| “ | Soon, the ACME Corporation will tower over ALL OF CREATION!! | „ |
| ~ Mr. Chairman's most famous quote, about his plans. |
Luther J. Chairman, best known as Mr. Chairman, is the main antagonist of the 2003 Warner Bros. hybrid film Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the second theatrical feature-lenght film of the Looney Tunes franchise.
He is the successful yet chairman of the ACME Corporation, the iconic company famous for its faulty products of dubious quality, which secretly conspires to take over the world. To do so, Mr. Chairman comes up with the idea to use the Blue Monkey Diamond to transform all of humanity into apes, whom he intends to enslave to make ACME products and then sell those very products to them once they become human again.
He was portrayed by Steve Martin. While impersonating Damien Drake and Michael Jordan with his ACME disguises, he was portrayed by Timothy Dalton and Michael Jordan respectively.
His Evil Ranking[]
Debated Validations[]
- His elderly father is one of the members of his executive board and, unlike other members, Mr. Chairman doesn't mistreat him and even commends him for giving him the idea of contacting Wile E. Coyote so he can get rid of the heroes at the Nevada desert. However, when he makes it clear he plans to use the Blue Monkey Diamond on everyone but himself and Mary, he doesn't mention his father, so most likely he doesn't care for him as well as the rest of his board.
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- For starters, Mr. Chairman knows that he is such an evil and diabolical man, yet takes great pride at that fact and doesn't even try to hide how rotten he really is.
- Plans to transform all people in the world (save for himself and anyone he cares for) into monkeys by blasting them with his satellite from outer space with the Blue Monkey Diamond, intending to then enslave all humans-turned-into monkeys to make them fabricate several ACME products and then transform them back to sell those very products to them, technically scamming them.
- Has spy movie actor/secret spy Damien Drake abducted and taken to his headquarters to prevent Drake from finding out the ACME Corporation's true plans. Throughout the film, Mr. Chairman has Damien tortured by either sending his henchmen to beat him up to interrogate him, locking him in a cage while chained or even putting him on a harness that is controlled by a toon scientist to make Drake slap himself.
- Not to mention, during the interrogation session, all nine of Mr. Chairman's men get beaten up by Drake, but Mr. Chairman doesn't even seem to care at their difficulties, not even offering them to send more of his men to restrain their prisoner.
- Has nine years old kids employed by his company, making them work at sweatshops to fabricate ACME sneakers, which is child exploitation, and if that wasn't enough, complains about why not employ employing three years old infants because they work for so much less. An executive of his board tells him that they can't have babies working for them because they need naps, but rather than backing off, Mr. Chairman suggests instead to then put double espresso in their sippy cups.
- Sends his many toon operatives throughout the film to stop Damien's son D.J. and Daffy Duck from rescuing Damien and uncovering his plot. Particularly, he specifically tells one of his executives that he intends to have Daffy "extra crispy"; even though Daffy, as much a abrasive jerk he is, had done nothing to him nor did anything to deserve that:
- Offers Yosemite Sam a chest full of gold and jewels if he kills D.J. and Daffy at his Las Vegas casino, leading Sam to try to kill the heroes with the assistance of his fellow outlaws Nasty Canasta and Cottontail Smith, which endangers the safety of several citizens in the process and almost possibly causes a few deaths when Sam got the idea of throwing a dynamite stick at the protagonists. To punish Sam for his failure, Mr. Chairman has him tied up and then apparently throws him up from his company tower's last floor.
- Supplies Wile E. Coyote with free ACME stuff like a missile in exchange of killing D.J., Kate Houghton, Daffy and Bugs, but as usual, the ACME technology fails and Wile gets badly hurt. He then yells at Wile for messing with the operation, denying the possibility of the equipment being faulty and instead blaming Wile's natural stupidity.
- Calls Marvin the Martian and asks him to get the map D.J., Kate, Daffy and Bugs have by staging a breakout at Area 52, which leads Marvin to free several classic film monsters and aliens to kill the protagonists as well as "Mother" and her scientists. Considering that we never see any of Area 52's scientists or monsters after this, it may be possible that the attack caused some deaths, as only Marvin appears later in the film.
- Sends Elmer Fudd to Paris France to retrieve the Mona Lisa card that reveals a map to the Blue Monkey Diamond temple, leading Elmer to pursue Bugs and Daffy into some of the Louvre's paintings, possibly causing some damage given how Elmer used his gun inside them. At the same time, Mr. Chairman sends his bodyguard Bob Smith to capture Katie to retrieve her phone, which she used to photograph the map. This results in Kate nearly being dropped off the Eiffel Tower to her death when she tried to stop Bob.
- Breaks his TV screen once the photo Kate took is revealed to have been partially obscured thanks to Daffy jumping in front of the camera.
- Resolves to go himself and Smith to Africa to stop the heroes themselves as they approach the temple and bringing the Tasmanian Devil, his most viscious operative, with them for backup. When one of his executives doesn't agree with the idea due to the Tasmanian Devil's apparent lack of intelligence, Mr. Chairman lets Taz out of his cage, allowing him to devour the executive by stripping him from flesh to bone, forcing the now undead executive to retract his opinion.
