It has been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.

Last week we gave you our 5 Best Whatever lists; this week we'll be giving you our 5 Worst Whatever lists. This was much harder to narrow down than my 5 Best Television Couples list. I guess in my old age of almost-30, I am getting curmudgeonly. Here is my rage in action:

5 Worst Characters to be Stuck With on a Desert Island.


Mr. Collins, Pride and Prejudice

Not only would Mr. Collins be physically useless and—quite frankly—yucky in a swimsuit, he would drive a woman batshit crazy on a deserted island, what with the following her around, and insincerely doting on her techniques for collecting firewood, building a hut, driving a spear through the heart of a wild boar. He would spend half his day pontificating the ways in which island dwelling would absolutely be unacceptable to his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh; and half his day gawking at your coconuts. The only good thing about having Mr. Collins around would be that when you eventually and inevitably cooked him, he would absolutely taste like chicken.



Scrappy Doo, Scooby-Doo

I hate Scrappy-Doo and everything he stands for. Network executives need to understand that sometimes a show just needs to take a bow, and exit stage left. If you were on an island with Scrappy-Doo, at first you'd be all, "Ha ha. What a cheeky Great Dane puppy." But by week two, his over-exuberance and punky little know-it-all attitude would be like sandpaper on your sunburn. And by week three, well, you'd have to put him down. But think about this nightmare: what if you were trapped on a deserted island with ALL the Scrappy-Doos? Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch, Olivia from The Cosby Show, those tiny, annoying kid-Smurfs who were shorter, even, than three apples tall. My God, you'd have to kill all of them: puppies, children, and smurflings alike. Next thing you know, you've gone from Jedi Knight to a Dark Lord of the Sith, and how freakin' unbearable would a huge, black helmet be on a deserted island?


Viki Vale, Batman

Viki Vale is the good-for-nothingest woman to ever, ever be rescued. Look, if Batman tries to help you out of harm's way, you let him. You don't stand around and screech and whimper, okay? That's distracting. And if Batman sleeps with you, well, the next morning you say, "Thanks, mate, I always wanted to bonk a superhero." You don't say, "I just wanna know... are we gonna try to love each other?" No, okay? We're not. I'm a hero. I have lives to save. And toys to play with. The reasons Viki Vale would be so lame on a desert island are the same reasons she's so lame in Gotham City. She's got about a gazillion needs and feelings. She panics about everything. And she just can't leave well enough alone. If, on your island, you wandered off for some quality by-yourself-time, she'd find you up in your tree or down in your river or even in your cave. And she'd pester and pester and pester until you'd have to draw a line in the sand and say, "Cross this, and I am going to wallop you with my Bat-o-rang." She would cross it, and you would wallop her, and then somehow she'd make it seem like it was all your fault.


The Effing Castle Toad, Super Mario Brothers

The Mario Bros. Castle Toad is the embodiment of worthlessness. You hurdle pits of fire and blood, you scale walls, you dodge ghosts, you crack codes, you jump over or dash under a Koopaling to save the princess, and what do you get? You get Castle Toad. "Thank you Mario, but our princess is in another castle." Oh yeah, another castle? Thank you, Toad. That information would have been very useful YESTERDAY. You get stranded on an island with that toad and you know what's going to happen? You'll sit down to a nice dinner of roasted trout one night, and you'll see a ship or a helicopter or a hoverboard leaving the island, and you'll try to flag it down to rescue you. "Damn," you'll say, when you're unsuccessful. "I just missed that airplane."

"Airplane?" the Effing Castle Toad will say. "Oh, yeah. I met the pilot a little while ago. He was looking for directions. I told him not to stay here unless he really likes pineapple."


Aidan Shaw, Sex and the City

I love it when someone suggests we play Marry, Do, or Die, because without fail Sex and the City comes up, and I get to shout out, "KILL AIDAN SHAW!" You'd think because he is a carpenter or whatever, Aidan would be good to have around on a desert island, but no. He would not. He'd follow you around and try to nuzzle your neck while you looked for bananas or berries, and when you finally just had enough and said, "You know what, Aidan, I'm a little freaked out here, okay? I'm stranded on an island, and I don't know what we're going to eat or where we're going to sleep, and I actually think I may have left the coffee pot on in my apartment, so could you just... stop touching me for like five seconds?"

He'd be all, "Don't worry, baby. It's groovy that we're here on this island, together, by ourselves, with only the tasks of conversation and body exploration stretching out in front of us... for all eternity."

His gear-grinding voice, and his condescending inability to comprehend that some things are JUST A BIG DEAL, OKAY—maybe not a big deal to you, BUT A BIG DEAL TO ME, would make you so crazy that you'd end up strangling him and using his turquoise jewelry as fishing lures.


And you? What character would you least like to be stuck with on a desert island?