Timmy has a sidekick who is a 1500 pound polar bear. The reason I chose the polar bear — you know, the true thing is, I don’t really think about stuff like this because when I write I do something very odd. I turn on really loud music and I just sit and I tap out whatever comes to my head. It’s the same way I do the strip. My theory is you want to work on the right side of the brain when you’re writing funny. You don’t want to logically think through it if that makes sense.
So the music distracts my ability to think logically, so it forces me to be on that side of the brain. It’s a very odd theory, but it’s how I’ve always worked. So the truth is when anybody asks me questions like that is, it’s what I typed. But then I know that’s not a satisfactory answer so I try to go back and I think, well why did I pick a polar bear? My theory is that Timmy doesn’t have a dad, so a polar bear is big, seems like he could be protective, but he’s also soft, has all this fur.
So kind but strong. So probably a dad substitute, you know, but that’s just — that’s a guess that’s as good as your guess.
Originally he was Fatty Tookus and that’s the one thing my publisher would not allow me to do. You can’t call somebody Fatty. Despite the fact that fat is in the book in other places. So I changed it to Rollo which made me laugh. And Tookus, being a rear end I think in Yiddish or something, I don’t know. Just, the word is a great word.
So I do names that make me laugh. Corrina Corrina is a Dylan song. I’m a big Bob Dylan fan. It’s an older song than Dylan, but he did it too. Yeah, so I like Molly Moskins. I like the alliteration. Again, all just stupid things I type with the music blaring. Yeah.