Brick Bardo

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Brick Bardo
First appearance	Dollman (1991)
Last appearance	Dollman vs. Demonic Toys (1993)
Created by	Charles Band
Portrayed by	Tim Thomerson
Information
Aliases	Dollman
Gender	Male
Age	Unkown (Forties)
Date of birth	Unkown
Occupation	Police officer
Spouse(s)	Wife Vicki (deceased)
Children	Son (deceased) Daughter (deceased)

Brick Bardo (otherwise known as Dollman) is a fictional diminiutive alien lawman in the Full Moon Features universe, who comes from the fictional planet Arturus. Not unlike Clint Eastwood's character in the Dirty Harry films, he is the owner of a 596.8 Ruger; "the most powerful handgun in the known universe." His name is based on an ongoing writers trademark by director Albert Pyun.^[1]

Tim Thomerson played the character in Dollman, Bad Channels and Dollman vs. Demonic Toys. The character was later adapted in comic form, with four full color issues released from Malibu Comics.^[2]

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Dollman 1.2 Bad Channels 1.3 Dollman vs. Demonic Toys 2 In other media 3 Other uses 4 Running Gags 5 References

[edit] Biography

[edit] Dollman

Brick Bardo is a hard-boiled cop living on Arturus, a planet much like Earth, who is very good at nailing the city's criminal population. But this seems to upset his superiors and the Mayor.

One day, Bardo saves a room full of hostages at a laundromat while serving out a suspension. This inadvertently leads to his framing of the death of several people, as reported on the news Bardo is listening to in his apartment. Just then, Cally, an enemy of Bardo's begins shooting at him, and temporarily stuns him using a small device. When Bardo awakens, he finds himself surrounded by his enemy Sprug and his henchmen (Cally and Fisher) on a desert plain in the middle of nowhere. Sprug wants revenge on Bardo for shooting off parts of his body. He reveals that he is in possession of a powerful dimensional bomb that he will use if the city does not pay the fifty thousand ions he is demanding.

Before Sprug's goons can finish off Bardo, Bardo uses a magnetic-like force to retrieve his gun and proceeds to blast Cally and Fisher into bloody chunks. While Bardo's handgun is not capable of doing this to humans, its bullets can still do significant damage on Earth.

Sprug makes a fast getaway in his spaceship. Bardo steals a ship from a nearby police garage and chases Sprug through a glowing anamoly. Following their crash landing on Earth, they discover that they are now only a few inches tall. Earth is approximately 10,000 Light Years from Arturus.

Bardo soon gains a friend in an impoverished woman named Debi Alejandro, by saving her life from three gang members who attack her close to his spaceship. From here on, the villains refer to Bardo as being a "Dollman" because of his size. Although Bardo takes a liking to this name in the movies, he doesn't like it in the comic books.

Debi lives in a crime-ridden part of the South Bronx with her young son Kevin, and is part of a Neighbourhood Watch team who are just trying to make a difference. Knowing that the gang members will return, Debi takes Dollman and his ship to her home, where he becomes a major attraction for the noisy neighbours. Meanwhile, Sprug has enlisted the help of a local gang lead by Braxton Red, and Dollman is not safe for long when the gang regroup and lead a vengeful assault, as payback for the previous attack on their men.

Braxton and his gang go to Debi's house demanding to know where Dollman is. Just then, Dollman kills all the bad guys, save for Braxton, who barely escapes with his life, and is left fatally wounded.

Braxton makes it back to his hideout, but is about to die. Sprug offers to save his life by healing his injury, only if he will obey his every command. After partially healing the wound, Sprug is squashed by Braxton when Sprug demands that he now work for him. Braxton further declares war on the Dollman.

During a conversation with Debi that night, Dollman confirms that he once had a wife, son and baby daughter, who were murdered by someone to get back at him (possibly Sprug). Debi also confesses that her husband was killed holding up a liquor store, and that Kevin doesn't remember much about his father.

While Debi is returning home from work the next day, Braxton (now close to death) leads his goons in kidnapping her to lure Dollman into a trap. Hearing the commotion outside in the street, Dollman dives through a window and narrowly grabs on to the side of their car, as they speed off and stop at the city outskirts where they first encountered Dollman. Once there, they await Dollman's arrival. But Dollman is aware of their plan to take him out, and does a surprise attack of his own on the bad guys from above, laying waste to all of them. Dollman manages to overcome the odds, and saves Debi from Braxton by shooting his right arm off.

Dollman is about to finish Braxton, but Debi resents the unnecessary violence and Dollman agrees not to kill him. Braxton then activates Sprug's dimensional bomb, forcing Debi and Dollman to run for cover as the area is destroyed in the blast. Following this, Dollman bids farewell to Debi.

[edit] Bad Channels

Unable to leave Earth, Bardo sets out to Pahoota to find Bunny (Daryl Strauss) - a character who survived an alien encounter in Bad Channels, but remained trapped at 12 inches in a glass bubble at the outcome of the movie. Bardo learns of her circumstances through the tabloid press.

Dollman contributes a post-credits cameo, which is presented as an epilogue to his own movie, and also as a set up (stinger) for the sequel, Dollman vs. Demonic Toys.

