Buddy Cole (fiction)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charles Budderick Cole, popularly known as Buddy Cole, is a fictional character created and portrayed by actor-comedian Scott Thompson. He is an effeminate, gay socialite, made famous on The Kids in the Hall, a popular Canadian sketch comedy series and troupe of the same name.
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[edit] Personality
Buddy has a penchant for going on long, comedic rants about his personal life and the gay community. He also frequently drops celebrity names, insinuating that he has many close friendships with the rich and famous. A series of Kids in the Hall sketches portrayed his deeply personal relationship with Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family.
During the second season of The Kids in the Hall, Buddy began to star in more action-packed sketches. In the first such appearance, he becomes the substitute coach of an angry lesbian softball team. From there on, his adventures became more outrageous and surreal, from accidentally murdering a drag queen (while on a bad acid trip) to purchasing his very own male slave in the 1950s. Still, for the most part, Buddy delivers monologues from his very own gay bar, Buddy's, which he purchased with money saved during a brief stint of not smoking cigarettes.
In the series' final episode, he is one in a handful of characters to get something of a resolution: having lost his bar in a game of strip poker (he refused to remove his shirt having just put on ten pounds), he burns it down in order to win back an old firefighter boyfriend. Also in the last sketch is a childhood photo of Kurt Cobain, sitting on the bar.
Thompson has described Buddy as a "butch queen" and an "alpha fag", pointing out that while extremely effeminate, Buddy is also very forceful and strong willed. Still, some have perceived him as a harmful homosexual stereotype. Thompson, who is openly gay, has always directly confronted such charges. "The whole idea of Buddy Cole being considered a terrible stereotype and a terrible throwback is, I think, just tragic," he told Orlando Weekly in 2000. "I mean, most gay men are more Buddy than Sly."
According to the "Chalet 2000" episode of Kids in the Hall, a full-length adventure starring Buddy and friends, Buddy is the nephew of flamboyant comedian Rip Taylor.
[edit] 1995–present
Following the conclusion of the television series in 1995, Buddy Cole made regular appearances in Scott Thompson's one-man stage show. Since 2000, Buddy has been one of many characters revived for The Kids in the Hall reunion tours.
In 1998, Thompson co-authored the book Buddy Babylon: The Autobiography of Buddy Cole, with Paul Bellini.
[edit] Buddy's
In early 2006, Breakthrough Entertainment, the producers of the series Atomic Betty and Paradise Falls, announced that an animated comedy series based on the character was in development. Buddy's was expected to air on CBC Television and the American LGBT channel Here!. However, in a February 1, 2007 interview on Tom Green Live, Thompson announced that the series was no longer in development. No reason for the dissolution of the show was given, but Thompson did say that Buddy Cole now had his own blog instead, written and updated by Thompson himself. In an interview on the Here! podcast Here! with Josh and Sara, released May 18, 2007, Thompson stated that a number of elements of the pilot, including an HIV-positive character with lipodystrophy and a female African American villain, made the developing network too uncomfortable to continue the project.
On January 13, 2008, Thompson-as-Cole posted his first video blog. However, it was also his last; as announced in the video (titled "Adieu to EWE"), Cole simply didn't have enough time to blog.
