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Jim Morales
| | "That night, well, I was quietly enjoying a waffle with maple syrup by my campfire when I was attacked by a vicious beaver! Its razor-sharp teeth were going for my jugger, but I was able to save myself thanks to my perfect mastery of the Raging Hand of Lei Fu Chang!"
#00 XANA Awakens
Name: Jim Morales
Nicknames:
Jimbo
Paco, King of Disco
GI Jim
Occupation:
Jim is a supervisor at Kadic Academy and he also fulfils the function of sports teacher. He often praises his discipline to the skies.
He supposedly had some more or less shady jobs before that (see here for more details).
Family:
There seems to be no woman in his life, nor any children. All we know is that his nephew is Chris, the drummer for the Subdigitals, which implies that Jim has at least one sibling.
Other:
Jim's closest relationships amongst the teaching staff appear to be with Mr Delmas and Ms Hertz.
One of his most distinctive traits is the band-aid on his left cheek. It always seems to be brand-new despite Jim constantly wearing it, as if he changes it regularly. Only Jim knows what it hidden underneath.
We know from episode 2 “Seeing is Believing” that he plays slide trombone and from episode 53 “Straight to Heart” that he is a fan of disco. However, in episode 33 “Final Mix”, he says that he is more into the twist.
One last note: he collects the origami birds that Odd makes during class tests. | | |
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"We'd better be careful about Jim. If he keeps playing detective, he's going to find our secret passage..."
#25 Code Earth
Jim groups together many cartoon character archetypes into just one person. He can embody the thick, clumsy guy, the pain in the neck who throws a spanner in our heroes' works, or even sometimes the somewhat sadistic sports teacher!
Generally speaking, Jim often gets to be a pain. He restrains our heroes by constantly making them undergo an annoying, restricting surveillance. In episodes 25 “Code Earth” and 61 “Sabotage”, Jim holds Jeremy back at the Academy while the situation on Lyoko is critical. In those situations, the heroes would really like the supervisor to leave them alone!
Jim's second function – and not the least! – is to be a comic relief. Indeed, seeing that thick, gauche guy running around trying to figure out what our heroes are up to and ending up being the fool of the day actually ends up making us laugh. What's more, Jim is quite clumsy and tends to play the stuntman, which always ends up quite a bad way for him. Especially his demonstrations in PE classes, like when he tries to teach them the pommel horse and takes a tumble, while Odd performs the move with perfect figure on his first attempt (episode 79 “Bragging Rights”)!
Not to mention his ability to brag and bluster, and the mysterious parts of his life he'd rather not talk about!
We can also mention that he is pretty much a failure as a seducer when he tries to woo Yolanda or Ms Hertz (episodes 32 “Saint Valentine's Day” or 43 “XANA's Kiss”).
The two-episode final of season 1 are Jim's 15 minutes of glory in the series, when he helps the heroes in their fight against XANA in order to get back his job. It is in those episodes that Jim actually appears as he truly is. He is seen to be very protective towards his students and faces XANA's army of Kankrelats bravely, risking his life without sneaking off! Jim will have the opportunity prove his courage on many following occasions. | | |
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"Your paranoid behaviour and your one-track mind concerning these children are getting on my nerves! You're a physical education teacher not a detective, Jim!"
#25 Code Earth
One of Jim's main characteristics is that he thinks himself more than what he actually is.
When you watch his class, you would rather have the impression to be looking at a drill sergeant of a GI commando that is about to go to war! He leads them with an iron fist and anyone who rebels against his authority is severely punished, like William in episode 59 “The Secret”.
During his long monologues about sports, he always glorifies his discipline as the noblest discipline Earth has ever produced. Which is why he is not very confident about Jeremy.
When he surveys the library, silence is the golden rule and Jim mercilessly uses all his power on the unfortunate, disobedient students. The rules of the school are is everyday holy book!
But in the end, Jim is just a poor, low-paid public servant who is housed in a small studio flat as caretaker, whose only hobby is to supervise his students, even during the holidays.
Because of this almost ratty life, Jim tries to highlight himself by showing off (episode 56 “False Lead”) and his supreme dream would be to find out what Jeremy, Odd, Yumi and Ulrich are plotting behind his back. Therefore he really behaves like a paranoiac, following our four heroes wherever they go and inflicting on them an almost domineering surveillance!
