Lawrence Limburger
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Lawrence Limburger was the principal villain of the first three seasons of the American cartoon series Biker Mice From Mars, broadcast between 1993 and 1996, with a guest appearance in the new series of 2006. He was a fish-like businessman from the planet Plutark, whose task it was to strip the area around Chicago of its natural resources for use by the Plutarkians. Following Plutark’s defeat at the hands of the Martian Freedom Fighters, he was stranded on Earth and ended up a virtual slave of Chicago crime lord the Pit Boss.
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[edit] Character, background and appearance
[edit] Physical appearance and dress
Lawrence Lactavius Limburger, like all Plutarkians, is essentially piscine in appearance. 5ft 10 and weighing 300lbs, his legs are short in proportion to the rest of his body, with very broad shoulders, the appearance of which is somewhat offset by his overweight physique. His face features large, fleshy jowls, a broad, thick lipped mouth and small eyes. Like all Plutarkians his skin is pale blue, with darker mottling; in common with others of his race he sports a fore-and-aft fin-like crest across the centre of his head, and a dorsal fin of the same darker blue. However, this appearance is very rarely seen, since for most of the series he is disguised as a human businessman, for which purpose he wears a full, tight-fitting mask of fake skin, complete with black hair. Although other Plutarkians seen in their ‘natural’ state in the series favour elaborate robes, for his work on Earth Limburger invariably wears an immaculately tailored purple suit, with white shirt, red tie (with matching handkerchief in the breast pocket), and black shoes with purple spats – all in all presenting a rather dapper figure, in spite of his size.
[edit] Background and character
As we discover in the episode ‘Modo Hangs it Up’, Limburger has an older sister, Latoya, who delights in bullying him (still calling him by his childhood nickname, ‘Drippy Drawers’) and a troublesome nephew – Latoya’s son – called Marshall. Limburger hails from the wealthy, highly industrialised planet of Plutark. Small, dark and with a green atmosphere, Plutark is heavily polluted and its natural resources have all been worked out; in consequence the Plutarkians survive by stealing the resources of planets they conquer, using a process known as ‘strip mining’. It was the strip mining of Mars that led to the desolate planet known today, and which resulted in the Wars of Liberation between the Plutarkians and the native Cave Mouse population from which the plot of ‘Biker Mice From Mars’ springs.
Limburger was one of the Plutarkian officials assigned to oversee the strip mining of their next target, Earth, having achieved considerable success as part of the Plutarkian mining group operating on Mars and Venus. Although he is seen as a persistent failure in all his attempts to destroy Chicago in the series, it must be borne in mind that this is largely down to the Biker Mice and the incompetence of his allies. In truth, he is an accomplished planner. He has obviously made a close study of his enemy, often attempting to use character traits of the Biker Mice against them; he even appears to be aware of Vinnie’s romantic feelings towards Charley Davidson (‘Back to Mars’). His elaborate schemes are sound in their conception, making good use of the considerable technological advances offered by Plutark, but he is inevitably let down by the employees he assigns to carry his schemes to fruition. Interestingly he is well aware of his place in the scheme of things, and seems to take an obscure pride in it: “If my word was worth anything, I wouldn’t be much of a villain, now, would I?” (‘Hard Rock’). He oversaw his operations in Chicago from Limburger Tower, a huge skyscraper; it was a running joke of the series that is was destroyed at the end of each story.
Character wise, he models himself partially on the early 20th century American gangsters that he admires (as seen in ‘Motocross Trap’) whilst adopting mannerisms and an accent with strong English influences. In many ways an urbane, cultured man – he detests the tasteless, showy self-aggrandisement of his rival Napoleon Brie (see below) – he favours an excessively elaborate mode of speech peppered with alliteration: “The carpet is still redolent with the rueful reminiscence of their ripeness” (i.e., “the carpet still smells of them”, ‘Motocross Trap’). A Plutarkian to the core, he regards almost everything he does as a form of business. Power is his drug, and his activities on Earth were as much a ladder by which he hoped to climb the ranks of the Plutarkian hierarchy as much as anything else, and he did in fact succeed in becoming (briefly) Planetary Pooh-Bah Governor of Earth, and for a slightly longer period even High Chairman of Plutark.
The circumstances surrounding the defeat of Plutark remain hazy, since the events took place at some point between the final season of the original series, in 1996, and the new series of 2006. However it is understood that after his continual failures Limburger was stripped of his rank and exiled on Earth, though it is uncertain how he ended up as a slave of the Pit Boss. Given his resourcefulness, however, one cannot guarantee that he will remain trapped in this situation for ever.
[edit] Associates
Though the series’ principal villain, virtually everything Limburger does is dependant on or affected by others; he must carry out orders from Plutark’s higher authorities, fend off challenges from business rivals, or implement his plans through the medium of his henchmen. Principal amongst what might loosely be termed Limburger’s associates are:
[edit] Henchmen
[edit] Doctor Benjamin Boris Zachary Karbunkle
A brilliant scientist hailing from Germany, Karbunkle is the man who provides the equipment with which Limburger runs his operations. He is maintains the Transporter – a teleportation device – which Limburger uses to import assorted supervillains, amongst them the likes of murderous rock star Hard Rock (‘Hard Rock’), foul-smelling Plutarkian enforcers the Loogie Brothers (‘We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ City’; ‘Motocross Trap’) and insane stunt-man (and alleged evil alien brother of Elvis Presley) Evil-Eye Weevil (‘Test of Friendship’; ‘Motocross Trap’).