- Disguises himself as Granny, Bob Smith as Sylvester J. Pussycat Sr. and Taz as Tweety to trick D.J. into taking them to the temple with his party.
- Psychologically messes with D.J. by disguising himself as his father and Michael Jordan.
- Orders Smith to transport him, D.J., Kate, Daffy and Bugs to his headquarters. As soon as they arrive, as a secondary effect, their bodies are temporarily mixed, but Mr. Chairman turns everyone including himself back to normal, yet promises to fire Smith for not using the device properly if he comes back.
- Forces D.J. into surrendering the Blue Monkey Diamond to him in exchange of saving Damien from being run over by the Train of Death, blown up with several TNT boxes and sticks surrounding him or crushed by a two-ton anvil, though he does prevent Damien from being fatally cut by the Pendulum of Doom by yelling at Wile to remove it because he didn't tell him to use it. Although D.J. hands him over the artifact like promised, Mr. Chairman backstabs him and resolves to have Damien killed anyway.
- Gives the Blue Monkey Diamond to Marvin and tells him to place it into the ACME satellite to transform everyone on Earth into apes as planned. He doesn't even care at Bugs and Daffy going to stop the Martian, confident that their efforts are gonna amount to nothing.
- Implies that he wishes to keep Kate unmutated so he can have some company if everyone minus him gets transformed into monkeys, but just lets Kate say that she doesn't like him to tell her that he prefers girls like Mary and wasn't going to spare her anyway.
- Orders D.J. and Kate to be chained up in the same room where Damien is about to die, even leaving a robo-dog there to prevent them from rescuing Damien, nearly getting D.J. and Kate killed.
- Though he gets transformed into a monkey and handcuffed once Bugs and Daffy defeat Marvin and sabotage ACME's plans without any chance of returning to being human, Mr. Chairman deserved that for trying to subject all of humanity to the same fate. Even if he intended to turn them back, he would have only done so to profit from them.
- Furthermore, Mr. Chairman takes advantage of the commotion caused when Bugs and Daffy crash their ACME spaceship into his tower, allowing him to escape and not being fully punished for his actions.
- In the alternate ending, Mr. Chairman threatens D.J. by saying that if he doesn’t give him the Blue Monkey he will use Taz against him.
- Also, in the alternate ending, Mr. Chairman takes advantage of Kate Houghton after she is devolved in a cavewoman. Mr. Chairman uses the stupidity of the "new" Kate to drive her away from D.J., being the first to interact with her. Cave Kate seems to reciprocate (to the point of grooming his hair), but fails.
- While the franchise's Heinous Standards are extremely high due to how destructive the title characters can be, most of the Looney Tunes here are in-universe actors while Mr. Chairman isn't one, but an sleazy businessman who sells apparent faulty equipment, uses over-the-top ways to get rid of his enemies and wishes to scam all of the world's population by mutating them against their will while attempting to conquer the world, which is fairly unique for a Merry Melodies franchise.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- Just like every other character in the Looney Tunes franchise, he is played too much for laughs. Though the characters take his scheme fairly seriously, it's practically impossible to not see Mr. Chairman in a very comedic light through several of his actions, like dressing a tuxedo with shorts and sneakers, almost falling down whenever he laughs evilly, standing in weird poses, throwing a fit whenever his plans don't work and flirting with Mary in such a awkward way it's ridiculous. No matter how evil he is, Mr. Chairman is a laughable weirdo. He is evidently a parody of spy film villains, who are usually owners of powerful corporations or captains of industry, which makes sense given how the film itself also parodied the spy genre, so it's easy to deduce that he was intended to be played up for laughs.
- The Chairman allowing Taz to murder an executive for opposing his plan to unleash the Tasmanian Devil is played for laughs; the killed executive immediately coming back to life as a skeleton and calmly withdrawing his objection to the Devil in a deadpan tone.
- He does seem to show genuine love and/or care for certain individuals:
- He truly loves his executive Mary, whom he randomly decides to spare from plans for the Blue Monkey Diamond for no other reason than the fact he really likes her. While Mary doesn't seem to enjoy his company at all, her cries at his karmic transformation proves that she did care for him, suggesting that he may not have been that bad with her.
- He appears to genuinely care for Wile E. Coyote, as he gives him the responsibility of killing the heroes as he was "due for a win", he doesn't punish him for his failures like he did with Yosemite Sam and only berates him to do better with his tactics, he lets him take a shower afterwards and he attempts to warn him of the various slapstick hazards that were offscreen.
Trivia[]
- Mr. Chairman is, alongside Sweet Pete, one of the two characters from hybrid animated/live-action films to be Inconsistently Heinous.
External Links[]
- Mr. Chairman on the Villains Wiki
[]
 Inconsistently Heinous
| ||
|
Mainstream Movies Fanon See Also | ||
