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Igor (fictional character)
Encyclopedia
Stock character
A Stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. In their most general form, stock characters are related to literary archetypes,...
or cliché hunch-backed
Kyphosis
Kyphosis , also called roundback or Kelso's hunchback, is a condition of over-curvature of the thoracic vertebrae...
assistant or butler to many types of villain, such as Count Dracula
Count Dracula
Count Dracula is a fictional character, the titular antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula and archetypal vampire. Some aspects of his character have been inspired by the 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler...
or a mad scientist
Mad scientist
A mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if...
, familiar from many horror movies and horror movie parodies
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
, the Frankenstein
Frankenstein (1931 film)
Frankenstein is a 1931 Pre-Code Horror Monster film from Universal Pictures directed by James Whale and adapted from the play by Peggy Webling which in turn is based on the novel of the same name by Mary Shelley. The film stars Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles and Boris Karloff, and features...
series and Van Helsing
Van Helsing (film)
Van Helsing is a 2004 American action horror film directed by Stephen Sommers. It stars Hugh Jackman as vigilante monster hunter Gabriel Van Helsing, and Kate Beckinsale...
films in particular.
Origins
Dwight FryeDwight Frye
Dwight Iliff Frye was an American stage and screen actor, noted for his appearances in the classic horror films Dracula , Frankenstein , The Invisible Man , and Bride of Frankenstein .-Early life and career:Frye was born in Salina, Kansas...
's hunch-backed lab assistant in the first film of the Frankenstein series
Frankenstein (1931 film)
Frankenstein is a 1931 Pre-Code Horror Monster film from Universal Pictures directed by James Whale and adapted from the play by Peggy Webling which in turn is based on the novel of the same name by Mary Shelley. The film stars Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles and Boris Karloff, and features...
(1931) is the main source for the "Igor" of public imagination, though this character was actually named "Fritz
Fritz (Frankenstein)
Fritz is a fictional character who appears in the 1931 Universal film version of Mary Shelley' novel, Frankenstein. He was played by Dwight Frye...
". The sequels Son of Frankenstein
Son of Frankenstein
Son of Frankenstein is the third film in Universal Studios' Frankenstein series and the last to feature Boris Karloff as the Monster as well as the first to feature Béla Lugosi as Ygor. It is a sequel to Bride of Frankenstein....
(1939) and The Ghost of Frankenstein
The Ghost of Frankenstein
The Ghost of Frankenstein, is an American monster horror film released in 1942. The movie is the fourth in a series of films produced by Universal Studios based upon characters in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and features Lon Chaney, Jr...
(1942) featured a character named "Ygor", played by Bela Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
; this character, however, is neither a hunchback nor a lab assistant, but an insane broken-necked and twisted backed blacksmith who reanimates the Monster as an instrument of vengeance against the townspeople who attempted to hang him for graverobbing. He is shot accidentally, but somehow survives and appears in the next film, where his brain is placed in the Monster's body before it is brought back. In the 1933 horror classic Mystery of the Wax Museum "Ivan Igor" is the name of the mad wax museum curator. The film was remade as House of Wax
House of Wax (1953 film)
House of Wax is a 1953 American horror film starring Vincent Price. It is a remake of Warners' Mystery of the Wax Museum without the comic relief featured in the earlier film, and was directed by André de Toth...
in 1953, but the name "Igor" was given to a henchman of the curator (played by a young Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
) rather than the curator himself. While not a hunchback, the "Igor" character in House of Wax
House of Wax
House of Wax may refer to:*a wax museum*House of Wax , a 1953 3D horror film starring Vincent Price*House of Wax , a 2005 horror film starring Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray- See also :...
is deaf and mute and is portrayed as an unconditionally devoted servant.
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
's 1974 parody of the genre, Young Frankenstein
Young Frankenstein
Young Frankenstein is a 1974 American comedy film directed by Mel Brooks and starring Gene Wilder as the title character, a descendant of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The supporting cast includes Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Richard...
, put a comedic spin on the character with a hunchbacked assistant (played by Marty Feldman
Marty Feldman
Martin Alan "Marty" Feldman was an English comedy writer, comedian and actor who starred in a series of British television comedy shows, including At Last the 1948 Show, and Marty, which won two BAFTA awards and was the first Saturn Award winner for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Young...
) who claimed his name was pronounced "Eye-gor
Igor (Young Frankenstein)
Igor is the fictional hunchback assistant of Dr. Frederick Frankenstein in the 1974 film Young Frankenstein and its 2007 musical adaptation.- Character :...
