Top Five Funniest Evil Mad Scientists

By Lisa Anderson

The Evil Mad Scientist is a familiar figure in popular culture, and is found most often in science fiction, horror, or superhero tales. Evil Mad Scientists are not to be confused with their more benevolent counterparts, like Emmett Brown of Back to the Future. While the Evil Mad Scientist can be a figure of great terror, when this archetype is used for comic effect the results can be hilarious. Following are five of the best examples.

5. Sheldon Plankton, from Spongebob Squarepants
Most people know plankton only as tiny creatures eaten by aquatic filter feeders. This one, however, is small but mighty. Green, vermiform, and one-eyed, he is tireless in his quest to steal the top-secret recipe to the Crabby Patty for Spongebob’s employer, Mr. Crab. His booming voice is classic super villain camp, and his ego is bigger than a blue whale.

4. Dr. Frank N. Furter, from The Rocky Horror Picture Show
This offbeat performance was the first film role for Tim Curry, who had been a TV actor up to that point. Sporting make-up, lingerie, and pearls, Curry’s “Sweet Transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania” achieves his goal of building himself the perfect boy-toy—the titular Rocky. He also lures his reluctant guests, the innocent Brad and Janet, into a word of depravity, where everything they believed is called into question. By the time the curtain falls, however, Brad, Janet, and the audience realize that “Transylvania” is not somewhere you can go with a Eurail pass.

3. Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, from Young Frankenstein
Gene Wilder’s mad genius is the protagonist of Mel Brooks’ loving send-up of classic monster movies. The grandson of the infamous reanimator, he’s denied his family legacy for years, even changing the pronunciation of his name (“That’s FRONK-uhn-steen”). When he inherits his family estate, he travels to Transylvania, and well. . . you know how these things go: soon he’s following in grandpa’s footsteps. The movie’s star-studded cast includes Madeline Kahn, Terri Garr, and the inimitable Peter Boyle as the Monster. After Wilder’s duet with Boyle, you’ll never hear “Puttin’ on the Ritz” the same way again.

2. Dr. Horrible (a.k.a. Billy), from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog
Joss Whedon’s Internet sensation was easily the best and most influential thing to come out of the 2008 Hollywood writers’ strike. The title character, played by Neil Patrick Harris, is very much a post-Watchmen (as in the graphic novel) villain. . . human, fallible, and not really all that horrible. He’s trying to get into the Evil League of Evil while nursing a crush on a woman who goes to the same Laundromat. If you haven’t seen this award winning work yet, don’t forget to watch the DVD’s hilarious musical commentary. The original blog may have ended in tragedy, but according to Whedon and Harris, Horrible will be back in another web serial.

1. “The Mads” (Dr. Forrester, Dr. Erhardt, TV’s Frank), from Mystery Science Theater 3000
The antics of these evil geniuses started out on cable access in Minnesota and made their way through both Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi channel, becoming a cult phenomenon along the way. They perpetrate some of the cruelest and most sadistic experiments ever. Hapless employees (first Joel Robinson and then Mike Nelson) are marooned in space and forced to watch such epically bad movies as Manos: The Hands Of Fate. Only snarky robots built by Joel help both men to keep their sanity. The cast of MST3K has moved onto other projects (Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic), but their misdeeds must never be forgotten, so keep circulating the tapes!

Honorable Mention: DNAmy, from Kim Possible
I give DNAmy an honorable mention, not because her double-x chromosomes make her any less of a menace, but because I know her only by reputation. A bio-geneticist, she sets out to create a real-life version of Cuddle Buddies—stuffed toys she loves that cross one animal with another. Much like Floop’s Flooglies in Spy Kids, it’s really creepy if you stop to think about it.

Evil Mad Scientists capture the imagination. Not only does their intelligence provide great creative freedom, but the nature of their work connects the story to the basic questions of life. That is also what makes them so potentially funny! We’re sure to see more of this archetype, comic and otherwise, as time goes on, and we’ll laugh with these evil geniuses for years to come.