Willie Wumpa Cheeks

Willie Wumpa Cheeks
Species	Mutant Wumpa Fruit
Additional information...

Perhaps a riddle or two!

Willie's opening phrase, Crash Tag Team Racing

Willie Wumpa Cheeks is the main antagonist of Crash Tag Team Racing and was the mascot of Ebenezer Von Clutch's Motor World. His head is a gigantic Wumpa Fruit with a Wumpa Pumpa for a nose, from which the Wumpa Whip he produces comes from. He often speaks in limericks and rhymes, which proves to disturb many people, particularly Doctor Cortex and Stew.

Later in the game, it is revealed that Willie is the one responsible for stealing the Power Gems from the park and Von Clutch's Black Power Gem. He admits to the crime out of sheer frustration of the other characters' less-than-intelligent accusation of Crash for the theft of the Gems, given that the one (and most obvious) piece of evidence points to Willie. He bounds off to Astro Land and attempts to blast off in a rocket, but is thwarted when Crash aborts the launch. Willie is pulled out of the rocket by Crunch, but before Willie can be interrogated on the location of the Black Power Gem, he is liquefied by a shot from Doctor Cortex's battle-craft and falls to the floor with his eyes left intact. As he was still alive after getting liquefied, his fate after this is unknown.

Personality

While outwardly appearing as a friendly, albeit creepy park mascot, behind this facade, Willie Wumpa Cheeks is a treacherous and manipulative villain who wanted to kill his employee, Ebenezer Von Clutch, even being willing to accept Crash to be incriminated for his acts before revealing himself as the culprit.

He has a tendency to speak in rhymes, and as such he introduces himself and places while rhyming. He has been noted to scare others due to his appearance and demeanor, such as Doctor Neo Cortex and Stew. As a Wumpa Fruit, he produced wumpa juice that was converted into Wumpa Whip, a task which he expressed boredom with. Willie also expresses disdain and dislike for his work as a mascot.

Portrayals

Wumpa Cheeks is voiced by Roger L. Jackson in the English version of the game and by Masato Funaki in the Japanese version.

Gallery

See: willie Wumpa Cheeks/Gallery

Trivia

• His name is a parody based off of Willy Wonka from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
• Despite being the one who stole the Power Gems as well as Von Clutch's Black Power Gem, the motivation behind Willie's actions or what he plans on doing with the Power Gems are not known. Though given the unpopularity of both his fairground persona and the Wumpa Whip he endorses, it doesn't seem exceptionally random.
• Willie speaks in most of the introductions to locations, excluding the final location, in which Von Clutch replaces him. If the introduction is replayed by re-entering, he still speaks, even if the player has cleared the game and stopped him.
• His voice actor Roger L. Jackson is well known for voicing Mojo Jojo from "The Powerpuff Girls" and Ghostface in the "Scream" franchise.
• In the cutscene where Willie confesses his crime of stealing the Power Gems from the park and Von Clutch's Black Heart Power Gem. He says "And I would've succeeded too if it weren't for you meddling Bandicoots." which is a reference to "And I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids", which is a famous line heard in the famous Hanna-Barbera & Warner Bros. Animation cartoon, Scooby-Doo.
• Despite being a Wumpa Fruit, he is not colored like the fruits found across the series, possibly a result of him being sour as implied by Pasadena O'Possum.
• He is the only main villain of the Crash Bandicoot series who is not a final boss.
• As of November 2019, Willie is the only main character from Crash Tag Team Racing to not return in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled in any form.