History Quotes / TheGenericGuy

[[AC:Literature]]

->Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.
-->--'''Joesph Heller''', ''Literature/CatchTwentyTwo''

->Everybody should have at least one ordinary friend, and Dan is as ordinary as they come. He is so ordinary that most people have to meet him six or seven times before they remember his name ... One time for a computer project I scanned a whole bunch of student photos from the yearbook, then used a graphics program to morph them into a single face. What I got looked like a slightly fuzzy version of Dan Grant.
-->-- '''Jason''', ''Godless''

[[AC:Film]]

'''Larry:''' He's just sort of a...little bit of a...blank slate, I guess.\\

'''Emmet:''' ''(stoic, but clearly very hurt)'' ...there you go. Told you I was a nobody.
-->-- ''Film/TheLegoMovie''

[[AC:Newspaper Comics]]

->'''Ted''': I'm a generic guy. I dunno why I'm here.\\
'''Dilmom''': I say we whack the generic guy.
-->-- ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}''

[[AC:Podcasts]]

[[AC:Theatre]]

[[AC:Video Games]]

[[AC:Web Original]]

->Unsure of what to do about that, the show tried numerous roles for her. Computer nerd. Girlfriend of every tertiary cast member (Jimmy, Davis, eventually Green Arrow). In the end, she was just there as another piece on the board to no real end...She uh, does computers. And [[HazyFeelTurn helped kill people]]. And dated Green Arrow because [[PairTheSpares he was the last guy in the room]]. Then left.\\\

-->--'''Neal Bailey''' on [[{{Series/Smallville}} Chloe Sullivan]]

->Martha, in most regards, seems the forgotten companion -- the one that didn’t quite work. That’s not to say she doesn’t have her fans and admirers, nor that those fans are wrong. But they are swimming against the tide, and the show itself contributes to that tide.
-->-- '''[[http://www.philipsandifer.com/2013/09/i-borrowed-them-from-hospital-smith-and.html Dr. Phil Sandifer]]''' on ''Doctor Who'', [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones}} "Smith and Jones"]]

->Coulson’s right hand man is Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), who’s the muscles of the team, and about as expressive as a cardboard box full of styrofoam peanuts. In six episodes, the most intimate detail we’ve learned about him is that when he was a little kid, his older brother beat him up over a piece of cake.

->I’ve always liked that while Wolverine, Beast and Gambit have actual logos (and even Jubilee gets a Varsity-style font), Cyclops is introduced by just shooting optic blasts at nothing while his name hovers above in what might as well be Comic Sans.'Yeah, we know this dude’s boring,' says this intro, 'but there’s a dude with knives on his hands in a second, so keep watching.'
-->--'''Chris Sims''' [[http://comicsalliance.com/comicsalliance-reviews-x-men-night-of-the-sentinels-1992/ on]] ''WesternAnimation/XMen''

->X-fans are divided on their opinion of the X-Men's field leader, Cyclops. Half think he's a boring killjoy whose real superpower is self-righteous repression. The rest liken him to Batman ([[PretenderDiss minus the billionaire bank account & awesome spirit animal]]) because of his strategic mind and extreme determination. The filmmakers are unwaveringly the former camp. So if you ever thought Cyclops was cool, the ''[[Film/XMenFilmSeries X-Men]]'' movies will try their damnedest to cure you of this delusion.

[[AC:Western Animation]]

->'''Robot:''' President Business, we've started our search for [[TheChosenOne the Special]], but his face is so generic he matches every face in our databases.\\
'''President Business:''' ''Diabolical.''
-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie''

[[AC:RealLife]]

-->--'''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation''' on ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps3''

-->-- '''''Blog/ToplessRobot''''', [[http://www.toplessrobot.com/2014/03/10_worst_adaptations_of_x-men_on_film.php?page=2 "The 10 Worst Adaptations of X-Men on Film... So Far"]]

-->--'''''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation''''' on ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps3''

-->-- '''''Website/TheAgonyBooth''''' on ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD''

-->-- "Picky Minch", ''VideoGame/EarthBound''

->X-fans are divided on their opinion of the X-Men's field leader, Cyclops. Half think he's a boring killjoy whose real superpower is self-righteous repression. The rest liken him to Batman ([[PretenderDiss minus the billionaire bank account & awesome spirit animal]]) because of his strategic mind and extreme determination. The filmmakers are unwaveringly the former camp. So if you ever thought Cyclops was cool, the ''Film/XMen'' movies will try their damnedest to cure you of this delusion.
-->--'''''Blog/ToplessRobot''''', [[http://www.toplessrobot.com/2014/03/10_worst_adaptations_of_x-men_on_film.php?page=2 "The 10 Worst Adaptations of X-Men on Film... So Far"]]

-->-- [[TheEagles Joe Walsh]]

--> -- ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}''

-->--''[[WebVideo/HalfInTheBag Half in the Bag]]'' riffs ''{{Film/Ghostbusters}} II''

-->--"Mister Cellophane", ''{{Theatre/Chicago}}''

->X-fans are divided on their opinion of the X-Men's field leader, Cyclops. Half think he's a [[GoodIsBoring boring killjoy]] whose real superpower is self-righteous repression. The rest liken him to Batman ([[PretenderDiss minus the billionaire bank account & awesome spirit animal]]) because of his strategic mind and extreme determination. The filmmakers are unwaveringly the former camp. So if you ever thought Cyclops was cool, the ''Film/XMen'' movies will try their damnedest to cure you of this delusion.

!!!Fiction
->''Cellophane, Mister Cellophane,\\
Shoulda been my name, Mister Cellophane\\
'Cause you can look right through me,\\
Walk right by me,\\
And never know I'm there!''
-->--"Mister Cellophane", ''{{Theatre/Chicago}}''

->'''Ted''': I'm a generic guy. I dunno why I'm here.\\
'''Dilmom''': I say we whack the generic guy.
--> -- ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}''

->'''Robot:''' President Business, we've started our search for [[TheChosenOne the Special]], but his face is so generic he matches every face in our databases.\\
'''President Business:''' ''Diabolical.''
-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie''

!!!Reviews
->He's an ordinary average guy
-->-- [[TheEagles Joe Walsh]]

->There was nothing. No one knew anything about him... There were like two lines about Bashir in the original bible, and sort of six pages for every other character... There had to be a doctor on the show, because there's ''[[StrictlyFormula always]]'' a doctor on the show. And they were just sort of scratching their heads about who this doctor was going to be.
-->--'''Siddig Al-Fadil''' on his role in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''

->Astonishing that in seven years Harry Kim goes nowhere. Its like the character is stuck in stasis, always an [[NewMeat eager young nobody]] who wants to grow up and advance his career but [[LimitedAdvancementOpportunities never quite making it]] up the next step of the ladder. Paris is promoted and demoted, hooks up with B’lanna and has a kid in the time that Harry Kim gets no development whatsoever. Take his first scene and his last scene in this series and he is exactly the same person doing exactly the same things.
-->--'''[[http://www.docohobigfinish.blogspot.com/2012/02/voyager-season-one.html Joe Ford]]''' on ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', "Caretaker"

->Take your dad for example. I bet he hasn't had a second's fun in his life, other than the joy he gets from sitting on the couch and doing [[StandardFiftiesFather boring dad-stuff]]; am I right? Ditto [[Series/SavedByTheBell Belding]], who must have been born a principal, crawling straight out of the womb in a tweed jacket with a receding hairline, and having short shrift for those without a hall pass.
-->--'''Stuart Millard''', ''So Excited, So Scared''

->Unsure of what to do about that, the show tried numerous roles for her. Computer nerd. Girlfriend of every tertiary cast member (Jimmy, Davis, eventually Green Arrow). In the end, she was just there as another piece on the board to no real end...She uh, does computers. And [[HazyFeelTurn helped kill people]]. And dated Green Arrow because [[PairTheSpares he was the last guy in the room]]. Then left.\\\
That's not an arc.
-->--'''Neal Bailey''' on [[{{Series/Smallville}} Chloe Sullivan]]

->Martha, in most regards, seems the forgotten companion -- the one that didn’t quite work. That’s not to say she doesn’t have her fans and admirers, nor that those fans are wrong. But they are swimming against the tide, and the show itself contributes to that tide.
-->-- '''[[http://www.philipsandifer.com/2013/09/i-borrowed-them-from-hospital-smith-and.html Dr. Phil Sandifer]]''' on ''Doctor Who'', [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones}} "Smith and Jones"]]

->Coulson’s right hand man is Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), who’s the muscles of the team, and about as expressive as a cardboard box full of styrofoam peanuts. In six episodes, the most intimate detail we’ve learned about him is that when he was a little kid, his older brother beat him up over a piece of cake.
-->-- '''''Website/TheAgonyBooth''''' on ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD''

->'''Robot:''' President Business, we've started our search for [[TheChosenOne the Special]], but his face is so generic he matches every face in our databases.

--->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie''

-->--'''Stuart Millard''', ''So Excitied, So Scared''

->At the heart of all of this is the idea of Martha, which is, of course, also at the heart of one of ''Series/{{Doctor Who}}''’s great Problem Seasons... Martha, in most regards, seems the forgotten companion - the one that didn’t quite work. That’s not to say she doesn’t have her fans and admirers, nor that those fans are wrong. But they are swimming against the tide, and the show itself contributes to that tide.

->A fitting counterpoint to Clark as a teenager, she should really have died at the end of season three, I still attest. After that, she and Lois were [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute essentially the same character]]. Lois became her '[[HollywoodHomely hotter]]' replacement, which I am still hacked off about.\\\
Unsure of what to do about that, the show tried numerous roles for her. Computer nerd. Girlfriend of every tertiary cast member (Jimmy, Davis, eventually Green Arrow). In the end, she was just there as another piece on the board to no real end...She uh, does computers. And [[HazyFeelTurn helped kill people]]. And dated Green Arrow because [[PairTheSpares he was the last guy in the room]]. Then left.\\\

->X-fans are divided on their opinion of the X-Men's field leader, Cyclops. Half think he's a [[GoodIsBoring boring killjoy]] whose real superpower is self-righteous repression. The rest liken him to Batman ([[PretenderDiss minus the billionaire bank account & awesome spirit animal]]) because of his strategic mind and extreme determination. The filmmakers are unwaveringly the former camp. So if you ever thought Cyclops was cool, the ''Film/XMen'' movies will try their damnedest to cure you of this delusion. In the first ''X-Men'', there's [[InformedAbility zero evidence]] that he deserves to lead the team or Jean's love. (There's a deleted scene where he commands Wolverine to wear one of his old leather uniforms, which [[FoeYay shifts the dynamics]] of the love triangle).

->At the heart of all of this is the idea of Martha, which is, of course, also at the heart of one of ''{{Doctor Who}}''’s great Problem Seasons... Martha, in most regards, seems the forgotten companion - the one that didn’t quite work. That’s not to say she doesn’t have her fans and admirers, nor that those fans are wrong. But they are swimming against the tide, and the show itself contributes to that tide.

-->--'''[[http://www.docohobigfinish.blogspot.com/2012/02/voyager-season-one.html Doc Oho]]''' on ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', "Caretaker"

->I’ve always liked that while Wolverine, Beast and Gambit have actual logos (and even Jubilee gets a Varsity-style font), Cyclops is introduced by just shooting optic blasts at nothing while his name hovers above in what might as well be Comic Sans.'Yeah, we know this dude’s boring,' says this intro, 'but there’s a dude with knives on his hands in a second, so keep watching.'
-->--'''Chris Sims''' [[http://comicsalliance.com/comicsalliance-reviews-x-men-night-of-the-sentinels-1992/ on]] ''WesternAnimation/XMen''

->X-fans are divided on their opinion of the X-Men's field leader, Cyclops. Half think he's a [[GoodIsBoring boring killjoy]] whose real superpower is self-righteous repression. The rest liken him to Batman ([[PretenderDiss minus the billionaire bank account & awesome spirit animal]]) because of his strategic mind and extreme determination. The filmmakers are unwaveringly the former camp. So if you ever thought Cyclops was cool, the ''Film/XMen'' movies will try their damnedest to cure you of this delusion. In the first ''X-Men'', there's [[InformedAbility zero evidence]] that he deserves to lead the team or Jean's love. (There's a deleted scene where he commands Wolverine to wear one of his old leather uniforms, which [[FoeYay shifts the dynamics]] of the love triangle).
-->--'''''Blog/ToplessRobot''''', [[http://www.toplessrobot.com/2014/03/10_worst_adaptations_of_x-men_on_film.php?page=2 "The 10 Worst Adaptations of X-Men on Film... So Far"]]

->'''Rich:''' Winston is [[TheLoad dead weight.]]\\
'''Jay:''' ''(laughs)'' I watched [[WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters the cartoon]] all the time as a kid, but I don't remember it much anymore. But did Winston have more to do in the cartoon?\\
'''Rich:''' Yeah. I mean, they all kinda had equal screen time in the cartoon.\\
'''Jay:''' Did he have more of a ''character'' in the cartoon?\\
'''Rich:''' ....no.\\
'''Jay:''' He was still [[TheGarfunkel The Other Ghostbuster]] guy?\\
'''Rich:''' The down-to-earth one.
-->--''[[WebVideo/HalfInTheBag Half in the Bag]]'' riffs ''{{Film/Ghostbusters}} II''

-->-- '''[[http://www.philipsandifer.com/2013/09/i-borrowed-them-from-hospital-smith-and.html PhilSandifer]]''' on ''Doctor Who'', [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones}} "Smith and Jones"]]

->A fitting counterpoint to Clark as a teenager, she should really have died at the end of season three, I still attest. After that, she and Lois were [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute essentially the same character]]. Lois became her '[[HollywoodHomely hotter]]' replacement, which I am still hacked off about.\\\
Unsure of what to do about that, the show tried numerous roles for her. Computer nerd. Girlfriend of every tertiary cast member ([[JimmyOlsen Jimmy]], Davis, eventually GreenArrow). In the end, she was just there as another piece on the board to no real end...She uh, does computers. And [[HazyFeelTurn helped kill people]]. And dated Green Arrow because he was the last guy in the room. Then left.\\\
That's not an arc.
-->--'''Neal Bailey''' on [[{{Series/Smallville}} Chloe Sullivan]]

->''"Cellophane, Mister Cellophane,\\

And never know I'm there!"''

->'''Ted''': I'm a generic guy. I dunno why I'm here.
->'''Dilmom''': I say we whack the generic guy.

->''"Everybody should have at least one ordinary friend, and Dan is as ordinary as they come. He is so ordinary that most people have to meet him six or seven times before they remember his name ... One time for a computer project I scanned a whole bunch of student photos from the yearbook, then used a graphics program to morph them into a single face. What I got looked like a slightly fuzzy version of Dan Grant."''

->''"Jean was his favorite. He sensed her potential, even then. And he's always been partial to psychics. He'd never admit it, but he thinks we're a bit ... [[BewareTheSuperman above]]. Hank is a genius, and terribly good with people. Warren looked like a god. And Xavier picks ''you''? To ''lead''. Why? Because you had nothing else. The one time you had to defend your title, you lost it. To Storm. Potentially the most powerful team on earth and Xavier gave you the top position ... out of pity. Because he thought you'd wash out if you didn't get a little boost."''
-->--'''Emma Frost''' to Cyclops, ''Astonishing ComicBook/XMen'' vol. 3, No. 14''

!!!Quotes ''on'' works
->''"He's an ordinary average guy"''

->''"There was nothing. No one knew anything about him... There were like two lines about Bashir in the original bible, and sort of six pages for every other character... There had to be a doctor on the show, because there's ''[[StrictlyFormula always]]'' a doctor on the show. And they were just sort of scratching their heads about who this doctor was going to be."''

->''"Astonishing that in seven years Harry Kim goes nowhere. Its like the character is stuck in stasis, always an [[NewMeat eager young nobody]] who wants to grow up and advance his career but [[LimitedAdvancementOpportunities never quite making it]] up the next step of the ladder. Paris is promoted and demoted, hooks up with B’lanna and has a kid in the time that Harry Kim gets no development whatsoever. Take his first scene and his last scene in this series and he is exactly the same person doing exactly the same things."''

->''"I’ve always liked that while Wolverine, Beast and Gambit have actual logos (and even Jubilee gets a Varsity-style font), Cyclops is introduced by just shooting optic blasts at nothing while his name hovers above in what might as well be Comic Sans.'Yeah, we know this dude’s boring,' says this intro, 'but there’s a dude with knives on his hands in a second, so keep watching.'”''

->''"X-fans are divided on their opinion of the X-Men's field leader, Cyclops. Half think he's a [[GoodIsBoring boring killjoy]] whose real superpower is self-righteous repression. The rest liken him to Batman ([[PretenderDiss minus the billionaire bank account & awesome spirit animal]]) because of his strategic mind and extreme determination. The filmmakers are unwaveringly the former camp. So if you ever thought Cyclops was cool, the ''Film/XMen'' movies will try their damnedest to cure you of this delusion. In the first ''X-Men'', there's [[InformedAbility zero evidence]] that he deserves to lead the team or Jean's love. (There's a deleted scene where he commands Wolverine to wear one of his old leather uniforms, which [[FoeYay shifts the dynamics]] of the love triangle)."''
-->--'''''Topless Robot''''', [[http://www.toplessrobot.com/2014/03/10_worst_adaptations_of_x-men_on_film.php?page=2 "The 10 Worst Adaptations of X-Men on Film... So Far"]]

->'''Rich:''' Winston is [[TheLoad dead weight.]]
->'''Jay:''' ''(laughs)'' I watched [[WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters the cartoon]] all the time as a kid, but I don't remember it much anymore. But did Winston have more to do in the cartoon?
->'''Rich:''' Yeah. I mean, they all kinda had equal screen time in the cartoon.
->'''Jay:''' Did he have more of a ''character'' in the cartoon?
->'''Rich:''' ....no.
->'''Jay:''' He was still [[TheGarfunkel The Other Ghostbuster]] guy?
->'''Rich:''' The down-to-earth one.
-->--'''''[[WebVideo/HalfInTheBag Half in the Bag]]''''' riffs ''{{Film/Ghostbusters}} II''

->''"At the heart of all of this is the idea of Martha, which is, of course, also at the heart of one of ''{{Doctor Who}}''’s great Problem Seasons... Martha, in most regards, seems the forgotten companion - the one that didn’t quite work. That’s not to say she doesn’t have her fans and admirers, nor that those fans are wrong. But they are swimming against the tide, and the show itself contributes to that tide."''
-->-- '''[[http://www.philipsandifer.com/2013/09/i-borrowed-them-from-hospital-smith-and.html PhilSandifer]]''' on [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones}} "Smith and Jones"]]

->''"Coulson’s right hand man is Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), who’s the muscles of the team, and about as expressive as a cardboard box full of styrofoam peanuts. In six episodes, the most intimate detail we’ve learned about him is that when he was a little kid, his older brother beat him up over a piece of cake."''

