Snapper-Jack: Pros & Cons.

[Skarkill]

Following on from my post in The "Temper, Temper" Topic about Snapper-Jack being unfairly critized by some KM Fans, I decided to create this topic so as to find out what peoples Likes or Dislikes with this charatcter are.

Simpliy put down a list of what you like, Don't like Or Both.

Just in case there are members who don't know who Snapper-Jack was Here is a brief Charatcer Proflie

Charatcer Proflie

Snapper-Jack was a kidnapper who stalked the dungeon in S8. He called himself a Fool Catcher. He would quizz dungeoneers by askin them 3 riddles. He never caught anyone with the net he carried about with him. His left arm was a Snap Dragon called Snapper.


Here are my Pros & Cons:

Pros.

. He was an entertaining character

. Rivaled Sly Hands for the most comical dungeon bad guy

. He had potencial to develop further as a character

. Had an original Character for the dungeon.

. Was KM Ansrewer to The Child Catcher (Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang.)

. Was menacing in a understated way.


CONS.

. Was Patomimish at times

. Riddles were not very hard.

. Never made a kill.

. Never developed much

. Short shelf life 2-3 series maximum.



Well theres my list dose anyone else have something to add?

[JamesA]

I have to say that although Snapper Jack may have been a tad irritating, his rhymes were good as well as the dialogue of his riddles.

Interestiungly, all the characters that made kills in Series 7 & 8 were non-human (the Troll, Bhal Shebah and the Miremen).

[Lord_Bob]

Well Snapper Jack surprisingly does not stick out in my memory very much so I would have to assume he did not make much of an impression on me!

[GrimaldineGrimwold]

I only seem to like Snapper Jack, or SJ, as his non-existent friends don't call him, when I'm slightly deranged, overly ecstatic, or drunk. I'm at least one of those tonight, as my poor typing will probably testify, but I still can't bring myself to condone him. To be honest, I think he looks worse when you watch the show as an adult, whereas it just might not have seemed quite so pantomimish (I can invent words too!) a performance at age 13 or so. I don't like actors playing down to kids, but I do remember rather liking SJ the first time around, so I guess in that sense he achieved what was aimed for. If he impressed other children like that, it's probably more important than not-impressing a lot of hardened older people watching the show several years on.

I do think he was a huge copy of the Chitty Chitty Bang Crash Wallop Geddoutofit Festus! child-catcher though, as I've said many times before. And I'd like to see what digital effects nowadays could do for the snapdragon thing. The glove puppet really is so lame it's untrue.  

[Skarkill]

After seeing the pasteing Snapper-Jack is takeing in the most inopropriate KM Charcter thread I thought I'd champion his cause as well as that of Bill Cashmores other somethimes melined character The Oppostion "Trader" Honesty Bartram.


Snapper-Jack: For the Deffence

While this character was deffinatly at times pantomimeish and certainly could be camp, he was to a young child (and in my oppinion still is to this day) creepy and sinister in an understated way.

He's not all gruff and threanting like Skarkill or Raptor. He uses the approch Sly Hands dose. The creepy charm approch, he dosen't threatern the dungeoneer as such, but the malice he intends towards them is quite clear.

All right it's a glove puppet, So what So are ALL the Snap Dragons in Series 8 why pick on that one?? The bigger ones look FAR wores then little Snapper Dose.

He's an old school Dungeon villain alar Gumboil or Cedric, with his 3 riddles rather then a password alar The Dreadnaought.

With Harder riddles and longer time in the dungeon i'm willing to bet Snapper-Jack would have bagged a victim.

He is what scares kids the most the person who will take you away from your family, like The Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.




Honesty Bartram: For the Deffence

The New Opposition Trader (I'll come to this terminolagy in a moment) for Series 8.

Not as oftern critisised as Snapper-Jack but he dose have his detractors.

The Biggest complaint being. He's a pale rip off of Julius Scaramounger. I admit I once though that as well.

But after reviewing Sereis 8 I ahve come to the conclusion that compareing the 2 characters is a waste of time and completly wrong way to view them. Bartram is FAR more geard towards comedy (and I personaly find him very funny) were as Julius was always portrayed in a slightly more devius way.

Both Julius And Honesty have a kill to there name.

And the biggest factor I think in deffeding Bartram from the claim he was a poor Opposition Trader is the simple fact Bartram was more a Peddler then a Trader.

So compaering the 2 is futile. Julius for all his faults always delat in good quality stuff even if what he sold you wans't what you actualy needed.

Bartram's stock was always of the second hand nature, plus unlike Julius who was stationed in Wolfenden and naver moved about Bartram was a travler he didn't have a set stall. This there for meens he dosen't classify as a Merchent or the term Trader, but he dose qualifiy as a Peddler.



