Glass Joe (グラス・ジョー, Gurasu Jō?) is a fictional boxer from Nintendo's video game series Punch-Out!! He first appeared in the arcade game Punch-Out!! in 1984, and three years later made his home console debut with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game of the same name. His most recent appearance was in Punch-Out!! for the Wii. He is both the first and weakest boxer that the player fights. The character was originally designed by Shigeru Miyamoto for the arcade game. Makoto Wada revised Glass Joe's appearance for the NES version, while Eddie Viser redesigned him for the Wii game. He is voiced by Christian Bernard in the Wii version.
Glass Joe is considered by critics to be a stereotype of French people, due to his weakness and cowardice. The stereotypical characteristics of Glass Joe were emphasized even more by the developers of the Wii game, Next Level Games. For example, they included cutscenes that depicted the character as a lover of luxurious things, such as gourmet coffee. Glass Joe is considered to be both a Nintendo icon as well as one of the most well-known characters in the Punch-Out!! series. His name has been used to describe sportspeople when they perform poorly.
In the anime version, Christian Bernard reprises his role as Glass Joe. Bernard also plays the role as Glass Joe's mentor, Gabby Jay.
Read more about Glass Joe: Concept and Creation, Appearances
Famous quotes containing the words glass and/or joe:
“Our ideal ... must be a language as clear as glass—the person looking out of the window knows there is glass there, but he is not concerned with it; what concerns him is what comes through from the other side.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“I do wish that as long as they are translating the thing, they would go right on ahead, while they’re at it, and translate Fedor Vasilyevich Protosov and Georgei Dmitrievich Abreskov and Ivan Petrovich Alexandrov into Joe and Harry and Fred.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)