Characters / High Strung 1991

Thane Furrows

Portrayed by: Steve Oedekerk

A short-tempered children's book writer who is annoyed about everything around him.

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• Be Careful What You Wish For: He keeps on saying "I'd rather be dead!" He sees how crappy that statement is when Death himself obliges to his preference.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: He speaks to the audience.
• Ceiling Banger: Thane does this to his upstairs neighbor Vol on account of the latter playing music too loud.
• The Cynic: Thane spends a majority of the movie giving bleak descriptions of mundane activities.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu??: Thane's griping and refusal to shut up caused him to do this to Death himself.
• Freak Out: Thane does this so many times it's almost criminal.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: It doesn't take much to get Thane riled-up.
• Hypocrite: Thane gripes about his mother constantly talking when he is no better in that respect.
• Jerkass: Thane is quite belligerent and often acts anxious and impatient to everyone, including people who are remotely nice to him.
• Jerkass Has a Point: A Motor Mouth jerk he may be, Thane brings up some good points, like how his neighbor plays his music too loud or how Melanie approves of books that are geared more to 5-year-olds or younger (like Happy the Clam) and not approving more practical books.
• The Load: As Death states, Thane spent his whole life griping instead of making himself useful. This doesn’t stop Thane from using his trademark complaining against Death however.
• Lower-Class Lout: Thane is this in spades. He’s abrasive, lives in a sustainable but admittedly small apartment, works as an unappreciated children’s book author, and barely has a social life.
• Motor Mouth: He can't go 1 minute without talking at a fast pace.
• The Shut-In: Thane almost never leaves his apartment, most likely to avoid coming into contact with everyday annoyances.
• Sore Loser: Not in the conventional sense, but Thane eventually cuts Vol's power to disable the music coming from his apartment despite losing to him in an arm wrestling competition.
  Thane: (to the audience) Oh, come on. You would have done it to.
• Take This Job and Shove It: After telling off Melanie for her bitchy behavior, she silently leaves, and Thane sees this as a sign of him getting fired. He gets upset at first before deciding that he wasn't big on the job anyway.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Thane really likes cereal and refuses to eat anything else, though he does mention liking popcicles.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Thane isn’t so much unsympathetic as he does suffer through many misfortunes, it’s just that he’s pretty belligerent about life and can’t stop complaining about every little inconvenience.

Al Dalby

Portrayed by: Thomas F. Wilson

Thane's idealistic only friend who works in an office.

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• Nice Guy: Al is an idealist who tries to get Thane to see the best in life.
• Soul-Crushing Desk Job: It’s implied that Al works in an office, but he is anything but worn down by the mundanity of his job.
• Trademark Favorite Food: He likes pizza.

Melanie

Portrayed by: Denise Crosby

A mean-spirited woman who is the wife of Thane's employer.

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• Age-Gap Romance: Marvin is old enough to be Melanie’s father. Lampshaded by Thane as he describes Melanie as half Marvin’s age.
• Bad Boss: Melanie publishes books that children make children happy and doesn’t approve of anything that would either confuse or upset children, despite the fact that those upsetting aspects could be helpful to them.
• Jerkass: Melanie, Thane’s boss, is quite the bitch who is dedicated to publishing children’s books to make money rather than anything that could be useful for children.
• Fantastic Racism: Among Melanie’s many vices is that she looks down on people with different nationalities.
• What Does She See in Him??: Gender-inverted as Thane says this word-for-word regarding Marvin’s marriage to Melanie.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: It's never shown or explained what happened to her after she left Thane's apartment.

Ray

Portrayed by: Fred Willard

A polite insurance salesman who visits Thane at the beginning of the film.

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• Nice Guy: Ray is pretty polite to Thane, despite Thane’s passive-aggression.
• Traveling Salesman: He is a door-to-door insurance salesman.

Vol

Portrayed by: Jani Lane

Thane's obnoxious rock-star wannabee neighbor.

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• Hypocrite: Vol gets on Thane's case for banging on his floor as it disrupts his music, even though Thane only did that to shut him up.
• Jerkass: Vol plays loud music which annoys Thane and has the gall to complain to Thane when he bangs his ceiling.
• Totally Radical: Speaks like this.

Marvin

Portrayed by: Ed Williams

Thane's friendly boss.

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• Benevolent Boss: In contrast to Melanie, Marvin is rather kind and friendly. Thane even describes him as. A boss who was tolerable.

Mrs. Furrows

Portrayed by: Toni Sawyer

Thane's naggy mother.

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• Motor Mouth: It's easy to see where Thane gets it from.

Death

Portrayed by: Jim Carrey

The creepy but comical Grim Reaper.

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• Affably Evil: Death is pretty creepy all things considered since he’s been harassing Thane all day, but once he drops his scary act, he can be polite if socially-impaired.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Thane in no small part criticizes Death's rule about only being allowed to wish for death 18,000 times, deeming it to be ridiculous (and admittedly, anyone wishing for death at that rate is rather fantastical).
• Don't Fear the Reaper: Since he is played by Jim Carrey, could you expect anything else?
• Evil Is Hammy: He goes all out on scaring Thane.
• Jerkass: Death spends a majority of his screen time scaring the bejesus out of Thane.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Thane at one point mentions that Death usually has a cloak with him. Death states that was a passing fashion phase.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!!: Death when Thane unleashes a "Reason You Suck" Speech on him decides that Thane is more trouble than he's worth, even telling God Himself that he won't be coming back for Thane.