Craig Yoshida/Wheeler (Re-Animated/Out of Jimmy's Head)

Craig Yoshida "Dude! You're being a crappy friend!" Gender: Male Type: Unlikable, Merely Obnoxious "Friend" to Jimmy Species: Human Portrayed by: Micah Karns (Re-Animated) Jon Kent Ethridge II (Out of Jimmy's Head) Status: Alive Media of origin: Re-Animated Out of Jimmy's Head

Craig Yoshida/Craig Wheeler is one of the main characters of the critically-panned 2006 Cartoon Network movie Re-Animated and its TV adaptation Out of Jimmy's Head. He is Jimmy's spazzy, hip-hop-loving, self-absorbed, hyperactive "best friend", who only really seems interested in himself, and doesn't have any friends other than Jimmy. He is always coming up with ridiculous schemes to get popular and impress girls. He wants to be cool and uses Jimmy to make him more popular, often using Jimmy's brain as an excuse for him to say he's popular, and using it to get popular people to come to his party, who are only there because they think Jimmy will be there too.

Why He's a Crappy Friend

Overall

1. He has been shown to be overly energetic but is also full of himself at the same time.
2. He is always focused on being part of the popular crowd. Because of this, he is always coming up with ill-advised plans to become popular and attract girls as well for his own benefit.
3. He acts like the typical self-centered dork who does annoying things like getting attention by manipulating Jimmy through peer pressure and guilt-tripping. Plus being an impulsive chatterbox for the vapid sake of being popular, with nothing remotely likable to say about him.
4. He is extremely excitable and impulsive, and due to this fact, he doesn't seem to consider the consequences of his actions. For example, in Re-Animated, when Jimmy and Craig are in Gollyworld, Craig tells the popular kids that Jimmy will hold their stuff for them. As a result, Jimmy ends up missing out on most of the rides.
5. He never, not once, had one positive interaction with Jimmy, and it makes him like the type of friend Jimmy has, which creates a toxic friendship for them.
6. He barely receives any real comeuppance for his actions; even when he gets left alone, he never learned from his mistakes as Jimmy goes back to being friends with him despite every irredeemable thing he has done. This makes him a Karma Houdini.
7. Either version of him could be seen as a harmful stereotype, both to Japanese Americans and African Americans, especially considering how stereotypical his overall personality is.

Re-Animated

1. Despite being Jimmy's 'best friend', he constantly berates him, he always takes advantage of Jimmy on a daily basis, pushes him around, and accuses him of being a bad friend for things that are out of Jimmy's control. He only cares about hanging out with the popular kids and gets mad at Jimmy for no good reason. He even got mad at Jimmy for 'leaving him at Golly World' even though he knew Jimmy was in the hospital!
2. He usually makes things worse for Jimmy. There are times where he never listens to what Jimmy has to say sometimes and would jump to hasty conclusions, all in spite of Jimmy.
   • Much to the point where he tries to make Jimmy feel bad for him by giving him a 'you're my only friend' type of response since Jimmy isn't "spending enough time" with him when he hangs out by himself despite all of the annoying things he does to Jimmy, but it does nothing to make him justifiable except making him more hateable.
3. At his own party, when someone points out that his party is lame, he tries to make it look like someone loves his party by yelling with his mouth covered (in the same room) that the party is cool. Which is both, really awkward and annoying, and it makes Craig look vainer.

Out of Jimmy's Head

1. While he is toned down a little, he isn't much better after the film since he still isn't actually a good character. In fact, he even enjoys using Jimmy for cash and Craig often gets Jimmy into trouble where he talks down to him most of the time (though he's usually punished for it if it goes too far), which shows that he is still a bad friend to Jimmy. And he still acts like the same 'ol talkative dork who tries too hard to be cool through his own ego.
   • Much like Haru Tokashiki from Super Sentai: Ressha Sentai ToQger, he is written to be the dumb 'comic-relief type of character who generally acts like a buffoon for comedic purposes, but it fails so miserably, and in such a way it hurts.
2. For some reason, he was recasted from Micah Karns being Japanese to an African American portrayed by Jon Kent Ethridge II. This change was pointless, and is a prime example of being "blackwashed".

Redeeming Qualities

1. Specifically in Out of Jimmy's Head, while he is annoying, extremely unfunny, and unlikable most of the time, he has moments where he was a bit nice to Jimmy, even more so than how he was in Re-Animated. Plus, he is slightly better in the show than the movie, as he is slightly less mean spirited.
2. Jon Kent Ethridge II tried his best to portray Craig's comedic personality (which can lead to some funny moments here and there), it just failed miserably most of the time due to how Craig was badly written.
3. This line from the third episode of Out of Jimmy's Head, is his funniest line: "Okay y'all had your fun. But let's say you let me go... you all can kiss the bride."

Trivia

• In the movie Re-Animated, it is established that Craig is of Japanese descent, with his last name being "Yoshida" and having his grandparents speak Japanese. However, in Out of Jimmy's Head, while it's known that he's African American and his surname was changed to "Wheeler", we don't get anything more specifically attributed to his heritage.

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