Pop Culture's Top 5 Fictional Mayors
Despite what CNN might have you believe, Hillary's cleavage-baring pantsuit will not affect your family's long term well-being. The elections that you should in fact be worrying about are the local ones, where legislation might at least have a chance of affecting your daily life in the near future, and where the candidates' sexiness (or lack thereof) is generally less newsworthy.
Who among us hasn't found themselves in the voting booth wishing that instead of choosing between interchangeable mayoral candidates who want to "improve our school," the choice was between a talking hamburger and the guy who played Batman in the sixties? And who hasn't then gone on to wonder, if you were to face that decision, whom should you vote for?
As you've probably guessed by now, we're going to tell you, in our countdown of pop culture's five greatest fictional mayors.
#5. Mayor Adam West (Family Guy)
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
After retiring from his previous career of televised crime-fighting, actor and batarang enthusiast Adam West was elected Mayor of a small, beer-soaked city in Rhode Island, where he immediately restored the rule of law with his brutal "self-defense" murder of the 'Noid, a known pizza thief and obscure pop culture reference.
POLITICAL PLATFORM
Beyond vowing to uncover the mystery of "who's stealing the water," even if it bankrupted the city's treasury (which it subsequently did, dropping Quahog's economy to just behind Cambodia's), the Adam West administration was marked by a hard-line stance against crime that saw him strong-arm foreign heads of state, including the ambassador from Petoria. His policies also saw Quahog become the first city to legalize cat-launching crossbows as recreational weapons, despite protests from PETA, who were forced to admit after lengthy debate that "that sounds fucking awesome."
#4. Mayor McCheese (McDonald's Advertising)
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
Despite obvious ties to corporate money and a campaign plagued by rumors that he was threatening to unleash the Grimace on political opponents, Mayor McCheese was swept in by a landslide after former mayor Phineas Q. McRibbington stepped down to pursue a career of being delicious. Under his administration, Mayor McCheese resisted several attempts by McDonaldland's citizenry to eat his head, and even managed to reduce Hamburgling by 30 percent.
POLITICAL PLATFORM
Rather than running on the issues, Mayor McCheese primarily campaigns against his frequent rival, the Burger King, whose autocratic regime saw a drastic increase in crime (most notably breaking and entering and possession of a Croissan'wich with intent to distribute), as well as the rise of the insidious "Chicken Fries," which stand as an affront to both God and Man. Also fondly remembered by Europeans for his moving speech to a divided Germany, where he famously announced "Ich bin ein Hamburger."
#3. TIE: The Mayor (Powerpuff Girls)
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
As the last of the monocle-sporting oligarchs, the Mayor-who dedicated his life so fiercely to politics that his own name has been superseded by his title-overcame the disabilities of being two feet tall and functionally retarded to secure a position of power in the City of Townsville. Since his election, crime has dropped to almost zero, with a corresponding rise in the success rate against giant monster attacks. According to his detractors, this is mostly due to the intervention of three super-powered little girls, but to be fair, the Mayor is the one who calls them on the phone.
POLITICAL PLATFORM
Along with some devoutly pro-pickle policies, the Mayor seems to have run solely on the fact that he owns a sash with the word "mayor" written on it.
#3. TIE: Mayor Richard Wilkins III (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
Probably owing to the fact that he was a hundred year-old demon in human form, Mayor Wilkins was able to reassure an entire city that absolutely nothing was wrong, despite an almost-weekly plague of attacks by the undead. Given that Sunnydale had two high schools and roughly eighty-six cemeteries, this may actually have more to do with the abject stupidity of the citizenry, but you've got to hand it to anyone who can put a positive spin on a yearly apocalypse. Also, he carried on a quasi-incestuous relationship with Eliza Dushku circa-Bring it On, back when that meant something.
POLITICAL PLATFORM
It's not really a political statement per se, but before his term was cut short by a tragic/awesome explosion, Mayor Wilkins had announced plans to transform himself into a giant snake-monster. We're not really sure how that would help cut down on graffiti within the city, but we are pretty certain that it would look pretty kickass on the city seal.
#2. Diamond Joe Quimby (The Simpsons)
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
A recounting of Joseph Fitzpatrick Fitzgerald Fitzhenry Quimby's mayoral achievements reads like a laundry list of the American Dream: A man of power with no apparent plans to do anything productive with it, Diamond Joe's known primarily for livening up otherwise-boring city council meetings with a deck of nudie cards, a healthy respect for bribery, and his 27-0 record against paternity suits.
POLITICAL PLATFORM
Despite the fact that his administration has been marked by failed attempts to bring prosperity to Springfield (resulting most notably in the Monorail Disaster of '93) and links to the "Fat" Tony crime family, Mayor Quimby is continually re-elected, proving once again that voters simply cannot resist that Boston accent. Besides, anybody who earns the vehement hatred of the Springfield Republican elite can't be all bad.
#1. Mayor Mike Haggar (Final Fight)
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
An ex-Street Fighter champion who left the world of bare-knuckle piledrivers behind for the (relatively) respectable world of politics, Mike Haggar was elected to office in Metro City, narrowly defeating incumbent mayor Donkey Kong. After his victory, he promised to free the town from the iron grip of the vicious-and ridiculously named-Mad Gear gang, who promptly responded by kidnapping his daughter and holding her for ransom. Normally, this is where a politician would call in local law enforcement, the FBI, and possibly Jack Bauer, but Mayor Haggar decided it would be a far more expedient to just take off his shirt, hit the streets and kick the living shit out of everyone he ran into. It was a historic act that NPR political analyst Kevin Philips would later refer to as "totally badass."
POLITICAL PLATFORM
Given that his entire reason for existence is to beat gang members half to death with a lead pipe while subsisting on whole turkeys scavenged from oil barrels, we're going to go ahead and go with "Tough On Crime" here.
(This is quite possibly the best campaign video we've ever seen.)
