By Merrill Hagan in
Daily Lists, Movies
Monday, Mar. 1 2010 @ 8:09AM
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Now, being a bad guy isn't enough to just qualify you as being a sleazebag. Mr. Joshua, in Lethal Weapon, is evil, but in the end, he's just a guy doing his admittedly nasty job. What we're talking about is the real low, scum sucking, ego-tripping, do-anything-for-a-buck types. Vindictive. Slimy. Sell their own mother if they thought it would make them a buck. Screw over everyone and anyone to get ahead, and never lose a second of sleep. People like these nine guys. 9) Lt. Eckhardt in Batman
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8) Walter Peck in Ghostbusters
Walter Peck thinks he is better than anyone else. It's clear in the way this EPA agent refuses to call Peter Venkman by the proper title of "Doctor," even after he learns of Venkman's degrees in Psychology and Para-Psychology. And when Peck helps usher in a potential supernatural catastrophe by shutting down the Ghostbuster's Containment Unit, he refuses to accept responsibility for it. Thankfully, dickless here, was kicked out of the Mayor's office just in time to get the fluffing of a lifetime from the exploded Stay-Puft Man.
7) Biff Tannen in the Back to the Future Trilogy
Biff Tannen, the date-rapingly awesome bully of Hill Valley High, received one of the greatest gifts of all time: A sports almanac from the future that shows the final results of every event for the next 50 years. So what does Biff do with his newfound shot at fame and fortune? He buys a casino and forces his high school love interest to get gigantic fake boobs. No matter the year, Biff Tannen is always a sleaze. And he's also usually covered in manure.
6) Professor Joe Butcher in License to Kill
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5) Stathis Borans in The Fly and The Fly II
Stathis Borans is the former lover and current boss of Veronica in The Fly. We learn all this information when he uses a set of Veronica's keys to break in her apartment and take a shower while he thinks she is out. There has never been a character that has been as sexually harassing as Stathis. At every opportunity, he reminds us that he would like nothing more than to be foul on Geena Davis' Veronica. He is so repugnant that when the Brundlefly eventually vomits acid on Stathis' hands and legs, the audience is less disgusted and more happy that this totally obnoxious jerk finally got a little something that was overdue in coming to him.
4) Terry Silver in The Karate Kid Part III
Terry Silver was created for the people who thought that the over-the-top theatrics of original Karate Kid villains Johnny and Kreese were too subtle. Terry Silver is a Vietnam vet who establishes a plan to corrupt Daniel Larusso to the Cobra Kai side of martial arts in retaliation for Kreese's humiliation at the hands of Mr. Miyagi. In some ways, he's the Emperor of the original Karate Kid trilogy. We're not sure if that analogy speaks less of Star Wars or Karate Kid. Karate Kid Part III goes out of its way to establish how sleazy Terry is within the first two minutes of his appearance. He's rich, has a butler, wears an awful pony tail, and oh yeah...he dumps illegal nuclear waste. Captain Planet had less ridiculous bad guys.
3) Carter Burke in Aliens
When you look at the group of characters sent to the terraforming colony in Aliens, one man stands out. Carter Burke. Burke is a company man, not a marine. He isn't physically imposing or tough, but he does have one skill that everyone else on the team lacks: he is an amazing liar. Burke is responsible for the deaths of the entire terraforming colony by ordering the employees and crew to investigate the site of the Alien eggs from the first film. And when his initial plan to escape with an Alien sample fails, he lets two Facehuggers loose in Ripley and Newt's room so that he can later abscond with fresh samples. Burke doesn't care about any other human on his mission. He just wants to make money for his corporate masters so he can shine in their eyes. As punishment, when Burke was killed, he was reincarnated into a pretty awful NBC sitcom with Helen Hunt.
2) Bob Morton in Robocop
Bob Morton steals Murphy's body, cuts off all extraneous organic pieces and melds him into a cybernetic being so he can become Robocop. In any other film, this would land him a role as the chief villain. Everyone else in Robocop is so repugnant that Bob come across as a slightly misunderstood good guy. Bob doesn't care that he's destroyed the remains of Murphy's life. He really doesn't care about helping the city of Detroit. All Bob really wants to do is move up the corporate ladder and step on Dick Jones' face while he's doing it. At least Bob left this planet doing what he loved most, snorting lines off of hookers' bosoms while Red Foreman murders him.