So in summing up..

While I agree that both characters have there faults, in my oppinion I think they both had there merits as well.

(The views expressed abover are entierly my own and not to be taken as the truth of the matter.)

Other Oppinions??

[djoska]

dunno..
guess i prefer scaramonger- i love the brummie accent- but he did go on a bit (ok, waaaaayy to much!!)
but I guess I'm a series 4 - 6 guy.

[Naitch]

I agree.

I liked both Jack and Honesty. I thought they were great.

While it's true that Jack was a bit childish, it was a CHILDRENS programme. Plus I like to think that if the Dungeoneer (or indeed Sidriss!) had got the questions wrong and beed 'nabbed', that we would have seen a whole meaner side to Jack.

I don't think the character was used 100% correctly, but I do think that there was bags of potential.

Maybe series 9 or 10 would haven given a lot more time for character development.

As for Honesty, what can I say. I loved him. I thought that character was brilliant! While Scaramonger often had less than honourable intentions when selling items to a questing team (doing the bidding for Lord Fear etc), Honesty was just dishonest, and that was the beauty of the character. Plus he expected the team to be daft enough to believe that all the rubbish he was peddling was worth anything.

Great comic timing too. I particularly liked his 2nd exchange with Nathan.

So to sum up, to improve Jack I would have made him a bit more sinister.

Honesty I don't really think needed improving.

[darkDescender]

I admit in the past I have had a go at Jack, but having seen series 8 again i'm forced to change my views. I think he may easily have scared more dungeoneers than any other character(except maybe Bahl-Shebah and the troll) simply by his mannerisms. You can tell he's at least a little unhinged just by listening to his voice, and his habit of slowly circling the dungeoner as he questioned them must have been especialy unnerving to the victim in question. Having said this however, I am still unable to come up with any kind of defence for Bartram. obviously he has some fans, and probably a fair few good points, but he just didn't work for me. Although I do like the old "don't tell your dad" line.

[Mashibinbin]

Well that is indeed a very well researched defence of two characters who I personally found to be indefensible. My thoughts on what you said are as follows:

Snapper Jack

He was indeed creepy but to me not in a threatening manner more a uneasy feeling that this guy was just rather over the top and unsettling accordingly. His chase across the moving block room however was chilling but fatally flawed in that he never caught up and doddered making his threat significantly less. Whilst this was most likely a twist to make the team panic more in the room it seriously made him look incompetent to me at the time.

As for the puppets they all look terrible but the bigger ones remind me of the drashigs in Doctor Who and therefore look better than what was on his hand imo.
He is what scares kids the most the person who will take you away from your family, like The Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

The return of riddles was indeed good but as you say they needed to be harder. His intention on napping was quite clear but if he had put his net on them it'd have had the same effect as Sylester Hands' magic rope which to me looked equally ineffective when it was thrown over January but Paul Valentine carried off the scene reasonably well to make it chilling.

Now Honesty...

He was given a costume which in many lights resembled that of Scaramongers and was a replacement provider of items in exchange for payment.

Now Bill Cashmore's acting wasn't great and again lay on the overdoing side of things. That I could manage with but for me the biggest flaw lay in Honestys character or lack of it rather.

Scaramonger had so much much backstory (Mrs S. and all the little scaramongers etc, the drinking problem and so on) that made him much more watchable. He was never overly bad and just wanted to get money where he could accepting money from Fear and then later a dungeoneer also. Honesty, though, had none of that and just swapped cash for whatever he'd found.

I agree he was geared to comedy but frankly I didn't find him all that funny, the dont tell yer dad line was delivered with it being a throwaway line which is what I would like to do with the character.

Feel free to argue back again in return and I'll be sure to counter opinions as necessary Hope the above was as enjoyable to you as what your's was to me. :-\

[Ironlord]

Well, Skarkill, much as I can admire your defence of SJ, purely on the grounds that I didn't think anyone would ever have anything positive to say...

He is what scares kids the most the person who will take you away from your family, like The Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

...THAT is why I can't stand him! I must have seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang immesurable times when I was a nipper, and the appearance of the Child Catcher was always the point where the urge to throw a brick at the screen and scream obscenities (for a six-year-old, at least) rose to its highest point.

I have never once liked gimpy characters like SJ or the Child Catcher, or... insert some obvious pantomime participants here - even when I was of the age when I was probably supposed to. Admittedly I never saw Knightmare series 8 when it first aired, and I'd have been 15 at the time, but I can safely say that if I'd been under ten the first time I saw SJ, I'd have reacted the same way.

As for Honesty Bartram, I'm fairly indifferent to him. I preferred Scaramonger, though.

