Ron Stoppable
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Ronald "Ron" Stoppable is a fictional character from the Disney animated television series Kim Possible, in which he is the best friend, sidekick, and staring in season four boyfriend of the show's eponymous protagonist. He is voiced by Will Friedle.
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[edit] Personality
Ron and Kim have known each other since pre-school, and have been best friends for most of their lives. The personification of the "Type B personality" Ron is easy-going, cheerful, and kind-hearted, but also extremely clumsy, goofy, and lacking in common sense. Kim sometimes gets impatient with his randomness and weirdness, but thanks to his kind heart over the years she's learned to accept it. His motto is "never be normal," as stated in the beginning of the episode Crush.
The polar opposite of Kim in terms of personality, Ron is extremely accepting and seems totally unconcerned with appearance and peer pressure. However, he is afraid of practically everything else (including small insects, robots, ghosts, mechanical horses, and garden gnomes), and as such, he's had to constantly overcome his various fears. Ron's greatest fear is monkeys, which is frequently mentioned in almost every episode, although he appears to have slowly managed to overcome this fear over the course of the series. In fact, Ron's reactions to his various phobias seems to fluctuate dramatically, based on whatever mood he happens to be in at the time. Sometimes his fears result in screaming fits and hyperventilating and other times, he simply shrugs them off.
Ron also often appears to be somewhat dim-witted, and his grasp of basic academics and even simply reality often appears tenuous; he fails to understand the meaning of "fraternal twins" and "acronym", and also appears to believe that Tokyo is in France. Also, he often has difficulty with school work. However, all this is not due to a lack of intelligence, but only a low self-confidence and an inability to focus (and perhaps a slight touch of ADHD). All of his life, Ron has been put down upon by others for his highly eccentric behavior, causing him to have low expectations of himself and to behave accordingly. In reality, he is capable of being extremely bright, if not genius level, but is generally not motivated to do so.
In fact, when he is reacting on the spur of the moment Ron can be extremely intelligent, usually pointing out the inherent flaws in a villain's plans or coming up with unusual complicated reflections on life. A constant wisecracker, Ron has shown a uniquely formal and complex vocabulary with which to comment on the various oddball situations he and Kim often find themselves in. Ron has also been shown to have many impressive skills which reflect his actual intelligence, such as managing, cooking, handcraft, workshop and many other underused abilities such as mechanics, invention building, engineering (it seems that Ron may have the gift of the "golden hands") and even the ability to quickly create from scratch entire songs. Indeed, on the rare occasions when Ron finds something that interests him and can hold his attention, his abilities in that field quickly rise to the level of genius.
Ron has also shown to be extremely gifted in the "Monkey Kung Fu" skill (Tai Shing Pek Kwar) introduced by Lord Monkey Fist (whom Ron has defeated without any help). Ron has also proven highly formidable on the few occasions he's been motivated to actually fight an enemy.
[edit] History
Much of Ron's past is tied to a disastrous childhood spent at the infamous summer camp, Camp Wannaweep, an experience which can be pointed to as the cause of almost every phobia he has. Ron frequently has flashbacks to his time spent at Wannaweep, including having to share an insect-infested cabin with a deranged chimpanzee, as well as being hunted down and bullied by the other children. In Hidden Talent, it is revealed that Ron has been using a nightlight every night since age four.
Despite his often comical behavior, Ron has proved his value as a sidekick, rescuing Kim on a many occasions. Some notable examples include:
- In their first encounter against Señor Senior Senior, he saved Kim from Senior's Spinning Tops of Doom.
- In Bonding, he rescued both Kim and Bonnie from being fried to a crisp by Professor Dementor's latest doomsday-machine.
- In Number One, Ron saved both Kim and Agent Will Du from one of Duff Killigan's exploding golf-balls.
- In Sick Day, Ron successfully steals “Ray-X” from Drakken by infiltrating Drakken’s lair with a highly successful covert operation, without the aid of Kim.
