Profile: Quackerjack

"Never trust a clown with literary pretentions." --Beetlejuice

John "Jack" Quackerwitz's father is James Quackerwitz II, and his mother was Louise Dori. Louise was never accepted by James' parents for two reasons, one: she was a 'half-breed' (her mother was a loon), and two: her mother was not Jewish (which by traditional standards, made Louise a shiksa). Louise's parents had been deceased for years when she married James, and she had no other family. She had a nervous breakdown when Jack was six and was sent to a hospital, where she managed to commit suicide. After her committal, James' parents, James I and Liron, moved in to help raise the children.

The oldest child was James III (known as Jim). Jim left home when he was fifteen and now tours the world with various rock bands as a stage techie. The middle child is Esther, who was born blind. She now teaches in a school for blind children. Jack was the youngest (btw, he didn't acquire the nickname "Jack" until he went to college--Grandpa Quackerwitz had an aversion to deviance from the Biblical names; Jim, in fact, was called Jim by everyone in the family except for Grandpa Quackerwitz, who continued to call him James...this led to general confusion whenever company came over).

Since Jim was a rebel and Esther was not only a girl but also handicapped, Jack fell victim to his father's and grandfather's rules and regulations on how he should live his life. James II is a timid man, and always allowed Grandpa Quackerwitz to tell him how to raise his own children. Grandpa Quackerwitz drilled it into James II that if he didn't force Jack into business, he'd never be successful, and success was everything. Jack, on the other hand, had his own ideas. His interests lay in poetry, theatre, and music. When in high school, he and his friend Sammy Black organized a few other kids into an improv group they called Random Theatre. They would walk around town until they found a crowded place, and just start performing. They did comedy, acrobatics, juggling, and improvosational music. Sam and Jack planned to go to New York and become professional entertainers, but Grandpa Quackerwitz didn't like the idea of the only grandchild he could really get his hands on doing something so useless with his life. He forced James II into putting Jack into a private Jewish school for his senior year, and forbidding Jack from seeing Sammy during his free time. Random Theatre was thereafter disbanded.

Jack was accepted into the University of St. Canard as an undeclared major, but soon after moving to the dorm, Jack got his gumption up and became an English Lit major. Unfortunately, fear of his grandfather soon coerced Jack into switching to Business, which he hated. He didn't, however, change his minor--Music. He played the bass viol, unbeknowest to his family, in the USC Chamber Orchestra throughout his undergrad and graduate years in college. He worked his own way through college, and literally never went home again, other than for short vists (which he soon stopped). He spent the summers in an beach house in the USC area which he shared with a group of engineering students, from whom he learned how to construct simple mechanical inventions of his own design. He supported himself by working as a life guard at Audobon Beach, and by writing articles for literary magazines.

After graduate school he interned with an arcade game company in Japan (yes, Jack speaks Japanese!), where he learned both how to manage a corporation and how to hate video games. It was Jack who had the brilliant idea of manufacturing toys based on the video game characters, and he became the head of that department. He designed many of the toys himself (thanks to the experience given him by the guys at the beach house), and eventually gained enough experience and made enough money to move back to America and begin his own company there.

He had learned by his experience in Japan that children do indeed possess incredible buying power, and decided to make his fortune exclusively in the toy industry. He borrowed an old character he used to portray in Random Theatre, an oddly psychotic, toy-loving jester named Quackerjack, to be not only the company's name but also its icon. He designed and made the costume himself, and wore it all the time, believing it to give him a new frame of mind that would help him be successful in this new business. He allowed his personality to become more like the mad Quackerjack, until many of his own employees believed him to be quite round the bend (as he truly was becoming).

Quackerjack Toys was successful for a few years, but the video game craze swept America, sales went down, and Jack became desperate. Refusing to go back into video games, he began designing new, outrageous toys in an attempt to win back his popularity. It didn't work, and the toy designs became more and more questionable, until the company was forcibly shut down by several child welfare organizations (not to mention OSHA). Jack was broke. Horrified at the idea that his grandfather may have been right, that he may indeed be a failure, Jack turned to crime to refinance his company.

He has since given up the idea of rebuilding Quackerjack Toys as it used to be, and although he still would like to sell his toys, he has remained in crime because, well, it's so darn profitable, and he's just so good at it. His grandfather lived long enough to see his grandson as a wanted criminal, and talked James II into disowning Jack (you can bet Jack laughed when he heard about this). Esther tried to get Jack to give up crime and come live with her but he refuses to speak to her, believing that she is trying to trick him somehow. He lives now estranged from everyone in his family with the sole exception of Jim, who tends to stop by and "borrow" money whenever he's in town on a tour.

Although Grandpa Quackerwitz is dead and gone, his voice lives on, in a weird way, in the form of Mr. Banana Brain. Jack's own paranoia causes him to occasionally project his grandfather's disparaging words and scathing remarks through the puppet. Jack shares his apartment with two alley cats, Koosh and Tinkerbelle, who come and go through a window as they please. He is a member of the Fearsome Five, a dangerous gang headed up by the maniacal Negaduck. Jack hides his personal life from the other members of the Five except for Megavolt, whom he clings to, believing him to be his only real friend (which is, in fact, pretty much true). He feels a kinship with Megavolt beacause they both view the world in a similar, insanity-induced kind of way, and they have worked together successfully in the past (and unsuccessfully too, I might add).

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Ok, now to the formalities: Negaduck, Megavolt, and the Fearsome Five are ©Disney. Quackerjack is also ©Disney, but the name Jack Quackerwitz and the entire history detailed above, including all other characters mentioned, are ©Cynthia "Sparky" Read (me). If you would like to use any of my original stuff (characters, Jack's history, ect), in your own fanfic or fanart, please feel free, but I humbly ask for credit. If you have any further questions about Jack, email me.