1) Harry Ellis in Die Hard
When we first meet Ellis, he's nose deep in a pile of cocaine in Holly Gennaro's office. Pretty classy move, especially considering that Holly is not in her office and everyone knows that her estranged husband, John McClane, is on his way to the room. Later, when terrorists take over their building, Ellis attempts to become the White Knight of the evening. If by White Knight, you mean he makes an ill-conceived attempt to negotiate with terrorist mastermind Hans Gruber. Ellis tells Hans that he can deliver him John McClane. It's never really clear what Ellis is going to get out of the deal, but all he specifically asks for is a Coca-Cola. That's right. Ellis sells out the greatest action hero of all time for a can of Coke. Pretty crappy deal. At least Ellis gets murdered to the sound of John begging people to admit that he never knew this gigantic sleazebag in the first place.
94 comments
Comments
Flarn said:
gotta love the use of the phrase 'fluffing of a lifetime' up there.
StrangeLad said:
Ah, Walter Peck... Only in the Regan 80s would the EPA be the badguys.
Mebaman replied to StrangeLad:
I'm not particularly obsessed with the environment, but, ever since I was old enough to finally know what the EPA was, I have been puzzled about the choice of the EPA as a "bad guy" in a movie. Still, when everyone's seeing ghosts and attesting to signs of the supernatural (even Casey Kasem), it's not like you can get the F.B.I. to arrest the Ghostbusters for fraud. Guess you need someone to investigate "why" everyone's seeing ghosts, and chemical intoxication's about the most reasonable explanation I can think of (with the exception of ghosts actually existing - which would be ridiculous, right?).
Thor replied to Mebaman:
EPA!! EEEPPAAA!!!
Michael replied to StrangeLad:
I know in the 80's the EPA was the bad guy in the movies.
In the 2000's the EPA is the bad guy in real life.
A portent perhaps?
RenGeek replied to StrangeLad:
Unless of course you're counting the Simpsons! :D
Dread said:
I'd have included Dick Jones instead of Morton, but I understand your reasoning.
Rattrap007 replied to Dread:
i agree. it should have been a tie.
good list of a holes and sleazebags there man.
JOE replied to Dread:
I always hated how they turned "The Old Man" into the sleeze in Robocop 2. I mean, I guess it's not unbelieveable, seeing how he is the head of a multimillion dollar corporation, but the first movie made no inclination of that and made him seem like a generally decent enough guy. It was a little jarring to see him suddenly become evil.
CheeseGimp replied to JOE:
I dunno. The Old Man also watched an innocent peon get gunned down by ED-209 during a meeting and the best he could come up with was, "I'm very disappointed."
Maybe not evil, but certainly lacking in empathy.
J.H. said:
Aw c'mon, Bob Morton sleazier than Dick Jones?
Think of how sleazy Dick Jones was?
Selling drugs on the side?
Supplying weapons to the cops and the crooks?
Hiring Clarence Boddicker and company to kill Robocop?
Morton is fucking Santa Claus next to Dick Jones... DICK JOOOOOOOOONES
KB_SBI replied to J.H.:
Bob Morton is propably what Dick was when he stared at OCP (Fucking over the Police for his RC Project, stepping on everyone and anything to get ahead)
Jones is just Morton with more experience and Criminal energy.
Dag said:
What, no Dr. Eldon Tyrell from Blade Runner? This man is a major sleazebag because not only does he get off on playing god to the replicants, he has no real sympathy for their plight as sentient beings. The whole "[T]he flame that burns twice as bright lives half as long, and - oh - you have burned bright..." line was impetus enough for me to giggle out loud when Roy Batty squashed his head and gouged out Tyrell's eyes with his thumbs.
Other than that, I think the list is pretty solid.
GUMBERCULES! said:
I always thought Bob Morton was a good guy. Yeah, kind of a dickish good guy, but still good. I actually thought it sucked when he got killed, since he was all about helping Robocop.
Keep in mind the location too. By Detroit standards, he's a white knight in shining armor!
