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Characters / Hatchetfield Outsiders

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Main Character Index | Main Hatchetfield Residents | Hatchetfield Families | Other Hatchetfield Residents | Hatchetfield Outsiders | The Black and White | Paranormal Phenomena

Characters in the Hatchetfield series that hail from outside the eponymous town.

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Clivesdale

     As a Whole 

Clivesdale, Michigan

Appears in: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

Mentioned in: Black Friday | "Watcher World" | "Forever & Always" | "Time Bastard" | "Honey Queen" | "Perky's Buds" | Nerdy Prudes Must Die

Hatchetfield High: Fuck you Clivesdale, go get fucked!
You're fucking losers and we'll kill you! (Kill your ass)
Fly, fly Nighthawks into the night (Fuck you Clivesdale)
We’re flying higher, high above you (Go get fucked)

The town across the Nantucket Bridge from Hatchetfield Island.

  • Small Town Rivalry: Just about all we know about Clivesdale so far is that Hatchetfield townies loathe the place. Declaring "Fuck Clivesdale!" is seemingly mandatory whenever Clivesdale is mentioned among Hatchetfield locals, even by people like Emma who aren't fond of their hometown.

PEIP

     As a Whole 

Paranormal, Extraterrestrial, and Interdimensional Phenomena

Appears in: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals | Black Friday

MacNamara: The truly good
Versus the truly bad
You better learn to discern it quickly, boys
It's the only chance we have
You better align your soul
With what's good and right
Join the only fight that's left
And scour the Black & White

A government organization, so secret that even the President has no idea it exists, that deals with threats of an extra-normal nature.

     General John MacNamara 

General John MacNamara

Played by: Jeff Blim

Appears in: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals | Black Friday | "Yellow Jacket"note 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/john_macnamara_2.jpg
"I follow a higher law than any institution could decree, and that is the universal truth of love and the strength of the human heart. Would you like to do some light reading on the subject?"

