10 Hoopy Froods Who Really Know Where Their Towel Is
Allow Us To Explain
May 25th, while not the most logical of dates on the face of it, nevertheless is a holiday known to many geeks as Towel Day. It commemorates the life and creative work of a medium sized ape-descended life form from an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet orbiting a small unregarded yellow sun in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy named Douglas Adams. Towel Day does not occur on either of the days in which Adams entered or unexpectedly left this universe, nor does it occur on any numerological significant date relating to his books, radio, television, video games, or movies. It happens every year two weeks after the anniversary of his death.So it goes — Wait, wrong author.
On Towel Day, all of Adams’ fans are encouraged to carry a towel around with them, or to at least know where their towel is, following the great tradition of hitchhiking, traveling, managing, and adventuring laid out in his work. Naturally, this got us to thinking about all the hoopy (really together guy) froods (really amazingly together guys) that we know in fiction that really know where their towels are. You know, the characters who you could drop off anywhere and anywhen in the space time continuum, and come back in an hour and they’d already be lounging in perfect confidence and opulence, knocking back something highly alcoholic. Any one who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a person to be reckoned with.
This grid is dedicated to the many runners up, including, but not limited to Han Solo, Spider Jerusalem, Jack Harkness, Hob Gadling, Odysseus, Wesley, Moist Von Lipwig, Gambit, and Mal Reynolds.
Ash
He might not like it, and you can bet he’s going to complain about it, but no matter what situation he finds himself in, Ash will figure out a way to deal with it. Because it has to be dealt with. And once he’s done dispatching the zombies, flying beasties, and the Necronomicon, you can find him chilling out for as long as the evil he’s battling will allow him. Which usually isn’t very long. And that annoys him greatly. Ash, while encountering various Deadites and basement witches, only loses control once. The rest of the time, he just deals with it. Because if he doesn’t, it’s going to come back to bother him again.
And somehow, even though it takes a few tries, Ash always figures it out. In the Evil Dead movies, he is the epitome of “fake it till you make it,” but is he really faking? Maybe he’s been somehow endowed with this vast knowledge of the Deadites and the supernatural. Maybe there’s a reason he’s worshiped as a god in Army of Darkness …or maybe he’s just a dude who always realized he can manipulate any situation if just acts like he knows what he’s doing. (Yup — probably that.)
Coraline
Coraline Jones, originally of Neil Gaiman’s excellent, can’t-believe-it’s-for-kids novella, has the distinction on this list of traveling a long way without going very far. Sporting an iconic yellow raincoat and blue hair in the 2009 stop-motion adaptation, Coraline explores the multi-family house she’s been moved to by her workaholic parents, as well the surrounding rainy woodlands. Her knowledge of the property’s geography becomes necessary, however, when she’s transported through a portal in her new living room into a dark mirror dimension. Curious, but not naive, Coraline soon realizes the idealistic world she’s stumbled upon isn’t ideal at all. Narrowly escaping a first time from the clutches of the Other Mother (who earned a spot on our Worst Mothers in Geekdom PowerGrid), Coraline returns to the real world, only to discover that her parents have been kidnapped and held as hostages to ensure her return.
So, Japanese academy cap firmly in place and decked out in camping gear, Coraline fearlessly goes back to the Other World, to play a deadly game for her parents’ lives. That’s some big stones for a little girl. No matter what locale she ends up in, this world or the Other one, Coraline’s prepared to handle whatever Gothic horrors are thrown her way.Faye Valentine
The character that launched a thousand ill-conceived ComicCon costumes is a clever, sweet-talking troublemaker residing in the Crapsack Anime World that is Cowboy Bebop. A professional bounty hunter by trade, though plenty of other things when need be, Faye is a tough and creative solo player who can always find her way out of a jam. Not only does she hold the distinction of stealing from Jet Black and Spike Spiegel and living to zip around the cosmos another day, but she later got them to pick her up again when she needed help. We’re pretty sure their lingering instinct to not shoot her out of the sky has more to do with personality than with vinyl yellow hotpants. This is all excluding her highly spoilery, but head-whippingly interesting origin story, revealed later on in the series.
By the end of Cowboy Bebop, no matter your feelings on her gray-area dealings, it’s hard not to like Faye for both her silly points, and for her legitimate survival skills. She might not be firing on all engines all the time, but she’s got it where it counts. (Plus, would you really mess with an interstellar con artist who can clean out a fridge in one sitting?)See you, space cowboy.
Leeloo
You’d think that the planet-hopping traveler we’d pick from 1997′s cult classic The Fifth Element would be Korben Dallas. Beleaguered, ex-military, and driving a cab in what looks like the most frightening traffic prediction of the future one could conceive of are all points in his favor.
But the award for most adaptable easily goes to his fiery-haired lady love, Earth-defending Perfect Weapon, Leeloo. Leeloo, after all, has been genetically engineered so that, no matter when awakened, she is able to survive and kick some ass on behalf of the light side of the universe. Yes, she’s kooky. We’re not sure she knows where her towel is, or cares, but anyone who can defeat a room of heavily armed guys without a weapon, learn English (not to mention the entire history of the planet) in a matter of hours, and can rock thermal bandages given no other options, earns a page in our hitchhiking books. Doesn’t matter if a maneuver involves flying cars or getting under Bruce Willis’ skin, we’d get out of her cheerful way.
