Yes, we have second bananas

In my pack, I am the beta male. It’s a pretty sweet deal, I must say. Lots of power that people don’t realize you have, and little of the responsibility. A few of the perks:

*The dog doesn’t come to me first to be walked or fed
*Like Chandler on Friends, I can say snarky, offensive things to anyone I please, and people still think I’m adorable
*At work, I can goof off all day long writing blogs, and no one cares because I’m not the boss of anything

I think it must be due to my pack position that I’m obsessed with secondary characters. Ever since Big Sister Bamm-Bamm introduced me to the phrase “fourth banana” (in reference to Lee Majors’ role of Heath on Big Valley), I have sought out as much information as I could find on characters from literature and theater (by literature and theater I mean, of course, comic books and TV) that seem unimportant to the grand scheme of things, yet actually are like the grease to the main characters’ wheels, utterly indispensable to the continued success of the storyline.

Just as I am much happier being Jimmy Olsen instead of Superman, so secondary characters are much better off staying where they are, rather than shuffling off to their own shows (witness Rhoda, Gloria, Flo’s Yellow Rose, etc.). One can well imagine NBC’s zeal to retain even ONE of the Friends for Thursday nights, but I fear Joey will not last long without a strong leading cast to antagonize (after all, Friends itself was a cast made up entirely of secondary characters.)

So, without further adieu, I will present my top ten favorite secondary characters. (Okay, one more adieu: it has not escaped me that my list is composed entirely of women, minorities and emasculated men. I’m sure there’s a psychological reason someone can tell me about someday).

10. Bat-Girl, Batman comics

No, not THAT Bat-Girl. You’re thinking of Batgirl, the fiery-haired “Dominoed Dare-Doll” clad in glittery spandex, that never got to anything but jump up on a table and do ballet kicks. I’m talking about Bat-Girl, WITH hyphen, who predates Yvonne Craig by a good five or six years.



THIS Bat-Girl wore a costume she stole from the girl elf in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, complete with skater’s skirt and pointy shoes. In reality, she was tennis champ Bette Kane, niece of circus owner Kathy Kane, who herself was secretly Batwoman. These plucky gals fought crime with their “Crime Compacts”, including powder puffs filled with sneezing powder, spring-loaded lipsticks and the like ( I guess mace wasn’t invented yet). Mostly they rode around on their Vespas, got crowned “Miss Gotham City”, “Miss Police Department”, “Miss Arkham Asylum”, and so on, and tried to insinuate themselves into Batman and Robin’s boys-only club, where it was abundantly clear they WEREN’T welcome. (Well, Robin’s raging teenage hormones led to a couple of uncompromising situations with Bat-Girl, but some strenuous workouts in the Batcave set his head straight again.) Yes, Bat-Girl, we salute you, paragon of an earlier age, when girls were silly, flighty, and flattered to be allowed to do things the same as boys!

9. Miss Beadle, Little House on the Prairie



Miss Beadle, of course, is Walnut Grove’s beloved teacher. Laura likes her because she smells like lemon verbena. (Why this is attractive to Laura is never quite explained. If you’ve ever smelled lemon verbena, you’ll know it falls somewhere between fresh-mown hay and French whore). Like all residents of Walnut Grove EXCEPT THE INGALLS FAMILY, she lives in a fully-finished home with painted walls, glass windows, wood floors, and dainty china cups and saucers on display. If she appears outside the school setting, you know trouble’s afoot – she’ll soon be thrown by a wild horse, or temporarily fired by the school board, or be assaulted by a forty-seven year old actor playing an elementary school student.

She has a tough job, since none of the same children (with the exception of Laura, Mary, Nellie and Willie) ever come to school twice. Occasionally, and without warning, a special needs child will drop by and have to be taught an important life-lesson, as only Miss Beadle can do.

She is not without her enemies; when Mary is told she’ll have to wear glasses, she is horrified to think she’ll turn out to be an “old maid” like Miss Beadle, the only other glasses-wearing woman in town. (Karma pays Mary back in spades for THAT one). In Miss Beadle’s final appearance on the show, she gives Mary a cameo brooch, given to her by HER first teacher. It never fails to bring me to tears. (Jet Screamer interrupts: “You f&!%ing cry at EVERY episode, retard.”) Shut up.

