ENDORA YOUR ENTHUSIASM (17)
By:
August 31, 2025
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite sympathetic villains. Series edited by Heather Quinlan.
CLARENCE BODDICKER
Our first glimpse of Clarence Boddicker (played by Kurtwood Smith, in 1987’s Robocop) is on a TV news program. He’s already famous. Before we ever actually see him, we’re led to believe that he’s behind the deaths of 31 cops.
But the first appearance of the man himself shows us the real Clarence: terrified, and enraged that he’s feeling that way. When the stolen money is accidentally burned, he loses his mind. But as soon as he’s told that police are in pursuit, a new character named CLARENCE BODDICKER instantly appears: smart, vicious and hysterically funny. He comes up with the most sadistic way to handle the situation, and then plays it all off as a joke: “Can you fly, Bobby?”
For the next hour or so, it’s THE CLARENCE BODDICKER SHOW, a string of hilarious performances designed to intimidate. He’s unrepentantly evil. And he’s having so much fun.
When he captures Murphy at the defunct steel mill, his serious expression is pure comedy. “You probably don’t think I’m a very nice guy, do you?” And he’s delighted with Murphy’s response, probably taken from an episode of T.J. Lazer. One performer recognizes another. Then Clarence tortures and murders him, but hey.
The performances continue: performing cunnilingus on a grenade while his intended victim watches; snorting wine to clear his coke-clogged sinuses while threatening Sal; the deadly menace coiled inside “I never miss a game.”
But then Robocop shows up at the cocaine factory and kills everyone, and the mask drops. CLARENCE is replaced by mere Clarence, a gibbering animal who gives up his employer in pure desperation.
Then CLARENCE returns and the set pieces resume, funny and horrifying in equal measure: horking blood on a cop’s desk and demanding his phone call; demeaning Margaret the secretary before defiantly calling his employer a dick to his face; destroying the car his flunkie is so proud of with a hand cannon. It’s all a hoot, so long as you’re not the person in Clarence’s crosshairs.
When Robo finally catches up with Clarence in the quarry, the mask drops a final time: “Hey, man, you’re making me nervous!” Then, the final performance, a cliché internalized after watching too many bad action movies: “Sayonara, Robocop!” And his prey flips him a sharp and final bird. Sayonara, Clarence.
ENDORA YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Heather Quinlan | Kathy Biehl on DR. FRANK-N-FURTER | Catherine Christman on ALEXIS CARRINGTON | Crockett Doob on M3GAN | Nick Rumaczyk on AURIC GOLDFINGER | Mariane Cara on MIRANDA PRIESTLY | Trav SD on PROFESSOR HINKLE | Alex Brook Lynn on TOM POWERS | Lynn Peril on ENDORA | Adam McGovern on EDDIE HASKELL | Mimi Lipson on SUE ANN NIVENS | Heather Quinlan on HAROLD SHAND | Tom Nealon on SKELETOR | Matthew Hodge on BARRY LYNDON | Josh Glenn on JOEL CAIRO | Dan Reines on WALTER PECK | Mark Kingwell on HARRY LIME | James Scott Maloy on CLARENCE BODDICKER | Nikhil Singh on LOCUTUS | Carolyn Campbell on CARSON DYLE | Tony Pacitti on DENNIS NEDRY | Gordon Dahlquist on WALKER | Colin Campbell on RUTH LYTTON | Marc Weidenbaum on THE XENOMORPHS | Susannah Breslin on ANTON CHIGURH | Micah Nathan on PATRICK BATEMAN.
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