Sometimes you gotta fill your jets
Sometimes you gotta slow your breath
Sometimes you gotta step into the Black and White
And face the thing you dread
A red-blooded American general and the head of PEIP, a special unit of the United States military that deals with supernatural threats. He rescues Paul in TGWDLM and is the only one equipped to help the President stop the crisis in Black Friday.
  • Always a Bigger Fish: It seems that the Hive Mind zombies have Paul cornered — until they're hilariously routed in a Curb-Stomp Battle with an elite military unit trained to stop exactly this kind of threat. Unfortunately for MacNamara's soldiers and the human race, the Hive Mind learns from this experience.
  • Armies Are Evil: Played with in TGWDLM. PEIP's mission involves murdering witnesses as a matter of course, but the General has come to reconsider this policy and is in Paul's opinion "a good man". McNamara and his soldiers become a completely Flanderized fascist army after assimilation.
  • Artistic License – Gun Safety: Played for Laughs. McNamara pulls out his gun and points it directly at Paul's face as though he's about to execute him, before flipping it around to hand it to him stock-first in the proper fashion.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: MacNamara's fate in Black Friday. He doesn't seem to mind it too much, and his choice to do so not only saves the President's life but gives him the power needed to save Lex's.
  • Berserk Button: A totally hilarious and random one — MacNamara HATES when people need to pull out their phone to check the time.
    Gen. MacNamara: UGH! (hurls Paul's iPhone into the distance) Wear a watch! Time is a precious thread in the fabric of the universe! It deserves its own tool of measurement!
  • Big Good: Of Black Friday. MacNamara knows the most of anyone in the cast about the Black and White and threat Wiggly poses, is somehow powerful enough to stand before Wiggly without fear and knock back his forces, even if only for a moment, and the President himself seems to have no doubt that he's the one in charge of this situation — and even if his Plan A to use the President to stop Wiggly fails, he's the one whose Plan B saves Lex's life and turns the tide against Linda in Hatchetfield when all else seems lost. The fact that he's "merged into the Black and White" but retained his identity and some measure of power to defy Wiggly means that by the end he's almost become a Deity of Human Origin.
  • Calling Your Attacks:
    MacNamara: Your minions may do me no harm, Wiggly, for I cut through them with a blade of truth!
  • The Cameo: He appears in the Couch Gag in "Yellow Jacket", his only Nightmare Time appearance to date.
  • The Cavalry: PEIP is a textbook example, saving Paul from imminent torture at the hands of the assimilated Alice and her friends. Becomes a Cavalry Betrayal when they get assimilated.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: A little bit of one, with his wildly inappropriately cozy emotional affect given the seriousness of the situation, his random asides about his New-Age Retro Hippie religion and his being unaware Paul might get jumpy when he pulls a gun and points it at his face. Led to some Wild Mass Guessing that he's already starting to get assimilated when he first appears. Note that this behavior disappears in Black Friday.
  • The Comically Serious: Is very much this in response to everything around him and to the fundamental absurdity of what he's telling us about how the world works. Even his feeble attempts at jokes come off as this.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: His post-assimilation song, "America Is Great Again", directly compares the Hive Mind's urge to assimilate to fascist ideology, and compares fascist ideology to the ideology of Donald Trump.
  • Eagle Land: In Black Friday he seems to represent everything positive about American values (and human values in general) in direct opposition to Wiggly representing the dark side of what American capitalism has done to the world, i.e. a Type 1 vs. Type 2 Eagle Land situation. Unlike in The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals, he himself stays a good guy the whole time, and even ends his final appearance exiting to the sound of a bald eagle's cry (well, a red-tailed hawk's cry).
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: MacNamara acts a little differently in TGWDLM than the sequel Black Friday, where he has a much larger role. In the former he acts like a homey Midwestern dad when chatting with Paul and only puts on the stern soldier act at dramatic moments. As the played-straight soldier scenes left more of a dramatic impact, this took over and became the way he acts all the time.
  • The Evils of Free Will: Comes to see the Hive Mind as equivalent to the idealized "American values" he signed up to defend, similar to the conformity demanded by right-wing social conservatives.
  • First-Name Basis: In Black Friday we see the President and Xander Lee both calling MacNamara by his first name, since they're his peers. The big reveal, though, is that Uncle Wiley also calls him "John", fueling speculation about the history between them.
  • Flanderization: Gets hit with this worst of all the assimilated characters in The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals, going from a complex man wrestling with the moral implications of his duty to a mindlessly devoted soldier for the Hive Mind.
  • Frontline General: Justified to an extent in Black Friday, compared to The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals where he was a straightforward example of an Overranked Soldier. While he's way younger and more active than most Real Life generals are, the fact that his role includes giving orders to the President himself means he couldn't really be anything less than a general. It's even lampshaded that John personally entering the Black and White to save Howard is him going off-mission and throws PEIP into disarray.
  • Hero of Another Story: He's the head of an elite organization that specializes in dealing with supernatural threats. He once had a mentor that was driven insane by the villains (and, depending on how you choose to interpret Uncle Wiley, may have become one of them), and evidently has some personal history with Wiggly, if the latter's reaction when he turns up in the Black and White is anything to go off of. You really could make a whole musical about him.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In Black Friday, he sacrifices his mortal life to save the President of the United States and prevent whatever dire consequences might arise from Wiggly consuming his soul and turning him into a puppet. By physically entering the Black and White without a protective suit, he seals his fate of being "absorbed by the Black and White".
  • Inconsistent Spelling: John's last name was spelled "McNamara" in the credits of The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals but was changed to "MacNamara" in the credits of Black Friday. The writers admit that they don't care that much about the spelling of names — and that MacNamara doesn't either — but they decided "MacNamara" looked better in print (and is closer to the way Jeff Blim pronounces it).
  • It Has Been an Honor: His last words to President Goodman. Unfortunately, Goodman has been too broken by his experiences to (verbally) return the sentiment.
  • Knight Templar: By nature of his position, which requires that he act outside the law to preserve the Masquerade at all costs. Over time he seems to have come to question this. Becomes much, much worse of one after his assimilation.
  • Leitmotif: While "America Is Great Again" was a Villain Song in TGWDLM, it's repurposed in Black Friday as MacNamara's leitmotif, playing triumphantly in the background whenever he swoops in to save the day.
  • The Men in Black: As part of PEIP, he and his colleagues serve this purpose, and play a much more active part in Black Friday than in TGWDLM. Black Friday reveals the full extent to which PEIP is a No Such Agency, with an Over-the-Top Secret mandate that means even the President himself normally isn't cleared to know of their existence (which technically makes their existence unconstitutional and extralegal).
  • Mildly Military: In TGWDLM, MacNamara has a ponytail, a New-Age Retro Hippie personality, and is more than willing to follow his heart and defy PEIP's protocols of leaving no surviving witnesses to the paranormal. His Black Friday incarnation acts a bit more like a real soldier, but the ponytail has been swapped out for Jeff Blim's normal shaggy hairstyle, so he's clearly still not abiding by any kind of dress code.
  • New-Age Retro Hippie: MacNamara, though a loyal soldier, has had enough weird experiences in the PEIP unit that he's developed some kind of New Age spirituality he briefly tries to recruit Paul into. This explains his highly un-military long hair, and his decision to violate his orders and save Paul. (This is a trait erased by his assimilation.)
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Jeff Blim's shoulder-length hair, scruffy facial hair, and military beret make him a dead ringer for Che Guevara, which is ironic considering how in his first appearance he ends up representing the forces of right-wing American fascism.
  • No Such Agency: The PEIP unit McNamara leads is both tasked with eliminating bizarre alien threats like the Hatchetfield Hive Mind and upholding the Masquerade that they don't exist — by murdering innocent civilians, if necessary.
  • The Omniscient: Either he already researched what was going on in Hatchetfield quite well before he merged into the Black and White, or said ascension has provided him some degree of this. The fact that he knows everything about Lex, Hannah, Linda and the Lakeside Mall riots when he appears to Lex has been the source of some Wild Mass Guessing from fans.
  • Overranked Soldier: Classic example — no one anywhere near Jeff Blim's age should be a general and no general should be anywhere near leading a field operation on foot. Possibly justified by the clearly unorthodox No Such Agency nature of PEIP giving all their members inflated authority. (Though note that Col. Schaeffer, who debriefs Emma at the end of the story, has a much more reasonable rank for her position.)
  • Properly Paranoid:
    Paul: Wait! I'm not one of them, I'm human!
    MacNamara: (slams his rifle butt into Paul's head)
    PEIP soldier: Oh yeah? Prove it asshole, we're the army.
  • Psychic Powers: His song "Monsters and Men" mentions the need to "arm" and "align" your soul with good and against evil, and it seems that his training in doing so has somehow given him actual powers — including being able to engage Wiggly's minions in direct combat in the Black and White with some kind of Supernatural Martial Arts. It's seemingly this training that allows him to dissolve into the Black and White and Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence rather than get his soul eaten.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: He was given orders to kill everyone in Hatchetfield. However he decides to let Paul live and orders a helicopter ride to get them out.
  • Shipper on Deck: MacNamara gives Paul his sidearm to try to rescue Emma because he'd like to see if their relationship becomes "something more".
  • Sound Off: The first line of "America Is Great Again".
    I don't know what you've been told
    But Americans should fit a mold
  • Spirit Advisor: Becomes this to Lex in the climax of Black Friday. Unlike most examples of this trope, Lex doesn't know him and has no idea what he's talking about when he appears to her, but he seems to know her quite well — and he provides a Real After All reveal for Hannah's Imaginary Friend Webby, who is probably a similar Spirit Advisor.
  • They Killed Kenny Again: He dies in both of his appearances, being assimilated in TGWDLM and fading into the Black and White in Black Friday. Granted, that's true of virtually all characters in the two full-length Hatchetfield shows, but his two deaths get much more attention due to his role as the Big Good of both stories, and for the fact that he remains active after his death in both instances.
  • Vocal Evolution: In TGWDLM, he sounded like a Minnesotan hippie dad and was rather soft-spoken unless his Berserk Button was pressed. In Black Friday, the accent is gone and his speech has become much deeper and grandiose.
  • Walking Spoiler:
    • The very existence of MacNamara and the PEIP unit is a spoiler for a hilarious Mood Whiplash reveal at the top of Act 2 of TGWDLM. And it's hard to talk about them without talking about them getting assimilated shortly after their introduction.
    • The fact that MacNamara is a major character in Black Friday — with Jeff Blim's credit as the Man in a Hurry in the program deliberately designed to disguise this fact — provides one of the biggest applause moments in the show, which is why it's worth hiding, even though his importance to the plot leaves spoiler tags all over this page.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: His songs, "Monsters and Men" and its reprise, are all about inspiring this in others.
  • You Are in Command Now: "Monsters and Men (Reprise)" more or less has him tell this to Lex, a civilian 18-year-old high school dropout — with the government and PEIP HQ in a shambles and unable to react to the crisis, he essentially promotes her to being the highest-ranking (and only) member of PEIP left in existence. To accentuate this, he ends his speech to her with a Military Salute (which a general would give to the officer coming to relieve him of command).
  • "You!" Exclamation: A million Fan Fics were launched at once simply by the history of MacNamara's career fighting on behalf of the human race implied by the single moment when Uncle Wiley sees him and, in a single uncharacteristic moment of unfiltered rage and resentment, points at his face and snarls, "YOU!" It's even better in the soundtrack version of the song, where the "YOU!" is instead uttered by Wiggly himself — MacNamara has made personal enemies with a god.

     Colonel Schaeffer 

Colonel Schaeffer

Played by: Jaime Lyn Beatty

Appears in: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/colonel_schaeffer.jpg
"In the wake of a tragedy like this, a little bit of good news goes a long way."

A colonel who shows up in the ending of TGWDLM to usher Emma into her new life.