- During a brief stint as the Fearless Ferret, Ron rescued Kim from a convention hall scaffolding after she fainted from a foul smelling stink spray, which earned him a hug from her after she woke up.
- In Kimitation Nation, Ron saved Kim from a deadly plunge when her rocket-backpack failed in mid-air.
- In Sink Or Swim, Ron saved Kim and the entire cheerleading squad in their first run-in with Gill, using the arts and crafts skills he honed at camp as well as showing impressive tactical talent by coming up with complicated tactical lines of thought to lure Gill into a trap and capture him. In the end, Officer Hobble complimented Kim, thinking that she was the one who captured Gill and wasn't likely to believe that Ron did it, even after Kim told him that Ron was the real hero.
- In So the Drama, Ron saved Kim from an unavoidable attack of ninjas with a jet pack and as able to free Mr.Nakasumi from Shego's jet trap, while Kim wasn't being able to do it.
- In Tick-Tick-Tick he rescued Kim from being blown up by a miniature explosive which had affixed itself to her nose.
- In Blush, Ron saved Kim from literal death by humiliation, after Kim was infected by a chemical which caused her to disappear when embarrassed.
- In The Twin Factor Ron was able to face both Kim and Shego acting on concert with ease (even with his hands tied behind his back) by showing impressive spur of the moment tactical capability in both avoiding and in using their own attacks against them.
- In Dimension Twist Ron showed to come up with quite complex lines of thought for solutions and ideas, resulting in being able to come up with a very thoughtful/logical plan in getting the team to escape oblivion.
Ron spends much of the series trying to win other girls' affection, usually unsuccessfully. Some have returned interest though, a few times during which Ron didn't notice until it was too late. Ultimately, he ends up pairing up with Kim. Ron's status as an only child will come to an abrupt end in season 4.
In "The Ron Factor" Ron states that his astrological sign is Virgo while discussing his sign with supervillain Gemini. A Virgo sign would place Ron's birthday somewhere between August 23rd and September 23rd.
[edit] Talents, Interests and Skills
Ron will never be confused with Kim when it comes to variety of abilities, but what Ron can do, he does well. Ron's greatest interests are food and video games. He is also an accomplished chef, and is renowned as the inventor of the Naco, a creation which earned him a royalties check of $99 million from Bueno Nacho (a nickel for every Naco sold). Unfortunately, whatever money he didn't spend away was promptly stolen when Ron was later captured by Drakken (apparently, Bonnie liked the idea of Ron carrying around the whole $99 million in his pants). It's unknown whether or not he's received any more royalties since then. However, Ron's cooking talents also surfaced when Steve Barkin put him in charge of teaching the Home Ec class (once he realized there was absolutely nothing he could teach Ron about cooking). He even opened a restaurant with Barkin in Middleton High's Home Ec room, where he was booked solid months in advance. Unfortunately, the Board of Health shut him down when they discovered a live rodent, Rufus, actually serving the food. Ron, while working at Bueno Nacho, has been shown to have rather amazing management skills and techniques, ironically greatly surpassing Kim Possible when the two applied for a job together.
He is also the Middleton High mascot, for which he wears a full-head Mad Dog mask with a working foam generator which he made himself from a Hollywood makeup kit. He later used the same makeup kit to successfully disguise himself as Kim's father to foil a kidnapping plot by Drakken which showed to be very realistic and was even capable of performing facial expressions. Ron is also highly skilled at workshop and handcraft activities as well as in tactics as shown in Sink or Swim.
Ron is also Jewish, a point made clear when Ron made a presentation to his class and discussed his bar mitzvah, one of the few things in his life he's exceptionally proud of. Unfortunately, that pride was temporarily shattered when Steve Barkin noticed that while Ron's Rabbi (Rabbi Katz) had printed off a bar mitzvah certificate for him, he'd apparently forgotten to sign it. This sent Ron into a spiral of self doubt, even resorting to technology from supervillain supplier, Jack Hench, to give himself huge muscles, believing that would make him more of a man. Fortunately, with Rabbi Katz's help, Kim was able to talk Ron back to his senses. Rabbi Katz later signed Ron's certificate and everything was back to normal.
