My Favorite Demons

How many of you reading this have a favorite demon? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? 

I know someone put their hand up. There's always one.

Okay, doubling down, who has more than one favorite demon and can rank them?

Yeah! Now those hands are going down.

I guess it's pretty obvious I wouldn't be asking if I wasn't going to tell you that, yes, I do have favorite demons, plural. And I'm going to tell you who they are. And which I like best. In order.

Better. Which I like better. Grammar matters. Don't make me show you that Reese Lasangan video again. 

Too late!

So, two demons, then. I was hoping you'd think it was more but I was never going to get away with it.

Let's do this like they do at the Oscars. No, wait, not the Oscars... where is it they announce the results in reverse order? Don't say Miss World. This isn't the nineteen-seventies. Oh, never mind. We all know how it works.

Coming in at #2 (Of two...) the formerly unchallenged champion and still the only demon whose likeness I both own and wear on a T-shirt...

Luci!

The T-shirt in question features Luci's catchphrase. Can you guess what it is? Have a go. Go on. Do it. You know you want to.

So, Luci. Short for Lucifer, obviously. Although that's never confirmed. Could as easily be Lucille. 

And even as I write this, it occurs to me I'm selling myself short here. I just thought of two more demons I could add to the list. 

Do it! Do it!

Shut up, Luci. But okay, I will.

New, improved list of Bhagpuss's Favorite Demons. Now twice as long! (Still in reverse order).

#4 - Jack Kirby's Etrigan the Demon. I'm not the world's greatest Kirby fan although, as with the Beatles, I've come around to the general opinion of his genius as I've grown older. 

I'm not at all sure I ever read a whole Demon comic. If I did, I don''t remember anything about it. The character turned up in plenty of DC comics of a certain era that I did read, though. I always quite enjoyed his guest shots and cameos. 

A character that only speaks in rhyme is always going to make for interesting reading when handled by writers who aren't comfortable with verse. Although calling the doggerel Etrigan spouted "verse" is pushing it.

#3 - Lucifer. It seems a tad disrespectful to rank the actual Devil, Lord of Hell, etc etc. in third place and it does undersell just how much I enjoyed Tom Ellis's performance in the Netflix series of the same name ("Lucifer" it's called, that is, not "Tom Ellis", although frankly it might as well have been.)

I watched all 90+ episodes, following the show from Prime to Netflix when it switched. The quality was up and down and tonally it was all over the place. I preferred the earlier seasons to the later ones although I suspect when I re-watch it a few years from now that opinion will reverse.

The thing I find most curious about Lucifer is that he's a Neil Gaiman creation. I've never really seen Gaiman as much of a humorist. I probably ought to read one of the comics some day, see how many jokes he puts in.

#2 Luci from Disenchantment. We covered this already. Surely you can't have forgotten? It was like three minutes ago!

And now... the moment you've all been waiting for... the winner! Give it up for

#1 - Courtney from Dead End Paranormal Park!

In case you missed it, Dead End Paranormal Park is a ten episode animated series new to Netflix this month. Well, new to the UK version of Netflix, anyway. Not sure if it's been out before in other territories. Probably has. We get everything late. (Not really but sometimes it feels like it.)

Described on IMDB as "Two teens and a talking pug team up to battle demons at a haunted theme park", it's a show in which two teens and a talking pug team up to battle demons at a haunted theme park. No, wait, that's not it at all.

It's a show about friendship, acceptance, loyalty and honor. It made me tear up a couple of times and want to knock the leads heads together once. Slap them? Give them a sound telling off? Sit them down and discuss the implications of their actions with them in a safe and supportive environment? That last one, I guess, only with more shouting and hand gestures.

Courtney is a supporting character with a powerful redemptive arc, to which she refers at least once in a not at all fourth-wall-breaking metaside. (I just made that one up. Good, isn't it? Try to use it if you can. Let's see if we can get it to catch on). 

We meet her in Episode One as the lackey of a powerful demon lord, who's trying to steal the souls of Our Heroes, and leave her at the end of Episode Ten, happily crushed in a group hug by the self-same trio she tried to annihilate back at the start (Spoiler, but you'll thank me later.). Along the way she gets all the best lines and throws some welcome grit into the sugar.

The show itself is rated PG, which suggests to me that whoever rated it knows some very liberal and hip parents. Either that or they really weren't paying attention. 

Also, not all shows are rated equally.  Or even using the same process, as far as I can tell.

DEPP (Ooh! I just realised what the acronym is!)  has just a single warning, for "Threat". Umbrella Academy, has a whole bunch of advisories as you'd expect, including one for "Discrimination", something that's a major plot point and a core story element in several episodes of Dead End, where it doesn't get a mention. 

Hmm. We seem to be straying from the point, always assuming I had one. Wait! I did!

All I really wanted to do was draw attention to a good show that I imagine most people reading this won't have noticed yet. Although I could be wrong. Maybe I'm the last to know. Wouldn't be the hundredth time. It's kind of buried in the "Netflix After School" sub-basement but if you enjoyed Final Space or Kid Cosmic or Kipo you deffo might want to give it a try.

Dead End is based on a comic, just like pretty much every show I like these days. Think that means anything? As soon as I'd watched the final episode I went to Amazon to see about buying some of the Deadendia graphic novels but they're "Currently Unavailable". Seems like a missed opportunity. Anyone mentioned it to marketing?

The last episode concludes with an obvious set-up for a second season. Here's hoping they get one. Better yet, give Courtney a spin-off series of her own!