io9
All sidekicks must have certain key lovable qualities, or else they lose that sparkle that makes them so endearing. But sometimes the cute-overload factor goes too far and a gag reflex kicks in, making people want to destroy that character. Compiled after the jump is a list of the most adorable sidekicks in science fiction TV and movies, some good, some too cute for their own good.
For Better Or Worse, SciFi's Most Adorable Sidekicks
Stitch: Lilo and Stitch
He burps and eats everything. A cross between a bug and a dog, he was sort of sweet... until he did the whole Elvis impersonation, and then I was out the door. I can't stand animals dressed as people (alien animals or otherwise).
R2-D2: Star Wars
An obvious choice, but possibly the cutest bucket of bolts in the history of robots. Despite being a giant trash can, he was surprisingly expressive — you could tell when he was mad by his fussing and futtering. If you took a vote on which robot you wanted to be stuck on a deserted Tatooine with, hands down it would be R2. While C-3PO is wonderful, if I had to chose it'd be R2 based on the fact that, "goodness gracious me," would get old after about five minutes. Sorry C, He's the droid I'm looking for.
Rebecca "Newt" Jorden: Aliens
Oh no, an adorable girl is left on an alien infested planet! Surely she won't be a massive hindrance at all. Too late, she's fallen into an air vent. Once I found out that the dirty blonde girl nickname was "Newt," I lost all my love for this character. You could make a case against Bishop as well, but he was OK in my book.
Hud: Cloverfield
He had me at, "I'm just saying how freaky would it be if a flaming homeless guy came out of no where." His innocence and one-liners completely humanized this story. I don't even remember any of the other characters' names really. Hud was a great mix of that 20-something guy that is part idiot and part child, which was most evident any time he tried to talk to Marlena.
Robin: Batman
He thinks everything Batman does is totally yay, which is valuable because one thing you don't want from a sidekick is questions. Especially when you say, "Robin go check out that scary cave with no light, I'll be right behind you." He makes a great victim when there aren't any ladies around for you to save. His boyish good looks play in his favor but, his naivete demeans him. Robin get a 50/50 split on annoying versus lovable.
Hurley: Lost
Not all people can pull off charming with that much going on, but Hurley manages to. His whole "cursed by the numbers" schtick and his ridiculous bad luck in his first flashback were borderline annoying, but once he went bananas his charm became more of a quirk. He's the heart of the island and a lot of people forget that as he follows orders from chiseled jawline Sawyer or smarty-pants face-stubble Jack.
Arthur: The Tick
The shy little moth to The Tick's massive ego. His nervous stammer and mutterings are the perfect compliment to The Tick. And let's not forget the fact that he's often mistaken for a bunny, that's cute laugh out loud.
Gizmo: Gremlins (2)
Another coin toss here, because don't we all like to get drunk and sing the mogwai song? And yet the need to dress him up as Rambo totally crosses the line from cute to crappy.
Short Round: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
One line, "YOU CALL HIM DOCTOR JONES." Everything about this character was harnessing the power of cute for good. From the boxes he tied on his shoes for driving to his open-eyed screams, all charming.
Wicket: Ewok Adventure, Star Wars
Who else could level out Mace's wild tantrums. Good cute, like the kind of teddy bear I would actually want to own.
Elliot: ET
After watching this movie who didn't dress up in an orange hoodie and bike around with a white alien bundle for Halloween, or Saturdays? Elliot is a spot on example of the right amount of child-like/charm wonder in a great sidekick.
Comments
Newt, followed second by the Chris Tucker character in The Fifth Element.
"Aye-firmative"
Short Round went from charming to grating reeeeally fast, though he was still less anoying than Kate McGraw.
@laughingacademy: Capshaw, not McGraw. *headdesk*
@laughingacademy: But was he less annoying than Kate Capshaw?
Yeah, we really need an edit comment function.
You know why the xenomorphs were after the girl in Aliens right?
She was Newtritious.
Happy Friday everyone!
@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: ...