Indeed, ever since the beginning of the series, Ron has shown a surprising and clearly underused potential at creating inventions, mechanics, engineering and others fields. Such rare demonstration of Ron's extremely high intelligence are even more impressive when you consider how effective his devices are despite his extremely limited knowledge of scientific fields.
- Ron's proudest creation is his Middleton Mad Dog mascot head, which includes a self-made device for squirting foam to simulate rabidness. He also created extremely life-like facial disguise masks, including ones to imitate Kim Possible and Dr. Possible.
- When briefly possessing Drakken's evil (but not his intelligence) in Bad Boy, Ron converted his moped into an ATV plasma catapult, improved some of Drakken's failed inventions, and also built new ones from scratch such as a Mega Weather Generator. All of these inventions were highly efficient, worked without any setback or problems, and were built in a very short amount of time. Ron himself admitted that "I’m so much better at being evil" and as Shego said "Who knew the buffoon was a natural?". It was during this episode that he also showed impressive deviousness (coming up with a convoluted yet effective plan that left even Shego in the dark) and, when necessary, ruthlessness (even scaring Shego), as well as showing impressive tactical/logical talent.
- In the end of the episode Naked Genius, Ron single-handedly built a "doomsday device", in this case an armor-piercing laser vehicle, out of some of Drakken's old junk.
- In Sink or Swim Ron has shown impressive tactical ability(and in other episodes) by fooling Gill with a series of complex tactics and showed a very high ability with handwork, more specifically workshop, handcraft and arts and crafts.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Ron's role during a fight is usually defensive rather than offensive. Ron's major talent in combat is that he is very good at dodging. In fact, on multiple occasions, he's managed to successfully evade attacks from people who apparently should have been able to easily paste him (Kim, Shego, Erik the Synthodrone, and on one notable occasion, both Kim and Shego acting in concert.) It also seems that Ron is a very good tactician in both at the spur of the moment and in long complicated strategies.
Ron's most frequently used talent is his incredible amounts of dumb luck (which he calls "dumb skill"), and in a Inspector Clouseau-esque manner often manages to bumblingly help save the day by sheer accident. On a regular basis, he appears to accidentally perform highly improbable feats, such as being uncontrollably catapulted into the air by malfunctioning rocket briefs only to end up cannonballing headfirst into a pair of attacking ninjas. He is also often shown dropping large objects on opponents when they are not looking. This "case study" in chaos theory was investigated by Global Justice in The Ron Factor.
Although Ron is well-known for his possession of Mystical Monkey Power instinctive martial arts knowledge and powers, even without the Mystical Monkey Power he has nonetheless occasionally demonstrated impressive skill in hand-to-hand and staff combat. However, his reluctance to fight people due to his strong aversion to violence prevents him from using them, and his lack of self-confidence makes him fear opponents who he thinks he cannot handle.
Ron has also shown to be quite skilled at many ninja teachings. During his stay at Yamanuchi Ninja School, he managed to become competent the ninjitsu arts quite quickly after only one week of training, albeit appearing quite clumsy during the process of doing so. Notably, he showed amazing speed and control with a staff, and was able to knock down a large tree with a single kick (which also inadvertently destroyed a nearby building).
Curiously, Ron also seems to possess the ability to talk to animals, most notably rodents and roaches.
[edit] Mystical Monkey Power
Early on in the show, Ron was exposed to Mystical Monkey Power. When it works, it offers him an instinctive knowledge of martial arts, as well as incredible super human strength and possibly other powers unknown at this time(picture on the right). However, he is only able to summon the power subconsciously, or in his words, "It kinda comes and goes, y'know?" Whenever he consciously attempts to force his power to act, things tend to go horribly wrong.
