John Major

John Major is an exaggerated parody of the Prime Minister of the same name who appeared in the satirical puppet sketch show Spitting Image from the late 80s onwards up until its cancellation in 1996, and remains one of its most iconic characters. He has recently garnered a rather small online following of fans who adore him for him for his silliness and sympathise with him whenever he's down.
==Basic Information==
John Major first debuted in Series 7 (1989) as Margaret Thatcher's new Chancellor (replacing the long-running Nigel Lawson) where he was first depicted as an incompetent leopard skin-wearing circus act before being depicted as relatively normal the next season. After he unexpectedly became the PM, Thatcher kidnapped him and replaced his brain with a robotic one with a satellite dish on his head so that she could still rule the UK through remotely controlling him, although he malfunctions and eventually breaks free of her control offscreen, instead becoming the grey puppet we all know and love by Series 10. Now boring and hard to be noticed because of that trait, he unsuccessfully tries to maintain control over his rebellious Cabinet, party and government as they all gradually turn against him and try ousting him out of power, made worse by the new, more "competent" Leaders of the Opposition. 
Some of the antics he gets himself muddled into include cheating on his wife with his Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley, attacking and defending Margaret Thatcher in court for her crimes (resulting in them sharing a cell in prison for 50 years, poor John) and chatting with the Chief Mouser (cat) Humphrey, who he always ends up hitting over the head with a pan when the latter teases him about his failures enough (causing him to gradually start losing his nine lives until he dies in the very last episode of the entire show and goes to Heaven). 
He returns in the 2023 stage show Idiots Assemble, now as a magician "skilled" in the Tory Dark Arts. He ends up helping the protagonists with saving the fabric of reality in the climax by summoning Margaret Thatcher from Hell, with the help of the audience, to punish Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson for their crimes. 
==Archetypes==
===4th Wall Blurring===
In later seasons he speaks directly to the viewer. In the stage show, he requires the audience's willpower to perform his dark arts.
===Artsy===
A stark contrast to his grey personality, Major is shown to be rather skilled in the art of music playing various instruments such as the piano and the guitar, and being a very good singer. He has also played the role of characters such as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and organised a huge Christmas pantomime. In the stage show, he is a magician (and wizard), albeit a rather poor one.
=== Angst/Butt-Monkey ===
The scenes where he's treated especially like poo are either played for laughs out of dislike for what he did as PM or sometimes genuinely sad.
===Anthro===
One sketch had him appear as a grey fluffy poodle.
===Chaoslord===
Later seasons in particular see him wreck havoc as PM, from sending the UK back to the Stone Age to speedily sabotaging an attempt to replace the Health Authority with civil servants dressed up as Napoleon Bonaparte.
===Clown===
In his earlier appearances, he appeared as an acrobat dressed in circus clothing who would make an entrance by swinging into the room like a trapeze act and uttering "My dad was a circus performer, you know!", with the other annoyed ministers responding with, "We know!".
=== Cosmic ===
Two sketches see him and his Cabinet go to space to promote themselves as a party.
===Creacher===
Get your popcorn, this one's a doozy. Although you're supposed to imagine that these puppets are satires of their real-life counterparts, there are some sketches that reveal that behind the scenes they're actual sentient puppet actors working for the creators. In Series 8, the Spitting Image puppet of British Liberal politician David Steel, as a result of his real life counterpart becoming irrelevant, is forced to go to the Spitting Image Melting Room where any puppet whose real life counterpart either died or became irrelevant (such as Ruhollah Khomeini and David Owen) is destroyed. He literally begs for his life to be featured in the next sketch. Series 9 features a storyline called "Some of Our Puppets are Missing", in which the Spitting Image puppets of David Steel, Leonard Nimoy (as his typecast character Spock) and an anteater named Anthony accidentally get dropped out of a production van. They take advantage of this to be free of their controllers and explore the real world, getting into various shenanigans like attempting to free non-sentient puppets from a toy shop and getting thrown into prison, all while being on the run from the Puppet Catcher sent by the show's director to capture them. In the last episode, it's revealed that their adventures in the real world was just another sketch and that they had been still controlled all this time, much to their shock and horror.
===Distinctive Voice===
Think Kermit the Frog but more British-sounding. He's voiced by Steve Coogan and later Alistair McGowan.
===Ensemble Darkhorse===
A weird in-universe example where he goes from being a generic Cabinet minister character who would've been forgotten had he not unexpectedly (and accidentally) become the main character of the latter half of the show as the Prime Minister.
=== Gentle Giant ===
He was part of the WWF at some point, where he gained huge bulging muscles but was a rather weak fighter. He still won in a match against John Smith however.
===Goober===
Most of the time he's shown to be incredibly incompetent in his job as PM and is revealed to have never paid attention in school, merely accidentally becoming the PM, but there are a few times where he's shown to be cunning, such as when he sees through his rival Kinnock trying to get the next general election date out of him by disguising as his wife and mockingly says it'll be held on a Thursday, before driving him off with the offer of a "weekly sex session" ;)
=== LGBTQ+ ===
Decides to be gay in one sketch, although he only did this so people would remember him for something.
