Characters from the classic 80's comedy Revenge of the Nerds with some backround information on the characters and some tropes they provide examples of.
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The Nerds
Lewis Skolnick
The main nerd in the film. He starts out at Adams College with an optimistic attitude. He later learns to stand up for himself and "the rights of other nerds", as he puts it. Played by Robert Carradine.
- All Guys Want Cheerleaders: He develops a thing for Betty Childs in the first film and has sex with her towards the end. He eventually marries her.
- Aesop Amnesia: In third film, Lewis has to learn the exact same lesson as the first. Deconstructed in that Lewis went so far in denying being a nerd that he lost touch with his college friends and had a bitter falling out with Gilbert.
- Breakout Character: He's The Lancer to Gilbert in the first movie, but becomes The Leader in the second.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Gilbert. He later becomes one with Booger, even being picked as best man for his wedding.
- Motive Decay: So in the first movie he learns to be proud of being a nerd, and then in the second one he doesn't like being called a nerd? In the third, he's shed his nerd persona and ends up taking it back up again.
- Nerds Are Sexy: "All jocks ever think about is sports, but all nerds ever think about is sex" gets him the girl in the end.
- Nerds Are Virgins: He actually loses his virginity in the movie though, to an Omega Mu.
Gilbert Lowe
Lewis' best friend, who starts at Adams at the exact same time. He has a habit of seeing the negative.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Just about every noteworthy character appears in the fourth movie - except Gilbert.
- Demoted to Extra: In the second movie, he doesn't go with the others thanks to a broken leg, only talking to them on the phone.
- Epic Fail: He manages to break his leg offscreen during a chess match.
- Give Geeks a Chance: He and Lewis make a speech about this at the end.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Lewis. They grew up together and share a room in their original dorm until the Alphas throw everyone out after burning down their own house.
- Poor Man's Substitute: For a cameo in the third movie.
- Stereotypical Nerd: Downplayed. He's got the stock nerd fashion sense, but his personality is rather low-key and he lacks the comical idiosyncrasies of his fellow tri-Lambs.
Dudley "Booger" Dawson
Played by Curtis Armstrong
Booger, who's real name is Dudley Dawson, may not be a "traditional nerd" like the rest of them, but he's still an outcast. Also he's around as smart as the rest of the nerds.
- Ambulance Chaser: In the third and fourth movies. He's literally chasing an ambulance at one point.
- Badbutt: Easily the toughest of the Lambdas.
- The Casanova: In the third and fourth movie it is implied that he's humped and dumped most of the Omega-Mus. This becomes a bit of a plot-point in the latter movie when he's accused of having fathered a child and can't be sure he didn't.
- FunTShirt: Most notable would be "High On Stress" and "Gimme Head Til I'm Dead".
- Gass Hole. Oh, definitely. His contest-winning belch, at over ten seconds long,
was the moment of the film most fondly recalled by Gen-X kids. - Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Lewis in the fourth movie.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's boorish and actively tries to gross people out, but he's always there for his friends.
- Ladykiller in Love: Despite his history of sleeping around, he is absolutely devoted to his finacée in the fourth movie.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Is very insistent on it.
- The Pig-Pen: He's got the poorest hygiene of the nerds. There's a reason he's called "Booger".
- Smoking Is Cool: Not just cigarettes, either.
- The Stoner: He's generally seen smoking a joint. In the second film, while the group of Nerds are on a deserted island, he is delighted to find a marijuana tree.
Takashi Toshiro
- Asian and Nerdy: A Japanese student who has been put in with the rest of the nerds.
- Asian Speekee Engrish: Speaks in a ''ridiculous'' accent.
- Funny Foreigner: Becomes obsessed with 'hair pie' after Booger's explanation, but most of the girls don't seem to understand what he's getting at or find him cutely harmless even after he's photographing up their skirts.
- Super Gullible: Believes anything people tell him, and thanks them for it.
Harold Wormser
- Child Prodigy: He's a preteen who's attending Adams college.
- Dirty Kid: At the party with the Omega Mus, its shown that because of his height he's about eye-level with the girls' chests. He's quite pleased. He also gleefully partakes in the voyeuristic observation of the Pi's after the Nerds install secret cameras in their dorms.
