My Favorite Toadies! (Spoilers)
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Not the toad I meant, bu...ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!
You know, ThatCostumeGirl and I argued over whether or not to call this group of people Lackeys or Toadies. Turns out, they mean almost the same thing, really. There is enough difference, however, that it looks like she won. So, Toadies it is! Besides, it’s the cooler sounding term anyways. Now, there will be some on the list that you disagree with. Indeed, there are some that start out as toadies, and then distinguish themselves otherwise further in the story. For however brief a time, however, they were all in glorious servitude, and happy to be so! So, here they are in rank order: My Favorite Toadies, after the jump!
The inspiration for Frank Miller's That Yellow Bastard.
10. Chester the Terrier (Looney Tunes) – Most people my age were introduced to the concept of a toady via Chester the Terrier in Looney Tunes. He’s the fawning sparkplug to bowler hat wearing Spike the Bulldog. The reason he’s at 10? Well, he doesn’t stay a toady for long. He invariably proves himself in the cartoons to be the superior tough dog, and indeed, Spike becomes his toady at the end of whatever short the two appear in. That’s the good thing about most toadies: Room to grow into your own person! Or dog.
Pay no attention to the albino up front.
9. Crabbe and Goyle (Harry Potter) – Misunderstood villain Draco Malfoy couldn’t be the simpering bad guy that he is without oafish help, and he gets it in this pair of brainless dickheads. They blindly follow Malfoy no matter what he’s up to, though they prove astonishingly easy to deal with throughout the Harry Potter series. So much so, that they are only seen or heard speaking with their own voices in only one of the seven volume Harry Potter series. One of them…I won’t say who, has a sticky end in the last book, mostly because he fails to do as his leader commands. Get too greedy, and see what happens? You get burnt! Damn! Adolescence is hard to swallow in those books!
BLARGH! KILL IT!
8. Blix (Legend) – The Prince of Darkness has a go-to guy in his employ to destroy the last pair of unicorns…a green goblin by the name of Blix, who gets one of the better lines in the entire movie. When asked by his boss how black his heart is, Blix replies “Black as midnight, black as pitch. Blacker than the foulest witch.” Is that not cool? He turns out to be surprisingly effective, mostly because he can move about in the day time, where his master can not. Not only does he snatch a unicorn’s horn, he manages to capture a second unicorn alive so that his master can kill it at his leisure. That’s pretty useful for a little green goblin, I think.
Renfield demonstrates that HE'S NUMBER ONE!
7. Renfield (Dracula) – Ah! Everyone’s favorite bug eating thrall! Renfield’s story, in my opinion, is one of the more compelling parts of Bram Stoker’s novel of blood drinking evil, and, for some reason, it’s the first thing that gets cut or short shrift in almost any film adaptation. All the man wants for his servitude, ultimately, is to be made into a vampire. That, or a full grown cat. Pretty cheap, so far as wages go! What he wants to do with the cat is best left to the imagination, but since I’m no fan of cats myself, I say get in where you fit in, bugeater!
Alcoholic plastic surgeons don't come no better!
6. Dr. Einstein (Arsenic and Old Lace) – Now, I’ve professed my love for this movie time and again, and one of the bigger reasons for this is Peter Lorre’s flawless performance as an alcoholic, impressionable plastic surgeon, forever on call to master serial killer Jonathon Brewster. While he goes out of his way to try and save brother Mortimer from Jonathon’s evil clutches, he comes around and helps subdue Cary Grant before it’s over. Hey! If you had to work for someone who you accidentally made look like Boris Karloff, you’d be an alcoholic too! I don’t think I was ever happier to see a character escape in any film I’ve ever seen. And, he does so with a grateful smile on his face, just having walked through a sea of policemen to do so!
One crazy bitch. And I dig that about her, baby!
5. Amanda Young (Saw) – As far as toadies go, it’d be nice to have one that looks as good as Shawnee Smith does, right? Well, as good as she usually looks outside the Saw film franchise at any rate. Amanda is shown to us in the first film as the only survivor of Jigsaws machinations, and later as a second time victim. Of course, knowing what we know about the films, turns out she’s a more than willing pawn and student of Jigsaw’s. She gets up to her own shenanigans, for which the penalty is quite severe, in the third movie. Consequently, if you’ve not seen the first three, I recommend them. They actually get better one after the other, if you can stomach them, which most can’t.
Nailin' all the ladies that Gaston won't.
4. LeFou (Beauty and the Beast) – This guy is such a good toadie that he A) sings a song to his boss to convince him just how great he is, and B) stands for an indeterminate amount of time in a snow bank because he was told to. Why does LeFou do the things he does? Gaston is a pretty hard influence to say no to, but my guess is castoff ass. Whatever Gaston doesn’t want, LeFou is there to pick up. I mean, did you see the Bimbettes? (Hey! That’s how they’re referred to in the credits!) You tellin’ me they weren’t sleeping with LeFou to get to Gaston? You explain it then!?
Keep smilin'. Ralphie says you're next.
3. Grover Dill (A Christmas Story) – He is identified by name as a toady in the movie. His part in the bully structure is made perfectly clear, when he takes a sock to the shoulder from Scut Farkus. Yet, he beats on the rest of the cast with impugnity. Ah, the life of a toady at Christmas time. While Ralphie describes Grover’s teeth as green, they are shown not to be so. Then again, this comes from adult Ralphie who’s narrating the whole thing, showing that your childhood memories, especially when it comes to toadies, may not be reliable. Besides, didn’t Ralphie serve up a heaping bowl of expletive laced justice to these two assholes? Hell yeah, he did!
Abby...someone.
2. Igor (Frankenstein) – You may be wondering, since this is the second list of mine that he’s appeared on, why I keep using pictures of Marty Feldman from Young Frankenstein for Igor, since it was a a parody film? Because he’s my favorite Igor, that’s why! He was THIS close to getting with Madeline Kahn. He was blissfully unaware of his own hump. He got the wrong brain for his boss. And yet, there’s something about him. He’s my second favorite toady of all time for a reason. Mostly because while he gets the job done, he does it his own way. Hmm…I guess that wouldn’t make him a toady at all! Well, I’ve written too much of this list to replace him now! Damn it!
Simply the greatest toady of our times.
1. Waylon Smithers (The Simpsons) – When you started reading the list, you had to know that there was only one choice for number one. While it might look like a simple case of servitude, Smithers relationship with his boss, C. Montgomery Burns is a complex one. We find out, for instance, that Burns had a hand in raising Smithers after his father was killed. Which makes Smithers’s all consuming crush on his boss quite disturbing on many levels. Smithers, while the best toady in history, has been shown to stand up for certain things he believes in. Most notable among them, his boss’s plot to steal sunshine from Springfield, and Sideshow Bob’s bid for mayor, because the republican views of his boss conflict with his…lifestyle. Waylon Smithers! The best of all the toadies!
While researching this with ThatCostumeGirl, we found out that the plot device of the toady or lackey is a rich and versatile one. Look for a revisit to this particular top ten sometime in the future. Mostly when I’ve forgotten to write a piece, or I just need to pull an easy one off. Wait…no! I’d never do that! Nothing but the best for my six readers! (Hi, cousin Jenny!)
Posted on February 24th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Well done! There are a few on here that weren’t on the brainstorm list. I like it.
Arsenic and Old Lace should be required viewing like the Wizard of Oz or Old Yeller.
I also look forward to seeing part II.