Amongst Karbunkle’s creations have been a toxic goo with which Limburger polluted an area of undeveloped land on the outskirts of Chicago. The idea was that Limburger would offer to clear the land on behalf of the civic authorities, and then secretly clean up the pollution using a special formula – also of Karbunkle’s design – before shipping the recovered land to Plutark (‘A Mouse and his Motorcycle’). On a more technological basis, Karbunkle designed the Verminator, a robotic version of Vinnie intended to destroy the Biker Mice. The clever twist was that Karbunkle provided the Verminator with a strong mental bond with its inspiration, so that destroying the robot would also result in the death of Vinnie.
Dressed in his familiar high-collared white lab coat, black high-heeled boots, elbow length black gloves and green goggles, Karbunkle is startlingly thin but with an outsized head topped by a shock of orange hair; a somewhat androgynous figure, he possesses a high-pitched, hissing, rasping voice; in short, he is the archetypal mad scientist. He is utterly without morals. It was Karbunkle who replaced Modo’s shattered arm with a cybernetic version, and Throttle’s blinded eyes with bionic replicas – not out of kindness, but as part of an abortive plan to turn them into cyborg soldier-slaves of the Plutarkians. The comic books provide an even more sadistic version of Karbunkle, revealing that it was he who disfigured the right side of Vinnie’s face, as part of an experiment carried out whilst the young mouse was fully conscious and unsedated – and smiled throughout this grotesque work. (There is contradictory evidence for this – see the main article on Vinnie for further details).
Karbunkle is an inveterate sycophant, constantly flattering Limburger and regarding him with admiration bordering on adoration. It is, of course, a façade. Also, while he may seem to be the one without sense of humor, in reality he often cracks cruel jokes on Biker Mice's demises. Karbunkle formerly worked for Dominic T. Stilton, Limburger’s superior and the commander of Plutark’s operations on Mars, during which time Karbunkle happily joined in the abuse Stilton heaped on Limburger, but as soon as it looked like Stilton’s star was starting to fall, Karbunkle shamelessly switched his affections to Limburger. Ultimately it has proved a mistake; when last seen, in a guest appearance in the 2006 series, like Limburger he was stranded on Earth, a slave of the Pit Boss.
[edit] Fred the Mutant
In the finest traditions of mad scientists, Karbunkle created an assistant out of spare parts. The result was Fred the Mutant. Around two foot high, misshapen, three eyed and possessing a tentacle in place of his right arm, Fred is basically a good-natured creature whose only real flaw lies in his extreme sadomasochistic tendencies. He is never happier than when he is being subjected to pain, squashed or used by Karbunkle as a sort of lab-rat to test out his chemical creations.
He also acts as Limburger’s chauffeur, somewhat surprisingly since he has a tendency to drive the Plutarkian’s limousine into the thick of the action in the hope of getting hit. He will gladly throw himself into the path of any physical threat to his employer, not through any sense of duty but simply because it’s fun. In ‘Back to Mars’ he is seen taking an acid bath.
In truth, Fred has no real evil in him. It is simply that by staying loyal to Limburger he stands a better chance of being on the receiving end of extreme violence. His fate after the defeat of Plutark, and his current whereabouts (assuming he survived) are unknown.
[edit] Greasepit
At 7ft, taller even than Modo, Greasepit was a living demonstration of the old saying “Strong in arm and thick in head”. He was enormously powerful and heavily muscled, but what he possessed in physical ability was undermined by his mental skills. He hailed from Black Rock Asteroid, home to many of the villains which the Plutarkians employ, though whether that was his place of birth is unclear. He came into Limburger’s service as a result of a trick played on him by Karbunkle, then in Dominic T. Stilton’s employ; Limburger asked Karbunkle to find him a supervillain to help him overthrow Stilton. Instead he got Greasepit. Despite his great size, Greasepit appeared to be human – except for the fact that he continually oozed oil. His habitual dress was a set of denim dungarees and a red baseball cap.
A mean-spirited bully, he worked more for job satisfaction than the salary – Limburger did not, in fact, pay him – as the Plutarkian’s chief enforcer and leader of his army of thugs. Tasked with extorting land from the citizens of Chicago he proved formidably effective; however, his low intellect proved his undoing when faced with the Biker Mice, who consistently outwitted him. Despite his many obvious shortcomings, Limburger – for whatever reason – continued to employ Greasepit, and in return received unwavering loyalty.
