Snidely Whiplash
Snidely Whiplash is the cartoon arch-villain to Dudley Do-Right in the tongue-in-cheek Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties segments of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show by American animation pioneer Jay Ward.
The character was voiced by Hans Conried in the original cartoon series. Snidely was later played by Alfred Molina in the 1999 live action film version Dudley Do-Right, starring Brendan Fraser as Dudley.
Whiplash is the stereotypical villain, in the style of stock characters found in silent movies and earlier stage melodrama, wearing black clothing, cape, and a top hat, and twirling his long handlebar moustache. He has a henchman named Homer, who usually wears a tuque. In the cartoon's opening segments, Snidely is seen tying Nell Fenwick to a railroad track. He is the antithesis of Do-Right, a picture-perfect stereotype of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police do-gooder.
In one cartoon episode Whiplash and Dudley change hats; Dudley becomes a Super-villain and Whiplash becomes the Fearless RCMP who receives a medal for bringing the evil Dudley Do-Right in.
A similar villain design derived from the same archetype was later used for Hanna-Barbera villain Dick Dastardly.
Cultural references
- Pinky and the Brain made a reference to Snidley in the episode "Leave It to Beavers/Cinebrainia" where Pinky, dressed in a top hat and long mustache, ties a rag doll to train tracks and Brain, dressed as a Mounty, attempts to save it.
- Family Guy paid homage to Snidely Whiplash when it was revealed on the episode "Mother Tucker" that Peter Griffin has an evil twin brother Thaddeus, who looks exactly like Peter but talks and dresses like Snidely, and wears an identical long mustache.
- One of Lee Publications' invisible ink books contains a puzzle in which Snidely Whiplash has kidnapped a beautiful circus acrobat.
- The Sims 2: Bon Voyage features a character who picks pockets and strongly resembles Whiplash.
- In the pilot episode of The Fairly OddParents, when Vicky is shot out of a circus cannon, she lands on railroad tracks, and is tied to it by Timmy, who is dressed like Snidely Whiplash.
- Hall-of-Fame relief pitcher Rollie Fingers of the Oakland A's was nicknamed "Snidely Whiplash" because of his handlebar mustache.
- Droopy does his impression of Snidely Whiplash in his cameo in the Roger Rabbit short Roller Coaster Rabbit after tying Jessica Rabbit to the tracks of the roller coaster in which Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman are riding.
- In the TV series Gargoyles, Elisa's brother Derek says that David Xanatos is not the reincarnation of Snidely Whiplash.
- In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode riffing Space Mutiny, Kalgon, the main villain, yells that the main heroes are "meddling fools", prompting Crow to remark "Who is he, Snidely Whiplash?"
- In The ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny Whiplash has a brief cameo near the beginning and is later seen in a pile of dead bodies near Captain Hook's hand.
- The single cover of the Taylor Swift song Mean features Taylor tied to a set of railroad tracks, watched over by a man who bears a striking resemblance to Snidely.