Angry Puppy

Here’s to the crazy ones, the fanatics, and the people who keep life interesting. Let’s face it, we love the nutjobs, and they’re especially sweet in our favorite geek genres (sci fi, horror, animation, and comics) where they have the freedom to defy the laws of physics, as well as psychology. With all due respect to Donnie Darko, the sweet and lovable crazies are nowhere near as interesting as the psychotic wackos that grace this list.

#10 - Roberto
In the classic Futurama episode “Insane in the Mainframe”, this recurring robot character tells us, “I’m not crazy, I’m just not user-friendly!” While this might explain why he’d rob the same bank three times in a row, it doesn’t necessarily account for the stabbing, and there’s quite a lot of stabbing. Poor crazy Roberto, he’s not broken. He’s just built that way.

#9 - Wednesday Addams
In the two ’90s films, as in the 1930s New Yorker cartoons on which the films and tv series were based, Wednesday Friday Addams is a spooky little girl fascinated with the macabre. Christina Ricci brings it home in the films with multiple assassination attempts on her siblings, at one point strapping brother Pugsley into an electric chair and telling him they’re going to play a game called “Is There a God?” On top of all that, we love that her outfits put goth chicks to shame, that she’s in love with a geek, and that she always has the perfect witty comeback. Nasty little blond girl: “Why are you dressed like somebody died?” Wednesday: “Wait.”

#8 - Xenia Zirgavna Onatopp
In over two dozen films, the James Bond franchise has delivered a wealth of memorable nutjobs, notably Christopher Walken’s Zorin, Yaphet Kotto’s Mr. Big, and of course everyone’s favorite cat-stroking bald guy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the inspiration for Dr. Evil. However, in the James Bond division we have to award the nutjob award to Famke Janssen’s completely deranged assassin Xenia Onatopp, as seen in Goldeneye. She’s hot, she’s fierce, she kills guys by squeezing them to death between her powerful thighs (insert variety of bad jokes here), and best of all she’s actually getting off in the moment they die - awesome!

#7 - Roy Batty
Meanwhile at the more graceful and philosophical end of the spectrum perches replicant Roy Batty, whose dreams of electric sheep are sadly cut short by Blade Runner Rick Deckard. Rutger Hauer’s impeccable and poetic delivery perfectly blends elegant philosophical ponderings with a seemingly real love for his fellow machines - and of course finger snapping. We do love the finger snapping. Ah, Roy, you have burned so very, very brightly, such a shame to see all those moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.

#6 - Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
We have Gaultier to thank for his business smock, but Gary Oldman gets the praise for bringing to life the chief villain of The Fifth Element. Zorg is a nightmare of the corporate future, an arms dealer, a fast-talking megalomaniac, and an evil servant to a giant ball of talking dark matter that threatens to destroy the earth. We love Zorg because he reminds us that raging psychotic nutjobs can be not only fun, dammit, but stylish too.

#5 - Ralph Wiggum
Though he’s only in second grade, there’s something deeply disturbing going on behind those glazed eyes and that innocent, red-crayon-eating smile. How can we express the disturbed psychotic mind of Lisa Simpson’s classmate? Consider his sandbox. Ralph’s no longer allowed to go in its “deep end” because that’s where he saw the leprechaun that told him to burn things. And we know Ralph has a small problem with the pretty, pretty fire, because as he tells us, “in my house we call them ‘uh-ohs’.” Ralph assures us there’s nothing to worry about. “Dying tickles,” he says comfortingly. Somehow we’re not reassured.

#4 - Leland Palmer
If only Ray Wise had injected half the insanity of this Twin Peaks resident and bereaved father into his more recent characters on Reaper or 24. It has come to our attention that certain people have still not seen Twin Peaks, and while we don’t know what that’s about, we’ll respectfully exclude any spoilers for their benefit. So for those of you in the know, we recall our favorite Leland Palmer nutjob moments including the thing with his hair, the thing with the crazy dancing, the public bawling and sobbing, and of course the thing that happened to him that made him repeatedly do that other thing, eventually leading up to his doing that one really important thing. In case you’re not familiar with the series, we highly recommend the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, which is chock full of classic and disturbing Leland moments.

#3 - 1930s-40s Daffy Duck
The cartoon world is overpopulated by “crazy” characters but woefully short of homicidal lunatics, and that’s why we love pre-war Daffy. Somewhere around the turn of the last century Daffy became a pissy, egotistical foil for a certain rabbit. The pair traded barbs and witticisms until Daffy would mutter a lovable catchphrase or get his beak knocked off. But originally he was a saw-wielding lunatic, tearing down hallways and running up the walls and ceilings all the while going completely bonkers like a serial killer on speed. The truly terrifying thing about this murderous bird was the knowledge that there was nothing motivating his actions other than good ol’ bad chemicals. Submitted for your approval: The Daffy Doc (video link).

#2 - Delirium
Neil Gaiman based this Sandman comics character on his good friend Tori Amos (number 7 on our recent list of Top Ten Geek Bands). Delirium is the youngest of The Endless, the seven anthropomorphic embodiments of the forces that shape the universe. Her warped perspective of reality is beautifully captured in her abstract dialog, spoken in puffs of color. Her favorite pastimes? Spending days and days making up flavors of ice cream that no one’s ever eaten before, like chicken and telephone ice cream (green mouse ice cream was the worst, she didn’t like it at all). And occasionally and absent-mindedly transforming into a hundred and eleven perfect, tiny, multicolored fish, each of which sings a different song. We love you Del!

#1 - Drusilla
Martin Landau’s daughter Juliet brings to life (so to speak) the deranged vampire, Buffy nemesis, and ex-girlfriend of Spike, the incomparable Drusilla. Born in the 1840s, Drusilla was relatively normal until driven insane by Angelus’ brutal slaughter of her entire family and all the residents of the convent to which she’d fled. Angelus turned her crazy-ass self into a vampire, giving us 150 years of good fun with our all-time favorite nutjob. She dresses and talks like a 20-year-old girl from Victorian England, and in some ways she still is. But she’s also an extremely dangerous, homicidal vampire. Although she reappeared throughout the Buffy and Angel series, Dru was at her best in Buffy Season Two, when she was with Spike. Dru’s dialog is curiously lyrical and abstract, and through it we get a small glimpse into her scary world, “And pain. So much suffering. The flames are lovely. They dance, and the fire licks like a cat. And the screams. Oh, it’s like star music.” At times she can be coherent and even witty, “I met an old man. Didn’t like him. He got stuck in my teeth.”