Despite his bullying nature, Greasepit’s simple-mindedness and sometimes childlike traits also made him curiously endearing. In some ways he was quite sweet-natured, stoically enduring Limburger’s continual insults, seeking no personal power or glory, wanting little more out of life than a degree of respect, and even briefly forming an (unsurprisingly) unreciprocated romantic attachment to Charley Davidson (‘Big Trouble’). Greasepit has not as yet appeared in the 2006 series of ‘Biker Mice’. His fate remains unknown.
[edit] Superiors
[edit] High Chairman Camembert
The ultimate authority on Plutark, Camembert has direct control over all Plutarkian enterprises across the galaxy. Obese and dressed in opulent gold and purple robes, he directs a very personal form of government – that is to say, all his leading operatives (Limburger et al) receive their orders (and frequent dressings down) from him. He is undoubtedly corrupt – maintaining his grasp on power through election fixing, and diverting government funds into his personal accounts – but given the ruthless, backstabbing, power-hungry nature of Plutarkian society this is no doubt considered par for the course on his homeworld.
Nevertheless, he is a competent administrator and a talented leader. Under his governance Plutark was thriving, the wealthiest and most powerful planet in the galaxy. He is still in control in the 2006 series, appearing briefly in ‘It’s the Pits’.
[edit] The Pit Boss
In an underground domain on the outskirts of Chicago – The Pits – the Pit Boss rules over the most ruthless criminal fraternity in the Windy City. Of monstrous stature, cruel and utterly amoral, his word is law in his own private kingdom. Hard labour is carried out by slaves kidnapped from the surface. Any who oppose him are sent to fight in his Arena against huge robot gladiators. For more minor offences – pausing in their work, for example – he liberally applies his electrified bullwhip. Of all the villains in the series he has proved one of the greatest threats to the Biker Mice. In ‘The Pits’ Modo and Throttle were captured and enslaved by the Pit Boss and it was only through Vinnie’s determined assault that they were liberated.
In later episodes the Pit Boss’s rule was threatened by Fourby, leader of a resistance and slave-liberation movement in The Pits, but this seems to have failed; in any case, in the 2006 episode ‘It’s the Pits’ he is still very much in control, possessed of two daughters, and holding a stranded Limburger and Karbunkle as slaves.
[edit] Rivals
Regarding, as they do, the whole of life as a business opportunity, Plutarkians are naturally ultra-competitive amongst their own people. Both on Mars and Earth Limburger has faced almost as much of a threat from his fellow Plutarkians as he has from the Biker Mice. The two most important have been:
[edit] Dominic T. Stilton
Limburger’s immediate superior on Mars, but more importantly his rival, Stilton was given overall control of the Plutarkian operations on the Red Planet. The project he undertook was an astonishing success. Consequently, although he only appears in one story (‘Once Upon a Time On Mars’) – and the last one of the classic series, no less – in retrospect he has responsibility for events that ultimately led to the Biker Mice ending up on Earth, and thus setting the whole storyline in motion.
Thinner-faced than the average Plutarkian, his big mistake in life was not keeping a tighter reign on his young protégé, Limburger. In Stilton, Limburger saw the opportunity to make a name for himself. His attempted coup ultimately failed, but Stilton was left looking a fool for letting Limburger grow so powerful, and Limburger himself did at least make off with one of Stilton’s prize assets – Doctor Karbunkle.
[edit] Napoleon Brie
Limburger’s opposite number in Detroit, Brie is easily the more successful. Diminutive, wild-eyed and insane, he is also distinguished by his bizarre, Elmer Fudd-esque voice. He has a hugely inflated ego and an appalling taste that disgusts Limburger, displaying numerous portraits and gilt busts of himself in his offices. Part of his success (apart from the fact that he is not regularly hampered by the Biker Mice) is that his right-hand man, Number One, is infinitely more competent than Greasepit; likewise the Dune Raiders that Number One leads are of are far higher quality than Limburger’s goons. Ruthless, underhanded and cunning, Brie’s rivalry with Limburger goes back to their school-days. When not pirating Detroit’s resources, Brie concentrates his efforts on trying to force Limburger out of Chicago and take over his empire himself.
A typically elaborate scheme was that chronicled in ‘Back to Mars’. After seemingly arranging for the Mice (without their knowledge of his involvement) to capture Limburger, they take him to Mars, leaving Chicago free for Brie to move in. Meanwhile Brie sent faked evidence to Mars, ‘proving’ that Biker Mice had turned traitor, with the result that on their arrival they were condemned to death – thus ridding Brie of Limburger and the Mice in one go (well, that was the theory, at least, though of course the plan was foiled). It is interesting to note that the Biker Mice obviously felt Brie was a greater threat, since on their return to Earth they actually joined forces with Limburger to evict Brie from Chicago.
[edit] References
‘From Mars’, http://www.geocities.com/stoker1439/BikerMice/ The Official Biker Mice From Mars Website, http://www.bikermice.tv/ Biker Mice From Mars Episodes: ‘We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ City’ (1993); ‘Test of Friendship’ (1993); ‘Back to Mars’ Parts 1 -3 (1994); ‘Hard Rock’(1994); ‘It’s the Pits’ (2006)
[edit] External links
The Unofficial Biker Mice From Mars Fan Club, http://www.bikermice.com/