" in response to Frankenstein claiming his name was pronounced "Fronkensteen". In 2004 Igor returned to the screen in Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
' big-budget monster movie Van Helsing
Van Helsing (film)
Van Helsing is a 2004 American action horror film directed by Stephen Sommers. It stars Hugh Jackman as vigilante monster hunter Gabriel Van Helsing, and Kate Beckinsale...
.
The 2008 animated comedy feature Igor gave the character central prominence as a twist on the traditional mad scientist story.
Film and television
In The Rocky Horror Picture ShowThe Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the 1975 film adaptation of the British rock musical stageplay, The Rocky Horror Show, written by Richard O'Brien. The film is a parody of B-movie, science fiction and horror films of the late 1940s through early 1970s. Director Jim Sharman collaborated on the...
, the character of Riff Raff (Richard O'Brien
Richard O'Brien
Richard Timothy Smith , better known under his stage name Richard O'Brien, is an English writer, actor, television presenter and theatre performer. He is perhaps best known for writing the cult musical The Rocky Horror Show and for his role in presenting the popular TV show The Crystal Maze...
) is a hunch-backed servant of Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry
Tim Curry
Timothy James "Tim" Curry is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California....
), who is seen serving as a lab assistant in the doctor's attempts to create life.
In the 1970s PBS children's show The Electric Company
The Electric Company
The Electric Company is an educational American children's television series that was produced by the Children's Television Workshop for PBS in the United States. PBS broadcast 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971 to April 15, 1977...
, Jim Boyd
Jim Boyd (actor)
Jim Boyd is an American actor, born in Philadelphia.Boyd spent four years in the Air Force and studied at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts....
and later Luis Avalos
Luis Avalos
Luis Avalos is a Cuban character actor. He has made numerous film and television appearances, most notably in the 1970s children's television show, The Electric Company...
played disheveled lab assistants named "Igor" to a character known simply as "The Mad Scientist
Mad scientist
A mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if...
" played by Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
.
Count Dracula had Igor as his butler for the first time in ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's 1979 holiday telefilm The Halloween That Almost Wasn't
The Halloween That Almost Wasn't
The Halloween That Almost Wasn't is a 1979 telefilm which aired regularly on the Disney Channel until the late 1990s. It revolves around Dracula trying to save Halloween from the Witch who threatens it. It won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement - Children's Program" and was...
(aka The Night Dracula Saved the World).
In The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas, often promoted as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, is a 1993 stop motion musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick and produced/co-written by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, a being from "Halloween Town" who opens a portal to...
, the town's resident mad scientist
Mad scientist
A mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if...
, Dr. Finkelstein, has a hunchbacked assistant called Igor who acts rather canine, working for "Bone Biscuits".
Igor appears in Return of the Killer Tomatoes
Return of the Killer Tomatoes
Return of the Killer Tomatoes! was the first sequel to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.-Synopsis:Set twenty five years after the events of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes , the basic plotline is that after the events of the first film...
, Killer Tomatoes Strike Back
Killer Tomatoes Strike Back
Killer Tomatoes Strike Back is the third film in the Killer Tomatoes film series, following Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Return of the Killer Tomatoes and followed by Killer Tomatoes Eat France...
and Killer Tomatoes Eat France
Killer Tomatoes Eat France
Killer Tomatoes Eat France! is a 1991 film released as the third sequel to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. The film was planned to be the third in the Series according to Return of the Killer Tomatoes, but was replaced as the third film by Killer Tomatoes Strike Back...
. In these three films, he is portrayed as a tall, blond, good-looking and well-dressed Yuppie
Yuppie
Yuppie is a term that refers to a member of the upper middle class or upper class in their 20s or 30s. It first came into use in the early-1980s and largely faded from American popular culture in the late-1980s, due to the 1987 stock market crash and the early 1990s recession...
assistant to Prof. Mortimer Gangreen who longs to be a TV news anchor. In all three films, he is portrayed by Steve Lundquist
Steve Lundquist
Stephen Lundquist is a former swimmer from the United States, who was a member of the Olympic Team when the USA boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics...
. The character also appeared in the cartoon
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: The Animated Series
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is an animated television series based on the movies Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Return of the Killer Tomatoes. It aired on Fox Kids from September 8, 1990 to November 23, 1991. Repeats continued to air until September 5, 1992. Three years later, repeats were...
voiced by Cam Clarke
Cam Clarke
Cameron Arthur "Cam" Clarke is a prolific American voice actor and singer, well known for his work in animation and video games. Clarke is well known for providing the voices of Leonardo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Shotaro Kaneda in the 1989 original English-dub of Akira. He often voices...
