Gluttonous, irresponsible, and immature, Wiggum is often too lazy, cowardly, and corrupt to bother fighting crime. His more responsible subordinate officers Eddie and Lou play the straight men to his shenanigans.
Many episodes have dealt with the back story of how Wiggum, despite his incompetence, occupies such a high rank in the Springfield Police Department; However, these jokes tend to contradict one another, as is the usual with side characters on The Simpsons.[8] Wiggum was temporarily promoted to Commissioner of Police for the state in which Springfield resides during the 2005 episode "Pranksta Rap".[9] He also appeared on a Halloween novel depicting Netflix's Stranger Things Chief Jim Hopper.[10]
Despite his severe incompetence at his occupation, Wiggum on occasion has helped numerous other characters, such as helping Homer find his wife in "Marge on the Lam". He rescued Maggie Simpson when she ran away from home to look for Marge in "Homer Alone", by helping Lisa Simpson find Mr. Burns's assailant in "Who Shot Mr. Burns?"[11][12] as well as helping backing her up in a school protest on one occasion in "The President Wore Pearls". In the episode "Pranksta Rap" he manages to find the presumed kidnapped Bart Simpson in Kirk Van Houten's apartment. He also arrived just in time during crucial moments such as the myriad of times Sideshow Bob has attempted to kill Bart Simpson. Wiggum is also shown to be a loving father of his son Ralph. Perhaps the best example of this is in the episode "Mother Simpson", where he leads the FBI astray in their search for Mona Simpson; Wiggum allowed her to escape due to his gratitude towards her for curing his previously mentioned asthma.
He is often shown to be antagonistic towards the residents of Springfield; It's heavily implied that he doesn't act this way out of malice. This is because he is either doing his job, or is simply ignorant of the situation. He also showed a great deal of insight during the episode "Chief of Hearts", where he and Homer become friends; when Homer asks him why he's willing to show Homer his favorite parts of Springfield, Wiggum tells him "Cops don't have many friends. Civilians are afraid of us, and other cops...they just remind us of things we want to forget."
^ abReiss, Mike; Klickstein, Mathew (2018). Springfield confidential: jokes, secrets, and outright lies from a lifetime writing for the Simpsons. New York City: Dey Street Books. p. 101. ISBN978-0062748034.