8. Mr. Bingley, Pride and Prejudice
Mr. Bingley is the dandy milquetoast from Pride and Prejudice who waffles around about marrying Jane Bennett, driving the plot for a good 200 pages. He is a lily-livered mama’s boy, who allows his opinions to be molded and re-molded by his sisters and his “friend” Mr. Darcy. He eventually marries Jane, of course, and they spend the rest of their lives sitting around not offending anyone.

Speaking of Regency England, guess what? Back in the day, after dinner, the men and women would separate for a spell so they could all go to the toilet. The women would go stand in a corner someplace, lift their skirts out of harm’s way, and pretend they were lost in thought. The men would retire to the smoking lounge, and whoever needed to would simply whip it out and aim toward the chamber pot without skipping a beat in their political discourse. Read a book on daily life in the 19th Century sometime, kids, it weren’t for sissies!


7. (Tie) The Professor and Mary Ann, Gilligan’s Island



So insignificant, they were collectively known as “the rest” for the first season. Oddly, they are not only the two most attractive people on the island, but arguably the most intelligent and adaptable– the Professor’s MacGuyver-like skill is obvious, of course, and Mary Ann, a hardy farm girl, can do laundry all day, can a bushel of peaches, and still lay out a sumptious dinner complete with coconut cream pie for dessert. All with a smile.

A person’s stature on the island obviously is based on wealth – the Howells and Ginger are clearly in the upper eschelon, followed by the Skipper and Gilligan (they are likely Union men, and thus make a good wage). The Professor teaches at a State University, and so makes next-to-nothing. Mary Ann’s station in life varies with each crop. And so they are sociologically the bottom of the heap. A fascinating reflection of modern society.
One hopes that the Professor and Mary Ann, at some point, found solace in each other’s arms – I mean, really, who ELSE are they gonna get some action with? But if not, at least they can take comfort in the fact that they are the only members of the cast to have a drink named after them

The Professor and Mary Ann
Ingredients:
0.5 oz Apricot Brandy
0.25 oz Lime Juice
1.5 oz Vodka
4.0 oz Seltzer

Directions:
Fill a shaker half full with ice cubes. Pour all ingredients except Carbonated Water into shaker and shake well. Fill a Highball glass almost full with ice cubes and strain drink into Highball glass. Fill with Carbonated Water. Stir well. Garnish with two Banana slices and a Maraschino Cherry.


6. Lt. Uhura, Star Trek

Legend has it that Uhura’s place in Star Trek legend was assured by virtue of the fact that she was having an affair with Gene Roddenberry. I prefer to think that she was bumped up to semi-prominence because Janice Rand (the checkerboard-hair lady) was dumped after six episodes (because the actress who played her was a drunk that couldn’t get to work on time).

Chief switchboard operator for the starship Enterprise, her total screen time on three years of the original series totals about 17 minutes, but when she WAS given something to do it was usually memorable, like when she was reduced to mental infancy and re-learned everything she had ever known, up to and including how to operate a switchboard, in about half an episode. Or when the floating-in-space Abe Lincoln saw her and gushed, “Oh, a charming negress!” and she shot back with a quick treatise on racial equality. Go, girl.

Though given precious little to do in the original series or subsequent movies (besides stick some sort of metal thing in her ear and fall off her chair whenever there was a Klingon attack – oh, and that embarrassing feather dance in Star Trek V), and rarely if ever seen outside of Star Trek-related media, I would venture to say that more people alive today know who Nichelle Nichols is than could name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Take THAT, education system!

5. Uncle Henry, The Wizard of Oz

From the novel, The Wizard of Oz:

” Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.”

Editorial note: And apparently, he was a shitty house builder to boot. What, it would have killed him to put in a basement?

4. Betty Rubble, The Flintstones

Turn-ons: Giggling with Wilma, The Ed Sullystone Show, and when Barney does “that thing”

Turn-offs: Fred’s Get-Rich-Quick schemes, kangaroo poachers, and when yours truly throws the family’s Loggin Continental into Pterodactyl Lake.

Betty met her husband while she and Wilma Slaghoople were working as cigarette girls at a Cobblestone County hotel. They quickly fell in love and Barney soon presented to Betty a wedding ring from the Buddy Buddy Credit Jewelers. She happily accepted, and they were wed.
For years, Betty suffered the ultimate indignity of being passed over by the makers of Flintstones Vitamins in favor of the family car. This ludicrous decision was finally overturned in December of 1995, a date still celebrated in the Teenage Bamm-Bamm household (well, we sort of lump it together with Christmas).

Tomorrow: The TOP 3!