THE PR0F3550R said:
I love lists like these. They are simultaneously humorous and nostalgic. You should have added Putnam "a greedy and sleazy, runaway child hunter" from the Nerd-tendo movie The Wizard and from the BMX film RAD the even bigger sleazy asshole duo of Duke Best and his creepy underling Elliot Dole who do everything in their power to prevent Cru Jones from competing in Helltrack.
Lily412 said:
Up until number one, I was like "Where's Ellis from Die Hard..?"
Now I know!
SCF said:
While Stathis Borans is a total sleazebag, he's nowhere near as bad as half the dudes on this list. He's pretty much an outright good guy by the end of The Fly, as he stands by Geena Davis when she's pregnant and tries to help her get an abortion. I felt pretty bad for him when he got puked on by a hybrid fly monster. Plus, he's super funny.
absofflab said:
Here's a third voice defending Bob Morton - his bastardy doesn't hold a candle to that of Dick Jones (whose list of crimes is neatly outlined by J.H.), and Morton is positively a SAINT compared to the evil bastards in Robobop 2.
Now, I'm not really defending what Morton did to Murphy (the eventual Robocop); it was pretty awful. On the other hand, it is clearly stated in the movie that Murphy signed away the rights to his dead body to Morton's company, so it's pretty unequivocally incorrect to say that Morton stole Murphy's body. Morton had fully legal access and rights to his corpse. As far as we know, the only laws that Morton breaks involve vice (sex and drugs). Grave-robbing isn't a line he's too likely to cross (less forgivable for a big-shot executive, y'know?).
Now, Murphy was most likely intending to bequeathe his body for medical and research purposes (transplants and the like), and not to be turned into an unholy but awesome ass-kicking abomination, but he should've specified that in his legal filings.
Huh. I just blamed the victim...
GUMBERCULES! replied to absofflab:
Don't feel bad. If Murphy was such a good guy, what the hell was he doing in Detroit? There are no decent people in that city!
And anyways, how is Bob such a bad guy for saving Murphy from being a quadraplegic quadurple amputee for the rest of his life? What the hell was Murphy going to do at that point? Star in a remake of Metallica's One video? I'd much rather be an unstoppable cyborg too!
GUMBERCULES! replied to GUMBERCULES!:
Quadurple? Is that, like, 4 shades of purple at once? I think I have a new super hero name.....
Note to self, check posts for typos before posting.
Lithroe said:
I know the clips for #1 and #3 were probably all you could find, but I'm so sick of people recording their TV with a camera. If you can't do it properly, don't waste your time. Great list though.
JohnnyFM replied to Lithroe:
Thank you, Lithroe. Recording from a television is my biggest pet peeve when it comes to YouTube and the like. Glad I'm not the only one vexed by this all too common occurrence.
Pedro said:
True fact! Eckhart was played by the late William Hootkins, who also played a certain character named PORKINS.
Mebaman replied to Pedro:
He also thought Abner Ravenwood was a Nazi - that is, until Indiana Jones set him straight.
Ian70 replied to Pedro:
Not only that, but he was also Dr. Zarkov's ill-fated assistant Munson in "Flash Gordon," a sleazy record producer in the Horror film "Black Carrion," and Nancy Travis' sleazy, creepy neighbor in "Hardware." Yep, for much of the 70's and 80's, Hootkins was pretty much the go-to guy when you needed a part for a fat, sleazy American character (he was actually British). He will be missed.
Evan said:
I can't tell if it's funny or funny that Harry Ellis is also the main dirty-love interest in Supergirl.
Monkey boy said:
My ex girlfriends father actually hated Paul reiser because of his role in aliens. He played such a skeazebag that the dude couldn't separate fact from fiction and loathed the actor because he sold out sigourney weaver. In a movie.
JOE said:
Ooh I just thought of a good sleeze to add.
Dr. Crews (Terry Keiser) from Friday the 13th part 7. He's a psychiatrist that wants to exploit Tina's trauma about killing her father to study her psychic abilty. When his plan is discovered, he threatens to have Tina commited. Then he uses Susan Blu as a human shield when Jason is coming for him. That's right he uses SMURFETTE as a shield.
Kinda obscure, I know, but still pretty sleazy.
Mr Shrubber replied to JOE:
Great call on 'Bad News' Crews.