  • Ambiguous Situation: Although the aliens have obviously infiltrated and taken over PEIP, it's not clear if Col. Schaeffer herself is actually assimilated or is just being manipulated. It's All There in the Script that she's not assimilated and attempts to fight off Paul's Reprise Medley-singing zombie horde, but we don't get to see this onstage, since it was ruled more important for Nora, also played by Jaime Lyn, to be among the horde.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: The PEIP cleanup crew could've just left Emma for dead, given their mission of leaving no witnesses, but in gratitude for her role in stopping the apocalypse Schaeffer has decided to not only save Emma's life but give her the money and new identity for the fresh start she's always wanted. So it seems at first, anyway.
  • Shipper on Deck: Schaeffer, like her former colleague MacNamara, would like to see "Kelly" and "Ben's" relationship become something more.

     Xander Lee 

Xander Lee

Played by: James Tolbert

Appears in: Black Friday

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/xander_lee.jpg
"Bet you didn't guess the, ah, 'Lord of Despair' would be so cute and cuddly, did ya?"

One of the best damn theoretical physicists and field agents in PEIP.

  • The Ace: He's pretty much an intentionally exaggerated version of this trope. His one personality trait is "cool".
  • Cool Shades: His fellow PEIP operatives also wear sunglasses indoors, but his are a particularly stylish make. (To be fair, the portal in the lab apparently makes some very bright lights when opening and closing.)
  • The Lancer: Is this to General MacNamara for what we see of PEIP.
  • Mildly Military: Other PEIP operatives are shown wearing black tactical gear, but he's hanging out in street clothes, including a cool leather jacket and Cool Shades. In fact it's not clear whether he's military at all (he's never given a rank) or if he's a civilian who somehow has similar responsibilities and authority to MacNamara's, accentuating PEIP's own Mildly Military nature.
  • Mr. Exposition: The main thing he does in the show is explain things to President Goodman so John MacNamara doesn't have to do all of it.
  • The Nicknamer: Part of how cool he is. He casually asks the President of the United States "Can I call you Howie?" and then just goes ahead and does it without waiting for a reply. A Call-Forward to Wiggly calling the President by nickname, with much more menacing undertones.
  • Science Hero: You've got to be quite the Renaissance Man to be both one of the top theoretical physicists in the country and one of the best field agents in an elite branch of the US military. Overlaps here with Omnidisciplinary Scientist, since it's very clear that studying the Black and White has crossed over from what we think of as "theoretical physics" into the realm of magic and religion.
  • You Are in Command Now: Becomes the new leader of what we see of PEIP after MacNamara's death.
  • Wham Line:
    Christ. The Russians had another portal.

Other U.S. Government Officials

     President Howard Goodman 

President Howard Goodman

Played by: Curt Mega

Appears in: Black Friday

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/howard_goodman.png
"I can't be evil... I'm a status quo Democrat!"

There are monsters and there are men
There are monsters that live in your head
It is the monsters who shall live in dread

The current President of the United States, who ends up having to deal with the national emergency of the Black Friday riots over the Tickle-Me Wiggly craze.

  • Action Politician: Averted. While he is sent into the Black and White to confront Wiggly, he is only sent in an attempt to negotiate and he spends most of his time before traveling there and while there scared shitless. A background as a lawyer and a community organizer really doesn't prepare you for this kind of thing.
  • Audience Surrogate: He reacts pretty much the way any of us would in real life to the insanity occurring around him. He might qualify for Only Sane Man, except that pretty quickly he lets what's happening to him and the country erode his own sanity.
  • Bond One-Liner: He tries to pull one off on Wiggly... only to fail horribly.
    PEIP Agent #2: Deploying the nuclear bomb! ... It is entering the Black and White! ... Detonation in 5... 4... 3...
    President Goodman: MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOTHERFUCKER!
    PEIP Agent #2: 1! (silence)
    President Goodman: ...Did it go off? Where's the explosion? Shouldn't we be hearing an explosion?!
  • Cluster F-Bomb: He gets pretty darn worked up during the struggle for the Wiggly doll, eventually exploding into a hilarious burst of Angrish for someone who a few seconds ago was trying to present statesmanlike gravitas.
    President Goodman: MORRIS! GIVE ME THAT COCKSUCKING MOTHERFUCKING COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOOLLLL!
  • Decomposite Character: He has the background of the Real Life President Barack Obama (and some would argue has similar politics), but is obviously not him — for one thing, he's white — and as if to emphasize this fact he has a Cabinet member named Bob Morris who is a black man and a dead ringer for Obama.
  • Fishbowl Helmet: The spacesuit he's given to enter the Black and White has one, which just makes him look more ungainly and helpless compared to Wiley and the Sniggles doing their Dream Ballet around him.
  • Godzilla Threshold: Things get bad enough that the President of the United States has to respond to the Wiggly situation. And they get worse enough that Gen. MacNamara has to burst into the Oval Office and induct the President and his Cabinet into PEIP's secrets, even though they've been keeping PEIP an Over-the-Top Secret from them this whole time.
  • Heroic BSoD: Has two moments: first when Wiley accuses him of aiding Wiggly by allowing American consumerism to proliferate and then again when Wiggly sends the American nuke intended to destroy him to Moscow instead.
  • In Space, Everyone Can See Your Face: When Goodman first enters the Black and White, all that's visible is his face lit by the screen of the portal control device he's clutching.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Despite being President, he is not aware of PEIP's existence until MacNamara arrives in the Oval Office.
  • Meaningful Name: In an earlier draft his name was Howard Phillips, as in Howard Phillips Lovecraft, a clue to the Lovecraft Lite nature of this story. While this was meant to be a very subtle reference, enough people got it ahead of time that it was changed so people wouldn't get the wrong idea based on it. The President's surname in the final production reflects who he is — a "good man" (by the standards by which we judge presidents), who's extremely attached to his self-image as a good man. But, unfortunately, not much more than a good man... and in the end not good enough.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: One of his cabinet members is a black man who speaks just like Barack Obama does. Humorously, Goodman himself seems to share a similar background to Obama despite being white as this very advisor calls him a "Harvard Law School, community organizing prick" when the cabinet fights over the Wiggly.
  • No Party Given: Averted — he declares to Wiley he is a 'status-quo Democrat.'
  • Not So Above It All: When one of his cabinet members shows that he has a Wiggly, he nearly murders said advisor in a bid to get ahold of it, only snapping out of it when MacNamara shows up and destroys the doll.
  • Our Presidents Are Different: President Goodman shows aspects of President Personable (in general demeanor), President Target (when Wiggly's influence nearly leads to him and his cabinet killing each other) and President Corrupt/Strawman (he refers to himself as a "status-quo Democrat" and is accused of being "Wiggly's best friend" due to enabling American consumer culture by Wiley).
  • Outranking Your Job: As Goodman lampshades, the idea of sending the chief executive himself directly into harm's way to conduct a negotiation with a dangerous and unstable enemy is something our whole government apparatus and diplomatic corps is basically set up to prevent. MacNamara makes vague statements about how the Insane Troll Logic behind Wiggly and the Black and White make this necessary, although on a more thematic level "Monsters and Men" is a song about challenging Goodman to take direct responsibility for the situation he indirectly caused.
  • Perma-Stubble: Curt appears most prominently as the scruffy and unshaven ballcap-wearing shopper/cultist at the mall, and since it's real stubble President Goodman shares this trait, despite his otherwise immaculate suit and carefully combed hair. Presumably it shows the crisis has been taking a toll on him.
  • Pointy-Haired Boss: Goodman is a fairly sympathetic Audience Surrogate but as the situation progresses and he starts to Freak Out more and more he gets more and more like this.
  • Sole Survivor: Of all the named characters, Goodman is the only one who definitively exits the show alive, being evacuated to Marine One by PEIP as World War III breaks out. (Xander Lee is the one in charge of getting him onto the chopper but it isn't clear what happens to him afterwards.) Everyone else is either killed by the cult, killed by the main cast, killed in the mall fire or seemingly die when Hatchetfield is nuked.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
    • His political position as a "status-quo Democrat" enabled the perpetuation of American consumer culture and neoliberal capitalism that made it possible for Wiggly to take root to begin with.
    • After encountering Wiggly in the Black and White, Goodman orders the deployment of a nuclear weapon into the Black and White to destroy Wiggly. This results in Wiggly redirecting the nuke out of the Black and White through a Russian portal to his realm. Moscow ends up getting destroyed and World War III breaks out. This also makes him technically responsible for (probably) killing the surviving members of the Hatchetfield-based cast.
  • The Watson: Despite being the actual President of the United States, he is completely Locked Out of the Loop regarding PEIP and its mission, and serves as the Audience Surrogate allowing us to hear a full account of what's going on with PEIP and Wiggly from someone who needs it explained slowly in small words. Ends up parodied, because he's so ignorant he ends up needing explained the definitions of the terms "physicist" ("Is that like a scientist?") and "field agent" ("Is that like a soldier?")
  • Welcomed to the Masquerade: Although Goodman is, in theory, MacNamara's superior, and MacNamara still treats him as his Commander-in-Chief, Goodman being let in on PEIP's secrets is basically treated as a promotion (for someone who thought there was no higher position in the world to be promoted to).
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The point of MacNamara singing "Monsters and Men" to him to close out Act 1. Unfortunately, while he may have been better than he thought he was — enough to risk his personal safety and walk into the Black and White — he wasn't good enough to withstand Wiggly's psychic assault without falling into the trap that was set for him.

