Boxotron guessed it first. I was costumed up as comic book writer Donny Finkleberg, aka the creator of Robot-Master, aka the creator of Potato-Salad Man, aka chain smoking jerk.
Specifically, First Appearance Donny Finkleberg, with his green jacket and his white dress shirt and his awful, awful magenta turtle neck underneath all that.
Soon after he was fired by Marvel Comics for being a terrible writer and all-around-douchebag, he was quickly snatched up by the government to pretend to be a supervillain in charge of the Transformers, because that would calm the public down or something. (What?) Anyway, they named and designed this supervillain persona after the actual published Robot-Master character that Donny Finkleberg created. So, uh, yeah, its readership must have been pretty small for that to have worked. Is anyone going to be fooled if ”Dr. Doom” showed up on television and claimed to be in charge of the Taliban?
Ah well.
When people at the Halloween party asked me who I was dressed as, I told them Jonah Hill. It was just easier.
I’d rather explain the back story each time who I was dressed as instead of saying I’m dressed as Jonah Hill.
It was more like this:
“Who are you dressed as?”
“I’m Donny Finkleberg.”
“What?”
“Donny Finkleberg, acclaimed creator of Potato-Salad Man.”
“What?”
“Jonah Hill. I’m Jonah Hill.”
“Ohhhhhhh. Yeah, I can see that now.”
If the Taliban were giant robots, or zombies, or even religious extremists with laser guns, I’d probably be willing to believe they were led by a supervillain.
But by a previously-existing fictional one?
But how many people knew about it? I mean, not only had the book been canceled, but Donny and his ideas were considered SO worthless that he’d been fired. In a pre-Google age, I can see the word being slow to get out… and Donny has just mysteriously vanished, which would probably more than a little fear into those who worked on the comic.
On top of that, even if some people did start thinking it was faked, Robot Master broke into national broadcasts, and no one (save Blackrock) could really trace it to the government… I think chances are good that someone who knew the comic would just assume that RM was real and had patterned himself after the comic. It’s one of those things that’s just hare-brained and confusing enough to work, at least for a while.
The whole thing was started when Triple-I’s Walter Barnett found his son reading an issue of Robot-Master. Sure, maybe word would spread slowly that this guy on television was based on a badly-selling comic book, but why even tempt that fate to begin with? Just give him a new name and costume to begin with!
It’s been years since I read this story, but as I recall, wasn’t Finkleberg trying to use the “Giant Robot” sightings in the northwest in order to drum up interest in a revival of Robot-Master? Wasn’t that the whole point of putting on the costume and breaking into public broadcasts as Robot-Master, and claiming the “Giant Robots” were his minions, a rather desperate — and ultimately dangerous — publicity stunt?
My point is that after the government got a hold of Finkleberg, and made him work for them, even if most of the general public didn’t believe Robot-Man was real, because he was a pre-existing fictional character, they would probably suspect that all the “Giant Robot” sightings up till then were a part of the same advertising campaign, and not real. And that would have still calmed the public down some.
Nah. Donny was just a hack who wanted the $50,000 paycheck. He was just fired and was happy to have a new business opportunity that wasn’t writing comic books.
In defense of my random-ass answers last night, I was drunk as hell.
I totally called it, it was totally obscure and Transformers.
Well, you have a pretty decent Spike Spiegel costume, why didn’t you just say you were him?
I’m pretty sure Gabe Kaplan is too old to play Spike Spiegel in the live action adaptation.
My life is complete.
Nice.
honestly id think it pretty kick ass if dr doom led the taliban! id at least have some respect for them then…
If I were you I would spend the night alternating between Donny Finkleberg, Jonah Hill, and Seth Rogen
Your butt-ugly sweater is not nearly butt-ugly enough. The magenta isn’t eye-searingly bright.
That’s what I told the guys at Walmart, but they said it was the worst they had.