RED hair? Check. Irascible? Check. Propensity to sort things out with a punch to the heid? Check.
Could this week’s Icon possibly be Scottish? Well, featuring in The Simpsons cartoon series, he’s said to be the person most Americans associate with Scotland , ahead of Sir Sean Connery, Ewan McGregor and Rabbie Burns. Fan websites across the pond describe him as “a stereotypical angry Scotsman”. Oooh, that sort of thing drives Scotsmen mad.
Willie Sean Moran MacDougal, groundskeeper and janitor at Springfield Elementary School, is immensely proud of his origins in Scotland. But which Scotland? His accent is impossible to place. Possibly, he hails from the same locale as Scotty from Star Trek, who was a Linlithgow-born Aberdonian.
One US website says Willie’s accent sounds like “complete gibberish”, noting an implication in the series that it was the result of brain damage after hitting himself on the head with a hammer to get to sleep. During the series, Willie claimed to be from various parts of Scotland. He was a supporter of Aberdeen FC, but had also lived in Glasgow.
In 2009, Glasgow City Council added him to its Famous Glaswegians webpage, causing Aberdeen FC to protest. However, in season 23, it was finally stated that Willie is from Kirkwall in Orkney. Not only that, but his father was an Uppie and his mother a Doonie in the island capital’s famous Ba’ Game.
It was a union that “tore his family apart”. Rob Lazebnik, one of the show’s writers, reve.