     The Cabinet 

President Goodman's Cabinet

Played by: James Tolbert (Bob Morris) | Jon Matteson (Secretary of Defense) | Jaime Lyn Beatty (Secretary of State)

Appears in: Black Friday

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/black_friday_cabinet.jpg
Secretary of State: "These riots are not ideologically motivated, make no mistake. This is shopper mania, and a fuckton of it."

Secretary of Defense: I know it’s hard
Bob Morris: The world is pain and distraction
Secretary of State: But there’s occasions met
By lesser men
Who took the leap

President Goodman's Cabinet, assembled to deal with the Wiggly crisis.

  • Alternate Universe: It's firmly established we're in one from Real Life (leaving aside the supernatural plot elements), with the President being sort based on Obama but the actual impression of Obama being a member of his Cabinet.
  • Blood Knight: The Secretary of Defense is very eager to authorize drone strikes on US soil to kill civilians, even before the Wiggly madness takes him.
  • Call-Back: Once again, Starkid surprises the audience with a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Barack Obama, although this time it's less problematic since it's James Tolbert and not Nick Lang.
  • The Cassandra: Bob Morris is the only one who's figured out the cause of the Black Friday riots isn't a foreign actor, a terrorist organization, or "normal" human psychology, but a magic doll. It seems this insight might make him the Only Sane Man, but unfortunately it turns out he's already possessed by the Wiggly he's holding.
  • Casting Gag: It feels like the Secretary of State was cast as Jaime to show off her range with a classy female character who's the polar opposite of Sherman Young... and then as soon as she falls under the Wiggly spell she basically becomes Sherman.
  • Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: The Secretary of Defense has for whatever reason chosen to come to work in a US Army dress uniform covered in medals. (This is Artistic License – Military — in Real Life, the constitutional requirement that the US military be subordinate to civilian authority means that the Secretary of Defense cannot be active duty military, and while the position is often held by retired generals the law says they must have been out of the military for at least seven years. The current SecDef wearing a uniform while on duty is considered grossly inappropriate, just as it would be for the President.) The reason for this is so the audience gets an obvious visual clue that he is directly connected to the military.
  • Interservice Rivalry: It looks like this is being set up, with the clichéd conflict between the Secretaries of Defense and State over whether to use force or diplomacy to end the crisis (and the argument over whether there's an ideological enemy or just mob psychology at work a classic Scientist vs. Soldier debate). It's all subverted, of course, because everyone almost immediately forgets about their jobs in order to start fist fighting each other over a Wiggly doll, and it turns out the people actually capable of handling this crisis are PEIP (who are both scientists and soldiers).
  • Lady in a Power Suit: Jaime Lyn's character.
  • No Name Given: The only Cabinet member who's actually named is Bob Morris, the one whose job title isn't immediately clear.
  • Not So Above It All: While attempting to calmly and intelligently analyze the cause of the Black Friday riots, the simple presence of a Wiggly doll among them drives the Cabinet and the President to themselves go feral and start fighting over it within a matter of seconds.
  • Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation: The Secretary of Defense's title is explicitly stated (although since he's actually in the military it would make more sense for him to be one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). Jaime Lyn's character says she was inspired to get into politics because of John F. Kennedy's diplomatic resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, pretty strongly implying she's the Secretary of State. Bob Morris is, however, only known by name and not title, despite the fact that he's the one who's somehow correctly figured out the cause of the riots and the other two haven't.
  • Only Sane Man: The Secretary of State seems like she's trying to be this relative to the Secretary of Defense, and then Bob Morris acts like he's going to be one for a while, but ultimately they all fail at this in Wiggly's presence. They're all just there to set up the appearance of the actual Only Sane Man, MacNamara, who ironically is the one who sounds the most like a Cloudcuckoolander.
  • Out of Character: Half the point of this scene seems to be the humor of making Bob Morris, whose mannerisms are an impersonation of Barack Obama, say things like "I will rip your fucking throat out with my own teeth!" and "Ooohhh... I think I'm gonna vomit."
  • Outside-Context Problem: The Cabinet's appearance establishes that the Black Friday riots are one of these for pretty much everyone in the normal echelons of power except for the embattled few in the know at PEIP.
  • Shout-Out: Jon Matteson's Secretary of Defense is one to Buck Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove, while Bob Morris is a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Barack Obama.
  • Sleeves Are for Wimps: Bob Morris has his suit jacket off and his sleeves rolled up to establish him as the smartest of the President's advisors.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: MacNamara gives this speech to each of the Cabinet members to induct them into PEIP during "Monsters and Men", and they in turn join in appealing to President Goodman that he's capable of carrying PEIP's mission.
  • Welcomed to the Masquerade: PEIP inducts the President and the Cabinet members into their secrets because things have gotten so bad they have no choice.

United Kingdom

     Lucy Stockworth 

Lucy Stockworth, the Duchess of Stockworth

Played by: Angela Giarratana

Appears in: "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nmt_lucy_update.png
"His eyes... they were kind. I knew he'd never hurt me."

