The Simpsons character
Rainier Wolfcastle
Gender	Male
Job	Actor
Relatives	Wife: Maria Daughter: Greta
Voice actor	Harry Shearer
First appearance
The Simpsons	"The Way We Was" (as McBain), "Radio Bart" (as himself)

Rainier Luftwaffe Wolfcastle is a recurring character in the animated sitcom The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer. The character is a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Role in The Simpsons

Wolfcastle is a veteran of many action movies, most notably the McBain series (unrelated to the 1991 action film by the same name). He is a parody of bodybuilder, actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.

According to various Simpsons episodes, Wolfcastle began his acting career as early as childhood in Austria, appearing on long TV commercials advertising bratwurst. At roughly the same time, he began experimenting with bodybuilding, and his physique earned him a starring role in several gay pornography films, shelves of which were seen by Homer Simpson during one of Wolfcastle's debt-induced garage sales. He was also the primary promoter for "PowerSauce Bars", bars of applesauce claiming to boost muscle growth, but which were in fact a mash of apple cores and Chinese newspapers. Wolfcastle is an Anti-Semite as revealed in "Today I Am a Clown". He owns a Ferrari F40 and a Hummer H1. His daughter Greta Wolfcastle (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) used to have a crush on Bart Simpson ("The Bart Wants What It Wants").

Jobs

Wolfcastle portrays "McBain"

Rainier Wolfcastle has, in different Simpsons episodes, been a presenter at the Academy Awards, a spokesperson for the PowerSauce energy bar, a celebrity judge in radio station KBBL's contest "How Low Will You Go" (along with Krusty the Klown and Madeleine Albright), hosted a short-lived talk show, and appeared on Inside the Actors Studio with James Lipton (in which he shoots Lipton after getting into character as McBain). He also was co-owner of a Planet Hollywood spoof, along with "Chuck Norris, Johnny Carson's third wife, and the Russian mafia".

Apart from the McBain series, Wolfcastle also played Radioactive Man in an ill-fated live-action movie version of the comic book series. Wolfcastle has also ventured into comedic roles; in one episode he carries Homer in an oversized Snugli for babies, remarking, "I used it to carry Rob Schneider in the movie My Baby is an Ugly Man." His other films include Help, My Son is a Nerd; Mrs. Mom; Frankenberry: The Movie; I Shoot Your Face; I Shoot Your Face Again and Diaper Genie.

Politics

Rainier Wolfcastle appears to have political ambitions, as noted by his candidacy for mayor in the recall election of Mayor Diamond Joe Quimby. He is a member of the inner circle of the Springfield Republican Party, along with Burns, Krusty, Dr. Hibbert, The Rich Texan, Count Dracula and Bob Dole. Wolfcastle has campaigned as Republican Mayoral candidate and as a supporter of Sideshow Bob for Mayor.

Prejudices

Hints that Wolfcastle may have some anti-Semitic or Neo-Nazi views derives from Schwarzenegger having had to disavow Nazi sympathies due to his father Gustav Schwarzenegger's onetime Nazi Party membership.^[1]

When Krusty the Clown says, "I thought I was a self-hating Jew, but it turns out that I'm just an anti-semite" and nearby Wolfcastle enthusiastically responds, "We have so much to discuss". His lead-in announcer on "Up Late with McBain" dresses in a full SS uniform, complete with Nazi armband, and introduces himself as an Obergruppenführer, which was a high ranking officer in the SA and later the SS. In the episode "See Homer Run", in a stump speech he refers to himself as being, among other things a "...son of a Nazi...". However, in one of his films, after saving UNICEF supplies from a doomed transport plane, he afterwards leaps onto one of the "Commie-Nazi" enemy jet fighters, pops open the cockpit, and snaps the neck of the enemy leader who appears to look like Hitler.

Despite his aforementioned involvement in the gay porn industry, Rainier himself may also be homophobic, as evidenced by his accusing the entire audience of the "Up Late with McBain" show of being homosexuals after they booed him for describing his band leader's outfit as making him "look like a homosexual".

Character

The writers invented Wolfcastle—as the action hero McBain—for the episode "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?". Because they liked the scene involving the character from that episode, they used him again in "The Way We Was", which was recorded and aired before "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?". The McBain films were meant to satirize clichés of action movies.^[2]

The character was originally named McBain, after the fictional film franchise. When the movie McBain was released in 1991, the movie's producers refused to allow the show to use the name, so the name "Rainier Wolfcastle", to represent the actor's real name, was created to use instead. Later, the use of the name returned to the show.^[3]

Wolfcastle was based on actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.^[4] This basis has been drawn out over the series. Wolfcastle's wife is named Maria à la Schwarzenegger's wife Maria Shriver. In the episode "The Boy Who Knew Too Much", Bart Simpson tells Wolfcastle that his "last movie really sucked", alluding Schwarzenegger's film Last Action Hero, which was panned by critics.^[5] Wolfcastle owns a restaurant named Planet Springfield, a parody of Planet Hollywood, which Schwarzenegger co-owned with other celebrities.^[6] Wolfcastle is Republican like Schwarzenegger.

Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, doubles as Wolfcastle when Harry Shearer is absent from table reads. He ad-libbed the line "On closer inspection, these are loafers" in the episode "A Star Is Burns".^[4]

References