You should have your star revoked for a pun that bad.
Hud was awesome. His total cluelessness was what made the movie for me... That and the fact that he's pretty much the only one in the cast I could identify with on any level.
What about the Ferengi of DS9?
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Plus, Arthur had the better catch phrase. "Not in the face, not in the face."
@Dunny0: I came up with that one when I was about 11 and have wanted a good excuse to use it since.
Plus, don't think they can revoke a star... its like being tenured.
I can't believe Twiki wasn't on the list!
bittybittybitty
Wasn't Billy the sidekick, not Gizmo? Billy just did what Gizmo(do) couldn't do b/c he was so small. The Rambo scene was just like any major heroes montage scene.
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Double failure: If the cutesey sidekick (Eliot) is out-cuted by the hero (ET) you are in serous saccharine-diabetic crash mode.
@EBone: That comment is SO not green.
Aztecs stole my sidekick!
I. Hate. Newt. And I liked that film, most ways.
This post starts to merge into what an insightful (and heinously annoying) SF afficionado I used to know called "The Horror Child." That is, a character that is brought in to cuten(sic?) up the series/film/etc. and also in the process, often save the day for no apparent reason and with no real skills. He was, at the time, referring to Wesley Crusher on STTNG -- and this was at the very outset of the series, so he SO got that right.
Oh, and BTW, we all know about Robin, Batman and the love that dare not speak it's name.
I wonder, in Short Circuit, who's the sidekick? ;) I really did like Johnny 5's one-liners and his tendency to read quickly.
I have to agree with laughingacademy here. I recently saw TEMPLE OF DOOM and Short Round is fun for about five minutes total in the film: the poker game in the jungle, "You call him doctah Jones!", and throwing Indy's razor out the window so he can't score with Willie.
And whe he was beating the stuffing out of the Maharajah kid. But that's just because I love a good kid fight.
How can you hate Stitch? Especially after the scene where he builds the block city only to then knock it down doing a kaiju impersonation.
Morbo from Futurama cares not for puny sidekicks!
And what happened to Kandg...or would it be Kodos?
Jar-Jar Binks is #1 on my annoying sidekick list.
I prefer the feral kid from Road Warrior.
I'll see your Newt and raise you a Feral Kid.
I'm sorry. There is only one answer
And this is it
@tim_c: Wow. I wait 20 minutes for my comment to finally post and bam, you'd already beaten me by 60 seconds.
so you're saying: "Sidekick = yuck"
@riotnrrd: @laughingacademy: So glad to see other people who get it too!
@Scroggs!: Wikipedia is the cutest failed scifi sidekick???
Well, not true scifi, except for the flying car, but my all-time fave is Penfold from Dangermouse. Any hamster who can look the hero in the eye and claim he can't go on the dangerous mission because he "just remembered [he has] a cowards anonymous meeting" is ok with me.
@beercheck: Why are we dragging Dog the Bounty Hunter into this discussion?
@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: *rolls up newspaper* Bad! Bad! Don't do that again! >:3
Bit from Tron FTW!
Maybe its because of my age when I first saw Temple of Doom, but Short Round never really bothered me. And "YOU CALL HIM DOCTOR JONES!" is no where near as endearing as "No time for love Doctor Jones!" I mean, really. And though it's not a movie proper, I'd throw out there 343 Guilty Spark from Halo. It was my favorite thing about any Halo game.
What, no robot dogs? No K9, no Boxley? What of Twikki - WHAT OF TWIKKI???
Stitch was awesome, end of discussion.
@Nudemanatee: thanks for reminding me of DM. delightful.
THAM!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the '50 newspaper comic strip, "Beyond Mars" based on Jack Williamson's "Seetee Ship" universe of Asteroid Belt miners-
the forgettable hero's sidekick was a Venusian named "Tham", (He even lisped to make him cuter and so I suspect he signed his name as "Sam")
He was a green, metal skinned worm-centaur with a neotanous face and tiny high-set ears. His upper body was humanoid but below the chest he was a segmented worm.
