Life After Jacob's Foot: Great Characters of All-Time

The greatest characters of all-time. Who are they? Why are they considered among the greats? There are many, friends and well-wishers of Quad Blogs. The landscape of great characters is so vast that it is impossible to rank them in numerical order. The public loves lists and The Foot loves lists. There are pros and cons to lists. I specifically remember, in my days as overlord of the Entertainment Section before I earned a college degree and left the school, making lists quite a bit if there was any leftover space in the section. Just don't rank the Disney movies, folks, because that is dangerous minefield.

People will bicker at each other and at the overlord of the list/rankings. People will show zero appreciation for classic animated films and would rather celebrate an average animated Pixar film like Cars. In the middle of the night, or more like a Saturday after when the humble rankings creator is home for a home-cooked meal and a decent nights sleep in his own bed, will conspirators tamper with the rankings and insert CARS over classic animated Disney films from a bygone era. THAT is the danger of lists; however, rankings and lists can be blissful. Example: the great LOST rankings that was a staple of my LOST experience for years.

But ranking the greatest characters in numerical order for the sake of a list is not the best way to approach the greatest characters. What The Foot will do is simply state whom these characters are and why over a period of two months of TWENTY TWO YEARS. All characters are welcome! It is the exact motto of goody USA Network. The Foot will mostly focus on characters from television though characters from movies and books will be included every now and then. In fact, without further ado, the first character I will highlight comes from a feature film..

THE GREATEST CHARACTERS OF ALL-TIME

SHORTY FROM SCARY MOVIE, WELCOME TO THE FOOT'S GREATEST CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME!

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I abused caps lock above. I apologize. Shorty, portrayed by Marlon Wayans, is barely discussed when people talk great characters. What isn't great about Shorty? The only class that matters to him is lunch. He's able to bond with the psycho killer when every other character fails to. His final line is: "Wanna hit this bleep?" as his bullet wound will actually allow those to smoke marijuana. He's not exactly Falstaff but he's a moron and makes people laugh.

And now, to quote Jermaine Jackson's hit song "Let's Get Serious," let's get serious:

CAPTAIN MALCOLM REYNOLDS from the TV series Firefly

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Created by Joss Whedon, Mal fought against the Alliance with the Browncoats. The Battle of Serenity Valley changed his world. His side lost and he decided to live as far away from the Alliance as he could. He bought an old transport ship that many people considered junk but it wasn't junk to him. She is Serenity. He lost his faith in God after the Battle of Serenity Valley. He steals from the rich, sells to the poor but has a tremendous amount of loyalty. If you're on his crew, he'll always have your back. Indeed, his crew became a family. It is here where I turn it over to Joss Whedon himself.

This quote comes from the good folks at FireflyWikki.com as well as The Browncoats Website:

Why do you think that Mal's blend of harshness and undying loyalty to his crew make him such an appealing character to fans of the show?

Mal’s a leader. People respond to a leader because, quite frankly, they want to be led. A leader is somebody who does not always do what’s likeable and has to make decisions nobody else wants to make, and that’s the kind of character Mal is. He’s also clearly somebody who’s in pain - which people, I think, both respect and want to protect him from - and he’s somebody who is not cut and dried and noble - he has a good quirk to him, a sense of whimsy, which is something that people also look for. The other thing about being a leader is loyalty to the crew is your first command; it’s your first priority. Mal could not be a leader if his crew didn’t know that what he was trying to do was keep them alive and whole and that he would never abandon them. He’s not just out for himself no matter how many times he’s going to tell you that he is.

Here are some essential Mal episodes to watch, even though the entire series is essential Mal.

Out Of Gas: the ship is abandoned and running out of oxygen. Mal refuses to leave his ship. The audience gets flashbacks of when and where, and how, Mal assembled his crew. It's all about Mal and his love for his crew and his love for Serenity.

Serenity (The Pilot AND The Movie): The movie is a story that is mostly Mal's and River's. River will get her time in the sun sooner or later as a great character of all-time. The pilot, as a pilot is supposed to do, is a microcosm of the series and the pilot showcases the essential qualities and characteristics of all nine regulars but the episode deals a whole lot with the central character. It's one hell of a pilot. By far, Joss' best.

RECOMMENDATIONS THURSDAYS!

Recommendations Thursdays. How does that roll off of the tongue? Meet a new weekly feature here in The Foot. It's a spinoff of the beloved feature that used to be a staple of my fake online radio show, on the old websit. Recommendations made a cameo in The Foot two weeks ago only because there was no decent segue for promoting FX's Louie. Consider this the triumphant premiere of what will soon take the internet and its bandwith by storm.

I will list three recommendations each and every week, I think. This depends on whether or not the debut is a trainwreck. It certainly won't be long-winded.

1.) First and foremost, read and experience Dinosaur Wednesday right here at Quad Blogs. Where else will you find the cast of the old and beloved sitcom, Dinosaurs, battling with vicious dinosaurs? In fact, read PCA every day because there is new content each and every day.

2.) Last night while perusing the joblo.com message boards, I happened upon a thread about how Variety's senior TV critic attacked joblo.com because one of the reviewers liked The Last Airbender. Variety's critic couldn't believe a studio would stoop so low for positive reviews; however, he did not anticipate Joblo himself commenting on the article. Joblo stood up for his website, stated the facts about the success, popularity and respect of the site. Variety's critic, being a massive so and so, refused to concede and looked like a fool.

Visit joblo.com for all of your movie news. They've done great work keeping me updated on the happenings of Scream 4. The Scream franchise is my favorite horror franchise and the reason. Additionally, they provided the news that Michael Giacchino would score the remake of the Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In. The remake is entitled Let Me In.

3.) I think everyone should eat smoked blue marlin before dining on authentic Jamaican Jerk Chicken. Why? It's absolute bliss. I only suggest the smoked blue marlin because one will appreciate the amazing quality of the authentic jerk chicken much more. Of course, this recommendation requires people to travel into Jamaica. It simply will not work if you aren't in the country of Jamaica.

I'm leaning towards describing this as a trainwreck.

THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK