Dr. Phillium Benedict

""Same old noble Pete. Always standing up for the rights of children.""

- Benedict taunting Prickly Dr. Phillium "Phil" Benedict is the main antagonist of the 2001 movie, Recess: School's Out!. He was the former principal of Third Street Elementary School and former Secretary of Education. He was also the former best friend of current principal Peter Prickly, and the ex-boyfriend of current groundskeeper Muriel Finster.

He was voiced by James Woods, who was famous for voicing Hades in Hercules.

Backstory
According to Prickly, he, Finster, and Benedict went through teacher training when they were young and close to each other. Starting up in his first year as principal of Third Street Elementary during the spring of 1968, Benedict plotted to abolish recess in order to keep students in their class to raise test scores. This didn't seem to work well to anyone in campus (including Prickly and Finster) and many of the parents laid down a protest against the school unless recess was reinstated. Benedict refused to give up his plan, leading Prickly to report to the Superintendent about the situation. Though the Superintendent assures the people that Benedict's plan will never be carried out in this district, Benedict still refused to back down, leading the Superintendent to replace Benedict with Prickly as the new principal. Benedict then assumed that Prickly turned his back against him to get the job as principal, though Prickly states that he never intended to do such a thing. Benedict refused to listen and broke up his friendship with him, leading a disgusted Finster to finally end her relationship with Benedict for his rude behavior towards Prickly and his hatred of recess.

Upset over this loss, Benedict angrily swore revenge against Prickly and quit teaching, and went into politics. During the next 30 years in his political career, he was elected as Secretary of Education, and used the opportunity to abolish recess again, only that time at a nationwide scale. This was foiled by the President, who saw through the plan and fired Benedict for it.

Plot
Having failed of his latest attempt to get rid of recess after being sacked of his job, Benedict plans to getting rid of the biggest recesses of them all: summer vacation.

After stealing a tractor beam from a U.S. Military Base, Benedict, his assistant Fenwick, and his henchmen took over 3rd Street Elementary School and used it as their home-base, since it was closed for the summer, and since it was the last place on Earth authorities would look. He also rigged the lock of the school to shock and transport anyone carrying the keys into the school in case someone did actually attempt to investigate, and had his scary-looking bald henchman Kojak to pose as Prickly just to ensure no one got suspicious. He also had the scientists conduct frequent tests at the school involving miniature tractor beams in the cafeteria, one of which TJ accidentally witnessed while fuming about how his summer was going. He also had the auditorium altered to be the main control room for the tractor beam.

Benedict later claimed Prickly's office as his main office, which was fitting due to hin being a former principal. As the plan progresses, Benedict eventually had the first head scientist detained after the latter's attempt at moving the moon shut down unexpectedly due to the tractor beam having bugs in the system and promoted his second-in-command into the position. Shortly afterwards, TJ and his gang ended up being forced to expose themselves due to Mikey having an unexpected and uncontrollable urge to belch, as well as the vents giving way to their weight. After TJ was captured and imprisoned along with Prickley, he attempted to explain to TJ that he was running a "night school", but TJ was not easily fooled. He eventually learned that TJ and Prickly had managed to sneak into his office and found his walky talky, although not before TJ alerted them that Benedict's plan was to get rid of summer vacation after stumbling on a mural (presumably painted by Benedict himself and/or his men) depicting the end of summer vacation.

Phillium then explained how he planned to accomplish this goal: on Lunar Perogee, he will fire the tractor beam at the moon to alter its orbit with the intention of causing the entire Earth to freeze over into an ice age and eliminate summer, thus eliminating summer vacation. He later explained to the kids that his main motivation for this, shortly after they invaded the school as a last stand, was because the top three highest countries in the world with test scores (Canada, Iceland, and Norway) were also three countries with a cold climate, which meant they couldn't play ball, so the only other method was to study in his mind. However, T.J. counters this by stating that the kids can do lots of fun on a cold climate, such as a snowball fight or camping in iglooes. Despite this, Benedict still plans to eliminate summer once and for all, much to TJ and Prickly's dismay.

Fortunately for TJ and Prickly, TJ's friends gathered up many of the students to help reclaim the school; even Finster and the rest of the staff and teachers arrived to help the students in fighting off Benedict's men during the final conflict. As the moon is about to enter Lunar Perogee, in a last-minute attempt, Benedict attempts to fire up the tractor beam, only to be stalled by a furious Prickly, who punches him in the face after making him believe that he has a spot on his tie. Despite this, Benedict still managed to activate the tractor beam, and Prickly is unable to reverse the process. Fortunately, TJ threw his lucky baseball to Vince and had him throw it at the reactor core, destroying the tractor beam and the machine, much to Benedict's distraught. Gazing of what's left of the destroyed machine, Benedict yells out in agony over the failure of his plan, and both the students and teachers cheer for their victory of saving summer. With his plan foiled, Benedict and his men became arrested by the authorities and presumably sent to prison for their crimes. (Benedict furiously tried to protest that he was a former Secretary of Education, only for the arresting policeman to sarcastically respond that he was also the "former Princess of Morocco.")