Gordon O'Brian

# Gordon

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>  *: "Disable the antenna? The last job of the day is always the worst."*- **Gordon's** opening line.
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> Gordon O'Brian
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> ### Aliases
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> Gordon
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> ### Occupation
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> Repairman(bad ending, former), director (good ending), Unemployed (neutral ending and secret ending)
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> Physical description
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> ### Species
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> Human
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> ### Gender
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> Male
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> Appearances
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> ### Voiced by
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> Tom Schalk
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Gordon, the reluctant hero of My Friendly Neighborhood, works in maintenance for MFN. Except for his hairy arms, his body is hidden from view throughout the entirety of the game. This gives his overall appearance a lot of room for fan speculation.

## History

Gordon's past is obscure, but what is known about him is that he served in The War, presumably as an infantryman, and that his trauma went untreated as a result. Due to these problems, he developed a bad attitude, which interfered with his post-military career as a maintenance worker. So much so that, as mentioned in his listed task document at the start of the game, he is on his last strike and, if failed, is to be fired.

### Game events

On the afternoon of July 8, 1993, Gordon travels to the vacant MFN Studio lot to finish the last task he needed to do: completely turn off the studio's antenna, due to reruns of "My Friendly Neighborhood" inadvertently broadcasting on the daily news without coverage.
Before that, he encounters Ricky, a sock puppet that doesn't appear to be under any human control. After Ricky explains to Gordon how he shouldn't disconnect the antenna, he coughs up a key card that leads to "another part of the studio." After obtaining the key card and exiting the building, Gordon notices a Norman puppet entering another area of the complex. Following it, he ultimately follows Norman using the key card he was given. Entering the previously locked door, He follows him through yet another door: now entering stage 4, where the puppet is pounding on the door to the Makeup department.

He loses Norman and is greeted by Ricky at the counter after making a loop around a houseplant in the right middle of the room. When Gordon finally notices what appears to be a gun on the desk in front of him, he tries to take it. Ricky resists and tries to take it from him, yelling "I've been looking for this everywhere" before releasing his hold. He at least informs Gordon about Pearl: A giant, birdlike puppet roaming the main set of the Studio's filming area. After Ricky leaves Gordon on his own, Norman and a Lenard puppet burst through the door he had just entered through. In response, he self-destructively shoots the puppets with letters before knocking them out temporarily.

He enters a room with a single dart target that appears to be guarding a blue circle key shortly after. He strikes the target, picks up the key, and uses it to open the double-locked doors to the puppet show's main set. Pearl, the bird-like puppet about which he had been forewarned earlier at the makeup counter, is then encountered here. Gordon can see that she doesn't seem to have any eyes. He eventually comes across Pearl's old show-related glasses. Her eyes, on the other hand, are attached to these glasses. Gordon tries to reassure her after helping her put her glasses on by saying, "We all get shy sometimes when we look in the mirror."

He compiles a number of alphabet building blocks he came across while exploring, arranging them on a pedestal to form the word "Neighbor." A letter is printed out for him to slip in the nearby mailbox after he finishes placing them. He receives a crank handle in return for the letter, which he can now use to open a broken, inoperative manhole in an alleyway. He descends into the now-opened manhole to the sewer system where Ray, the mechanic for the sewer, now greets him. Gordon, a fellow mechanic, corrects his behavior as he isn't handling the machinery effectively. The water flow is then altered correctly shortly after he fixes the sewer vault. Since it has been dealt with, Ray becomes more relaxed as a result and returns to his earlier, friendlier state. He bids him farewell and gets on with his task after explaining to him that he cannot simply hit broken objects.

He then proceeds to further explore the sewer system until he unknowingly enters a room that is lined with stone representations of the Norman puppet. Nevertheless, he was prepared to open the chained stairwell door through to one of the statues holding a pair of red bolt cutters. The elevator in the stairwell leads to the offices above, where he can travel. While waiting for the elevator, he finds and acquires a useful new gun called "The Novelist," which appeared to be an upgraded version of the Stenographer, the previous "gun" model he had. Gordon is now able to continue seeking the long-awaited alternate route to the antenna he was supposed to disable by entering the offices. After figuring out various puzzles and coming across new enemies, like Hand, Randy, and Pig. He spends a few more minutes ambling through the hallways of the offices before he encounters Goblette: A green, toad-like puppet with salt shakers for fingers.

As soon as she spots Gorden, Goblette chases him around the stair railings like a wrecking ball, acting as though she wants to eat him. Soon after losing her, Gorden finds a room for projection. He starts playing different film reels in it and soon realizes that the puppets have been watching them and have been emotionally harmed by them. Goblette enters the theater with a slouch and is clearly upset as he switches the reel to a war documentary. Gorden quickly approaches her in an effort to comfort her grief. He continues to tell her that while serving in the military, he too lost a part of himself, but being with Goblette makes him remember the excitement he felt as a child watching a movie for the first time. His justification soothes her, simply taking away her rage and substituting calmness, as Ray did.

After some searching, Gordon finds a key that opens the door to the actual office building. But as he approaches the door, Curt 'n Call, a huge puppet, surprises him. Gordon had earlier discovered a hand grenade. He takes out the giant puppet's power by using the hand grenade in conjunction with The Novelist. The curtain pushes it away and rises back up. Gordon can now leave the offices and enter The Park thanks to the defeat of the enemy by using a set of recently found keys to unlock the security doors. He enters and makes his way through a maze that had been inside The Park, where he encounters Ricky, who is pleading with Gordon to keep the antenna from being disabled once more. Gordon had been acting violently and in an "unfriendly" manner around the set, and Ricky expresses concern about this. He jokingly suggests that Gordon use a G.I. against the 'poor defenseless' puppets during this digression. Gordon reacts angrily and tries to shoot Ricky with a letter before he drops back into his box. On the other side of The Park, he finds a garden area with a greenhouse. The greenhouse itself had a mixing machine that could produce a solvent, allowing the jam between the hobby elevator that led to the roof to be removed. He has to go back through the studio to find three different compounds in order to mix the chemicals.

