Editing Town drunk (section)

==Uses in fiction==
In fiction, the town drunk character serves a number of functions.

The town drunk may serve merely as a [[moral]] example and object lesson on the evils of [[drunkenness]]. This approach to the character is associated with the [[temperance movement]], and peaked at the start of the twentieth century. The Prohibition film ''[[Ten Nights in a Barroom (1931 film)|Ten Nights in a Barroom]]'' portrays the inevitable fall into destitute drunkenness of a person who dared to take that "''[[The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933 film)|Fatal Glass of Beer]]''", the title of another period [[drama]] working this vein. A town drunk appears in ''[[Our Town]]'' by [[Thornton Wilder]].<ref>Walter J. Engler, "A Project on ''Our Town'' for Communication Classes", ''College English'', Vol. 14, No. 3 (Dec., 1952), pp. 150–156</ref>   Pap Finn in ''[[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'' is another example. In modern fiction, which tends to reflect the contemporary influences of the sobriety movement, the town drunk may get sober and set about revitalizing his life.<ref>John E. Richters and Dante Cicchetti, "Mark Twain Meets DSM-III-R: Conduct Disorder, Development, and the Concept of Harmful Dysfunction", in  ''Development and Psychopathology'' 5 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 5–29</ref>

The town drunk may play the role of the [[Fool (stock character)|fool]] as a source of [[comic relief]].<ref>P. F. Murphy, "Living by His Wits: The Buffoon and Male Survival", in ''Signs'' 2006 vol 31, num. 4, pp. 1125–1142.</ref>  "[[Otis Campbell|Otis]]" from ''[[The Andy Griffith Show]]'' is this type of town drunk, as is the character of [[Bobby Singer]] in [[The CW]] series ''[[Supernatural (American TV series)|Supernatural]],'' as well as many of the denizens of [[Moe's Tavern]] from ''[[The Simpsons]]'' such as [[Barney Gumble]].<ref>{{cite journal | title=Drug- and toxin-associated seizures | last1=Wills | first1=B| last2=Erickson | first2=T | journal=The Medical Clinics of North America | volume=89 | issue=6 | pages=1297&ndash;1321 | date=Nov 2005 | pmid=16227064 | doi=10.1016/j.mcna.2005.06.004}}</ref> In 1971's [[The Andromeda Strain (film)|''The Andromeda Strain'']] the only adult survivor is a Town Drunk.  In [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Macbeth]]'', the Porter who appears in Act II, Scene 3, is also a type of "comic relief" drunk who serves to temporarily lighten the mood of the play right after a heinous [[regicide]] has taken place.

The town drunk may disrupt public meetings, either for comic effect, or by dispensing what proves to be wisdom in a garbled and comic form. Or, in this incarnation, the character may introduce the [[hero]] to some of the worldlier sorts of wisdom, as well as forming a contrast to his truly heroic character. One prototype for this version of the town drunk is supplied by Shakespeare's [[Falstaff]], who appears in both parts of ''[[Henry IV, part 1|Henry IV]]'' and in ''[[The Merry Wives of Windsor]]''. Another would be the drunk who appears in ''[[Team America: World Police]]'' at the low point of the film, where his drunken ramblings inspire the hero to save the world. In the 1722 Danish play ''[[Jeppe on the Hill]]'', the eponymous [[wise fool]] main character, declares that "everybody says that Jeppe drinks, but nobody asks why Jeppe drinks"