Yet, this conceals another part of Jim's personality, which is his large heart. Indeed, when something goes wrong, Jim is always there, making use of his talents as a lifesaver by bravely facing anything that XANA can come up with! This is especially clear in episodes 26 “False Start” and 39 “A Bad Turn”, when Jim fights any monster XANA can send without hesitation.
In episode 53 “Straight to Heart”, we even see his imperialistic face fading away when he takes pity on Odd, who he separated from his friends.
Jim remains quite clumsy and tends to speak first and think later, which obligates him to then resort to his favourite catchphrase: “I'd rather not talk about it”.
Finally, his temperament wears the principal out, as well as a few students who nickname him “GI Jim”. The opposition between his both eccentric and strict personality, and the principal's quite moderate behaviour, turns the two men into a comic duo. Jim reproaches the principal for the lightened punishments he gives to the students and considers him “weak”. | | |
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"You're a hero! And a fantastic PE teacher, Jimbo!"
#26 False Start
We don't know anything about Jim's childhood, except that he was, according to him, blond, curly-haired and thin.
However, in his speeches, he gives hints that he had quite a thrilling life before ending up as a monitor at Kadic Academy...
All we know for sure is that he was once a disco dancer in a movie. Except for that, it is much harder to separate what he pretends to have done from what he actually did...
To sum it up, we are told that this PE teacher has already been doing some manual labour, like working in the sewers (episode 29 “Exploration”) or being a forest ranger in Quebec (Prequel “XANA Awakens”), but also that he has had some more intellectual occupations, like working in a mental institution (episode 47 “Tip-Top Shape”)! If we take into account his most shady actions, like working for secret service (episode 56 “False Lead”) or investigating paranormal phenomena (episode 58 “The Pretender”), this PE teacher has many incredible secrets!
Did he actually serve as a research subject for the space exploration program? Was he a TV cameraman? Unverifiable...
Also, he does not disavow his sportive side when he claims that he was a pro basketball player (episode 53 “Straight to Heart”) and a roller derby champion once (episode 65 “Final Round”), or that he mastered the Raging Hand of Lei Fu Chang! No less!
His artistic spirit also allowed him to write a one-act play (episode 60 “Temporary Insanity”) and be an excellent ballroom dancing teacher (episode 62 “Nobody in Particular”).
On top of that, in episode 3 “Holiday in the Fog”, he reveals that he has been a supervisor for more than 20 years! Really, when did he get the time to do all of that?
At this point in the cartoon, Jim is but an inadequately-housed monitor who spends his life waging war on students in order to enforce absolute respect of the rules! Many strange phenomena occur around him yet he cannot explain it; sometimes, he happens to be a victim of these unexplained events (episode 1 “Teddygozilla”, episode 3 “Holiday in the Fog”, episode 23 “Rock Bottom?”, episode 63 “Triple Trouble”, episode 68 “Opening Act”). Fortunately, the Returns to the Past are here to erase our poor supervisor's memory, and to save him just in time!
There is even an episode in which Jeremy says that he is tired of explaining what is gong on in the factory while he constantly keeps forgetting it!
Jim's guts tell him that something weird is going on inside Jeremy's little gang and he enjoys playing the role of the spy who tries to uncover their plot. His attempts to do so, however, often end in pathetic failure.
So Jim goes back to the modest life of a PE teacher who takes students to the infirmary when it is needed, or enforces order in the dormitories or in the cafeteria...
But after many months, his patience dries up and the supervisor starts asking direct questions to our heroes, demanding that they tell the whole truth! Unfortunately, the principal puts a damper on his enthusiastic efforts and orders him to stick to being a teacher for the good of everyone, instead of playing detective (episode 25 “False Start”).
Yet, because of his pride, Jim would not give up that easily! He continues to observe our heroes in silence, biding his time... Then one day, when he sees Jeremy coming back from the park while he should have been in class, Jim starts running after him. But Jeremy, hurtling down the stairs to escape from the supervisor, has an impressive fall and badly sprains his ankle!
The consequences are tragic for Jim and his whole quiet, cherished little world suddenly comes apart: refusing to forgive this grave fault, the principal tells him he is fired! Broken and realising that he has made a mistake and that he would miss his quiet job as a PE teacher, Jim visits Jeremy to apologise for the last time...and he is about to leave the room...yet...
Without warning, Jeremy asks him to wait, ready to confess.
The student admits that he and his friends indeed hid a secret and makes an offer: if Jim helps him join his friends, in exchange, he will tell the whole truth to the principal.
