Igor (fictional character)

A sign featuring Igor with a beautiful woman

Igor (or sometimes Ygor) is the traditional stock character or cliché hunch-backed assistant or butler to many types of villain, such as Count Dracula or a mad scientist, familiar from many horror movies and horror movie parodies, the Universal Studios Frankenstein series and the film Van Helsing in particular.

Origins

Dwight Frye's hunch-backed lab assistant in the first film of the Frankenstein series (1931) is the main source for the "Igor" of public imagination, though this character was actually named "Fritz". The sequels Son of Frankenstein (1939) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) featured a character named "Ygor", played by Bela Lugosi; this character, however, is neither a hunchback nor a lab assistant, but an insane blacksmith with a broken neck and twisted back. He reanimates the Monster as an instrument of vengeance against the townspeople who attempted to hang him for graverobbing. He survives a near-fatal gunshot and appears in the next film, in which his brain is placed in the Monster's body.

Universal Pictures would actively cement the idea of the hunchbacked assistant to the "mad scientist " in the Frankenstein film series House of Frankenstein (1944) with J. Carrol Naish playing a hunch backed lab assistant named Daniel.

In the 1933 horror film Mystery of the Wax Museum, "Ivan Igor" is the name of the mad wax museum curator. The film was remade as House of Wax in 1953, but the name "Igor" was given to the curator's henchman (played by a young Charles Bronson) rather than the curator himself. Not a hunchback, the character is deaf and mute, and is portrayed as an unconditionally devoted servant.

In other media

Pop music

The 1962 novelty song "Monster Mash" by Bobby 'Boris' Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers mentions Igor: "The scene was rockin', all were digging the sounds / Igor on chains, backed by his baying hounds."

Film and television

In the 1971 Canadian sketch show The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, Igor is the burly, bumbling, green-skinned assistant of Count Frightenstein played by Fishka Rais. His catchphrases are "Yes Master" and "I'd rather not get involved".

The 1970s PBS children's show, The Electric Company, featured a disheveled lab assistant named Igor (played by Jim Boyd and later by Luis Avalos) who served a character known simply as "The Mad Scientist" (played by Morgan Freeman).

Mel Brooks's 1974 parody, Young Frankenstein, included a hunchbacked assistant (played by Marty Feldman) who claimed his name is pronounced "Eye-gor" (in response to Frankenstein's claim that his name is pronounced "Fronkunsteen").

In The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), the character of Riff Raff (Richard O'Brien) is a hunch-backed servant of Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry). He serves as a lab assistant in the Doctor's attempts to create life.

Count Dracula had a butler named Igor in ABC's 1979 holiday telefilm The Halloween That Almost Wasn't (aka The Night Dracula Saved the World).

Another Igor appears in Return of the Killer Tomatoes, Killer Tomatoes Strike Back and Killer Tomatoes Eat France. He is portrayed as a tall, blond, good-looking Yuppie assistant to Prof. Mortimer Gangreen, and longs to be a TV news anchor. He is portrayed by Steve Lundquist. The character also appeared in the cartoon voiced by Cam Clarke.

The cartoon series Count Duckula features the titular character's faithful old family retainer, Igor, who is portrayed as an anthropomorphic vulture (hence the hunchback). Igor is a traditionalist and often schemes to convert his vegetarian master to a diet of blood, as was the case with Duckula's previous incarnations.

In The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), the town's resident mad scientist, Dr. Finkelstein, has a hunchbacked assistant called Igor who acts rather canine, working for "Bone Biscuits".

The big-budget monster movie Van Helsing (2004) also included a deformed character named Igor, who is played by Kevin J. O'Connor. In the film, he is the former assistant of Victor Frankenstein and the current assistant of Count Dracula. He is a spiteful, hate-filled creature who takes pleasure in harming others. He is killed in a combined effort between Van Helsing's companion Carl and Frankenstein's monster.

Igor appears in the animated series Frankenhole, a cartoon show which is a modern update of the Frankenstein mythos.

In Igor (2008), the main character of the film (voiced by John Cusack) is the former assistant of a now-deceased mad scientist. He takes over his master's research and dreams of becoming the most famous scientist in the world.

Igor makes a cameo appearance in an episode of the fairy tale television series Once Upon a Time. Once again, he's Dr. Frankenstein's assistant, and helps him to reanimate his brother, who was shot and killed.

Print

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, the Überwald region is home to a tribe of hunch-backed lab assistants with speech impediments; every male is named Igor, while the females are all named "Igorina".

The comic book story "Transilvane" (Legends of the DC Universe #22–23, written by Jean-Marc Lofficier and drawn by José Ladrönn) depicts Dabney Donovan, a mad scientist who has created a whole world based on old horror movie characters. In that world, Igor is the servant of the vampire leader, Count Dragorin.

A hunchbacked character named Igor is a recurring character in The Far Side comics, in typical mad scientist or other horror situations.

Video games

In the video game Quest for Glory IV, Igor is the local gravekeeper and the lab assistant to Dr. Cranium.

In the Persona video game series, Igor is a recurring character who assists the main characters by helping them create new Personas.

In the 1986 video game Castlevania, Igor and Frankenstein's Monster are the boss characters in the fourth group of stages.

See also

• Igor (Young Frankenstein)
• Universal Monsters

External links

• discussion of the popular 'Igor' idea
• Igor (2008) at the Internet Movie Database
• the writing studio the art of writing and making films original innovation van helsing