The Ahnold



"''"I'm American, and you're not! So FUCKING DIE!" ''"I'll cry when I'm done killing." "Welcome to the Land of Freedom, Bitches! AHHHHHHHHH!""

- Jack Howitzer (various quotes from his films), GTA Radio

An Affectionate Parody of 1980s action stars. It could be an actor, or a character based on one of them. The most common star used for this trope is Arnold Schwarzenegger, particularly exaggerating his accent, hence the trope name. But other stars, like Sylvester Stallone, happen as well.

If the character is animated, this overlaps with No Celebrities Were Harmed.

Anime & Manga

 * Luna's dad in Seto no Hanayome, is the Terminator. And a yakuza. And a merman.
 * When SD Gundam Force was dubbed in America, weapons expert Destroyer Dom is given an Ahnold flavor.
 * In the Yu-Gi-Oh GX dub, Gem Beast Amber Mammoth is given an Ahnold accent.
 * Bando in Elfen Lied is a walking Shout-Out to The Terminator, up to and including, despite not having the accent. His name sounds awfully familiar to Rambo.
 * Mr. Lucky Strike, the PE teacher from Futaba Kun Change, looks and acts quite a lot like Dutch from Predator.
 * Guts' voice actor from the American dub of Berserk played this up at certain points during the outtakes.
 * Yu Yu Hakusho: Possibly Younger Toguro. He bears an uncanny resemblance to the Terminator, as well as having Arnold's Japanese dub voice...
 * Goku, in Dragon Ball, encounters a killer android called Sargent Metallic (Major Metallotron in the FUNimation English dub), who is clearly an Expy of the Terminator. He is one of the bad guys that Goku defeats fighting his way up through the Red Ribbon Army's Muscle Tower.
 * In the anime's 10th anniversary movie Metallic got a Race Lift into a Scary Black Man, taking him away from this trope.

Comic Books

 * Randy Violent in The DCU.
 * Arnie from Ninja High School doesn't even try to be subtle about it. Also Kenterminator, a mix of Kenshiro and the Terminator. Maybe others as well—the whole series runs on shout outs.
 * Hulk 2099 features a brief appearance by an action movie star called Albert Studebaker.

Films -- Animation

 * Dolph, one of 's henchmen in Hoodwinked.
 * In Disney's Aladdin, the Genie does a brief impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 * Volf Volfssonssonssonsson in the Animated Adaptation of Soul Music. He's a Hubland barbarian, riffing off one of Ahnold's earlier roles.

Films -- Live-Action
"Danny Madigan: You think you are funny, don't you? Jack Slater: I know I am. I'm the famous comedian Arnold Braunschweiger. Danny Madigan: Schwarzenegger! Jack Slater: Gesundheit."
 * Last Action Hero: Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Jack Slater, an Affectionate Parody of himself.


 * Conan the Barbarian. The DVD commentary starts with director John Milius saying in an "Arnie" accent: "My name is Arnold Schwarzenegger." The real Schwarzenegger then goes: "And I'm John Milius the Great!"
 * The scriptwriter for End of Days pitched his script on how great it would be to hear Arnold Schwarzenegger say "I'm sending you back to Hell!" to the Devil (this indeed is the best part of the movie). But when pitching End of Days to the man himself, he suddenly realised that "I can't do 'Arnie' to Arnie!" Fortunately Schwarzenegger said the line himself, thus avoiding any embarrassment.
 * Lampshaded, like much of the stuff going on in Super Capers, of the Gadgeteer Genius' Robot Buddy Robo, who bases all his inventions off movies.

Live-Action TV

 * Saturday Night Live
 * Pumping Up with Hans und Franz'': "I am Hans." "Und I am Franz." "And ve ah here to pump..." *clap* "YOU UP!"
 * On an aside note, most versions of this trope that use the phrase "Girly Man" are getting it from here.
 * In one episode, the real Arnold turns up and shows them what's what.
 * In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the primary Terminator antagonist Cromartie takes the appearance of an actor best known in that universe for playing a barbarian.
 * Chip Rommel from Son of the Beach is a straight-up Parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 * The Lizzinator monster in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Music

 * The song "I'll be back" by Arnie and the Terminators is sung in this manner, naturally.
 * Three words: Austrian, Death, Machine! All of their songs not only have Ahnold style vocals, but they all pay tribute to various films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Get to the Choppa!" They even have their lead singer in a giant rubber Schwarzenegger mask and call him "Ahnold", just to score the extra point.

Puppet Shows

 * Les Guignols de l'info
 * In this French Spitting Image-style satirical show, Monsieur Sylvestre, a highly cynical and brutal man with a dark sense of humour who occupies many different functions (White House adviser, Cardinal, CEO, etc.), is one of the few characters who does not correspond directly to any real-life person... but he does look an awful lot like Sylvester Stallone, though.
 * His voice has grown different from the one of the puppet standing in for Sylvester Stallone himself, however. The latter is closer to the French dubbing voice in Stallone's movies (mainly Rambo or Rocky).
 * Also, the puppet for Arnold Schwarzenegger always speaks with the Terminator's voice.

