ManWithPez

Shifty eyed manservants! No wonder they're always being accused of crimes!

Butlers throughout fiction are know for their discretion, their reserve, and their work ethic.  Being good at all these thing doesn’t necessarily mean a good butler, since on the whole, it’s a butler that gives his master a comeuppance of some kind that most people seem to like.  The good thing about this list is that there are so many butlers in all forms of media that I can just keep writing about them if I like.  So, don’t be surprised if I’m quite lazy one day and produce a second part to this list when I can’t think of anything else to do.  Or rather, my manservant can’t come up with one.  (That’s my motto:  Blame the help!)  The best butlers after the jump!

WES.....Leeeeeey...

10.  Mr. Butlertron (Clone High) – Hey, he wasn’t only a buttling robot, he was also Clone High’s vice principal, and a humidifier!  If you didn’t see Clone High before MTV pulled the plug on it, you really did let one of the funniest shows ever made get right past you, and more’s the pity, for you did not know the awesome might of Mr. Butlertron!  He calls everyone Wesley (Yes, I know it’s because he was an obvious parody of Mr. Belvedere, but that doesn’t make it any less funny)!  He has a mortal enemy, the ScanGrade the Magnificent, around which, he seems to have Tourette’s Syndrome!  He wears a magical sweater vest! That’s my kind of butler…and robot! 

I think his bowtie is FABULOUS!!!

9.  Ultimate Jarvis (The Ultimates) – How could I put a comic book butler on this list and it not be Alfred?  Well, first of all, be patient…keep reading, and second, Jarvis is a hoot!  He’s just so…well…GAY!  And the fact that he wears his snazziest waistcoat to serve dinner to Thor and Captain America just so they’ll notice him is FAB-U-LOUS!  Like most of Marvel’s Ultimate universe, Jarvis comes to a sticky end.  Which is total bullshit, because, hey!  Why go to such lengths to make us like someone only to kill….Ohhhh.  I get it now! (That technique is base and vile, and only Joss Whedon can pull it off successfully!)

What? You try finding a picture of Dennis the Butler! That's what I thought.

8.  Dennis (The Eyes of the Dragon) – He’s easily the sweetest, most timid character in this lovely book by Stephen King, but when all is said and done, he almost brings an entire kingdom to it’s knees because of his integrity, and his inability to throw water instead of beating out a fire with his bare hands.  For me, though, Dennis became one of my favorite characters from the novel The Eyes of the Dragon because of his absolute hatred of turnips, and the fact that he would almost rather starve than eat them.  As much integrity as Dennis has in bringing a crime to bear, he has just as much, and goes to great lengths to prove it in setting a huge mistake correct.  Highly recommended, and I don’t think finding this book will be a problem for anyone.

Wipe your feet!

7.  Max Von Mayerling (Sunset Boulevard) – It is very, very hard to find good help these days.  Especially if you’re a washed up actress with a God complex.  Then again, maybe it’s not.  Maybe you could just hire on your ex-husband to do it.  That’s what Norma Desmond does when she keeps Max working for her for years, after he used to be a famous director.  He follows her down into obscurity because he loves her too much to let her go.  So, to be close to her, he becomes her butler.  In the movie, he can be seen cleaning up after her current lover, Joe.  Look, there’s been plenty of women I’ve loved in my life, but none so much that I’m going to those kinds of lengths for them, fuck, and no.

Wow. Looks like Communism really was a red herring.

6.  Wadsworth (Clue) – Did he do it?  Did he not?  Who the hell did it?  Depends on the ending you watch, but one thing’s for certain…Tim Curry is IN this movie, instantly deeming it worth watching.  If it’s not his guests difficulty with his pronunciation of “now” and “no”, it’s his relatively quick paced explanations for what is occuring that certainly helps this movie along.  And, given that it’s a movie based on a board game, you can see where that would help.  So, Ridley Scott, if you’re reading this (HA!), please use this movie as a template when you get around to making your Monopoly film.  Thank you.  And, speaking of Tim Curry… 

Kind of hard on his boss/boss's creations.

