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Ryan's Guide To Sidekicks
A sidekick is just that: something or someone which is really just a means to an end. The super-hero sidekick is more of a decoy than anything else, to draw fire away from the main protagonist so he or she can save the day. A sidekick is often treated as the person whom you pass on the work that you don't want to do yourself. So today we're going to analyze a few different sidekicks to show that they are, indeed, far more integral than anyone realizes.
Robin, The Boy Wonder
There's often been debate about whether or not Batman needs a sidekick. He's had half a dozen "Robins" over the years. The 1989 Batman movie had no Robin in it, and when they introduced him to the series with Batman Forever so began the downward spiral. I personally like Robin (but not Chris O'Donnell). I think Batman keeps a youngster around so he can think of himself as a father figure. If anything it keeps old Bats from whining on and on about his own parents being dead.
The orginal Robin (Dick Grayson) grew up to become a super-hero of his own named Nightwing, and he had quite a rockin' mullet at one point. He was replaced as Robin by a kid named Jason Todd who was beaten to death by the Joker. The third Robin was a kid named Tim Drake, and I'm pretty sure he's still Robin to this day. I haven't read those books in over ten years so I really don't know.
Going back to the decoy theory, Robin is the perfect example of that. There you've got Batman, all dressed in black and hiding in the shadows, and standing next to him is this bright, yellow/red/green, bare-legged, tiny-booted Robin. Which one would you shoot at? Exactly.
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Lipton Sidekicks
Another kind of Sidekick is the Lipton Sidekick. This instant pasta dish is meant to go with your main course, but I've never known anyone to actually use it as such. It comes in a varitey of flavors, like Fettuccine Alfredo, Sour Cream n' Chives, Butter and Herbs, and a few others. It's essentially the #1 competitor to the throne currently held by Kraft Dinner. They taste pretty good, but I've always considered them to be a meal of their own. It's a perfect lunch for just one person. Hardly a sidekick at all.
I just couldn't picture having this with meatloaf, or chicken... unless you tossed the chicken into the pasta. I pretty much lived off of these little meals in college. Seriously, they cost about a buck-fifty-nine and contain your daily recommended dosage of ... uh... dailyness?
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Sidekicks: The Movie
Starring Chuck Norris, this movie should've been called Roundhousekicks.
In the mid-90s Jonathon Brandis was a teen idol, much like that Bieber kid is today. Girls had posters of him on their walls, and read all the magazines with him, and honestly I can't think of anything he did other than Sidekicks and Lady Bugs. In this flick, Brandis plays a boy with asthma who gets picked on at school. Now, the truly pathetic thing is that instead of dreaming of becoming a hero, he actually dreams about becoming Chuck Norris' sidekick. Nope, he doesn't even dream of becoming Chuck Norris. He wants to be the hanger-around that fetches coffee and hooks up with the fat, ugly girls that Mr. Norris doesn't want.
Still, when you consider Brandis' two big movies, I guess it was better that he looked up to Chuck instead of looking up to Rodney Dangerfield in Lady Bugs. Jonathon Brandis died in 2003. The cause of death was him watching this movie.
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DJ Jazzy Jeff
Now this here's an example all about how a sidekick actually makes the star look better.
People often say that Will Smith is an ego-maniac, but if that were 100% true then why would the name of the group have ever been DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince? DJ Jazzy Jeff contributed to such big hits as "Parents Just Don't Understand", "Nightmare On My Street", and "Summertime". When Will Smith went on to do The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air he brought Jazzy Jeff along for the ride, albeit as a bit part. Mind you, anytime "Jazz" made an appearance it resulted in the best laughs of the show.
When that series finally ended, DJ Jazzy Jeff disappeared and The Fresh Prince simply became Will Smith, and he went on to get jiggy with it all by himeself.
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Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake
Brutus Beefcake went with Hulk Hogan like meat goes with potatoes.
But clearly The Barber was the potato. Hulk Hogan always had a sidekick of sorts in the heyday of the WWF. At one point it was Hilbilly Jim, then "Macho Man" Randy Savage, but ultimately the Hulkamania sidekick ("Hulkamaniackick"?) became the permanent job of Beefcake. And that's too bad because Brutus was actually a better wrestler than Hogan (not by much) and had a few accomplishments of his own. Beefcake was the one who ended Mr. Perfect's perfect record.
The really sad thing is that nobody even thought of Brutus as Hogan's sidekick. He was actually more like Hogan's "lackey". "Oh look Barber brother," Hulk would say, "Looks like the Earthquake and that Typhoon dude have joined their collossus forces of nature together to try and take down Hulkamania once and for all brother! Looks like I'm gonna need some patsy... err... I mean my biggest, number one Hulkamaniac of the week to help me put an end to their madness dude, by doing all the work and then letting me hit the big legdrop to get all the credit..." Poor Brutus...
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So, whatcha gonna do big shot, when the sidekicks of the world join forces and gang up on you?
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