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Weekend Discussion Thread: It’s a Smug-Off!Regular Kenneth Morgan suggests:
I’m gonna go with Craig “that smug bastard” Stevens in “The Deadly Mantis.” He constantly knows best and lords it over everyone (especially Alix Talton) when he’s actually right. What a jerk. Your pick? 124 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: It’s a Smug-Off!”Commenting at Satellite News
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Nobody has mentioned Satoris from The Final Sacrifice?
Maybe he’s not at the top of anyone’s list (my first thought was Pernell Roberts) but I’d have thought he would’ve been mentioned by someone. Maybe I need to watch it again.
Adam Chance. Hands down.
that guy can smug you in the face from the other side of the screen. zero effort.
Pernell, of course, as has been mentioned (“There’s a dense smug rolling in”). But I would put Dr. Carlo (“I’m a remarkable man”) Lombardi from “She Creature” right up there, too.
1) Adam Chance, without a doubt
2) Secret Agent Super Dragon
3) the sheriff from ‘Squirm’
4) the lead astronaut from Fire Maidens of Outer Space
I submit that evil masterminds like Largo, or Beta, or whatever his name is in Double 007 are off-limits for a smug-off. After all, being smug is a prerequisite for their job. They can’t even get past the resume screening unless they can demonstrate a 2.5 or better rating on the Pernell Roberts Smugometer.
While Charles B. Pierce comes immediately to mind as “Bryan/Bryant Lockhart”(Yes – he’s so smug, he calls himself both Bryan and Bryant throughout the course of the film, lol), I’m shocked two other characters didn’t get a mention(that I saw, anyway): Yuri from “Werewolf” and J.K. Robertson from “Timechasers”.
Yuri dripped a smug, smarmy sweat through the entire film: every chick digs him whether she likes it or not, every discovery gets credited to him whether he finds it or not, and he’s just so pleased with himself for every stupid attempt at turning somebody into a werewolf. He’s so smug that he thinks he can chase a werewolf and chill with him!
Robertson? Sheesh… “Matt, I’m the CEO of a Fortune 500 company!”… who blindly works on time travel with big-chinned dorks and hands out important jobs to plaid-challenged local Shopper News Weekly reporters and pink-suited fidgets with bad moustaches all in the span of about two minutes. The only phrase smugger than “You’re turning ME down?” would be “Do you know who I am?!!!” He also knows criminal law off the top of his head. You also have to be quite smug to refuse to take kids on history trips. Bastard!
I would nominate Pernell Roberts and Adam Chance, but most people have already named them.
The one that no one has mentioned so far was the government guy from Laser Blast. Smug and arrogant, unless he’s talking to Keenan Wynn. He didn’t even DO anything, just showed up in the end and was a witness to the aliens laser blasting the “bad guy”. Smug AND ineffectual is the worst kind of smug!
Also just realized that Ron Masak was the sheriff, which is another tie to Cheap Seats w/out Ron Parker. Masak apparently was good buddies with that sludge-muppet Steve Garvey, and Floorwax as well!
to 55 on likable sheriffs – how could you forget Beverly garland in gunslinger! pretty darn “likable”!
I agree with John Agar. Also, Dr Robert Hedges and Victor from Terror from the Year 5000. Between the two of them, it’s a Smug-Off!
#85 – Let’s give Prince of Space his due, though – he does have to shepherd around first those annoyingly ineffectual kids, and then later those annoying ineffectual scientists. When the enemies’ weapons are so completely useless against one, and also when one is so far beyond his or her ostensible peers (or dependents, er…), I think it’s expected that one develops a bit of smug.
Plus, he’s the “prince” of space, so he’s royalty.
Dr. Carlo Lombardi – professional smug squatter
The Great Vorelli – He really was nothing until he hired the butt lady, and then he threw her under the bus (er, puppet)
The guy running a bee farm on his wife’s ranch in The Deadly Bees – overreacts to the dog and later testifies, “It was in my way!”
William Sylvester (both times!)
Ben Murphy (both times!)
Liara – “You’ll never see your world again (smile).”
Everyone wearing a lab coat or a suit in The Projected Man
Blahblah Cooper, the niche reviewer in Merlin – “Ah yes, we must stay young and vital!” Ewwwwww.
Merlin – revenge is sweet, even when you’re not there to enjoy it.
As a side note, I saw John Agar play a non-smug character as a grandfather in the 1989 movie Miracle Mile. I didn’t know who he was until MST3K.
I read the title as “Smeg-Off” In which case, I vote for Arnold Rimmer.
Reading it as Smug-Off……hmmm……I’ll give it to Deathstalker.
That know-it-all hippie in “Kitten With A Whip”, Mr. “I feel no pain.” Glad he’s dead, the toolbag.
Actually William Sylvester qualifies for THREE times…He was smug in GORGO too.
I would also like to add the husband from The Screaming Skull and the always drunken Joe Gamble (Gilligan’s Island’s Professor Russell Johnson) from The Space Children.
@ #105: Is that pronounced smug-o-me-ter or smug-om-e-ter?
@ #106: Yuri is mentioned in posts #16 and #28.
Deathstalker. Apparently, he didn’t realize that walking around bragging about what a hero you are doesn’t actually make you a hero, but instead makes you an insufferable D-bag.
111 Bob Denby: You’re right about Projected Man, especially Dr. Lionine Fur-face, prancing around with his friend Latham and answering the loud British phones. Egh!
I would also nominate the scientist with the bad accent from “12 to the Moon.” (See how I did that?) No, the one who gets his hands burned off before he learns not to be so smug. Also the same actor I think as the ‘Limp Noodle’ aristocrat from She-Creature. Pretty smug. Are Smarm and Smug the same thing?
From my favorite short, Last Clear Chance, I nominate the cop. He kept going on and on about trains, those “blameless, holy creatures”. Even when he’s consoling the brother, he’s smug. He continued his smugness in Dragnet and Adam-12.
fred burroughs
excellent question about smarmy vs smug – dr. furface from projected man was always smug but he then added a dose of smarmy when he learned who the woman in the lab was (apparently somebody well respected) – suddenly he’s all smarmy and unctuous! he was a multi-skilled villain!
How about the big chinned “Soultaker” boss? “I insist that you do this supernatural job properly. For some vague, nebulous reason. What happened to the bright young soultaker I hired?”
#115 – Actually, it’s pronounced “smoog-AHHHHH-mitter.” (sniffs)
To Crow T. Robert Denby:
Like you, I also didn’t know it was Agar playing the Grandpa in Miracle Mile … until he smiled. As Mike Nelson said, “that’s right, John, never let your smile reach your eyes.”
And as for Miracle Mile itself, THERE’S s flick that dares to be riffed. Pretty good action sequences complimented by plot holes big enough to drive a Trans Am through, leading to one of the most downer endings in film history. I’m sure I’m not the only person with a WTF look on their disbelieving mug as the credits rolled.
Ah Miracle Mile, you lost gem – bad as it is, I love the premise (the real-time aspect makes it, even as it breaks it), the Tangerine Dream soundtrack (in fact the last thing they ever released that I loved all the way through), and Anthony Edwards, who, as we all know, is the world’s most dangerous Judge Reinhold. And for a change, the movie is as bad as it is without Agar making it worse – he’s pretty good in it and I don’t recognize him as the same guy from Mole People Or Revenge of the Creature.
But Denise Crosby led a parade of one-dimensional, wooden dialogue that never let up.
The ending had to be. I accept that.
But yeah, let’s see that one riffed!
One word…..BRACK!!!