Trivia / Wesley Willis

• Creator Breakdown: A particularly traumatising one. In 1989, his stepfather robbed him at gunpoint — of $200 he had saved to move out — which he claimed led to his first experience of schizophrenia voices. This also led to Wesley carrying his cash everywhere with him.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Only two of his albums (Rock And Roll Will Never Die and Rush Hour) and three select few Greatest Hits Albums are available on streaming services. Many of his other recordings were self-released and could only be purchased directly from Wesley himself in person - some sources had it that Wesley preferred selling his music directly to fans, and thought no one would buy CDs from him at shows or on the street if too many of them were in stores. You'll have to dig deeper to find his entire discography.
• Referenced by...:
  • The Volume 1 DVD for Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law has his song "Birdman Kicked My Ass" playing over the title menu.
  • Jick, creator of Kingdom of Loathing, was a huge fan of his, and the game is liberally studded with references to Willis - Heartbreaker, Meansucker, and Nervewrecker themselves even show up in Hey Deze.
  • In the New 52 Wonder Woman comic, the character Milan is an Expy of Wesley, with his manners, speech pattern and even appearance been very close to the real person.
  • Rock Over London was a syndicated show hosted by British DJ Graham Dene that aired on US radio in The '80s and The '90s.
  • "Defense System" by Canadian Industrial Metal group Monster Voodoo Machine starts with Wesley saying "Rock over London, rock on, Chicago" - it's easily mistaken for an isolated vocal sample of one of his songs, but they actually did bring him to the studio to record his catchphrase in person.
  • Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People episode 3, Baddest of the Bands. Bubs says "Rock Over London, Rock On Chicago" when you end a conversation.
  • The default "Intro" track that comes with the music player Winamp is a radio bumper claiming the player "really whips the llama's ass", a reference to the "Whip the Llama's Ass" song he sang with The Dragnews.
• Revival by Commercialization: "Rock N' Roll McDonald's" gained notoriety after it was featured in the movie Super Size Me.

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