Hurrying in head-first, the supervisor loads Jeremy onto his shoulder and vanishes from the infirmary, guided by his new ally, who leads him through the park to a sewer manhole leading to an abandoned factory. Exulting when he discovers that he was right, he listens to Jeremy, who tells the whole story: Aelita, XANA, the digital world, the scanners and materialisation! Jim probably retains only one tenth of all the stuff he heard, but that is more than enough. What actually matters most to him, is that when the kids' quest is over, he will get back his job at school.
A few minutes later, a young girl appears in the scanners, a girl Jim does not know! According to Jeremy, she comes from a virtual world and her appearance means that the children will unplug the Supercomputer and reinstate Jim as a teacher.
But the events do not turn out as well as planned. Jim has to stay at the factory and for reasons that are beyond him, the hellish machine cannot be deactivated without endangering the young pink-haired girl. So the supervisor resigns himself to waiting...
While he was getting bored in his squat in the factory, the next morning, Jim is woken up by a surprise! There are strange creatures walking around in the factory and leaving for elsewhere. They look like cockroaches with a powerful laser beam fired through their eye. Understanding that these came from the virtual world, Jim arms himself with an iron pole and goes on the offensive. He takes down a great number of enemies before he is joined by the Lyoko Warriors in the scanner room. Odd leaves him with a nail gun so he can go lend a hand to Yumi and Ulrich, who are fighting the monsters that reached the school. Jim sees the fair-haired boy off as he enters the scanner, then he dashes off!
His comeback at Kadic is spectacular. Shouting a long, enthusiastic “banzai!”, he shoots at many monsters, sending them straight to Kankrelat Hell. While Ulrich and Yumi run for Lyoko, he continues to face the threat on Earth and to protect his former students, but this time he gets hit several times. Lying on the ground, on the roots of a tree, our hero, Jimbo, finds himself during his final hour...then, a Return to the Past saves him.
Unfortunately for him, Jim loses all of his memories and begins following the heroes again to find out their secret. Our heroes, however, radically change their behaviour towards him, even covering up for him in front of the principal. Because now, they know that Jim is a hero (episode 26 “False Start”).
Later, Jim rediscovers the factory several times (episode 29 “Exploration”, episode 55 “Tidal Wave”, episode 68 “Opening Act”) and does not remember it either: indeed, each time it happens, Jeremy launches a return to the past with a sigh and reminding his teacher that he has already been here before. Anyway, except for our heroes, Jim is probably the character who sets foot in the factory the most often.
Since he is one of Kadic's main characters, XANA does not fail to notice him and xanafies him three times (episode 33 “Final Mix”, episode 54 “Lyoko Minus One”, episode 91 “Bad Connection”), since he is one of the most impressive opponents.
With time, the supervisor gets bored of his espionage missions, yet he does not stop establishing his authority on students. However, when things get out of hand, our heroes know that they can count on Jim to help them face XANA's attacks on Earth – with little success, sadly!
Even though he is brave and strong, Jim stands little chance when faced with a food giant (episode 55 “Tidal Wave”), two xanafied secret agents (episode 56 “False Lead”) or a materialised Krab (episode 39 “A Bad Turn”).
His last heroic battle is against a pack of very aggressive Kiwi 2s (episode 86 “Canine Conundrum”). He is even daring enough to fight a wild boar in the forest to protect his students (episode 74 “I'd Rather Not Talk About It”). Our heroes are so aware of Jim's skills that they ask him for special training to be in tip-top shape to face XANA. They bitterly regret it when they witness the military level of Jim's demands, but this very special moment with their teacher becomes an opportunity to hear him talk about his life a little...
All of Kadic learns to discover Jim from a new angle. The first time is when Sissi makes sure that the video clip from Paco the King of Disco is broadcast through the Kadic News. Even though Jim's first reaction is to get revenge on Odd for not keeping the secret, he soon realises that this revelation brought him cheers and popularity. Jim comes back in the limelight when the school learns that he is the uncle of Chris, the drummer of a fashionable music group: the Subdigitals.
By the time our heroes begin the War of the Network against XANA, Jim is not one of the main characters in the series anymore. Efficiently deceived by William's clone, whose “sense of humour” he particularly likes, without seeing right through the hoax.
Still, homages are made to Jim's character, since he is the one who closes the series in episode 95 “Echoes”, using his famous catchphrase: “I'd rather not talk about it” (just before the shots of our heroes smiling and waving to the viewers). | | |
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