Saturday, June 22, 2013

Blog Collective: Minor Character

So there's a semi-new blogging group that's just sprung up out of the internet dust and invited me to participate in their weekly topics: The Blog Collective over at Nemesis Complex. Similar to the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, The Blog Collective has a weekly topic as a writing prompt.

Picture

What's their topic this week you may ask?


I'm actually just free-thinking my way through this one as I type. I'm trying really hard to come up with even one minor character that has really had an impact on me AND who isn't actually part of an ensemble cast. 

The idea of doing a whole piece on Skeeter from the Muppet Babies rattled around in my head for a while, since outside of Muppet Babies, she's not a canon character (she's made appearances in other media, and if you look at her Muppet Wiki page, there's a few other interesting tidbits about her life as an "adult" muppet) but IN Muppet Babies, she's a pretty big character, and Piggy's opposite number. 

Sorry, Doll.

Then I considered doing a piece on my favorite Godzilla spoof-character... Reptar!!! But after giving it much thought and consideration, I realized that Reptar was not really a character in Rugrats at all so much as he was an ubiquitous fictional mascot/presence/property like Ronald McDonald or Bugs Bunny is to us in the real world. I suppose some sort of spin-off series could have been concocted, but ultimately I felt he was too "Meta" to write anything meaningful about. 

Reptar from Rugrats
Sorry, maul.

I considered doing a piece on Alice the Goon, but since I don't really care for Popeye almost at all... I just don't want to. 

Sorry, too-tall.

What possible character can I showcase? Who is interesting enough... but also tangential enough to be considered a favorite "minor" character? 

And then... (meaning right now... as I write this...) inspiration struck!


Clem! I love Clem. He's a character who only shows up in the final few seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for a total of about 9 episodes... and he steals every scene he shows up in. He doesn't do anything terribly significant in the course of his existence, and only really stands out as a sort of living breathing punch-line to a running gag where he shows up as a hideous demon but then turns out to be a pretty decent, stand-up, and trustworthy average-if-demonic-joe. He's the kind of demon that makes the difficult decision to stop eating kittens based on the strength of his own moral fiber, and then sits down with you over hot-wings to talk about relationship issues. 


I know he's made a few appearances in the new Buffy comics mostly as a side-kick to Harmony, the bubble-headed blonde vampire. But dammit! Clem deserves his own destiny! His own series! In fact... I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe they gave the WRONG demon his own spin-off series... 

Yeah. I said it.
Clem has got charm AND personality, to the point where I felt he was criminally under-used in Buffy. I'm not seriously suggesting they should have done a Clem spin-off on his own, but I would have loved to have seen the kind of show they could have come up with if they had made him an important part of another ensemble.


I wanted my first outing with the Blog Collective to be a bit more... substantial... but I think I'm good here. A minor post about a minor character.

Be sure to keep checking in at the Nemesis Complex Blog Collective Blog to see what the other bloggers in the Collective come up with this week! 

That's it for me today guys! I'll be back with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon! Until then, Happy Hunting!

File:Skeetercomic.jpg
I couldn't NOT share this picture of ADULT Skeeter
from the Muppets comic book before I wrapped up.
Trippy right? 

4 comments:

  1. I love Skeeter! Oh my goodness I really wish the Muppet Babies would get a come back. And, I think Clem was a rather interesting character. I really miss Buffy. I used to love that show so much.

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    Replies
    1. Buffy was one of my first "buy the DVD set and obsessively watch 3-4 episodes a night until they are all gone" purchases. It got to the point where we didn't watch them on TV at all, and just waited for the next set to come out so we could just watch them at our own pace (wife and me).

      I would have loved to have seen a movie or even just a reunion special bringing everyone back for one last big job... but I feel like that isn't even a possibility.

      Delete
  2. Great pick! Clem is my kind of demon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The beauty of him is that he's EVERYBODY'S kind of demon. Amirite?

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