Eccentric Exterminator
In Real Life, practicioners of pest control are usually like any professional who practices a job, but such is not the case in fiction land. Perhaps it is the sinister nature of the job, or the fact that it's not a job conductive to making friendships, but there's something in the image of the exterminator that has turned it from quirky to living Cthulhu of the pests.
See also Egomaniac Hunter.
Examples of Eccentric Exterminator include:
Comic Books
- The Exterminators is a Vertigo comic book with an entire cast of eccentric exterminators.
Film
- Ceasar from Mousehunt, played by Christopher Walken, from all people.
- John Goodman's character Delbert McClintock in Arachnophobia. He acts like he's the greatest thing ever, even though he really doesn't help a whole lot.
Literature
- The protagonist from Naked Lunch, making this Truth in Television in the case of William S. Burroughs.
- The men who get stuck killing rats in Stephen King's Night Crew.
- Any rat catcher in the Discworld novels so far. Also, it seems the job is The Verse equivalent to a Red Shirt, unless you're a gnome.
- Sometimes it's even better than Red Shirt. At least one of these guys upon dying was greeted with "Squeak!" and... reincarnated. No prize for guessing into what.
Live-Action TV
- In the Dexter season five episode "Hello, Bandit" the titular Dexter tracks down an exterminator who is also a serial killer.
- Little Richard plays one in a episode of Martin
- Reality TV example: A&E's Billy The Exterminator. Besides dressing in goth clothing as a substitute for more practical protection, he is perpetually excited about pretty much everything.
- In The X-Files episode "War of the Coprophages", a cockroach exterminator opens the episode with a heartfelt ode to roaches before finishing it with "But to them, we humans are gods and should act accordingly" and stomping a particularly unlucky specimen on the floor. It doesn't end well for him.
Oral Tradition, Myths, and Legends
- The Pied Piper of Hamelin claims to be a rat catcher, and for all practical purposes, he is. He just uses unusual methods.
Western Animation
- Dale Gribble from King of the Hill.
- One appears in Over the Hedge.
- The perst control guy from the Itsy Bitsy Spider animated series.