Famous Scots. Groundskeeper Willie.

Doctor William MacDougal, better known as Groundskeeper Willie, is a recurring character on The Simpsons, voiced by Dan Castellaneta. He is the head groundskeeper and Janitor at Springfield Elementary School. Willie is almost feral in nature and is immensely proud of his Scottish origin. He is easily identifiable by his red hair and beard, as well as his aggressive temperament and thick, stereotypical Scottish accent.

Role in The Simpsons

Willie is the groundskeeper and janitor at Springfield Elementary School and lives in a shack on the school premises. He is a Scotsman with an aggressive temper. Willie is an uncouth and unpleasant character, though essentially harmless. His personality is depicted as being incompetent, drunken, slow-witted, and quick to anger for little or no reason. Willie has shown antipathy to both his employer, Principal Skinner, and Bart Simpson, who frequently plays practical jokes on him. In the alternate continuity of “Treehouse of Horror VI”, his spirit plots revenge on the students of Springfield Elementary after getting burned to death by their parents’ actions.

Due to the deliberately inaccurate continuity of the series, he has claimed to be from various parts of Scotland during the series, most recently Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands in the 2012 episode ‘The Daughter Also Rises’. This settled the previous continuity problem in which Willie had been stated to be a supporter of Aberdeen F.C, and to have lived in Glasgow. In early episodes, Willie’s father was said to be dead. However, his parents were later introduced in “Monty Can’t Buy Me Love”, and lived near Loch Ness; which is near Inverness. In “The Girl Who Slept Too Little”, it is revealed that he has a cousin, “Grave Digger Billy”. In Dark Knight Court he describes himself as a “Scottish Old Believer Presbyterian” who “hates Easter” as some conservative Presbyterians reject Easter as a man-made feast on the basis of the regulative principle of worship.

Willie plays a supporting role in most of his episodes, but he was a main character in the episode “My Fair Laddy”, where Lisa Simpson introduced him to high culture as a science project.

In a running gag in each of the three segments of the episode “Treehouse of Horror V”, Willie tries to help the main protagonists, but is struck in the back with an axe by a different character each time, a reference to Dick Halloran’s death in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, of which the first segment, “The Shinning”, is a direct parody.

Willie has a troubled and distant relationship with his parents. In the episode “My Fair Laddy”, Willie recalls his birth and how his abusive father told him he would never amount to anything in life and would be lucky if he grew up to be “garbage”.

On two occasions, Willie frames Bart for pulling pranks that Bart would normally pull. In “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star”, he unleashes a giant pie of rats on the Springfield Elementary medieval festival to get revenge for being cast as the village idiot and his cruel treatment. Skinner is quick to blame Bart and expels him. Willie is never shown being found out as the culprit, but it can be assumed that he is eventually found out after Bart is enrolled in Catholic school and earns his way back into Springfield Elementary. In “Dark Knight Court”, Willie causes hundreds of eggs to be splattered at the Springfield Easter celebration out of inbred hatred for the holiday. Bart is put on trial for the incident, only to be acquitted when Willie is caught and turned in by Lisa and Mr. Burns (as Fruit Batman).