Walter Jung

Walter Jung is a television journalist, appearing on Friday Night with Walter Jung. Little is known about his family, though he does maintain close relationships with Billy Adler and Nichola Stevens. Billy works for Walter as a camera operator, and Nichola is a producer of his show.

Walter lives alone in Portland’s West Hills. He owns very little out of choice. His possessions extend to a vinyl jazz collection, a stocked kitchen, and a black Audi A8L W-12 with chrome trim.

Personal History
Little is known about Walter’s early life. Even his closest friends know little about who he was before he got into television. What is known is that he grew up in a Korean household. He never mentions his parents or any extended family.

He played baseball in college, and still has some of his old gear. During a game, he was hit in the snout with a bastball, which broke his jaw. Being a scholarship athlete, Walter was not given the proper time to heal. As a result, part of his jaw has been crooked his entire adult life.

Walter has a large scar, running from his sternum all the way down his belly. How he got it is not known.

Walter is not a Portland native. He speaks with a heavy Mid-Atlantic accent, which he leans on even harder when he’s in front of a camera.

Penny
In Mt Tabor, Walter goes on a date with Penny, his receptionist. The two go on weekly dates every Wednesday, but before the events of Mt Tabor, Penny accidentally stands him up. They go on Thursday instead, which is a risky move for Walter, since his show airs on Fridays. Throughout the date, the two engage in strictly platonic activities. They go to a batting cage, get McDonald’s, and drive up to Mt Tabor park in Portland. While stopped at a small lot, a brief argument breaks out between them, resulting in Walter falling off a steep embankment and breaing his jaw for a second time. Penny attempts to administer first aid from her car, but Walter is reluctant to let her touch him. Instead, she convinces him to go to a hospital, and after, drives him home. When Walter wakes the next morning to find Penny asleep on his sofa, he breaks off the relationship.

Personality
Walter is a gruff, impatient man at the best of times. He doesn’t tolerate boredom well, and will seek out excitement if he is unoccupied for too long. He has an extremely short temper, and can be easily driven to violence. When he’s in public, he tries a little harder to maintain a better image, but his anger can often get the better of him.

In addition to his temper, Walter can be spiteful as well, and will turn any situation into a story if it benefits him. When he is punched by a teenager, he turns the story into a much bigger ordeal, running a two-hour special on internet pranks.

Appearance
Walter is an anthropomorphic tanuki. He stands on two feet, with a plantigrade stance. He has five fingers on each hand-paw, and four toes on his feet.

He is described as being dusty brown, with a darker brown mask, and white fur inside his ears. As a canid, Walter has pointy, triangular ears and a long muzzle. In Day Off and Mt Tabor, he is described as having a bushy winter coat, which bulks him up to almost twice his normal size. He has head hair, in addition to fur, which is black with reddish undertones. He’s going grey, and regularly dyes his hair black to cover it up.

Walter is described as lean in Day Off, and spends a lot of time at the gym. He’s in good shape, and presumably good health.

Day Off
Main Article: Day Off

At the beginning of Day Off, Walter comes home from a long Friday. Fridays are the days his show airs, and when any last minute segments need to be filmed. He arrives home worn down and tired, and immediately begins to make japchae for himself. He spends the evening flipping through the news, catching up on whatever he missed during the day while he was working on his own show.

The next morning, Walter wakes up near dawn and immediately heads to the gym. It’s the first time he’s gone in weeks, since he avoids going while the New Year Resolutioners are crowding the place. He intends to run himself ragged on the treadmill, but is stopped short of his goal when a ferret throws a dumbbell across the room, nearly striking Walter. At this point, Walter decides to go home. There, he finds multiple helicopters circling above his house, and finds that a neighbour’s landscaping attempts have caused part of the hill to collapse, partially burying a house below. Unable to do anything about it, Walter goes back inside to change his clothes and clean up.

Later in the morning, he heads back into town to get his hair cut, and to buy some new running shoes. Between the salon and the shoe store, Walter is rear-ended by an uninsured driver. He almost gets into a physical fight with the driver, but stops himself when he notices police are already present. While Walter is unharmed, his Audi has taken a serious beating in the crash. After dealing with the police and the insurance, Walter heads to the shoe store to find a new pair of running shoes, where he is unsubtly stalked by an employee who recognises him from TV. Walter pretends not to notice and buys his shoes. As he leaves the shoe store, he is bombarded with a string of texts from Nichola, his producer. While Walter reads the messages, he is sucker punched in the face by a teenager, while another films with his phone. Walter reacts automatically and fights back, punching the teen in the ribs, and then kicking him in the knee. When the teens flee, Walter realises what just happened, and immediately contacts Nichola about the incident. He then silences his phone, cleans up, and finds somewhere to go for lunch.

