User:Boycool42/Wilfred (character)

Wilfred is the eponymous fictional character of the Australian television series Wilfred. He is portrayed by series co-creator Jason Gann on both the original series and its American remake. On both series, Wilfred is the canine pet of the female protagonist.

Conception and development
Wilfred was created by Australian actors Jason Gann and Adam Zwar. Gann and Zwar met at the University of Southern Queensland in 1990, where Gann studied acting and Zwar journalism. The concept of Wilfred was partly inspired by Gann's background working in children's theatre during the 1990s, where he found it amusing to see actors in animal suits swearing and smoking backstage. However, it was not until a late-night conversation between Gann and Zwar in November 2001 that the character was conceived. Zwar told of how he was invited back to the home of a young woman whose dog became suspicious and jealous of him. The pair began improvising a scenario between a man (Zwar) and a protective dog (Gann), and quickly realized the story was a great basis for a short film. They wrote a script that night. The short film won Best Comedy at the 2002 Tropfest, with Gann additionally winning Best Actor for his portrayal of Wilfred.

Allowed unusually wide artistic freedom, with commissioning editor Debbie Lee saying "Go as far as you want - the more bent the better", Zwar, Gann, and Tony Rogers finished expanding the short into a full length television pilot in 2006. The series was broadcast in 2007 and 2010 on SBS One.

Gann reprises the role of Wilfred on the American remake of the series, where he also serves as co-executive producer with director Randall Einhorn. Producer Jenny Livingston said FX recognized "the strong subversive themes and narrative" of Wilfred, and anticipated adjustments to the series scenarios and dialogue, concluding, "But it will still be our Wilfred".

Australian series
In the original series, Wilfred owner is Sarah Pickford (Cindy Waddingham), whose surname changed to Mitchell in the second season. Wilfred is said to be nine-years-old and 1/16th dingo. Each episode of Wilfred follows the story of Sarah, Wilfred, and Sarah's boyfriend, Adam Zavont, whose surname changed to Douglas to incorporate a back-story in the second season. After their first date, Adam goes home with Sarah and meets her scruffy pet dog Wilfred, but Adam (as well as the audience) sees the latter as a human dressed in an unconvincing dog costume. The dog develops a grudge against his owner's new boyfriend and tests him to see if he is capable of being his new "daddy". Thus the unsuspecting Adam, who is keen on winning Sarah's heart, has Wilfred to contend with.

Little is revealed about Wilfred's past in the first season. It is implied that Sarah is not Wilfred's first owner, and that he served numerous stints at the pound before being adopted by her.

In the second season, this backstory was changed. It is revealed that Wilfred in fact grew up with Sarah and her nudist parents in Nambour, Queensland. Wilfred's grumpy father Arthur still lives there, but his mother left when Wilfred was a pup. Wilfred was the runt of the litter; his only brother, Walter, became an army dog and was killed in the Iraq War. Arthur thinks his only surviving son is a disappointment and blames him for his mother leaving. Wilfred has been estranged from his father since Sarah first moved to Melbourne, Victoria.

American series
In the American remake of the series, Wilfred is the pet dog of Jenna (Fiona Gubelmann), a Los Angeles news producer. In the pilot, "Happiness", Jenna asks her neighbor Ryan (Elijah Wood), a depressed former lawyer who attempted suicide the night before, to watch her dog, Wilfred. Unlike the original series, which concentrated equally on Wilfred, his owner, and her boyfriend, the remake is a buddy comedy in which Ryan and Wilfred begin a unique friendship and Wilfred teaches Ryan "how to overcome his fears and joyfully embrace the unpredictability and insanity of the world around him". Each episode typically revolves around Wilfred helping Ryan to some achievement, the object of which serves as the title of the episode. For example, the first three episodes of the series are titled "Happiness", "Trust", and "Fear". The series maintains the concept of the original, with Wilfred appearing as a "crude and somewhat surly, yet irrepressibly brave and honest, Australian bloke in a cheap dog suit" to Ryan, but as just a dog to everyone else. In his review of the pilot, HitFix Senior Editor Alan Sepinwall wrote that though Wilfred "frequently seems menacing, his goal apparently is to teach Ryan how to act like a man by first teaching him how to act like a dog."

In the pilot, Wilfred explains that he had several owners who each disowned him when his "oral fixation" resulted in the damage of items such as shoes. This was resolved when an elderly woman gifted him with a tennis ball. Despite being performed with Gann's Australian accent, Wilfred is apparently American. In the second episode, Wilfred recounts his first and, until the episode, only experience in the ocean as being the only survivor of seven puppies tossed in a sack into Chesapeake Bay. Wilfred is portrayed as being afraid of veterinarians, shouting conspiracy theories when Ryan tricked him into getting his teeth cleaned.

In "Acceptance", Wilfred is the victim of animal abuse at a dog day care center. Daryl (Ed Helms) exploits Wilfred's love of peanut butter by forcing Wilfred to lick it off his testicles. In the fifth episode, "Respect", Wilfred is shown to be able to sense when elderly people are about to die, which Ryan attempts to exploit. However, Wilfred suffocates an elderly woman, gets high, and kills a nurse who works at the hospice.

Characterization
Wilfred has been described as "a smutty version of Snoopy". In both series, Wilfred is portrayed as being possessive of his owner, and insecure and manipulative towards her boyfriends (and neighbors, in the American remake). He smokes cigarettes and marijuana, drinks beer, eats junk food, and is prone to foul language, malapropisms, and sexual urges.

In the American remake of the series, Wilfred occasionally goes into "full-on dog mode" giving the viewer "a look into the insecurities that plague our pets when we leave for the day." When Wilfred is left with Ryan in the pilot, he immediately suspects Jenna will never return and begins digging a hole to escape Ryan's yard. In the pilot episode of the American series, Wilfred is able to read.

Other appearances
Gann appeared, in costume, with co-star Elijah Wood as an audience member on a May 19, 2011, episode of American Idol.