I'd add James Spader as Steff in Pretty in Pink. Douche by name, douche by nature.
Joan said:
No Gordon Geckko?
Prodijy replied to Joan:
seconded....
Gordeon Gekko is synonymous with 80s sleaze. I do believe there is a moment in the movie where he admits he would sell out his mother for chump change.
Andy replied to Prodijy:
Gordon Gecko is the epitomey of 80s sleaze.
I would also suggest the TV Host Damon Killian from The Running Man.
It wasn't all male sleaze bags in the 80s either.... Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver) in Working Girl makes a real run for sleazy female boss.
KingOfDoma replied to Andy:
Thirded, I say. Y'know how sleazy Gordon Gekko is?
I've never seen Wall Street.
AND I KNOW IT'S A TRAVESTY THAT HE'S NOT ON THIS LIST. o.o
KB_SBI said:
Man, you just know Burke tries to fuck everyone over in Aliens when he first says he had on idea about the Colonie being near the "Spacejockey" Ship.
He and Ellis are the quintessential Sleazbags to me.
demoncat said:
Can not believe Walter and Biff did not rank higher on the list like the top five for after all Walter totaly wound up causing all the ghost busters work to go up in smoke and then refused to take blame. and Biff the guy was a total tool. and Ekhart should have learned not to try and mess with the Joker. in batman.
Jared said:
William Atherton deserves to be in the 80's sleaze HOF... Not only does he play Peck, but also Richard Thornburg, the dick reporter from Die Hard 1 & 2, and Jerry Hathaway, the pompous professor from Real Genius...
maachubo replied to Jared:
He is in the HOF. In the "making of" featurette on the Ghostbusters DVD he talks about how even 20 years later people will see him on the street and shout "dickless!" at him. Kinda sad, actually.
Cobra Commander replied to Jared:
Beat me to this comment. I was thinking the exact same thing. William Atherton is the king of sleazbag characters. Well done, sir. Well done.
PeterJR1961 replied to Jared:
I thought that William Atherton would be doing double duty on this list as both the dickless EPA agent from Ghostbusters and the dick of a reporter from Die Hard, I mean he threatened a housekeeper with the INS so he could get an interview. I clapped when he was hit in the mouth in DH1 and laughed in DH2 when he was sapped but the stun gun.
Spazweez replied to Jared:
Gotta jump on the William Atherton bandwagon here. He's a one-man sleazebag trifecta.
Clarence Boddicker said:
BITCHES LEAVE
Dread replied to Clarence Boddicker:
Gold.
doubledumbassonyou said:
For my money, Carter Burke will forever be the #1 80's Movie Douchebag, "This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it."
Fuck Carter Burke
The Amazing Rando replied to doubledumbassonyou:
How about Mr. Bishop Waylon. He got his head bashed in and still begged Ripley to let herself be killed by the Alien so they could "LEARN from it" which for me means MAKE SHITLOADS OF MONEY. He was also in charge of the very prison all this hell was going down on, and he just let it go to pot. And in total sleazebag fashion he just left when it was over like he'd get another shot.
maachubo said:
That's right, Burke dies in Aliens. I had almost forgotten. That means that somehow Weyland-Yutani managed to hire two of the exact same sleazebag to manage two different operations. The second being, of course, the mining operations on Pandora.
(Yes, I know the mining company in Avatar wasn't named, but is there any doubt that it was The Company?)
Yeah, as soon as Parker Selfridge gave us three lines, I knew I was seeing Carter Burke if he was running things. (Indeed, in the original treatment, Selfridge's first name was "Carter," too.)
LadySheeana replied to maachubo:
Given the *huge* amounts of creativity in the movie as a whole, I'd say it's definitely named The Company.
OnanRulz said:
I wanted to make sure everyone has read this article:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/epa_shuts_down_local_ghost
starwarsfans said:
What about Chet, Bill Paxton's character from Weird Science. He was a total sleazebag. The only thing not sleazebag about him was that he thought having his grandparents catatonic in the closet was disrespectful.
miguel replied to starwarsfans:
I remember the first time I realized that he was one of the street punks that gets killed at the beginning of The Terminator, along with the bad guy from Cobra (the Stallone movie)
Anonymous replied to miguel:
Bill Paxton has been killed by the Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator. That's a pretty impressive trifecta, although to be honest it'd be more impressive if he'd killed one of each rather then been killed by 'em.
