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Igor Manic or Ygor is the traditional stock character or cliché hunch-backed assistant or butler to many types of villain, such as a Dracula or mad scientist, familiar from many horror movies and horror movie parodies, the Frankenstein series and Van Helsing[1] films in particular. An early representation in film is Dwight Frye's original hunch-backed lab assistant in the first film of the Frankenstein series (1931), though this character was actually named "Fritz". The sequels Son of Frankenstein (1939) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) featured a character named "Ygor", played by Bela Lugosi; this character, however, is neither a hunchback nor a lab assistant, but an insane broken-necked blacksmith who reanimates the Monster as an instrument of vengeance against the townspeople who attempted to hang him for graverobbing. Mel Brooks's parody Young Frankenstein (1974) put a comic spin on the hunchbacked assistant as "Eye-gor". In 2004 Igor returned to the screen in Universal Studios' big-budget monster movie Van Helsing. Currently, there is an animated movie entitled Igor in production, set for release 24 October 2008. It is said to be "an irreverent comedy with a new twist on the classic mad scientist/monster genre." [2]
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In other media
In Terry Pratchett's humorous fantasy novels, the Überwald region of the Discworld (which resembles a collection of horror movie clichés) is home to a tribe of hunch-backed lab assistants with speech impediments, every single male is named Igor, while the females are all named Igorina. They have a habit of passing on parts of their body to their family members when they die and are valued in rural areas where accidents with axes happen frequently. The Igors have now branched out into working in city-states such as Anhk-Morpork as medics and general lackeys for scientists, with the We R Igors (A Spare Hand Where Needed) agency renting them out. Their most noticeable behavioural trait, apart from always lisping and limping even if they do not actually have the requisite impediments, is an uncanny ability to appear silently right behind someone mere seconds after being called for, and opening doors to visitors in a similarly short interval after they knock. When questioned about either of these traits, the usual response is "It'th a knack".[3] In the Nightmare Before Christmas, the town's resident mad scientist, Dr. Finkelstein, has a hunchbacked assistant called Igor who acts rather canine, working for 'Bone Biscuits'.[4] The cartoon series Count Duckula features the titular character's 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. He also appears in one Superman comic book story written by Jean-Marc Lofficier and drawn by José Ladrönn, called Transilvane, which appeared in Legends of the DC Universe #22–23. In the story, Dabney Donovan, 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 comics. In the Canadian sketch show The Hilarious House of Frightenstein Igor is a bumbling green skinned assistant of Count Frightenstein. His taglines are "Yes Master" and "I`d rather not get involved". Count Dracula had Igor as his butler for the first time in ABC's 1979 TV film special "The Halloween That Almost Wasn't" starring Judd Hirsch and Henry Gibson who portrayed these two eerie figures. Igor appears in the movie Inspector Gadget, during the Minions Anonymus meeting. Emmanuel Sunshine Logroño played Igor occasionally in a comedy sketch along Jacobo Morales when Los Rayos Gamma, Puerto Rico's political parody troupe, had their own television program. A fan of the character -who used to imitate Logroño's Igor while in high school, and who eventually ended up being nicknamed "Igor", at least in Puerto Rico- was Juan González, the Major League Baseball player.
References
See also
- Universal Monsters
- The character Riff Raff in Rocky Horror Picture Show
