Rolf Macgregor

Today, I’m going to introduce you to yet another character in the Sunnyville universe.  We’ve met Sam Macgregor, one of the two stars of our story, and we’ve met her family.  But there was one member of her family we did not meet.  And that was her older brother, Rolf Macgregor.

Rolf Macgregor is actually mentioned in the first episode by Sam, but he does not appear.  I had it written that he doesn’t show up until the fourth episode in the series.  Rolf was added in for a reason.  Since the inspiration for Sunnyville Stories was the anime series Maple Town (as I discussed in the second part of the origins post), I based the family of Sam Macgregor on the family of Patty Rabbit from Maple Town.  To make it more different, I changed the structure of the family by adding in an older brother.  Patty’s family consisted of her, her older sister, a younger brother, and a baby sister.  Sam’s family follows that format with the addition of an older brother.  The above sketch you see is a rough concept – here is the final design for Rolf.

As I was saying before, Rolf Macgregor is the first born son of Thompson and Crystal Macgregor.  For the first six years of his life, he was an only child.  It was just him, his mom, and his pop.  Just after Rolf’s sixth birthday, things abruptly changed when his parents told him that he was going to be a big brother.  Rolf wasn’t thrilled at first of having a new baby in the family…but soon, he learned to love being a big brother.  The birth of Margaret and the birth of Samantha turned out to be a pivotal moment for Rolf.  He took on the role of big brother perfectly, always being there for his sisters and keeping an eye out for them.  If they cried, he was there to comfort them.  If they were scared, he would hold them and reassure them it was all right.  This led to Rolf’s desire to help others.  (It will be playing a big role in the fourth episode of Sunnyville Stories, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.)

It was soon after that Rolf developed another love…cars.  He had a thing for sports cars and powerful engines like V6s, V8s, and V10s.  Anytime he saw a sports car, be it the property of a resident or a traveler passing through, he would admire it a lot.  Rolf started taking various jobs to buy car magazines.  He started washing the townspeople’s various cars…which he had a monopoly on since there was no car wash in town.  He got to help out the people a lot – they needed to wash their cars and he needed money to fuel his own passion as a motorhead.

One day, his life took another turn.  When Rolf turned 18, his parents started to worry about his future.  Rolf didn’t show any interest in going to college and didn’t have any sort of real ambition, other than his passion for cars.  It was one day that a rather well-off feline drove into town and noticed Rolf’s car wash enterprise.  After he had young Rolf Macgregor wash his car, this feline made the eldest Macgregor child an offer he couldn’t refuse – come to work for him at his auto detailing business over in the seaside resort town of Solton, Sunnyville’s sister town.  His parents were a bit reluctant but agreed to let Rolf do what he wanted.  The pay was good, the benefits were plentiful, and in no time, Rolf rose to a high position as an auto detailer.  For the next two years, Rolf worked from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday and commuted back and forth between Sunnyville and Solton.  At the age of 20, he announced he was moving out.  The family bid goodbye to Rolf as the cat moved into his own apartment in Solton.

Rolf still makes visits back and forth between the two towns.  In fact, he usually show up in his 1973 Pontiac Trans Am at the front door of his family’s house.  Believe me, we’ll be seeing more of Rolf as the series continues.