- Minor with Fake I.D.: He actually has a few in the second film, which he uses to buy beer. They backfire on him when they get arrested and the cops don't believe he's a minor.
- Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Because his actor aged in the three years between films, he's noticeably older in the second film.
- Tagalong Kid: Because he's much younger than the others, being still a child while in college, he fills this role.
Lamar Latrell
- Big Brother Instinct: He's very close to Wormser
- Black and Nerdy: The Token Minority of the nerds.
- Camp Gay: To the point that the other nerds design a javelin specifically for his limp-wristed technique.
- Gay Best Friend: He's the one gay guy in the Lambda house, but they don't treat him any different from the rest of the Tri-Lambs.
- Twofer Token Minority: He's the token black and the token gay.
Arnold Poindexter
- Blind Without 'Em: Well, it's more like he's blind with em'.
- Dreadful Musician: To be fair he gets better as the movie goes on, right up until the talent show and he plays his Awesome Music.
- Jewish and Nerdy:
Word of God says he was Jewish.
Judy
- Love at First Sight: She and Gilbert fall for each other when they first meet in the computer lab.
Connie
The Popular Kids
Stan Gable
- Big Man on Campus: Two time All-American Quarterback, dating the head cheerleader and Jerk Jock. Realistically, a NFL team would have drafted him. It could be speculated that injuries may have killed his football career early.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Revealing he's a Closet Geek is deliberately played as like someone revealing being gay, including the phrase "coming out of the closet".
- Easily Forgiven: Played with in the third movie. Lewis is perfectly willing to put past bullying behind him, but Betty is apprehensive and Booger is outright antagonistic. After exonerating Lewis at the trial and revealing he's a Closet Geek, though, everyone embraces him as a friend.
- Even Evil Has Standards: After Lewis gets arrested, Betty asks him if he's trying to coerce her to get back with him in return for Lewis' freedom. He replies that he'd never try something like that.
- Friendless Background: Implied during the third movie. Stan tells Betty that no one has any real friends, just people who use each other before moving on.
- Heel–Face Turn: In the third movie when he realizes that he has some geeky tendencies (such as being able to operate a computer), he actually eventually sides with the nerds.
- Jerk Jock: In the first film, he's the captain of the football team and makes life hell for the nerds.
Betty Childs
- Nerds Are Sexy: She thinks so near the end anyways.
- Sex–Face Turn: After she and Lewis have sex, she realizes that she actually likes him due to his skill.
Frederick Aloysius "Ogre" Palowakski
- The Brute: The largest of the Alphas, he is the muscle for them.
- Catchphrase: "NERRRRRRRRRRRRDS!"
- Dumb Muscle: He might be the main muscle of the Alphas, but he's pretty lacking in the brain department.
- Jerk Jock: In the first two films, he goes along with the Alphas in their torment of the nerds.
- Mook–Face Turn: In the second movie, the Alpha Betas strand him along with the nerds when they realize he won't keep quiet about their misdeeds, and he ends up bonding with the nerds and taking their side. At the end, he's made a Tri-Lamb proper.
- Popular Is Dumb: As an Alpha Beta, he's pretty much a big, dumb, violent brute, and they make use of him as one. Subverted in the fourth movie, when an offhand comment about working with relief efforts in Africa suggests that he shaped up after joining the nerds.
Suzy
Other
Coach Harris
Played by John Goodman
- Big Bad: He is the main antagonist of the first movie, as he was the one who instructed the Alpha Betas to commandeer the Nerds' house and keep antagonizing the Nerds at each and every turn.
- Large Ham: Being a football coach naturally, he yells a lot. But the orders and motivational speeches he carries out are mostly out of malicious intent against the nerds.
Mr. Skolnick
Played by James Cromwell
Lewis' father.
Lewis' father.
Edgar Po Wong/Master Snotty
Played by James Hong
- Cool Old Guy
- Gass Hole. Even more than Booger. In fact, he adopts this venerable gentleman as his mentor.
- The Pigpen. Booger is both disgusted and in awe of Snotty's appalling living conditions.