The Duchess of Stockworth. When she was young and a tourist in Hatchetfield, her life was saved by the Hatchetfield Ape-Man, and she's devoted her adult life to finding him and... expressing her gratitude.

  • Beast and Beauty: It's a love story between an English Rose and an American Ape-Man. It even quotes the Trope Namer (well, Disney's adaptation of it):
    Jonathan: If I didn't know better, I'd say you had feelings for this... Ape-Man.
  • The Beautiful Elite: Lucy is a jarring intrusion of the refined world of the British aristocracy into the relative backwater of Hatchetfield, Michigan.
  • Cassandra Truth: No one else in the world believes her that the Ape-Man is real. This includes both Ted and Prof. Hidgens, which is why they came up with their long con in the first place. Prof. Hidgens ends up proven painfully incorrect.
  • English Rose: Lucy, Duchess of Stockworth, is this trope through and through — beautiful, kindhearted, innocent, well-mannered... she'd be a perfect heiress for her family's legacy if not for her one embarrassing peccadillo of her inappropriate obsession with the giant hairy Ape-Man who saved her life.
  • Final Girl: Lucy is the only human survivor of the story, although the "monster" turns out to be heroic because Humans Are the Real Monsters.
  • Fluffy Tamer: Professor Hidgens tells Lucy he recruited her to try to communicate with the Ape-Man because he suspected that the Ape-Man saving her life years ago might have created some kind of bond between them, and sure enough the Ape-Man immediately opens up to her in a way he never did for Hidgens after months of attempts. Which is a lie based on him knowing the story and basing his whole long con around it, but turns out to be Real After All when Chumby, the real Ape-Man, suddenly appears to save her again when her life is endangered.
  • I Owe You My Life: The explanation Lucy gives for why she's so obsessed with proving the Ape-Man exists and seeing him one more time — that as a proper lady she owes it to him to look him in the eye and thank him. Prof. Hidgens, of course, accurately guessed that her desires run a little bit deeper than just thanking him...
  • The Ingenue: Lucy is very much this — starry-eyed with wonder over the idea of finally realizing her childhood dream of finding the Ape-Man, and tragically immune to any suspicions about why it's all happening so suddenly and easily, and thoughtless about what the consequences of falling in love with an Ape-Man could be.
  • Modest Royalty: For a Duchess (which as as high a rank in the British peerage as you can get without being in the actual royal family) Lucy is very casual about her title, letting even a relative stranger like Prof. Hidgens refer to her as "Ms. Stockworth" and "Lucy" — and, of course, never introducing herself as anything other than "Lucy" to Noble Savage Konk. It fits her nature as a Humble Heroine and modern English Rose who eventually foresakes civilization entirely to become the bride of the Ape-Man, although the degree to which no one cares much about her title is pretty obvious Artistic License (see Royal Mess).
  • Ms. Red Ink: It turns out Lucy has spent a fortune consisting of at least $30 million almost down to nothing, all for her mad search to prove the existence of the Hatchetfield Ape-Man. Keep in mind this is only over the course of only 20 years or so at most, given that she seems to be a young woman still, meaning she's been burning through it at a rate of more than $1.5 million a year. No wonder Prof. Hidgens screams "YOU IDIOT! YOU GOD! DAMN! IDIOT" at her when he finds out. (Hypocritically, of course, since he was going to blow all of that money at once on his terrible musical.)
  • Nightmare Fetishist: It's blatantly obvious Lucy is actually one of these, although she's far too much of a proper English lady to admit to any vulgar carnal desires out loud. She does pretty much admit to becoming emotionally smitten with the Ape-Man almost instantly though.
  • Nobility Marries Money: It turns out that Jonathan and Lucy's engagement was a classic one of these arrangements — Jonathan is wealthy but is in fact a commoner, and Lucy may still be a duchess but she depleted the family fortune years ago in her mad quest to find the Ape-Man.
  • Royal Mess: In Real Life, by default the English peerage operates under strict male primogeniture: only a son can inherit the title of a duke, and in England "Duchess" is only a title for a duke's wife. That said, the sovereign can create an exception for this at will, and this has been done a couple of times in history when a duke had only daughters; presumably in this timeline the Dukedom of Stockworth was one of them.
    • As far as Lucy's name goes: In Real Life it's possible but uncommon for a duke/duchess to have a family name that matches their title; more likely, Lucy would have a different surname but might be using her title as a surname informally (like the infamous current Duke of Marlborough, James Spencer-Churchill going by "Jamie Marlborough" or "Jamie Blandford" back when Marquess of Blandford was his highest-ranked title). While she certainly doesn't seem like the type to insist on formality in private, it does stick out that Donna, a newscaster talking about her in public, calls her "Ms. Stockworth" rather than "the Duchess of Stockworth" or "Her Grace the Duchess of Stockworth", which is a major diplomatic faux pas for a journalist. Same with her butler Rupert calling her "Miss Lucy" — of all people, a household servant would be the one most insistent on calling her "Your Grace" (and if he were affectionately calling her by her childhood form of address, that would be "Lady Lucy", never "Miss").
  • Tragic Dream: The story of "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" is about how much Lucy is willing to sacrifice for a ridiculous dream no one else believes in.

     Jonathan Brisby 

Jonathan Brisby

Played by: Curt Mega

Appears in: "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nightmare_time_jonathan.jpg
"I fully intend on becoming Duke of Stockworth, and no half-rate professor and shaved monkey-man are going to stand in my way."

Lucy's fiancé, who tracks her to Hatchetfield.