Beppo said:
Hey, I had that same Bob Morton/Dick Jones confrontation clip from Robocop posted on my YouTube account and MGM nuked it from orbit within the first 30 days. In fact, they nuked all of my Robocop clips. There's no rhyme or reason to the way this works.
It should be noted that Dick Jones doesn't wash his hand after taking a dump. Then he rubs his hands all over Bob Morton's face.
J.H. said:
Y'know Prince Humperdink from The Princess Bride should be on this list as well. I mean the dude was an utter tool, nothign but lies and deciet.
I mean he fakes his own bride's kidnapping to start a war. He then acts the noble hero to "save" her, finds her and her former lover and then hooks the lover to a giant contraption that pretty much sucks the life right out of him. I can't remember whether or not he was plotting his own father's myrder... either way...
Prince Humperdink = DOUCHEBAG~!
Blinker said:
I think a special mention should be made of Steve Castle AKA "That Guy" from Futurama. His whole character was that he was an 80's sleezebag.
artist1138 said:
BOOBY!!!
Nicnac said:
hey! Mad About You was a good show!
fell8 replied to Nicnac:
Oooh, no, sorry, it actually DID suck, but thanks for playing.
Bad Horse said:
I am distinctly surprised at the lack of Jeffrey Jones on this list.
Moishe said:
"snorting lines off of hookers' bosoms while Red Foreman murders him."
That line made my day =]
Stephen said:
Helen Hunt was in My Two Dads?
captain murphy said:
What about Troy from Goonies?... takes advantage or Andi, tries to literally kill Brandt, takes total pleasure in the prospect demolishing a neighborhood of houses, now that is the makings of a dick for sure.
JohnMatrix replied to captain murphy:
Don't forget the dude doesn't drop his underpants to take a dump. What was with that?
DoctorSmash said:
I actually always thought Stathis' fate was really extreme. Veronica ends up with him anyway, so where we meant to like him or what?
Eyemurderdolls said:
"Show him the Watch, come on what are you embarrassed, It's a Rolex" That's When I knew Ellis needed to die... Kudo's Han's.
Bazooka Joe said:
No mention of Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)?
Jason Thorn said:
In the novelization of ALIENS, Alan Dean Foster had Ripley find him later in the nest, cocooned and already impregnated with a chest-burster growing in him.
Ripley took pity on him and gave him a grenade so he could pop himself like Vasquez and Gorman did. Me, I wouldn't remind him about the big-boom-to-be and leave him there, place bets with Newt on which would get him first, the chest-burster or the explosion.
I'm just SAYIN'...
miguel said:
I thought Ron Silver as Senator Aaron McComb in Timecop was quite the asshat.
thelordofhell said:
One of my dreams was to get William Atherton and William Zabka to star in a remake of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels". However, I'd set it in America and rename it "The Assholes".
dave said:
#10 should be Principal Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Total douche.
J.H. said:
How has no one mentioned Renee Belloq?
Strike 1 - He's french!
Strike 2 - He's a Nazi collaborator
Strike 3 - There is nothing the Henry Jones Jr. has that Belloq cannot take away from him
Hell, at time the Nazis barely seem to tolerate him... but the Nazis aren't exactly known for their tolerance...
J.H. replied to J.H.:
er that is supposed to read "half the time the Nazis seem to barely seem tolerate him" stupid keyboards at work...
Nazz said:
That Oscar dude from Short Circuit 2. He befriends Johnny 5, uses him to commit a crime and then has him beaten. That's pretty bad, almost Fisher Stevens' Indian accent bad.
Anonymous said:
For the longest time after the movie Contact came out we "hated" Tom Skerritt. At the time he was a spokeman for AT&T(?), and every time those commercials came on we'd jokingly be like, "F-ck you, Tom!"
Anonymous replied to Anonymous:
Forgot to mention the movie came out in 1997 and can't qualify here. Too bad- he really played up the dick angle on David Drumlin.