.
The cartoon series Count Duckula
Count Duckula
Count Duckula is a British animated television series created by British studio Cosgrove Hall, and a spin-off from DangerMouse, a show in which the Count Duckula character was a recurring villain. The series first aired on September 6, 1988 and was produced by Thames Television for 3 seasons and...
features the titular character's faithful old family retainer, Igor, who is portrayed as an anthropomorphic vulture (hence the hunchback). Igor is a traditionalist and often schemes to convert his vegetarian master to a diet of blood, as was the case with Duckula's previous incarnations.
Igor starred in a computer-animated self-titled Igor (film)
Igor (film)
Igor is a 2008 computer animated family comedy film about the stock character Igor. The plot revolves around the grotesque title figure Igor and his dreams of winning first place at the Evil Science Fair. The movie was released on September 19, 2008...
, where he takes over for his deceased master at being a mad scientist so he can fulfill his dream of being the most famous scientist in the world.
Literature
In Terry PratchettTerry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
's humorous fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
novels, the Überwald region of the Discworld
Discworld (world)
The Discworld is the fictional setting for all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld fantasy novels. It consists of a large disc resting on the backs of four huge elephants which are in turn standing on the back of an enormous turtle, named Great A'Tuin as it slowly swims...
(which resembles a collection of horror clichés) is home to a tribe of hunch-backed lab assistants with speech impediments; every single male is named Igor
Igor (Discworld)
The Igors are a recurring set of characters in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of novels. They are members of a clan of servants from the region of Überwald, all of which are named Igor.-Origins:...
, while the females are all named Igorina.
He also appears in one Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
comic book story written by Jean-Marc Lofficier
Jean-Marc Lofficier
Jean-Marc Lofficier is a French author of books about films and television programs, as well as numerous comic books and translations of a number of animation screenplays. He usually collaborates with his wife, Randy Lofficier .-Biography:Jean-Marc Lofficier was born in Toulon, France in 1954...
and drawn by José Ladrönn, called "Transilvane
Transilvane
Transilvane is a fictional small artificial planet with two horn-like protuberances in the . It was created by Jack Kirby in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #142 and #143 by the mad scientist Dabney Donovan....
", which appeared in Legends of the DC Universe #22–23. In the story, Dabney Donovan
Dabney Donovan
Dabney Donovan is a fictional character from the DC Comics Universe. He is primarily a Superboy and Superman villain.-Fictional character biography:...
, a mad scientist has created a whole world based on old horror movie characters. He is the servant of Count Dragorin, who is leader of the Vampires, and operates machinery for him.
A hunchbacked graverobber named Igor is a recurring character in The Far Side
The Far Side
The Far Side is a popular single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from January 1, 1980, to January 1, 1995. Its surrealistic humor is often based on uncomfortable social situations, improbable events, an anthropomorphic view of the world,...
comics.
Other
In the Canadian sketch show The Hilarious House of FrightensteinThe Hilarious House of Frightenstein
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was a Canadian children's television series produced by Hamilton, Ontario's independent station CHCH-TV in 1971. It was syndicated to television stations across Canada and the United States and occasionally still appears today in some television markets...
Igor is the burly, bumbling, green-skinned assistant of Count Frightenstein played by Fishka Rais
Fishka Rais
Fishka Rais was a South African born Canadian actor. He appeared in the children's television series The Hilarious House of Frightenstein as Igor and also appeared in the movie Cannibal Girls, credited as Kingfish playing The Butcher....
. His taglines are "Yes Master" and "I'd rather not get involved".
In the video game Quest for Glory IV Igor is the lab assistant to Dr. Cranium and the local gravekeeper.
In the Persona video game series, Igor is a recurring character who assists the main characters by helping them create new Personas.
The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season
2010 Atlantic hurricane season
The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season was the third most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, tying with the 1887 Atlantic hurricane season, 1995 Atlantic hurricane season and the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season. It had the most number of named storms since the 2005 season and also ties with the...
was the first to use the name Igor for a named storm.
In an interactive action game called Braindead 13
Braindead 13
Brain Dead 13 is an Interactive movie game produced by ReadySoft that was released for DOS in 1995 and later ported to consoles in 1996. Unlike Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, which began as laserdiscs, it was released for PCs and game consoles only....
a hunchbacked, heavily armed, imp-like character, with hooks for hands, based on the Igor archetype, named Fritz, works as the central antagonist of the player, as per the orders of a disembodied mad scientist's brain.