  • Aristocrats Are Evil: Subverted. Jonathan acts like this but it turns out he isn't actually an aristocrat, just "upper-class" in the American sense of monetary wealth. And see Jerkass Has a Point, plus he has a lot of Anger Born of Worry.
  • Disposable Fiancé: Jonathan Brisby is a note-perfect instance of this clichéd character — we can predict pretty much all there is to know about him instantly the moment we hear that Lucy has had a fiancé all along. Except for the fact that he's not an aristocrat and that Lucy is marrying him for his money, not the other way around. And the fact that he's actually right about the Ape-Man.
  • Gentleman Snarker: Jonathan, of course.
  • Everybody Knew Already: He and Lucy agreed to have a Marriage of Convenience because she needs the money for her fruitless quest, and he wants her title. As Lucy tells Professor Hidgens while being held at gunpoint, Jonathan was quite open about his intentions, but they did legitimately become fond of each other since Jonathan doesn't disavow her quest, he just wants her to participate in the wedding prep and for her not to fall prey to conmen.
  • Gold Digger: Hidgens accuses Jonathan of being no different from him and marrying Lucy only for her money. He's wrong. Lucy is marrying him for his money.
  • Great White Hunter: Jonathan postures as one of these, in the classic tradition of the Romantic False Lead in a Noble Savage story.
  • I Am Very British: Jonathan is a wildly exaggerated and lampshaded version of the British Stuffiness stereotype ("You can't fake an accent like that!"), hilariously playing directly into Hidgens' apparently homicidal hatred of English people.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Jonathan's observation that Hidgens sounds extremely shady and Konk looks like just a normal human man is completely valid and correct. He doesn't do himself any favors by speaking as condescendingly and coldly to Lucy as he does, but he actually is trying to save her from an evil plot by a couple of con men, a plot that was originally planned to end in her murder. And as ugly as his motivation to marry Lucy for her title might be, it turns out she was using him as well.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It turns out that while Jonathan is a bit condescending, he was legitimately worried for Lucy's well-being; Ted just wanted to bang her and Professor Hidgens, well, no comment. As he puts it, a fiancee can't go to the United States mid-wedding preparations and extend their trip without giving warning so he was worried something had happened to her, and he can see that "Konk" and Hidgens are con-men in the making. Jonathan is righteously furious when he sees that Professor Hidgens means to scam Lucy, and he knows that Lucy spent her family fortune ages ago so it would be All for Nothing.
  • Nobility Marries Money: It turns out that Jonathan and Lucy's engagement was a classic one of these arrangements — Jonathan is wealthy but is in fact a commoner, and Lucy may still be a duchess but she depleted the family fortune years ago in her mad quest to find the Ape-Man.
  • Romantic False Lead: Provides the classic plot twist of interrupting Lucy's Falling-in-Love Montage with Konk by showing up as her domineering, conservative fiancé.
  • Quintessential British Gentleman: Embodies this stereotype, with the minor twist that he's not technically a gentleman. As is common for the Nobility Marries Money trope, Jonathan's family has everything else they need to be nobility — old money (including Jonathan's engagement ring that's "been in the family for generations"), the upper-crust accent and social graces — and the only missing piece they need is to acquire the actual title by marriage, which Jonathan openly admits is one of his lifelong ambitions.
  • Royal Mess: Jonathan's statement that he intends to "become the Duke of Stockworth" by marrying Lucy is Artistic License. There's an explicit gendered Double Standard with aristocratic titles where a woman gains a title by marrying a man but the same doesn't apply in reverse (partly because a woman holding a title in her own right was so rare). Jonathan's descendants would be dukes (and possibly duchesses) but he himself would stay just "Mr. Brisby", unless the Queen specifically created a new title for him to keep him from being outranked by his own family.
  • Screams Like a Little Girl: As a bit of cruel Black Comedy at his expense, as soon as he realizes Hidgens is serious about trying to kill him.

Other Outsiders

     Workin' Boys 

Workin' Boys

Played by: Jon Matteson (Greg) | Joey Richter (Steve) | Corey Dorris (Stu) | Curt Mega (Mark) | Dylan Saunders (Leighton)

Appears in: Workin' Boys

Mentioned in: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals | "Time Bastard"

Workin’ Boys, we’re up to our ass in shit
What is this business?
Five o’clock can’t come soon enough
Five o’clock can’t come soon enough
Five o’clock can’t come soon enough
I can’t wait to get home to my boys

Professor Hidgens' friends from college. His musical, Workin' Boys, is devoted to his memory of them.

  • The Ghost: No one has been cast to play Chad, for he is too idealized in Hidgens's mind for any actor to do him justice. For likely the same reason, there doesn't appear to be any onstage depiction of Chad in Hidgens's metafictional Workin' Boys either.
  • The One That Got Away: While Hidgens describes the septet's entire relationship in rather homoerotic terms, Chad was clearly the one he was in love with, and the regret haunts him to this day.
  • Posthumous Character: The six of them passed away on some unknown event that left Hidgens the Sole Survivor. Word of God has implied a research trip of some sort, making it unclear if Hidgens' own version of the tale — all seven of them being struck by a single lightning bolt while in a football dogpile — is true.
  • Significant Double Casting: Stu is played by Corey Dorris, who also played the Hive member impersonating Stu in TGWDLM. The same can't be said of Greg, whose impersonator was played by Jeff Blim; while the way the short is filmed would have made it perfectly viable for Jeff to play both Henry and Greg, it may be that they gave the role to Jon Matteson so that he could interact with Jeff's Henry onstage in the future.

     Kale 

Kale

Played by: Jae Hughes

Appears in: "Killer Track"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nmt_kale.png
"It needs a carrier. That's why it picked me. It wants to be heard!"

A mysterious roadie in possession of the Killer Track.

  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Referred to with male pronouns by the narrative, Kale is played by the non-binary and very androgynous Jae Hughes, and his gothic attire is similarly gender-nonconforming.
  • Required Secondary Powers: As the person tasked with presenting victims to the Killer Track, Kale is naturally immune to the effects of listening to it.

Characters from Santa Claus Is Goin' To High School

     As a Whole 

Santa Claus Is Goin' To High School

Appears in: Black Friday | "Jane's a Car"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/santa_claus_is_goin_to_high_school.jpg

Northville High: Jingle, jangle, hey Chris Kringle
Got ice in his veins for a reason
And we'll beat South Heights
When the mistletoe bites
With our secret Santa swap
Fa la la la la la la

A new Christmas movie. It's playing at the cineplex in Black Friday and is airing on TV by the time of "Jane's a Car".