Chihiro
In the world of geeky fiction, child-age heroes absolutely hold their own. They are spunky, resourceful, and often braver than the adults around them. After all, how many of the season travelers listed here wouldn’t freak out if their companions – their own parents – were transformed into boars and they were threatened with being eaten by a bathhouse-worth of Shinto spirits? In Spirited Away, Chihiro, a.k.a., Sen, does what any self-respecting Hayao Miyazaki heroine would do in the situation. She goes to work in the bathhouse, signing a contract with the evil witch (not an exaggeration) who owns the place and requires she relinquish part of her identity. Chihiro befriends nearly everyone, including the fiercesome No-Face demon, and Haku, a young man who’s actually a river dragon, solving innumerable problems and doing a lot of real dirty work to get her parents back. Even when she’s scared right out of her rice balls, she always manages to rise to the challenge before her, and, ultimately, to triumph.
Wherever she’s moving to with her parents after this spirit-ridden episode, we have no doubts that she’ll be able to handle it just fine. Compared to tangling with demons for the lives of your loved ones, middle school looks like a piece of sweet mochi.
Ferris Bueller
What a horrible role model, yet someone from whom we could all learn a lesson about seizing the day. Ferris Bueller wakes up one morning and decides that he’s not going to school today. This will take work, but he’s prepared for that. But today will be his day off. And no matter what goes down, Ferris will be ready to improvise if needed. Because, you know, life moves pretty fast and such.
The Tao of Bueller states that if it looks like a good time, do it. If it might get you in trouble, there’s always a way out of it. Even if your friend’s dad’s incredibly expensive car gets completely wrecked — it’s all going to be okay.
Gonff
Gonff is the cheeky mousetheif of Brian Jaques’ second novel in the Redwall series, Mossflower. It is his talent not only for breaking, entering, scheming, ‘scaping, and imitating voices; but also is unflappable optimism in the face of oppressive wildcat rule that landed him a place here.
We are practically introduced to Gonff in such a hazardous place: when he is thrown into prison alongside the starving hero Martin the Warrior, who has been wasting in a cell all winter. Within a day, Gonff has busted himself and Martin from the cell, made a daring escape, and is home in time for tea and stories with young hedgehogs. Later on, when most of the other characters believe him to be dead, Gonff has, in fact, survived falling down a waterfall and washing through an underwater cave system, only to be captured by toads and thrown into a well with a living, hungry eel in it… which he sweet talked into not eating him in exchange for its freedom.
Even later, he dances with a crab and woos a lovely mouselady. Because he is Gonff.
Jack Sparrow
Our opinion on the fourth installment of his adventures notwithstanding, you’ve got to hand it to Captain Jack Sparrow for being the slipperiest fish in the Seven Seas. Single-shot blunderbuss firmly in hand (or waist-scarf), Captain Jack has shown us time and again that he can be dropped off anywhere in the wild world and, in the blink of an eye, will be lounging on something, drinking rum, and ruling the natives (for good or ill). His magic compass and waterlogged wit ensure that he’ll get what he wants, no matter who he’s up against. A terrible captain, but a talented con, thief, and pastry-snatcher (again, not actually innuendo), Jack will do whatever is necessary to secure a future for himself and his One True Love, the pirate ship The Black Pearl. The dreadlocked wonder is something of an accidental escape genius, evading guards, other pirates, and untwisting from bonds, shackles, jail cells, and a marooning (or three) countless times. That’s not even talking about that time he impersonated a member of the clergy.
Here’s to Jack, sorry, Captain, Sparrow, for getting by any scrape. He’s pretty much the only character in a den of liars and murderers who always, always comes out on top of the heap. That is, as long as the rum’s not gone.The Doctor
Here is a character without whom this list would be incomplete. Perhaps our only choice who is more versed in travel across the universe and through time than Ford Prefect himself: the Doctor, the last of the Time Lords.
He’s seen the end of the universe, and the beginning of time, slaughtered races and watched them be reborn, danced, loved, sighed, screamed, ran, and raged a battle for “the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism.” He may not appear with a towel very often, but he always knows where his TARDIS is, and usually has a cotton on the whereabouts of his sonic screwdriver as well.
No one forgets him. But everyone leaves. And he’s the only one who remembers. Ford Prefect
What, did you think we would forget about him? He’s the original hoopy frood, and he definitely knows where his nutrient enriched towel is. That is when it’s not being used as a rope, or a tent, or a sponge to sop up that last Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.
Yes, Ford appears, in his Earthen life, to be something of a flake, a dreamer, and quite possibly a liar whose dubious career as an actor can never really be confirmed. It’s only after the destruction of the Earth (and if that was a spoiler to you, you should really know better) that his human acquaintance Arthur Dent finds out that he is actually something of a restaurant reviewer for the greatest Zagat guide the galaxy has ever known. So long as you take “restaurant” to mean “planet.” To this end, Ford can drink, fight, run away, reason, fly, Scrabble, reprogram, and, most importantly, recover from a hangover with the best of them. And he knows everything about everything about hitchhiking across the universe on less than thirty altairian dollars a day. It starts with knowing where your towel is.
Shameless Screen Grab(s) courtesy of the Mary Sue
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