Video Games
""What is best? To crush the Zerg, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of the Protoss.""
 * Jack Howitzer in the radio stations in Grand Theft Auto.
 * Sven T. Uncommon in Popful Mail.
 * Duke Nukem is another example.
 * This review illustrates that even if the original game (Ark 22) doesn't include Arnold, the fans can always pretend it does.
 * Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge has the second mission of the Allied campaign take place in Hollywood. As you explore the map you can find parodies of Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stallone (in that order, depending on where you send your forces) that will help you to take back the city and stop Yuri from feeding the civilian population of Los Angeles into his Grinders. Unfortunately, a patch made it so that the names and voices of these units were changed to the standard-issue "Civilian" and "G.I.", respectively.
 * But if you make some modding, it's possible to make the voices back for them and the names. Fact: Voices weren't deleted from the game's files. But you still need to edit one file to edit the names as what they were.
 * Sting Sniperscope from Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard.
 * Space Quest
 * Space Quest 3 has Arnoid the Annihilator, a Terminator-like android sent to kill Roger for mail fraud.
 * Space Quest 6 has an Arnold-like T-1000.
 * Jim the body building pit bull from Toonstruck.
 * Ubel from the Battalion Wars series. To underline the reference, he's promised the role of "Governator" in his boss' empire.
 * The Thor pilot in StarCraft II. In fact, most of his "pissed" lines are Arnold quotes (except for the one Ghostbusters reference) like this gem:


 * The Cryo Legionnaires in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, are basically Mr. Freeze.
 * Lisa's father in Persona 2: Innocent Sin is a carbon copy of Steven Seagal.
 * League of Legends: Sion certainly qualifies.
 * Several mercenaries in Jagged Alliance series count. The most stereotypical example is Bobby "Steroid" Gontarski who shares his appearance and accent with Schwarzenegger.
 * The Hublanders in the Broken/Mended Drum in the Discworld PC adventure game both speak with the Arnie accent, and even go so far as to say in conversation "This ffery boring town" and the followup "Ja...ve von't be back."
 * Prinny 2: You don't get anymore Ahnold than Asagi Schwarzinature.
 * Johnny Cage of the Mortal Kombat series is very much an expy of Jean-Claude Van Damme, because originally the game was to star the real Van Damme, with a bunch of other characters he could beat up. When Van Damme backed out because he considered it "selling out", thus was born Mortal Kombat as we know it.
 * Biff Atlas, the bodybuilding ghost from Luigi's Mansion.
 * One boss in the original Metal Gear was a pair of Terminator ersatzes named Arnold, later renamed Bloody Brad for legal reasons.
 * Abore in Double Dragon II, although the arcade game's version also has elements of Andre the Giant.
 * The Sledger in Battle Realms (a game set in a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of feudal Japan) is an Arnold reference, constantly talking with the accent and making references to his giant muscles.

Web Comics

 * Frans Rayner, "The Great Dane", from The Adventures of Dr. McNinja. Action star turned evil mastermind—and a clear homage to Jean-Claude Van Damme. The author even said in an interview that if the webcomic was made into a movie, he would insist on Jean-Claude playing Frans.

Western Animation

 * The Simpsons
 * Rainier Wolfcastle is one of the best-known parodies.
 * The movie also has "President" Arnold Schwarzenegger who, while not exactly an example of this trope since it was the actual character it was based on, was quite literally Rainier Wolfcastle with brown hair.
 * The Fairly OddParents
 * Arnold Shwartzengerman
 * Jorgen von Strangle from the same show.
 * The show also has Sylvester Calzone, based on Stallone of course.
 * Arnold Mousenegger, a minor character from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.
 * Batman the Animated Series makes reference to action star Donald Saltandpepper.
 * Arnold the security guard dog from Tiny Toon Adventures. He's got a little bit of the Totally Radical 80s icon Spuds Mackenzie mixed in for more laffs.
 * Ronald Weisenheimer from Doug.
 * Blitzwing's Hothead face in Transformers Animated seems to be based on an angry Arnold Schwartzenegger parody in terms of voice and demeanor.
 * A variation occurred in Johnny Bravo with the character of Squint Ringo, an obvious parody of 90's action "star", Steven Seagal.
 * One called Sly Eastenegger appears in an episode of The Mask, a parody of both Arnie and Stallone.
 * The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy has Hoss Delgado, who seems based on Kurt Russell, particularly Snake Plissken in Escape from New York, and Bruce Campbell (as Ash Williams in Evil Dead).
 * The animated adaptation of Beetlejuice has Armhold Musselhugger.
 * In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode "Robolympics", Dr. Robotnik had a muscular Badnik called Arnold Robonegger doing his team's weight-lifting.
 * This was how Histeria! portrayed Leif Ericson.
 * From Popetown, Richter the Swiss Guard is another Arnold parody.
 * In Biker Mice From Mars, the title heroes face the Exterminator in their first episode debut. "I'll be back," indeed, as he sinks away in acid....
 * A fictional TV hero called The Abdicator in Hey Arnold!
 * The Critic, usually unafraid to hit celebrities with their real names, had a fictional version of Jean-Claude Van Damme named Jean-Paul LePope.