, Rumor, Scout, Cassidy, Zoe, Chloe, Max, Hunter, Kendall, Katlin, Noah, Sasha, Morgan, Kira, Ian, Lauren, Q-bert, Phil, Condoleezza Marie, Rubella Scabies, Gummy Sue, Carl Durant, Kevin, Tiffany, Birthday, Dubya, Crystal Meth, Incest, International Harvester, Jitney, Witney, Normal Head Joe, Stabbed In Jail, Naval String, Melvis, Mary Not-Quite-Right, Mary Zeke, Embry Joe, “Something New” and Mary Wrestlemania.  That’s 50 bumpkin babies and I can think of at least two more unnamed babies implied or shown.

Cletus: “I have sired a dumb-dumb, a mush-head, a whats-it, a dogboy, and something with a human face and fish body what we called Kevin.”

Brandine: “He’s only the father of two of ‘em.  The one who can’t sing and the one who can’t ad lib.”

One of my favorite Cletus Moments is in “A Star is Born Again” (S14:E13).  It really is just a quick cameo but he shows up as a part of the paparazzi plaguing Flanders’ movie star girlfriend Sharon Sloan.  SHort line complimenting Ned’s carpet but I love this moment.  Wonder what tabloid he writes for?

I wouldn’t be The Wookiee if I didn’t point out that Cletus was one of the characters who went to see Cosmic Wars in Season 15, Episode 15: Co-dependents day.

“One ticket for da space show.  I wanna see if any of dem aliens match up to the one I got in my root cellar.”

Poor, poor UPS guy.  In Season 18, Episode 14: Yokel Chords, I love Cletus’ “pimp look” when he’s enjoying being rich at the expense of his kids.  Solid gold hound dogs, monster trucks… classic!

He’s also great in Apocalypse Cow (S19:E17).  Nearly marrying off his daughter Mary after Bart gives her a cow.  That’s the universal engagement gift in the U.S., right?  This is episode is also pretty great because Bart “has a cow, man.”

As far as Cletus dialogue goes, I chuckle all the time at his one-liners but this next little doozy from “To Surveil, with Love” (S21:E20) had me clutching my ribs in pain while I was re-watching Cletus episodes for this post.

Mayor Quimby: “Now on to the next item, the proposal for putting term limits on public office. All those in favor say ‘I have sex with animals’.”
Cletus Spuckler: “I do have sex with animals, but I’m not in favor of term limits.”

Whether he’s diggin’ through garbage, hanging raccoons, distilling moonshine, selling vegetables from his shack, obtaining clairvoyance by drinking thermometer mercury, searching for roadkill, giving his pig a day of beauty and make-up, fearing the “uppity box” or whittling, Cletus is an amazing stereotype of a character I am thrilled to have in TSTO.  Here are his tasks in game.

Whether you love him or hate him (guessing most folks that hate him probably don’t like the similarities he has with them), he is a funny character you can always rely on for a laugh.  I’ll leave you with this little synopsis of him that I found in an old character quiz on okcupid.

“Wow Cletus!  Not much needs to be said.  You obviously don’t comprehend the english language because you were home schooled in a cave by Donkeys.   Then the Donkeys realized you’re a moron and booted your ass out of the cave.  At night, when you cry yourself to sleep, you can still feel your Donkeymoms hoof draped across your body.”

Ok, probably completely unhelpful.  Hope you enjoyed this bit of background on Cletus.  I love him.  I mean, c’mon, he’s got a smellhound name Geech.  Maybe I just identify too much with one of my fellow Appalachian Americans.  One thing is for certain, I’m sure he’s much “happier” now that his wife is around to hassle him.  Y’all stay classy.  TTFN… Wookiee out!

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