In the book he was an insecure man who wanted to save Ellie from wasting her brilliance on a wild goose chase.
bort said:
I thought that Ellis asking for "Coke" in Die Hard was a joke. His face is disappointed when the bad guys hand him a can of soda. That probably wasn't the kind of coke he was asking for...
Grimey said:
What about the Dukes from Trading Places.
Racists and they toyed with one of their executive and ruined his life for a dollar
Captain K said:
According to TV Tropes, Burke was really, really awful. "Burke in Aliens, when he tries to impregnate Ripley and Newt with alien embryos, so he can smuggle them through quarantine, and ultimately use them for bioweapons research. Even before that, he did the same thing with the colonists themselves.
* When being interviewed on The Tonight Show, Paul Reiser (who played Burke) revealed that he took his parents to see the film - and when the scene came where his character was killed... his parents simply nodded their silent approval. Damn - if your parents want the character you're playing dead, you know he's passed the Moral Event Horizon. "
steeveedee said:
The '80s was a great era for movie douchebags. Think of all the teen flicks that had major pricks in them:
• The Alpha Betas from Revenge of the Nerds
• All of Cobra Kai from Karate Kid
• Porky from Porky's
• Viking in Bad Boys
• The teacher in The Breakfast Club
• Mike Damone and Mr. Hand from Fast Times at Ridgemont High
• The principal and the boyfriend from Teen Wolf
• Reverend Moore in Footloose
• Roy from Better Off Dead
I could go on and on...
Your ol' pal Rob said:
Other possible honorable mentions:
Brice Cummings, Scrooged, "He's an L.A. slimeball."
Emperor Palpatine, for the way he taunts Luke in Jedi, especially "Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive." I wanted to smash his fucking face in. Prick.
Harry Dean Stanton's Brain in Escape from New York, just barely edging out Borgnine's Cabbie and the President of the United States.
SecDef McKinley in Buckaroo Banzai, a pompous little turd who was in bed with the fascist Red Lectroids.
...and, an obscure favorite, Paul Dooley's Claude Elsinore from Strange Brew, who may be the only thinly veiled Shakespeare character mentioned here.
Great list.
Unmerciful said:
I was expecting Cohagen from Total Recall, the same guy who plays Dick Jones in Robocop. That guy was fantastic at playing corporate dicks. Even when he gets Kuato and his plan has come to fruition, he still lets the mutants suffocate to death with a very dickish "fuck 'em", for no particular reason but that he doesn't like mutants. And then he kills some fish, just to make sure you know he's a dick. You go, Cohagen!
midcard said:
James Remars character in Band of the Hand. Yeah he steals the girl of one of the guys girlfriends, and turns her into his own little toy thing is shes 16 and keeps her coked up while her boy is in the everglades learning how to be a respectable young man.
TMBF said:
Ellis is misunderstood. Yeah, you heard me! He totally does not deserve to be #1. Yes, he was a total sleazeball, but he did not sell out John McClane. Watch that scene again - all he gave up was John's name. He could've also revealed that John was Holly's husband, and then John'd be fucked - but he didn't. And he died for it.
Man, that's only one of the things that make Die Hard such a great movie!
Property of OCP said:
DICK Jones "had to kill Bob Morton because he made a mistake..."
DICK is a Bigger sleaze than Bob Morton.
And now my championing of Bob Morton as an "ok" guy. He didn't know the cop used would retain all of his memories. They just wanted someone that was going to die/dead anyhow and use his body for a cybernetic cop of the future. He views Alex Murphy as totally deceased and no longer there, just a vessel. He tells officer Anne Lewis that Robocop is just running a program, so it's not like he's trying to be a sleaze or evil. He's trying to make an anti-crime product that won't blow everyones' head off [unlike ED-209, if you don't "comply"].
DICK Jones was purely about money and power, killing anybody and everybody in his way. He didn't care that these ED-209s would gun down innocents. Who cares if it works? 10 year contract with the military, guaranteed assloads of money, as we know the military always overpays for everything [except personnel].
Anonymous replied to Property of OCP:
"[unlike ED-209, if you don't "comply"]."
Or if you do.
Mount_Prion said:
"There has never been a character that has been as sexually harassing as Stathis."
I would like to direct your attention to Jack (AKA Dennis Hopper) in Blue Velvet.