[HStorm]

There's a number of reasons we could argue for why both characters were unpopular. Undoubtedly they both lacked depth, in that their sole purposes of being seemed to be just to be a riddler and a salesman respectively. (Not sure how fair that argument is; seeing that both characters were part-time players in a truncated season, their personalities didn't really get the chance to develop.)

For me though, it's a lot simpler; I couldn't stand either of the voices that Bill Cashmore gave them, especially SJ. They were by no means the only characters in KM to be lumbered with annoying voices of course, but comparisons don't really change anything.

[Skarkill]

Well that is indeed a very well researched defence of two characters who I personally found to be indefensible. My thoughts on what you said are as follows:

Thank You very much.

Snapper Jack

His chase across the moving block room however was chilling but fatally flawed in that he never caught up and doddered making his threat significantly less. Whilst this was most likely a twist to make the team panic more in the room it seriously made him look incompetent to me at the time.

I ahve to admit that was not the best scene for the character. Although in my oppinion the chase across the moeving floor never worked for any character.

(Snapper-Jack, Goblins or Miremen)

As for the puppets they all look terrible but the bigger ones remind me of the drashigs in Doctor Who and therefore look better than what was on his hand imo.

I actualy think Snapper is the better made one imo. But I do see the drahing likness now you mention it.

His intention on napping was quite clear but if he had put his net on them it'd have had the same effect as Sylester Hands' magic rope which to me looked equally ineffective when it was thrown over January but Paul Valentine carried off the scene reasonably well to make it chilling.

Again Fair point. But as I pointed out with harder riddles, I'm certain he could have bagged a Dungoneer, and I'm sure the scene would have looked resonably errie or chilling.

and at least Snapper-Jack actualy had the meens to catch a dungoneer. Unlike a certain wanner be Goblin Master

*cough* Raptor *cough*

Now Honesty...

He was given a costume which in many lights resembled that of Scaramonger's

I don't agree with that. Julius was always well dressed in expensive cloths. Where as Bartram was dressed like to quote Lord Fear.

"A Grotty Little Scrap Merchent."

Now Bill Cashmore's acting wasn't great and again lay on the overdoing side of things. That I could manage with but for me the biggest flaw lay in Honestys character or lack of it rather.

Scaramonger had so much much backstory (Mrs S. and all the little scaramongers etc, the drinking problem and so on) that made him much more watchable.

Very true but we can't say what would have happned had Series 9 happaned.

Julius was never overly bad and just wanted to get money where he could accepting money from Fear and then later a dungeoneer also. Honesty, though just swapped cash for whatever he'd found.

Again I have to dissagree to me Julius was deffinatly a chracter who was more bad then he was good. Evidence in point.

The attempted contract Killing Of Ah Wok.

Becomeing a key member in Lord Fear's Red Death Plot (TWICE)

Participation in the kidnapp and attempted Slave Trade of Elita.

Plus he was obviusly already in the pay of Lord Fear by the start of S5 no matter what he said, as evidence by his repeted attempts to buy the Eye Sheild, and giveing one dungoneer a wrong password, not to mention trying to get her to take the Deer he had just posched so as to get them in trouble with the Green Warden.

I agree he was geared to comedy but frankly I didn't find him all that funny, the dont tell yer dad line was delivered with it being a throwaway line which is what I would like to do with the character.

Well thats down to personal taste. I persoanly do Find Honesty Bartram funny.

Feel free to argue back again in return and I'll be sure to counter opinions as necessary Hope the above was as enjoyable to you as what your's was to me. :-\

Ditto

[Ironlord]

Again I have to dissagree to me Julius was deffinatly a chracter who was more bad then he was good. Evidence in point.
The attempted contract Killing Of Ah Wok.

I must have missed this... when? Which episode?

Participation in the kidnapp and attempted Slave Trade of Elita.

Verdict: must try harder!

[Skarkill]

Again I have to dissagree to me Julius was deffinatly a chracter who was more bad then he was good. Evidence in point.
The attempted contract Killing Of Ah Wok.

I must have missed this... when? Which episode?

In Series 6 and I think its the 2nd or 3rd Quest. He aranges to have Ah Wok bumped of by Lord Fear, in return for Julius suplying Lord Fear with a supply of Goblin Clubs.

Participation in the kidnapp and attempted Slave Trade of Elita.

Verdict: must try harder!

I sincerly hope (for your sake) thats not a slight against that gourge Caven Elf called Elita!!

*Has the Irons and Rack ready.*

[Ironlord]

I sincerly hope (for your sake) thats not a slight against that gourge Caven Elf called Elita!!

You mean "the obvious dyke with the attitude problem?"

*Has the Irons and Rack ready.*

Spellcasting: R-U-S-T!
*jangly spell noise*
*crashing disintegration of irons*

Your move...