Jimmy Five, known as Cebolinha in Portuguese, is one of Monica and Friends main characters. He was created in 1960, at first as a support character for Franklin and Blu who the following year became the protagonist of his own series of newspaper strips, which was later replaced by the character Monica in the 70s. Currently Jimmy Five has his own printed comic book, called Cebolinha, which was first released in 1973.
Jimmy's family name is "Cebola" ("onion" in Portuguese), and he has a little baby sister called Mary Angela (in Portuguese, Maria Cebolinha, after her brother's name), also based on a real person.
His English name is Jimmy Five due to his hair composed of only five strands. In the first adaptations of comics into English, the character's name was Stanley, and later Frizz.
Concept and creation
Jimmy Five first appeared in the second issue of the comic book Zaz Traz in 1960, as a supporting character for Franklin. Mauricio de Sousa, creator of Monica's Gang, says he based the character on a child he knew while growing up in Mogi das Cruzes. He was a friend of his brother Márcio, and the boy would also switch the letter "r" for "l" and, because of his pointy hair, he earned the nickname "cebolinha" from Márcio's and Mauricio's father. Just like a different language. At first, he was a 4-year-old boy who was a friend of Franklin and his gang, he was the youngest boy. Originally he was supposed to appear in only one story, but the character ended up becoming so well received that he continued to appear more and more frequently. In the first stories Jimmy Five was hairy, after Sousa returned to the newspaper strips, his design became more and more simple and began to be drawn with fewer hair strands.
Sousa liked the character and made him a separate protagonist of Franklin and Blu in 1961. In these comic strips in which he was the protagonist, he was just a normal little boy who had several weird friends, among these weird friends came Smudge, a dirty boy who later became his best friends and sidekicks. After the introduction of Monica (based on the Sousa's daughter) in the comic strips in 1963 he began to share the leading role with her over the years. In 1964 he came to have his current look with 5 hair strands. In 1970 with the release of the comic book, Monica became the title protagonist in place of Jimmy Five, but a comic book for Jimmy Five began to be published 3 years later. Since Monica became protagonist Jimmy Five has gained different characteristics, as an antagonist who aims to defeat Monica and dominate the leadership of the neighborhood (in reference to the fact that the character had his role of protagonist reduced in favor of Monica).
Characteristics
Due to dyslalia, Jimmy Five is incapable of pronouncing the letter "r", replacing it with the letter l, in the Portuguese version, or with the letter w, in the English version. When the letter is used at the end of a word, however, he pronounces it normally (as in "car" or "locker").
Out of the main cast of Monica and Friends he is the only one to regularly wear shoes (when barefoot, he is also one of the rare characters to be shown with toes). He often complains and despairs over his main physical feature - his lack of any hair other than five single strands. His madcap attempts to rectify this often causes him (and those around him) a great deal of grief. He was originally drawn with a full head of hair, which often becomes a topic in his laments to the comic artist to "help him out" and restore his full head of hair.
He is always plotting to steal either Samson or the title of "owner of the street" from Monica with his "infallible plans" (which were initially created by Specs), which always end in failure, mostly because Smudge (his best friend) accidentally reveals to Monica that she is in a trap. On some stories, he gathers the other boys of the gang just to pick on Monica.
In some earlier stories, he devised background plans to find out the secret of her strength, but he always ended up beaten solely by her. Even with these frictions, Jimmy and Monica are still friends to each other. In the futuristic special edition stories, they are often portrayed as married or dating each other. Indeed, in Monica Teen, they are seen kissing.