  • Age-Down Romance: The whole premise of this movie revolves around the Mayfly–December Romance between Chris Kringle and Noël, with the fictional creators of the film apparently humorously oblivious to how massively gross this kind of fic comes off if you just think about the implications. Becky lampshades this in "Jane's a Car", which reveals that the film's antagonist is Jack Frost's teenage daughter; she comments that it would be much less awkward if Christopher Kringle was in fact Santa's teenage son, but Tom points out that this would make the film's title inaccurate.
  • Author Appeal: Fans of Starkid who remember the original A Very Potter Musical know about their love for Zac Efron and High School Musical, which means an Affectionate Parody has been a long time coming.
  • Breather Episode: "Deck the Halls (Of Northville High)" is essentially a breather musical number for the rest of the show.
  • Brick Joke: In the scene with Ethan and Hannah it seems like Santa Claus Is Goin' to High School is just a ridiculous title for a movie as a throwaway joke. But then it's Real After All to a shocking degree.
  • Call-Back: We get an unexpected one to this movie in "Jane's a Car", where in the new Alternate Timeline Tom and Becky also end up making love to the soundtrack of this movie (but in a totally different and much less stressful set of circumstances).
  • Cliché Storm: In-universe, the plot of this movie is one for goofy holiday movies (which is why it's hard to say whether the plot resemblances to The Santa Clause 2 are intentional).
  • Court Mage: Like in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, Chris/Santa seems to depend on a different character who casts spells for him ("The Winter Warlock", later just "Winter" after his Heel–Face Turn, in Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town, "Father Winter" in this movie), although he does have the power to defeat some bullies by making ice appear on the gym floor. If this is meant to be a sequel, then it might actually be the same character.
  • Dawson Casting: Obviously none of the cast are teenagers — to a far greater degree than the first High School Musical — but Jeff Blim with a full beard is hard enough to accept as one it feels like Lampshade Hanging. invoked
  • Diegetic Switch: The song "Take Me Back" Tom and Becky sing to each other about wanting to go "back to high school" turns out to be them singing their own lyrics to a song from the movie they're watching, logically enough, given what the movie is about. Although most likely the "real" song between Chris and Noël wasn't about nearly as serious themes as the one we see.
  • Excuse Plot: As Becky lampshades when describing the movie, the setup of the movie is incredibly contrived and forced just to get us to the Fanfic-like High Concept situation of Santa Claus becoming a teenage boy for some reason.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: Chris Kringle's jersey number on his letterman's jacket is 25, as yet another Christmas reference (December 25).
  • Hurricane of Puns: Every single thing in this movie is a Christmas reference of some kind, including every single line of "Deck the Halls (Of Northville High)".
  • Opposing Sports Team: Northville High seems to have a Small Town Rivalry with the basketball team of, predictably enough, "South Heights". (The North vs. South motif seems to be borrowed from The Year Without a Santa Claus, like the characters of Jingle and Jangle.)
  • Show Within a Show: It's the movie playing at the Lakeside Mall Cineplex that Tom and Becky end up watching by accident. All we see of it is the song "Deck the Halls (of Northville Heights)" and part of the transition to the "in-universe" version of "Take Me Back".
  • Sequel Escalation: This is a massive one from the idea of Workin' Boys in The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals, where the Show Within a Show was only described in a monologue and song by one actor. This time, they get most of the cast in on a lavishly produced musical number with its own full set of costumes.
  • Shout-Out:
  • The Smurfette Principle: Aside from Chris' love interest Noël (Jaime Lyn Beatty), there's only one other female Northville High student who appears in "Deck the Halls (Of Northville Heights)", played by Angela Giarratana. Although, to be fair, it does make sense that Chris' group of friends would mostly be guys.
  • Stylistic Suck: The plot of this movie is intentionally confusing and ridiculous, but the High School Musical-inspired choreography and music is good enough that tons of fans unironically want to see it, repeating history with Workin' Boys from The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals.
    Tom: How is it?
    Becky: It's not good, Tom.
    Tom: No... no, no, I was talking about the movie.
    Becky: So was I. It's real bad.
  • Tuckerization: "Northville" is the name of a real city in Michigan (17 miles northeast of Ann Arbor, where the founding members of Team Starkid went to school), which does in fact have a high school named "Northville High". ("South Heights" is also a real town in Pennsylvania, but a much smaller and more obscure community and probably not an intentional reference.)
  • The Wildcats: Northville High's equivalent of East High's Wildcats mascot is apparently... the Mistletoes.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: Santa Claus Is Goin' to High School is an unholy mixture of the plot of The Santa Clause 2 with the musical style of High School Musical (enabled by an Excuse Plot similar to 21 Jump Street or 17 Again (2009) — which happens to also star Zac Efron). The title is also a pretty obvious reference to the Rankin/Bass Productions film Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, adopting such elements as "Chris Kringle" (now short for Christopher, rather than being "Kris" as in the Rankin-Bass version) being Santa's "human name", showing Santa as a young man for most of the film, giving him a love story, having his magical powers given to another character named "Winter", and having his Arch-Enemy be a human Obstructive Bureaucrat, not to mention the characters of "Jingle and Jangle" the elves are from the sequel, The Year Without a Santa Claus. Indeed, it's implied that this movie may be a Setting Update Soft Reboot of the Rankin-Bass classic.
  • "YEAH!" Shot: A memorable Freeze-Frame Ending for "Deck the Halls (Of Northville High)", with Curt Mega intentionally and visibly breaking the freeze by breathing heavily.

     Christopher Kringle 

Christopher Kringle

Played by: Robert Manion

Appears in: Black Friday

Mentioned in: "Jane's a Car"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/black_friday_chris_kringle.jpg
"If anyone sees two elves in my locker, I'll get expelled for sure!"

Spread that Christmas cheer
Rock that Northville spirit
Ditch that lump of coal
Push it to the limit
Pumpkin spice for days
Fill those cookie trays up
And pass Chris Kringle the ball!

Santa in a teenage body, attending a public high school.

  • Adults Dressed as Children: One big joke about this trope, since Santa Claus is an elderly man disguised as a high school student by magic, possibly Really 700 Years Old (depending on what Santa lore they're using).
  • Bad "Bad Acting": Chris says pretty much all his lines as a pointed declaration while looking directly at the audience.
  • Big Man on Campus: Upon infiltrating Northville High, he apparently immediately became one of the most popular kids in school.
  • Big Damn Kiss: Chris and Noël's kiss is... pretty darn physical for a movie aimed at kids, with very unsubtle sexual implications (she wraps her legs around his waist).
  • Cassandra Truth: Chris' spontaneous confession of his true identity almost ruins his relationship with Noël when she refuses to believe him.
  • Casting Gag: Robert singing the lead in a Show Within a Show Showstopper is just repeating a tradition from The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals. His voice as Chris is the same Tenor Boy whine he had Professor Hidgens use as the lead in Workin' Boys.
  • Fountain of Youth: "Father Winter" has cast a magic spell to de-age Santa Claus into a teenager, for unclear reasons involving Santa wanting to reconnect with modern youth culture.
  • The Generation Gap: Apparently the inciting incident of the film is Santa discovering that somehow all the teenagers in the world are now on the naughty list, and in order to rectify this situation he decides the best possible plan is to become a teenager himself to understand them better.
  • An Ice Person: He's got the ability to conjure ice on the gym floor in order to foil some bullies who were hassling Noël, which of course is the classic impulsively noble act that risks revealing his secret identity.
  • Louis Cypher: A more benign example, although Santa Claus calling himself "Chris Kringle" as an alias barely even qualifies as a disguise. Since everything else at Northville High is such an obvious Christmas reference, maybe no one notices.
  • Lovable Jock: He's the star of the basketball team, just like Troy Bolton.
  • The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: For whatever reason, Chris feels the need to confess his big secret to Noël, even though he was just told by Jingle and Jangle that this will ruin everything, presumably setting up the big third-act conflict of the film.
  • Painful Rhyme: Probably intentional — whoever wrote "Deck the Halls (Of Northville High)" in-universe made the inexplicable decision to rhyme "Chris Kringle" with "Jingle-jangle" instead of just "jingle", forcing everyone to say it "Krangle".
  • Santa Claus: His secret identity.
  • Secret Identity: For whatever reason, the spell Father Winter cast to turn him into a teenager will be broken if he ever reveals his identity to anyone, although this doesn't seem to happen immediately.
  • Trust Password: Chris is challenged to prove his identity by telling Noël what present he gave her when she was little, and apparently makes a grave decision to violate his personal code out of love for her by quietly saying, "A red tricycle".

     Noël 

Noël

Played by: Jaime Lyn Beatty

Appears in: Black Friday

Mentioned in: "Jane's a Car"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/black_friday_noel.jpg
"Tell me something only Santa would know."

One of Chris' classmates, whom he has a crush on.