He tended the SeeTee (Contra-Terrene matter -get it?)reactor, and ate rocks. Usefully, he did not breathe and so needed no space suit.
And he was devoted to the protagonist, what WAS his name? Jack something-- probably.
@SeeingI: After Windows Vista was installed in him, he was never the same:
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Tham- part the Second
You can see Tham, for a while at least at:
(But unless this reference unleashes a wave of nostalgia don't waste your cyber-quantas, nor your energy because you are certainly over 60 if you remember "Beyond Mars"
It's a shame how little attention R2-D2 and C-3PO have gotten. Their relationship with their users has layers upon layers of depth.
Basically you have a moron who you can understand but who doesn't shut up, and then you have a smart trans can who understands you but can only communicate in a language that only the moron understands.
If you take only the trash can, you can work with it by giving orders, but it can communicate back with only onomonopoetic whistling.
If you take only the moron, it can work as a translator, but is otherwise useless and annoying.
Finally, if you take both you can communicate and work with the smart trash can, but you have to put up with both constant onomonopoetic whistling and constant blathering of a moron.
What a marvelous image of the whole IT industry. If you combine two crappy technologies you can get something that works, but you also get worst features of both in the same time.
I hate cute in SF and best reserved for flushing out an airlock.
Old Man's War took a dump on cute with the tale of the Bambi like "Deer Men" who developed a taste for human babies.
Similar reasons why I always hated SF kids. In real life, kids in space would probably be kids getting spaced as most kids are accident prone or have a habit of doing stupid things and end up flushing themselves ass first out of an airlock or some sort.
I guess I would have made a fine Tribble hating grumpy Klingon's Klingon in a past SF life.
@B: Umm, "Not in the face" was Arthur's battle cry, not his catch phrase.
I <3 Snarf
Aw man, I really miss The Tick.
That aside, you can't diss on Newt. Newt rocks.
The only Sci-fi cute sidekick I ever liked was "Dog" from "A Boy and his Dog", and that's only because he wasn't really the one who was the sidekick...
They mostly come out at night. Mostly.
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I don't understand how you could have left out Teddy from AI. I just don't understand it. Maybe you forgot about him, but on reflection, I bet you know you'd rather have him than any of these other loser sidekicks.
"Oh, and BTW, we all know about Robin, Batman and the love that dare not speak it's name."
We're currently several decades into the age when the love that dared not speak its name won't shut up. Especially on the Internet regarding anything that can be 'shipped.
@Scroggs!: Damn these confounded intertubes!
The only answer is Godzilla's "son", Minya aka Minilla aka "I hate that lil fucker!"
Film writers stick in silly sidekicks, especially kids to attract children to the film. They also provide comic relief to an otherwise droll effort. Its a shame writers keep re-making sequels of sequels. What happened to originality?
So, in Buck Rodgers, was Twiki the actual sidekick? or was Dr. Theopolis the actual sidekick, and Twikki was just the electronic mule? I always wondered exactly what the relationship was between those two.
(It's entirely possible they carefully explained that in the series, but my young eyeballs were to busy with Wilma. And it's quite possible you may be explaining it to me again now, and I'm still busy, and Im still preoccupied...)
[www.eringray.us]
"NO TIME FOR LOVE DOCTOR JONES!" makes Short Round winner by far.
@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: I don't know that the world would have ever been ready for such a pun.
It kind of reminded me of Vogon poetry. Not bad for a ten year old though.
@jamescole: Spoon!
I loved Newt. In Alien 3 that is.
@mllaneza: That reply is made of win.
I'm not sure which Robin we're talking about, it must be TV show Robin. Or maybe Jason Todd.
Because in the comics, Dick Grayson and Tim Drake _love_ asking questions and generally undermining Batman. That seems to carry over into the animated series as well, and Dick Grayson didn't seem like a complete pushover in the movies...
So all I can gather is we're talking about Burt Ward.
No mention of Daggit?
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