5.  Riff-Raff (The Rocky Horror Show, The Rocky Horror Picture Show) – Say you go to all the trouble to write one of the coolest musicals ever, and a big movie is going to be made of it.  You’d like to be in it…but where do you fit?  Why, as the damn butler, of course.  Then again, Riff’s more of a handyman than a butler.  When all the cards are played, he’s not even that!  Richard O’Brien did manage, however, to steal entire scenes from one of the best villains of all time, Dr. Frank N. Furter.  When you can do that, when you can actually steal scenes from Tim Curry in drag?  Then you sir, are a talent to be dealt with!

You rrrrang...Aw, fuck it. Whattyawant?!

4.  Lurch (The Addams Family) – If the family is weird as hell, their butler should be too, right?  Not this time.  Lurch, who looks like some kind of horrible science experiment gone awry is easily the most human, most normal member of the Addams clan.  And, they love him just like a member of the family.  I guess if butlers are hard to find, then good harpsichordists are probably much harder.  After giving the series a new review, and watching Ted Cassidy’s performance as Lurch, I was surprised about just how many episodes seem to focus on the butler’s love life.  Whatever he was doing, it was good television.

Comes in, throws cape on the floor! What does Master Bruce think I am, his butler?!

3.  Alfred Pennyworth (Batman) – The closest thing that Bruce Wayne has to a father is English butler and field medic Alfred, and my favorite incarnation of him (besides the hardass from the actual comic book) is the current movie incarnation of him, Michael Caine.  Why would he be my choice?  Well, he doesn’t take shit from Bruce, number one.  He’s the element in the films that seems to ground Batman and keep him wholly human.  He also would appear to do the work of ten damn men, what with taking care of the mansion, the cave, cooking, cleaning, and sewing up Bruce whenever he takes it on the chin.  He might not be the best butler, but he’s probably the most badass on this list.

Gayer than a Christmas cookie.

2.  Lynn Belvedere (Belvedere, Sitting Pretty, Mr. Belvedere Goes to College, Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell, Mr. Belvedere) – From book to big screen to successful TV series, Mr. Lynn Belvedere is one of the better known (besides Jeeves, and I’m not a Wodehouse fan, so you won’t see him here) butlers in popular media history.  So popular that I’m certain the hate mail will flow for his not being at the number one spot on the list.  Tough shit!  Get your own website and you can put whoever you want on it.  As for me, I find this butler charming in all incarnations, but none more so than we he was played by master actor and old queen Clifton Webb.  His method for getting a baby to stop throwing food?  Throw it right back on him!  There’s a lot to be said for the TV series, but Sitting Pretty has long been one of my favorite movies, and so, has my heart when it comes to the old, misplaced butler.

And yet, Godfrey wouldn't tap her. He's a better man than me, that's all I can say for him.

1.  Godfrey Park  (My Man Godfrey) – To win a scavenger hunt, a pair of sisters come to the local dump looking for a “forgotten man”, or, if you please, a filthy hobo bum to parade about a hotel in a drunken stupor.  When the first man they come to pushes the older sister, Cornelia (Gail Patrick…sigh…) in an ashpile for being a bitch, the younger sister, Irene (Carole Lombard) manages to convince the dirty bum beggar to accompany her and win.  She becomes smitten with him and his disease ridden set of whiskers, that she hires him as the family butler.  But, there’s much more to Godfrey than a nickel for bottle of Thunderbird, yes sir!  And, that’s all I’m going to tell you about him.  It’s one of the funniest movies ever made, and because I like you, my six readers (Hi, Grandaddy!) so much, I’ll show you where you can find it.  Hell, just watch the opening credits and tell me you don’t want to see the rest of it!

I suppose you might want to know the reason I would write a piece about butlers.  The truth is, when Dr. Horrible was coming to DVD, the powers that be behind it held a video contest to join the Evil League of Evil.  ThatCostumeGirl came up with The Butler, because the people have a right to know just why the butler was always doing it.  Evil, I mean, not sex.  That would have been an entirely different movie.  So, here it is, our Evil League of Evil application video, made with no budget, no means, barely any talent, but a lot of love…I present, The Butler:

Tags: List, Nerd

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Books, Comics, Internet, Movies, Television, Top Ten. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.