After lunch, Walter contacts Nichola again. He instructs her to spin the story in his favour, and to find the video and remove it from the internet. He also tells her to book him on a regional morning show for damage control. Tired and strung out, Walter heads home. By the time he gets home, it’s raining and the helicopters are gone. He also finds his trash cans knocked over, with trash spilled out all over the street. After cleaning up the mess in the rain, Walter heads inside to take a bath. He removes the rest of his japchae from the fridge, and spends the rest of his night in front of the TV.

Mt Tabor
Main Article: Mt Tabor

The following Monday, Walter gets ready to appear on Good Morning Cascadia, a regional morning news show that films in the same building as his show. He’s never interacted with Brenda Kite, the show’s host, though he quickly comes to like her. Before he films his own segment, Walter waits in the wings, admiring Brenda’s ability to channel a vapid, bored housewife who is entirely too interested in juice clenses. During his own segment, Walter and Brenda discuss the topic of internet pranks turning dangerous or deadly. Rather than removing the footage of Walter’s attack from the internet, they air it instead, edited to remove the shot of Walter punching a teenager. He leads in to plugging his own show that Friday, before leaving Brenda to her next segment.

On Thursday, Walter confronts Penny about being stood up. She denies it at first, until she realises she’s been running a day behind after missing work on Monday. Penny offers to take him out that night instead, but Walter doesn’t respond. Instead, he throws a ball of paper at her and goes back to the studio to work on his show. Before he can get started, he is informed of a few new hires coming in, as well as the network’s demands that he take in some interns. Walter fails to see the point in doing both, and leaves without agreeing to any of it. When he gets back to his dressing room, Nichola ambushes him with more complaints from the network. His ratings and demographics are falling, but Walter argues that young people get their news from the internet, and that a weak showing in the under-30 sector is expected. The conversation ends with Nichola threatening to stab Walter with a dull knife.

After working all day to get the show ready for Friday, Walter heads home. He finds Penny parked in his driveway, and after some brief banter, he gets into her roadster and lets her take him back into town. They start off going to the batting cages, but are kicked out early when Penny loses her bat. Unsure what else to do, they get back into her car and head to McDonalds for dinner. Walter isn’t thrilled with this choice, but goes along with it. After they get through the drive-thru, Penny drives him through town, and up to Mt Tabor, a park in the middle of Portland. They drive up to a pull-off area and park. Penny pulls out a small stash of cocaine from under her seat, and the two of them clear out what’s left of it. Once the coke is gone, they begin to eat their dinner. As Walter is finishing his burger, they’re visited by a police officer, who lies about the park’s hours. It’s likely he doesn’t recognise Walter in the dark, and with Walter’s mouth full of fast food burger, Penny is left doing all of the talking. Eventually, the officer leaves, and Walter gets out of the car to move around. He doesn’t want too park up on Mt Tabor, but Penny is hesitant to do anything else, since they got out so late and very little is open.

When the headlights of a passing car startles Walter, he loses his footing and topples down a steep edge. Penny chases him down the side of the hill and helps him back up. He loses his glasses in the fall, and has cut his chest open. Penny gets him into the front seat of the car and tries to clean the cut on his chest, but Walter gets angry when she tries to touch him. He eventually relents when it becomes clear there’s little Penny can do with a travel first aid kit. When Penny touches his face, Walter shouts in pain, startling them both. Penny convinces him to go to a hospital, and takes him to the nearest one. She then comments on a large scar running down Walter’s front, with his only comment about it being he was once gutted “like a fish.”

Penny takes Walter to the emergency room, where he learns he broke his jaw in the fall. The doctor comments that it looks like it’s happened once before, and Walter says it was from a baseball accident in college. After some brief consultation, the doctor determines there is little that can be done, and gives Walter a prescription for Vicodin. On the way home, Penny struggles to find an open pharmacy, and comes up with only coffee and an apple pie from a 7-11. After that, she takes Walter home, and stays with him while he settles down in his chair.

When Walter wakes up the next morning, he finds Penny asleep on his sofa. He lets her sleep, and goes to take a bath, locking every door between the living room and the bathroom. Once he’s clean and dry, Walter goes back out to the kitchen to find Penny awake and making coffee. He breaks up with her on the spot, telling her to lock up when she leaves, and to spread whatever rumours about him she wants. He leaves her in the kitchen, and heads to work.

Trivia

 * Walter is notoriously difficult for Larson to draw in traditional media. He was designed and refined in digital media, which Larson finds difficult to translate to markers and pencils.  Most other characters were first drawn on paper, making the transition to digital easier.
 * Walter has also undergone several design changes, as well as a few name changes. Walter was eventually chosen as a name, because it does not quite fit for a character that age.  Originally, Walter was the name of another character.
 * The tanuki was chosen for his species because of its relative obscurity. Rather than having a more common animal, like a fox or a wolf, Walter is immediately “othered,” and set apart from the more common anthro characters.
 * Walter is a skilled swing dancer, and has been involved in the scene since high school.