  • Casting Gag: It's only appropriate Jaime Lyn Beatty be the Love Interest here, since that's what she was in every other Starkid musical set in high school.
  • Forbidden Love: Obviously this trope, although it's Played for Laughs that the concern seems to more be that Chris is giving away his Secret Identity and not that he's really at least twenty times her age.
  • Mayfly–December Romance: To a deliberately (on the part of the writers of Black Friday if not Santa Claus Is Goin' To High School) uncomfortable degree — Chris, in his true form, is an old fat man who's Really 700 Years Old and she's at best eighteen (confirmed in Jane's a Car to be exactly eighteen, making the film's romance, at best, technically not against the law), which she helpfully makes clear to us by making her Trust Password asking what she wanted for Christmas from him when she was seven. It's then intensified by her clapping her hands like a child and Squeeing "Santa!" when he reveals who he is — right before leaping into his lap in a very unchildlike way.
  • Mrs. Claus: It's not really clear if she is the future Mrs. Claus and this is an origin story (like The Santa Clause 2) or Chris actually has a wife he's cheating on, although given the Disney Channel Original Movie roots of Santa Claus Is Goin' to High School it's probably the former.
  • Punny Name: Appropriately enough, her name is a word for Christmas.
  • Spotting the Thread: Noël starts noticing weird things about Chris pretty quickly, though he doesn't exactly make it difficult.
  • Tomboyish Name: "Noel" is a boy's name, but "Noël", the way she pronounces it, is a name for girls and for the Christmas holiday.

     Mr. Humbugger 

Mr. Humbugger

Played by: Corey Dorris

Appears in: Black Friday

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/principal_humbugger.jpg
"Christopher Kringle, report to the principal's office immediately!"

The strict principal of Northville High.

  • Captain Ersatz: Having Santa Claus' most dangerous enemy be a human being who's an Obstructive Bureaucrat and The Grinch is, of course, a Call-Back to Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town's Burgermeister Meisterburger.
  • Casting Gag: Humbugger only appears for one line in "Deck the Halls (Of Northville High)", but it means both of Corey Dorris's major roles in this show are acting as an unsympathetic adult authority figure to a teenager.
  • Dean Bitterman: In his extremely brief appearance he nonetheless makes it extremely obvious he's the Christmas version of this trope. Much of the conflict in the movie seems to revolve around Chris Kringle avoiding running afoul of him and getting expelled, despite being the Big Man on Campus.

     Jingle and Jangle 

Jingle and Jangle

Played by: Lauren Lopez (Jingle) | Joey Richter (Jangle)

Appears in: Black Friday

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/black_friday_jingle_jangle.jpg
"We're here to make sure you don't screw up Christmas, boss!"

Two elves who accompany Chris to Northville High.

  • Call-Back: A very short one, but after "Jingle-jangle-jingle-jangle" was the chanting refrain of the opening of "Deck the Halls (Of Northville Heights)" we get the wacky joke that that's actually the name of two characters.
  • Christmas Elves: The reveal of Lauren and — especially — Joey in Christmas elf costumes is one of the most predictable yet nonetheless hilarious developments in this scene.
  • The Dividual: A classic example. It's not even actually stated which one is Jingle and which one is Jangle, although since Chris says "Jingle! Jangle!" in direct response to Lauren speaking it seems like she's Jingle and Joey is Jangle. (In The Year Without a Santa Claus, Jingle was also the shorter one who did most of the talking, although this Jingle would be a Gender Flip.)
  • Fairy Companion: Essentially this trope. They're supposed to be helping Chris with his mission (whatever it is) but we don't actually see them give him any useful advice, and in fact they just make his situation worse by almost getting caught talking to them.
  • Informed Attribute: Although Lauren is very petite, it's only from dialogue that we learn that in-universe Jingle and Jangle are supposed to be tiny elves who fit inside Chris' locker. Lampshaded even further by Joey having to pretend he's the same height as Lauren and thus visibly bend down and twist his body around to "pop up" from behind Chris the way Lauren does.
  • Invisible to Normals: One of their powers, along with the fact that they're apparently only a few inches tall. This just makes it even more confusingly non-diegetic when they join the big dance scene when the song starts up again.
  • Loony Laws: Judging by the following line, Principal Humbugger has apparently banned elves from the campus of Northville High.
    Chris: Jingle! Jangle! If everyone sees two elves in my locker I'll get expelled for sure!
  • Mr. Exposition: The only reason Jingle and Jangle appear seems to be to inform Chris the rules of Father Winter's spell that will change him back to his true form if he reveals his identity to anyone. Which, of course, he soon does.
  • Remake Cameo: In-universe, possibly. Jingle and Jangle are the names of the elves from The Year Without a Santa Claus, and play pretty much the same role.
  • Silent Partner: In a manner identical to Dan and Donna, they are a Lauren/Joey duo in which Lauren does all the talking while Joey does nothing but repeatedly spout a catchphrase agreeing with her; in Jangle's case, it's "That's right!" As if to emphasize this, when we go back into singing "Deck the Halls (Of Northville High)", Jangle becomes a regular ensemble member while Jingle joins Chris and "Chad" for the big dance center stage, even though they were presented to us as The Dividual (because Lauren's the best female dancer in the cast).
  • Spiking the Camera: Jingle and Jangle do this while singing the bridge of "Take Me Back", possibly to indicate they're the Fourth-Wall Observer style of Those Two Guys, or possibly because it's just not a good movie.

     Jacqueline Frost 

Jacqueline Frost

Played by: Lauren Lopez

Appears in: "Jane's a Car"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jacqueline_frost.jpg
"You listen to me, Chris Kringle - no one says no to Jacqueline Frost!"

I got a cold heart, and I don't like Christmas at all!

The teenage daughter of Jack Frost, implied to be the main antagonist of the film.

  • Big Bad Duumvirate: "Jane's a Car" reveals that there are two bad guys in the movie, her and Principal Humbugger, and since she gets a whole Villain Song she's probably the more significant one. This is true to Sharpay's role in the High School Musical series usually requiring her to manipulate some adult authority figure (Mrs. Darbus in the first movie, Mr. Fulton in the second) to get the main characters in trouble.
  • Captain Ersatz:
  • The Grinch: While Principal Humbugger was implied to be this, she states it outright as the first line of her Villain Song — "I've got a cold heart, and I don't like Christmas at all!"
  • Ice Queen: Combination of this trope and the Alpha Bitch.
  • Legacy Character: She isn't actually Jack Frost, she's Jack Frost's teenage daughter, which both makes it more logical she's a high school student in the modern day and also immediately raises questions of why they couldn't make the whole story about a Generation Xerox rather than the grimace-inducing premise that Chris Kringle literally is Santa Claus de-aged. Tom does bring up that the movie's name would have to be changed to Son of Santa Claus Is Goin' to High School, which would make the movie sound like it was a sequel.
  • Musicalis Interruptus: Her Villain Song in "Jane's a Car" is cut off after its first line by Tom and Becky's dialogue.
  • Retcon: She never appeared in the original "Deck the Halls (of Northville High)" in Black Friday (she couldn't, since her actress was playing Jingle), and was inserted into the story for "Jane's a Car". Presumably in the movie her song comes between the in-universe "Deck the Halls (of Northville High)" and "Take Me Back", when Tom and Becky in Black Friday were in the middle of their heart-to-heart and not paying attention.
  • Woman Scorned: Aside from being The Grinch, her motivation as an antagonist seems to be that Chris Kringle turned down her advances in favor of Noël's.

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