Cheeky the Zombie

Cheeky the Zombie is the main character in the Haunting Hour episode "Best Friend Forever".

Biography

Cheeky is a smiling, yellow-eyed zombie who was accidentally raised from the dead in an experiment done by Jack Pierce (who was only trying to raise worms from the dead). His tombstone reads "Olsen" and he lives with his Zombie Mom inside the underground cavern. He eats worms as cereal for breakfast and sometimes acts like a dog.

At first Jack was terrified of him and tried to run away, until Cheeky gave him his glasses making Jack realize he was never a bad zombie. Afterwards, Jack decided to keep him as a 'Zombie pet' and hide his new pet from his suspicious mom. Unknown to Jack, Cheeky had the same idea and was planning on keeping him as a pet.

The next morning, Cheeky followed Jack to school and nearly caused a panic when he scared a girl named Sally. Jack then used Cheeky to scare his rival Mitch, into admitting that he is smarter - and then tells Mitch that he cannot tell anyone about Cheeky until an upcoming science fair.

When Jack had his back turned, Cheeky knocked him out with a huge stick and took him to his underground zombie home. Cheeky begged his Zombie Mom to let him keep Jack as pet (despite all of his former pets dying). Jack soon woke up chained by the wall and realized what was going on after seeing a metal tag around his neck (which Cheeky gave him earlier). When Cheeky offered Jack a pet's breakfast, he screamed in horror which confused Cheeky.

It is implied that Jack would die due to the conditions the zombies lived in being unsuitable for human life, this also leaves the disturbing implication that Cheeky would hunt down another "pet" after this, as he had done in the past.

Trivia

• The episode was meant to be a dark comedy but has come under some criticism due to Cheeky being too disturbing a character for comedy and that his abduction and imprisonment of Jack is very similar to pedophiliac stalking - this is made worse by the fact Cheeky is indeed an older man who has a fascination with abducting under-age humans as "pets".
• Cheeky's character is meant to be a parallel to Jack himself, since Jack often neglected his pets and believed Cheeky to be little more than a science experiment, thus Jack's fate was intended to be a sort of karma for his previous animal abuse and hubris in regards to thinking he could "tame" Cheeky.