| “ | The worst criminal that I know. The worst villain I've ever seen. He is known for deceit and wickedness and terrible crimes. Ha, ha. I'm talking about the villain Robbie Rotten and Robbie Rotten is exactly who I am! | „ |
| ~ Robbie Rotten during his song number. |
| “ | Ahahaha oh, what a perfect town for me! | „ |
| ~ Robbie Rotten about Lazytown. |
Glanni Glæpur, known in English as Robbie Rotten, is the titular main antagonist of the Icelandic stage play Glanni Glæpur Í Latabæ (which translates to Robbie Rotten in LazyTown). He is a criminal mastermind who seeks to obtain wealth and power through the mass production and selling of unhealthy canned foods to the citizens of LazyTown. Like with every other character, Glanni's portrayal in the play is what inspired his much more well known and popular televised interpretation.
Like in the TV series, he was portrayed by the late Icelandic actor Stefán Karl Stefánsson.
Biography[]
During the beginning of the play, Mayor Meanswell reads a newspaper stating that master criminal Robbie Rotten is out of jail, and everyone begins to get worried, although Ziggy reminds everyone that Sportacus had told them to stretch after exercising, taking their minds off the subject. That night, after Sportacus had left LazyTown to solve a problem in Bullytown, Robbie Rotten appears on the scene and sings a song about how evil he is. During his song, Robbie reveals his plan to disguise himself as a man named Richy Rich and fool the townsfolk into thinking he wants to help them.
The next morning, Robbie (as Richy) drives up into the town with his car and illegally parks it before Officer Obtuse tells him that he isn't allowed to park his car in that location. As Robbie comically attempts to explain who he is in order to be allowed to park while continuously being interrupted, all of LazyTown's citizens gather around him as he finally publicly proclaims himself as Richy Rich. He then proceeds to tell multiple tall tales about himself in order to gain the Townsfolk's trust, including his extremely close relationship with the president. With the town considerably impressed, he proceeds to stay in an expensive hotel, laughing about how easily he tricked the entire town.
Later on, as Ziggy and Jives are picking vegetables, Robbie appears and, disgusted by the vegetables, attempts to sway Ziggy into abandoning the town's rules about eating candy and taking some from him under the logic that "it will give him a burst of energy". Despite warnings from Jives, Ziggy is ultimately persuaded by Robbie and chases after him in order to get more sweets. Later on, Robbie continues to try and corrupt the town's children and tells Stephanie that being flexible can lead to injury and that it's better to be lazy instead. Just then, Stingy bumps into Robbie while running home to do his homework, and after berating Stingy for running, Robbie tells him that doing homework is useless if he already has the knowledge to do addition and subtraction, which he can use to count money. Robbie then walks off while telling the children that the only way to be successful in life is to be selfish and greedy while only thinking shortsightedly.
Following Pixel's song about his love for computers, Robbie, now disguised as a canned food salesman named Dan Can, attempts to sell canned food to the children as a cheaper and easier option to other foods, offering a free sample. However, upon realizing that the contents of the can are foul, he masks them by shoving a carrot from the garden into the can while they look away. After leaving and re-assuming his Richy Rich disguise, Robbie endorses the canned food but is frustrated at how the children still prefer the vegetables from the garden and loses his temper at the mention of what Sportacus had taught them. Robbie then covers up his outburst by telling them that soil is bad for their fingernails before tricking Ziggy into eating more candy and leaving.
That night, a group of criminals known as the Mayhemtown Gang emerge from out of the sewers and Robbie tries to get their attention without alerting anyone, but comically fails to do so. After finally getting their attention, Robbie introduces himself as the one who summoned them to LazyTown and angrily asks them why they are late, and they tell him, since they smoke and stay up late, it's hard for them to get around quickly. Robbie then explains that he wants the Gang to steal every vegetable from LazyTown and yells at them angrily when they say they don't want to touch them.
That morning, the citizens of LazyTown begin to panic when they discover that the vegetables have been stolen and call a town meeting to determine the culprit. While the Mayor wants to look for evidence about the culprit, Robbie insists that they throw Trixie in jail under Mrs. Busybody's original suspicions and offers canned food as a substitute for the lost vegetables.
However, despite his initial success, Sportacus briefly returns to LazyTown and helps grow a new garden, putting a bump in Robbie's plan. That night, Robbie takes a poison sprayer and sprays all the vegetables in the garden, making anyone who eats them incredibly sick, and because of a shoe print she left in the garden earlier in the play, Stephanie is wrongly accused of committing the crime and is thrown in jail. Robbie then robs the other stores in order to eliminate any competition.