In Dollman vs. Demonic Toys, Bardo learns of the whereabouts of Nurse Ginger (played by Melissa Behr) instead of Bunny. Ginger's change in size is never provided with an on screen explanation in the movie, as Ginger and another girl named Cookie were later unshrunk in Bad Channels after the DJ fought the alien. As such, it has been suggested by Full Moon fans that the producers deliberately ignored the outcome of Ginger's fate, and cast her in the next movie anyway instead of Bunny, either because Daryl Strauss couldn't return, or because Ginger was the obvious odds on favorite.

In flashbacks to Bad Channels, Tim Thomerson redubs the dialogue mentioning Bunny and Ginger's rescue is edited out, even though this is not what actually happened. ^[3]

[edit] Dollman vs. Demonic Toys

Dollman vs. Demonic Toys is the sequel to Dollman (1991), Demonic Toys (1992) and Bad Channels (1992). It was one of Charles Band's first attempts at combining characters from his different franchises.^[4]

The story surrounds police officer Judith Gray's obsession with destroying the titular toys, while Dollman's search for Ginger (later nicknamed "Dollchick" by the baby doll) leads him to Pahoota, after reading about her miniaturised state. Dollman later saves Ginger from impending doom when a spider attacks. After relating their predicaments on Ginger's kitchen counter, they share a brief moment of intimacy before Judith Gray shows up. Being a cop in peril, she seeks Dollman's help in battling the toys because she is serving out a suspension. She found out where they were by smooth talking a reporter who had been interviewing them.

Since Dollman is similarly sized, he can use the ventilation shafts to move around in and hunt the toys. He quips a joke about how he hasn't been hunting since he landed on the planet, and that'd be fun. Ginger insists on tagging along with the two cops, to help out if they get hurt.

The toys somehow returned when a drunken hobo had a gruesome accident inside their warehouse, while sheltering from the rain. Since human blood is the key to summoning the demonic toys, four of these toys magically appear. Only this time, the Teddy Bear from the first movie is replaced by an angry looking combat doll, named Zombietoid.^[5]

After transporting Dollman and Ginger into the warehouse inside a suitcase, they are confronted by a dwarf security guard whom the toys have recruited to do their dirty work. After easily taking him out, Judith is shot and killed by Mr. Static (a toy robot that fires laser beams) and the toys capture Dollman and Ginger by outnumbering them in the air vents, when Dollman's gun gets stuck between a pile of crates.^[6]

Baby Oopsy explains that Ginger will be impregnated at midnight. This is a crucial part of the toys' plan to resurrect their demon master, so that he may finally get the human body he sought out. Thus why the toys captured Ginger (as The Kid had failed to be reborn through Judith's unborn baby in Demonic Toys). Their plan is ultimately thwarted by Dollman, who eliminates the toys one by one. Dollman and Ginger alert the police that Judith has died, and then hire a taxi to take them back to Pahoota.

Dollman defeats the toys in the following order: Mr. Static (Toy Robot), Zombietoid (Action Figure), Jack Attack (Jack-In-The-Box), Baby Oopsy-Daisy (Baby-Doll).

[edit] In other media

Full Moon Features produced a series of collectible trading cards based on Dollman and their other movies at the height of their popularity. They included a card about the film (#16), plus Brick Bardo (#17), Sprug (#18), Braxton Red (#19), and The Mark V Speedsnake (#20), which is the name of Sprug's illegal spaceship.^[7]

Malibu Comics released four separate issues in the early 1990s, chronicalling the battle between Brick Bardo and his archnemesis Stolvan Sprug, and was again set on the planet Arturus, with storylines taking place on Earth as well. In the fourth issue, it is revealed that Bardo's wife was named Vicki when he mistakingly calls a lady called Toni by her name.

Written by Bill Spangler and illustrated by Marcelo Campos, the comics also featured poster art between pages for upcoming Full Moon Features releases. Although Malibu Comics also released comics based on Demonic Toys, there was no crossover with Dollman.

The battle music from Dollman can be heard in one scene during Trancers III.

In 2005, Full Moon Features released a three piece DVD box set that contains Dollman, Demonic Toys and the previously unreleased Dollman vs. Demonic Toys in NTSC form (Region 0). Each DVD also included the Videozone / Making Of feature.^[8]

[edit] Other uses

Dollman may also refer to the comic book character of the same name, created by Will Eisner and published by DC Comics.

[edit] Running Gags

No stranger to Full Moon fans, Tim Thomerson is best-known as the time-travelling cop Jack Deth in Trancers 1-5.^[9] His role as Brick Bardo in Dollman is essentially similar.

In Dollman vs. Demonic Toys, Brick Bardo makes mention of Arturus having an Angel City while talking to Ginger about his history as a cop. As Trancers fans are aware, Los Angeles is renamed Angel City in the 23rd Century. Brick Bardo also copies some of Jack Deth's lines, including "Ladies please," and "You sack of pus", among others.

Dollman also has a habit of saying that people on Earth remind him of people back home, i.e. Braxton in Dollman and Debi in Dollman vs. Demonic Toys, who he mistakingly refers to as Maria. He also compares his captain (Skyresh) to Judith Gray's boss when they first meet up.^[10]

[edit] References