=== Lonely ===
In later seasons he's incredibly isolated from everyone, even his own wife. In one scene he's essentially forced to sit in the corridor with the door shut by his Cabinet, and in another he's completely alone, eating peas in his home without his wife while desperately calling people who are busy with "arranging the fruit bowl", and ends up calling a charity.
===Nonstandard Character Design===
His skin is painted grey, as opposed to most of the other characters retaining their skin colour (the only other puppets that notably had grey skin were Laurel & Hardy and Mike Pence).
===Pathetic===
John may just be the biggest Woobie of the whole series. For being the then-Prime Minister, he certainly gets one-upped and backstabbed by his Cabinet ministers and other politicians quite a lot thanks to his mellowness and incompetence, especially in the later seasons where his sacked Chancellor Norman Lamont attempts to kill him as revenge and his fellow ministers frequently challenge his leadership as a result. Even his wife resorts to making him feel down by making him destroy his matchstick constructions and locks him out of Downing Street a couple of times for how pathetic he is at leading his party, although it was justified one time as he was cheating on her. He even lets his rival Paddy Ashdown take his place in having sex with her because a reminder of his failures as PM led to him losing his sex drive. Also he has a small pp according to Claire Rayner. As a magician in the stage show, most of his magic fails to work properly such as the smoke teleportation trick happening on the wrong side of the stage, to the point where the Spitting Image of Tom Cruise says that he even makes wonderful stuff like magic boring.
===Perpetual Frowner/Smiler===
His puppet's expression is a permanent tired-looking frown. Subverted in the stage show where it curls more into a sheepish smile.
===Quotable Catchphrase(s)===
"Oh, dear."
===Robot===
His predecessor Margaret Thatcher captures him while he's standing for the leadership election and he gets his brain surgically swapped with a mind control device complete with a satellite on his head, enabling her to remotely control him, although he starts malfunctioning quickly. The satellite is gone by Series 10, however.
===Smol===
In his origin story, The Making of Major, he's depicted as short to the point where people struggle to notice him. In one sketch, he gradually shrinks due to how weak he is as PM.
=== Spectacles ===
Wears a pair of large glasses.
=== Theme Song ===
As he was Prime Minister in the 2nd half of the show’s run he has a lot of songs about him, some of which he sings with passion, the most notable being:
* “You Just Can’t Hate John Major”
* “For the Times Aren’t-A Changing” (parody of "The Times Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan)
* “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (parody of the Carousel musical number of the same name)
* “Prat Out of Hell” (parody of "Bat Out of Hell" by Meatloaf)
* “Should I Stay or Should I Go” (parody of The Clash song of the same name)
* “It’s All Gone Horribly Wrong”
* “You Can’t Get Rid of Me”
===Evil Little Devil===
Some sketches see him alone, plotting against the rebels in his own government, only to turn out to be a weakling when trying to fight back. He also tries to threaten his Cabinet like his predecessor did, the most notable of these being attempting to blow himself and the Cabinet up in a suicide bombing, only for the fuse to fail and he breaks down crying. The most violent he gets is towards the Chief Mouser, who even then doesn't seem to care that he lost his lives.
===Well-Dressed/Alternative Fashion/Suitguy===
As a politician, he is seen wearing a suit in most of his appearances. He also wears a cute snuggly jumper when not at work, a cowboy costume in "You Just Can't Hate John Major" and biker/punk-style clothing when singing parodies of the rock songs "Bat Out of Hell" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go". In the stage show, he dresses in long robes to represent his new role as a "wise sage" character.
==Gallery==
Kermajor.webp|You know how I said he sounds like British Kermit? Well they actually made him into Kermajor the Frog for a Sesame Street parody.
John major cowboy.jpg|Lookin' good cowboy!
Johnmajorfurry.jpg|FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY FURRY
== Trivia ==
* John Major is the first Sillypedia-exclusive on this wiki, as N, the first character article created, was already on the Sexypedia.
* John Major is used in the Discord servers of both the Sexypedia and the Sillypedia to suggest deletion, un-deletion or exile of a Sexypedia article to the Sillypedia. He is our eternal judge, jury and executioner, Amen.
Category:Characters
Category:Sillyman
Category:Safe
Category:1989
Category:4th Wall Blurring
Category:Artsy
Category:Anthro
Category:Chaoslord
Category:Clown
Category:Distinctive Voice
Category:Ensemble Darkhorse
Category:Goober
Category:Nonstandard Character Design
Category:Pathetic
Category:Perpetual Frowner
Category:Perpetual Smiler
Category:Quotable Catchphrase(s)
Category:Robot
Category:Smol
Category:Well-Dressed
Category:Alternative Fashion
Category:Cosmic
Category:LGBTQ+
Category:LGBTQ+ Coded
Category:Gentle Giant
Category:Theme Song
Category:Creacher
Category:Angst
Category:Lonely
Category:Spectacles
Category:Evil Little Devil
Category:Butt-Monkey
Category:Spitting Image