->''"A fitting counterpoint to Clark as a teenager, she should really have died at the end of season three, I still attest. After that, she and Lois were [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute essentially the same character]]. Lois became her '[[HollywoodHomely hotter]]' replacement, which I am still hacked off about.\\\

That's not an arc."''\\
--'''Neal Bailey''' on [[{{Series/Smallville}} Chloe Sullivan]]

-->--'''Emma Frost''' to Cyclops, ''Astonishing {{X-Men}} vol. 3, No. 14''

-->--'''Chris Sims''' [[http://comicsalliance.com/comicsalliance-reviews-x-men-night-of-the-sentinels-1992/ on]] ''WesternAnimation/{{X-Men}}''

->''"X-fans are divided on their opinion of the X-Men's field leader, Cyclops. Half think he's a [[GoodIsBoring boring killjoy]] whose real superpower is self-righteous repression. The rest liken him to Batman ([[PretenderDiss minus the billionaire bank account & awesome spirit animal]]) because of his strategic mind and extreme determination. The filmmakers are unwaveringly the former camp. So if you ever thought Cyclops was cool, the ''[[{{Film/XMen}} X-Men]]'' movies will try their damnedest to cure you of this delusion. In the first ''X-Men'', there's [[InformedAbility zero evidence]] that he deserves to lead the team or Jean's love. (There's a deleted scene where he commands Wolverine to wear one of his old leather uniforms, which [[FoeYay shifts the dynamics]] of the love triangle)."''

->'''Ted''': I'm a generic guy. I dunno why I'm here.\\
'''Dilmom''': I say we whack the generic guy.

->'''Jay:''' Did he have more of a ''character'' in the cartoon?\\

->'''Rich:''' Winston is [[TheLoad dead weight.]]\\
'''Jay:''' ''(laughs)'' I watched [[WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters the cartoon]] all the time as a kid, but I don't remember it much anymore. But did Winston have more to do in the cartoon?\\
'''Rich:''' Yeah. I mean, they all kinda had equal screen time in the cartoon.\\
'''Jay:''' Did he have more of a ''character'' in the cartoon?\\
'''Rich:''' ....no.\\
'''Jay:''' He was still [[TheGarfunkel The Other Ghostbuster]] guy?\\
'''Rich:''' The down-to-earth one.

-->--'''Siddig Al-Fadil''' on playing [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Dr. Julian Bashir]]

->''"Astonishing that in seven years Harry Kim goes nowhere. Its like the character is stuck in stasis, always an eager young nobody who wants to grow up and advance his career but never quite making it up the next step of the ladder. Paris is promoted and demoted, hooks up with B’lanna and has a kid in the time that Harry Kim gets no development whatsoever. Take his first scene and his last scene in this series and he is exactly the same person doing exactly the same things."''

->''"X-fans are divided on their opinion of the X-Men's field leader, Cyclops. Half think he's [[GoodIsBoring a boring killjoy]] whose real superpower is self-righteous repression. The rest liken him to ''{{ComicBook/Batman}}'' (minus the billionaire bank account & awesome spirit animal) because of his strategic mind and extreme determination. The filmmakers are unwaveringly the former camp. So if you ever thought Cyclops was cool, the ''[[{{Film/XMen}} X-Men]]'' movies will try their damnedest to cure you of this delusion. In the first ''X-Men'', there's [[InformedAbility zero evidence that he deserves to lead the team or Jean's love]]. (There's a deleted scene where he commands Wolverine to wear one of his old leather uniforms, which [[FoeYay shifts the dynamics]] of the love triangle)."''

And never know I'm there!"''\\
--"Mister Cellophane", ''{{Theatre/Chicago}}''

!!!Quotes from works

->''"There was nothing. No one knew anything about him... There were like two lines about Bashir in the original bible, and sort of six pages for every ''other'' character of back-fill, of who these characters were. There had to be a doctor on the show, because there's ''[[StrictlyFormula always]]'' a doctor on the show. And they were just sort of scratching their heads about who this doctor was going to be."''