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:
“Vast chain of Being, which from God began,
Natures aethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing!—”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)