9. Dr. Pretorius, Bride Of Frankenstein
It's so hard to find good help these days, as Dr. Henry Frankenstein found out. In the original movie, his lab assistant steals the wrong brain. In the sequel, Bride Of Frankenstein, his old teacher shows up and nearly steals the entire film. Though Henry is nominally the lead scientist in their partnership, Dr. Septimus Pretorius wins hands down in the "mad scientist" department, swanning through the movie with such gleefully macabre abandon that he makes the wet-blanket Henry instantly forgettable. Where Frankenstein is plagued by his wishy-washy conscience, Pretorius revels in his blackmails and grave robberies, and even goes tomb-looting with a sense of style, sticking around after the corpse is dragged away, and having a light supper and a smoke inside a mausoleum.
10. Rocky, Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends
The Rocky and Bullwinkle series went through so many name changes (The Bullwinkle Show, Rocky And His Friends, Adventures Of Bullwinkle And Rocky) that it's a little hard to tell who the sidekick was, but Rocky was more likely to provide the straight lines and to stand by while Bullwinkle wandered off and got into trouble. Also, Bullwinkle was taller, and how many other sidekicks get to be significantly bigger than their heroes? Anyway, assuming Rocky was the sidekick, he was still the smart one, the talented one, and the one who generally saved the day.
11. Marvin, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
Douglas Adams' science-fiction satire contains no shortage of characters who'd be fun to get drunk with. And even terminally bewildered protagonist Arthur Dent seems like a nice enough guy. But no character captured the hearts of Adams' fans as much as the gloomy Marvin, the Paranoid Android. Though Marvin's constant melancholy was a source of irritation to his shipmates on the Heart Of Gold, it was easy to sympathize with the slump-shouldered robot. Marvin may have exaggerated and obsessed over his many burdens—pain in all the diodes on his left side, or being forced to park cars for millions of years while his friends went to a fancy restaurant. But in Douglas Adams' mixed-up and often terrifyingly random universe, Marvin's weary resignation was one of the only sane responses to life. Besides, Marvin was more than a piece of miserable machinery, he was also the series' stoic hero figure—often the only character smart enough to know what was actually going on, he repeatedly saved the lives of his (usually ungrateful) friends at great peril to himself. Whether it meant facing down an intelligent battle tank unarmed or staying behind on a doomed starship while the others teleported to safety, Marvin was always willing (though never eager) to put himself in harm's way. Perhaps Marvin's popularity also owed something to Adams' own identification with the character—though it was inspired by a fellow writer named Andrew Marshall, Marvin's disconsolate pessimism also came from Adams' own bouts with depression.
12. Raymond "Mouse" Alexander, the "Easy" Rawlins series
Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, the hero of Walter Mosley's detective series, is one of the most well-rounded protagonists in the mystery genre, growing and revealing new aspects of his character over the course of eight novels and assorted short stories. A black man in mid-century Los Angeles whose crime-solving job is just one way up the economic ladder, Easy is at times a drunk, a devoted father, a socially conscious fighter for justice, and a miser secretive to the point of paranoia. But every time his friend Mouse Alexander enters the story, all eyes go to the sidekick. Mouse is Easy's loyal, lifelong friend, and the guy Easy goes to for muscle. But he's also amoral and violent to the point of being a psychopath, and so unpredictably and implacably dangerous that even his friends fear him. He's almost a force of nature, and he shrugs off criticism of his temper with lines like "If you didn't want me to kill him, why did you leave me alone with him?" And like Sherlock Holmes, Mouse is one of those literary characters who can even survive the author's attempt to kill him off; he proved too important to the series to stay dead after being shot in A Little Yellow Dog. Don Cheadle captured Mouse to perfection in the 1995 movie version of Devil In A Blue Dress.
13. Sideshow Bob, The Simpsons
He's smarter than his old employer, Krusty The Klown. He's more sophisticated, more refined, more ambitious, and generally less pathetically dragged down by greed and mind-altering chemicals. If only he didn't have that damn fixation on Bart, he could rule the world while Krusty was still out negotiating a contract to put his face on yet another shoddy product. He's the ultimate in sidekicks who are cooler than the heroes they go with. Problem is, he knows it, and he's out to take the hero slot himself.
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