The next day, the town finds out about the robbery and calls yet another town meeting, but Mrs. Busybody, being manipulated by Robbie, suggests that, since he has failed to stop the numerous problems plaguing the town, Mayor Meanswell should be impeached, and Robbie should take his place as Mayor. With Robbie as the Mayor, the town starts to become messier and messier as no one takes care of it properly and the ex-Mayor heads off to find Sportacus.
Robbie then places a factory in the town gym to produce his latest creation, the Smart Snack, and has Ziggy, Pixel, Jives, and Stingy work at the factory, with Stingy's job being to make sure that anyone can't get in without saying the password. However, when Robbie later attempts to get back into his factory, he forgets the password and Stingy refuses to give him entry, although Robbie frightens him into letting him in. After Robbie leaves the factory, he encounters Stephanie and Trixie, who previously broke out of jail in order to obtain proof of their innocence. Following a brief chase, he catches them and traps them under a manhole cover, which is witnessed by Mrs. Busybody.
The next day, Robbie receives the newspaper from the Postman, but panics when he realizes that a picture of his car is on the front page. Wanting to prevent anyone from reading it, he offers to do the Postman's route for him, to which he happily obliges. He then throws the Postman's bag in the garbage before boasting about how rich he is becoming thanks to his scheme.
Sportacus returns to LazyTown with ex-Mayor Meanswell not long after this, and he begins to suspect Richy as a criminal. With Mrs. Busybody's help, Sportacus frees Stephanie and Trixie from their imprisonment, who then knock over the garbage can during a brief chase from Office Obtuse. Because of this, the group finds the newspapers Robbie had thrown out, which all state that the President's car has been stolen. Stephanie, Sportacus, Trixie, Mrs. Busybody and Officer Obtuse then realize that Robbie Rotten had disguised himself as not only Richy Rich but also as Dan Can and was manipulating them the whole time. Sportacus and Officer Obtuse then free the boys from the gym and formulate a plan to trap Robbie.
As he enters the gym, Robbie accidentally has his Richy Rich costume ripped off and his deception is fully exposed to the citizens of LazyTown. Robbie tries to escape, but he is outrun at every stop by Sportacus before getting hit by a sandbag dropped by Mayor Meanswell. As the President is coming to LazyTown for an annual sports festival, Robbie is humiliatingly forced to clean and polish his car with a Q-tip as punishment for his actions.
Personality[]
| “ | I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANYMORE ABOUT THIS SPORTACOW! | „ |
| ~ Robbie losing his temper. |
Robbie Rotten, much like his TV series counterpart, is sly, deceptive, childish, and extremely lazy, although this version has numerous noticeable differences. A major difference being that, while they are both extremely over-the-top and childish, this version of Robbie Rotten is far eviler than the television version, as he is willing to steal from, imprison, and even poison others to a degree that the televised version won't. It should also be noted that, while the televised Robbie Rotten wanted to simply discredit sports and healthy living, this version is motivated solely by greed. Furthermore, this one lacks any of the comedic moments and redeeming qualities the televised one has, being evil just for the sake of it and nothing more. Furthermore, while the televised version was simply a lazy citizen and only became evil after sportacus arrived, this version was already evil as he was already in prison at the beginning of the play and managed to escape.
Trivia[]
- Robbie was likely referring to Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson when he said he was friends with the President, as he was the President of Iceland in 1999.
- Robbie Rotten's various actions in the play may have inspired many of his actions in the show. For example, in the episode "Dr. Rottenstein", Robbie fools the townsfolk into thinking that vegetables spread a disease that causes spots to grow on a person's body (although he actually poisoned them in the play). In the episode "Swiped Sweets", Robbie forges evidence to incriminate Sportacus and put him in jail. In "Secret Agent Zero", Robbie becomes Mayor of LazyTown and makes new laws for his benefit, and he would later do this again in "Double Trouble" by impersonating Mayor Meanswell. In "Robbie's Dream Team", Robbie would assemble three other villains to help him with his schemes.
- The background music from Robbie's song number would later be reused in the episode "Robbie's Greatest Misses" for the song Master of Disguise.
- During a Reddit AMA, Stefan reveals that both Robbie Rottens are "obviously related".
- Glanni is considered as more menacing and mean-spirited than the version of Robbie Rotten in the TV show.
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 Villains
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