While doing so, he encounters a pack of Pups—a trio of three puppet dogs—who immediately attack him. He needs to locate two medallion pieces that, when put together, allow access to an Avery in order to calm the crowd. Beyond the structure is a courtyard with a solitary bench and a dog food bag perched atop it. When he gets back to the greenhouse where the dogs live, Gordon fills their food bowls with food and rings the dinner bell to let them know it is time for dinner. The Pup's, who appear to have been starving ever since production stopped, are calmed by this. Gordon returns to the eagerly anticipated elevator after assuring them that things aren't so bad, finding the three compounds, and mixing the solvent to free the stuck-on obstruction between the doors. Riding it up, he now finds himself inside the cardboard-only "cardboard penthouse," which has been decorated with chalk doodles. He assembles jigsaw puzzle pieces that he had found along the way and places them on a power plate where they belong. Gordon fixes the lighting that supports the stage of music where Arnold is playing the piano in front of him. He is asked to join him on the piano for a duet by this grumpy, out-of-tune musician. After being made to play a duet, Arnold becomes so preoccupied with the musical notes that Gordon was able to leave the scene after calming the final protagonist down and bringing him to a friendly, extroverted state of joy.

He rises to the roof and climbs up to the antenna after pulling a lever on the stage to finally disable it and halt the broadcast of the show. While doing so, he is greeted by Ricky once more, who once more opts for him not to shut it down. He explains that they broadcast the program to help kids and the city as a whole see the best in the world rather than the unwelcoming, depressing city that they just so happened to live in. asserting that "Nobody here knows how to be a friendly neighbor." Gordon turns the broadcast off completely in defiance of his requests. But as he does, a lightning strike hits the antenna, sending Gordon flying backwards off the edge, sending him hurtling into the studio's depths.

Fortunately for Gordon, he breaks his fall when he lands on a pile of trash. He soon finds himself in the studio's subterranean sets. Here, he meets a collection of angry, "unfriendly" variations of the main puppets who have transformed into vengeful beings as a result of watching the incorrect TV shows during their idle running. On a landline, Ricky calls Gordon and explains that the puppets wanted to know why they had been abruptly canceled because they had never been permitted to watch other shows that weren't similar to their own. As a result, they watched TV programs that were deemed as "violent" and "unfriendly", causing their minds to get twisted. Gordon grabs a flashlight and looks around the antique set for a way out. He narrowly avoids a number of the Unfriendly puppet groups before coming across a creature known as "The Amalgamuppet"—a combination of various puppet parts that is unafraid to attack Gordon right away. Finally, Gordon is able to slay the monster, continue on, and reach the surface. As he leaves the hotel, he runs into Ricky one last time. Gordon is given the option by Ricky to stay and work to revive My Friendly Neighborhood or to leave and simply drive home as if "nothing ever happened."

#### Good ending

After Gordon helped the puppets and decided to stay at the studio, Ricky is ecstatic to hear the news and immediately runs to tell the others. Gordon keeps working on the program and restarts it. He lost his repairman job as a result, but he wasn't bothered. The city is now friendlier than it was before thanks to the show's hospitality, and he has given the neighborhood some renewed hope.

> **"I help the neighbors get a slot of extra slot of public access on the TV, it was late night on weekdays. I didn't think anybody watched it. Within a couple weeks, though, word was starting to get out. Some people loved the show, some people hated it. That caught the network's attention. And by the end of the year, we had three channels wanting to sign for a whole season. Of course, after my boss found out I was involved, I got fired. But, somehow, I feel a little hopeful about it. It's hard to describe...It's like you've been lost in a tunnel, until suddenly a voice calls your name. And you turn around, and you see the rising sun. And it's so bright, maybe it hurts a little to look at. But you don't care. Because it's leading you home. " - Gordon in the good ending.**
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Neutral ending

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> **"I help the neighbors get a slot of extra slot of public access on the TV, it was late night on weekdays. I didn't think anybody would've watched it. Within a couple weeks, though, word was starting to get out. Some people loved the show, some people hated it. That caught the network's attention. And by the end of the year, we had three channels wanting to sign for a whole season. At that point, I figured I had done my part, So I stopped showing up at the studio in the evenings. I don't know, I guess I just wanted to keep my head down. I never told anyone that I was helping bring back the show. But for some reason, it keeps bugging me. I can't forget about it. Some nights, I catch myself staring out the window, wondering what's happening in the *neighborhood*. " - Gordon in the neutral ending**
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#### Bad ending

But by turning down the offer, everyone but Gordons forgets about the show. On the other hand, Gordon experiences a wave of regret. He carries on with his life while continuing to experience loneliness and an unfulfilling existence overall.

> **"After I got back to the office, my boss told me that everyone was really happy with what I did, even though the puppets messed up another night's news. I got promoted to manager, got an office, with a window. But, for some reason, I can't stop thinking about the neighborhood. For the next few months, I actually started watching the nightly news. I don't know why, maybe I just wanted to see if something happened. But, nothing happened. And, at some point, I got distracted and forgot about it. " - Gordon in the bad ending.**
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