Simon Bar Sinister
Dr. Simon Bar Sinister is the main antagonist in the Underdog cartoon show. Simon was the wickedest man in the world and it was his ambition to rule the world, but each time Underdog defeated him.
Character[edit]
Voiced by Allen Swift, and based on the voice and looks of Lionel Barrymore, Simon appeared to be only two feet tall.
Simon's most famous saying was, "Simon says (a command would then follow) !" His henchman was Cad Lackey, who, though generally dull-witted, was occasionally capable of pointing out flaws in his boss's plans. Contrary to the mad scientist stereotype, Simon actually paid attention to Cad's suggestions.
In the 2007 live-action film adaptation, he is portrayed by Peter Dinklage. In the movie, Bar Sinister was originally a geneticist for a company in Capital City, using dogs as test subjects for the betterment of mankind. But after being laughed at by the mayor after attempting to have his research expanded to law enforcement, Bar Sinister began his work to create a superpower formula to get revenge. He took away Underdog's superpowers, put them in little blue pills and fed them to German shepherds. He was sent to jail for his crimes. However, the incident resulted in the destruction of his lab that not only caused the scarring of his forehead, the loss of some of his hair and a limp in his right leg, but also created Underdog.
Name[edit]
The name Simon is of Hebrew origin, and the word bar in Hebrew typically denoted a patronymic surname (as in Simon bar Kokhba, the leader of a 2nd-century revolt against the Roman Empire, for example).
"Bar Sinister" is a macaronic play on words (wordplay combining words from different languages).[citation needed] It refers to an imaginary symbol in heraldry used to denote illegitimate parentage, created by Sir Walter Scott in 1823. The term bar sinister has since been often used as a euphemism for illegitimacy.[1] It is often confused with the bend sinister, a diagonal stripe on a shield or escutcheon.[1][2]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Freeman, Jan (2009). Ambrose Bierce's Write It Right: The Celebrated Cynic's Language Peeves Deciphered, Appraised, and Annotated for 21st-Century Readers. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-80-271970-6. Search this book on
- ↑ Garner, Bryan (2009). Garner's Modern American Usage. Oxford University Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-19-988877-1. Search this book on
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