Nonetheless, Ron has demonstrated feats of Mystical Monkey Power (such as creating a small earthquake by stomping the ground, or grabbing and hurling a superhuman opponent a few dozen feet through the air with only one hand) that are much more impressive than those performed by Monkey Fist or Rufus, who ironically are capable of controlling the power much more easily than him, most likely due to Ron's extreme lack of focus and self-confidence. This may indicate that Ron's potential is far superior to Monkey Fist or Rufus. Furthermore, instinctive knowledge should not be confused with potential, for Ron's tactics and achievements were far superior to the one's of Monkey Fist and Rufus.
During his time at Yamanouchi, a ninja school in Japan, Ron was found to be worthy of the mystical Lotus Blade, which can take on the form of multiple weapons and be summoned at will (a right Ron earned by virtue of his "mystical monkey power", which he received in the episode Monkey Fist Strikes).
[edit] Love Interests
Ron has had a variety of love interests and crushes throughout the show, more than any of the show's other characters:
- Shego: Ron had a short-lived crush on her in Tick-Tick-Tick, before actually meeting her. He lost the attraction once he met her, however, and doesn't seem interested in her for the rest of the series. He did, however, say that she looked kind-of cute in A Sitch in Time, albeit as a way to relieve tension after she tackles him in a fight.
- Amelia: Addressed in The New Ron, Animal Attraction, and Ron Millionaire. Amelia crushed on Ron because of his new hairdo. When he lost the haircut, he lost Amelia's interest. Ron got excited in Animal Attraction when he found out that Animology said that Amelia was his soul mate. Ron was also seen flirting with Amelia in Ron Millionaire.
- Tara: Tara is the most well-known of Ron's love interests, with the exception of Kim. Tara is one of the many girls that gazed at Ron in The New Ron. Unlike the others, she saw Ron's true self afterwards, and she liked what she saw. She even kissed him (on the cheek) in Sink or Swim after he rescued the cheerleading squad from Gill the mutant. That was the first kiss seen on the show. Unfortunately, Ron never realized her interest until long after it had ended.
- Zita Flores: Ron's crush in early season 2. She might have been his first girlfriend. The relationship might be referenced in season 4.
- Mary Gariono: Ron only mentions that she said, "Hi" to him in A Sitch in Time.
- Yori: Yori, a Japanese student of the Yamanouchi ninja school, is the equivalent of Kim's Josh. Over the course of the series, the crush between she and Ron seems to run deeper than any other. This is changed in So the Drama, when Kim and Ron kiss.
- Bonnie: Ron has shown that he is attracted to her. In A Sitch in Time he said he thought she was warming up to him. She showed interest in him in Ron Millionaire; but, without the money, they had nothing.
- Penny: Penny only appears in The Truth Hurts. She got interested in Ron because of his honesty. Impressed that he admitted that he never kissed a girl (unless you count a CPR dummy), and that he said she had beautiful eyes (she probably liked that one the most). At the end of the episode, Ron was nervous around her. She took it the wrong way and left him.
- Kim: The star of the show and best friend to Ron Stoppable; over time their friendship became something more. The directors of the show, as stated in an interview, had chosen to couple Kim and Ron so as to impart the moral, "give geeks a chance." Kim and Ron had a very durable friendship before their romantic involvement in So the Drama. This is suspected by some fans to be a type of maxim communicating the idea a strong friendship should first precede romance. According to the series' directors, Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle, Kim and Ron will be dating in the upcoming fourth season. It is believed by some fans the addition of the element of romance will be a positive thing, while some others are opposed to it (they believe it may cause the show to jump the shark). Schooley and McCorkle have noted the potential risk, admitting that while Kim and Ron's blossoming love has given them a chance to do something new with the characters, the relationship has to be handled delicately to avoid turning the series stale. [1]
[edit] Trivia
- The episode "The Fearless Ferret", a parody of the old Batman TV series from the 1960s, features Ron becoming the apprentice of an aging crimefighter (voiced by Adam West, the actor who played Batman in the TV series). This is also a parody of the setup for the animated series Batman Beyond. Also, Terry McGinnis, Batman's apprentice in Batman Beyond, was voiced by none other than Ron's voice actor, Will Friedle.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Kim Possible's Creators Speak (2006), retrieved July 29, 2006.
