Red Dwarf/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Main Characters

David 'Dave' Lister

Played by: Craig Charles

Liverpudlian bum and all-round slob, Third Technician David Lister was discovered under a table as a baby. He is a fairly competent man, but avoids ambition which might threaten his slobby routine. Lister was the sole survivor of the Cadmium-II leak which wiped out the crew of Red Dwarf, being in stasis for smuggling a cat onto the ship.

  • Almighty Janitor: Chicken soup machine repairman Lister deliberately avoids doing smart or ambitious things in case he might risk his carefree life. He's in fact pretty smart and capable when he tries, and is well aware of what he's capable of.
  • Anti-Hero: Lister is a nice guy, but he's hardly got heroic attitudes. (Although this improves as a the series progresses.)
  • Book Dumb: Lister -- there are large gaps in his overall body of knowledge, often making him appear quite unintelligent, but he's in many ways quite smart and capable. At least in the early seasons, a Running Gag is that he scraped into art college, but left after one day because they had lectures first thing in the afternoon.
  • Brilliant but Lazy: For all his appalling personal habits and seeming stupidity, Lister is in fact quite intelligent, talented, capable and competent. He just prefers the life of an abject slob.
    • Regarding Lister's intelligence, he's fairly bright but at the same time quite ignorant: he can think on his feet and plan brilliantly, but only knows of the Bermuda Triangle as a hit song and doesn't know what an iguana is. In the words of the Inquisitor in Series V, which had taken on his form: "You've got brains, man. Brains you've never used."
      • Even more evident in the novels -- for example, Lister's incarceration in stasis was the result of a well calculated plot to return to Earth without having to work rather than an exceptionally foolish mistake.
  • Cordon Bleugh Chef: Bordering Lethal Chef at times.
    • He made a cake, and then said that it was supposed to be roast beef. This would appear to be a joke though, as it's a pretty good cake.
      • In keeping with Lister's personality, it seems he could be a good cook if he really applied himself, but he's happy eating overspiced crap, so overspiced crap is all he ever makes. He looked to be doing quite well when he was trying to pass the Chef's exam to outrank Rimmer.
      • And, in in the Headscratchers section of the page, several tropers who have tried a triple fried egg chili chutney sandwich say that it's actually pretty good.
  • Claustrophobia: Lister. Lampshaded that it only comes up when it makes the plot more dramatic.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Not quite as much as Rimmer, but he certainly gets some pretty good quips.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Lister's plan for taking on the Polymorph involves strapping a nuke to his own head and nutting the smegger into oblivion.
    • And, of course, defeating The Inquisitor, a nigh-indestructible self-repairing droid that can shrug off laser chainsaws.
  • Dreadful Musician: Lister. "A little survival tip, bud. Never play your guitar in front of a man with a loaded gun."
    • Sometimes he seems aware of how bad he is, other times he's apparently completely blind to his own musical incompetence and thinks he's the greatest musician since Hendrix.
      • His illusions about his musical abilities usually disappear when he's going through a bout of depression.
  • Early Installment Weirdness: Lister was originally conceived as being "as if his brain had been fried", reminiscent of Reverend Jim from Taxi -- although the first episode was mostly rewritten and reshot, it still contains scenes where Lister is uncharacteristically slow-witted. The character was later tailored to suit Craig Charles better.
  • Extreme Omnivore: Lister's fondness for curries and spices of all sorts means his ordinary meals tend to be gross (like, onion-and-tabasco cornflakes served with a glass of cold chili sauce-level gross), and the stuff he's eaten that he thinks is unusual... Some of the more notable items have included swarfega (industrial-grade soap used to remove oil) mixed with glass cleaner, a baked space weevil (which he didn't look at and which he thought, from the taste, was crunchy King Prawn), dog food (because he was starving, admittedly), dog's milk in his tea (he didn't know -- once he finds out he throws it out), beer milkshakes, and a live tarantula. Admittedly that last one wasn't voluntary. And a dead guy. The fact he's a major boozehound presumably doesn't help matters.
    • And Lister's favorite "sarney", more or less of his own design, is three fried eggs on chutney-spread bread and given a generous dollop of chili sauce.

Rimmer: I feel like I'm having a baby!
Lister: The trick is, you've got to eat it before the bread dissolves...

  • Fingerless Gloves
  • God Guise: Played straight by the Cat civilization, which, as the Cats developed sentience and formed a religion, put Lister at the top as their god, Cloister the Stupid. Lister is less than thrilled by this, especially when he discovered the cat people nearly wiped themselves out in holy wars.
    • Subverted in Waiting for God. Lister is treated as a god ("Cloister the Stupid") by a priest of the cat-race and attempts to explain he isn't. He fails.
    • In the Red Dwarf game from the episode "Back To Reality", Lister's ultimate fate when played properly is supposed to be jump starting the second big bang with Starbug. This is meant to be ironic - Lister, the ultimate atheist, being god.
    • In the second novel, Holly gains an IQ of 12000 through intelligence compression and, thus, knows everything. When asked by Talkie Toaster who created the universe, Holly answers that it is Lister. Nothing more is said of this after.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather
  • Hollywood Pudgy: Lister's size alluded to in "Backwards" and "Bodyswap" really doesn't match up with what we see.
  • Human Popsicle: He was supposed to be put into stasis for 18 months as punishment for smuggling a cat aboard, but was in there for 3 million years while the radiation decayed, setting in motion the rest of the series.
  • Identical Grandson: Bexley, from "Future Echoes". Justified in this case,considering his parents were opposite sex versions of each other from parallel realities. Presumably applies to his brother Jim as well.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold
  • Kleptomaniac Hero: The many things he has stolen include Rimmer's uniforms, his future self's wine bottle and Adolf Hitler's briefcase.
  • Last of His Kind: At least until series 7.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: In the novels, it's explained that 18 months was precisely how long it would take for the Red Dwarf to finish its run and reach Earth, and the punishment for smuggling a cat on board was precisely 18 months in stasis. Lister leaned of this in advance, and deliberately got caught after they took off so he could spend the trip in stasis, and thereby make the trip without working.
  • Mister Seahorse: Between the second and third series. Entirely off-screen and pretty much never referenced again.
  • Mr. Fixit: Has twice repaired Kryten from a state of practical destruction. Plus, he's shown to have managed to repair various pieces of complex equipment.
  • Mr. Vice Guy: Lister's a good guy who likes nothing more than laying around, not doing anything beyond eating, drinking and maybe annoying Rimmer.
  • Nice Hat: Several!
  • Odd Couple: With Rimmer.
  • Oop North
  • Ouroboros: Lister was found in a box marked "ouroboros" as a child, a hint to his own cyclical nature.
  • The Pig Pen
  • The Slacker
  • Survived the Beginning
  • Trademark Favourite Food: Curry. Especially Vindaloo.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Rimmer.

Arnold Judas Rimmer

Played by: Chris Barrie

Lister's immediate superior, Second Technician Arnold Rimmer (B.S.C., S.S.C.) is an ambitious but unpleasant and almost universally hated underachiever. Born on Io, Rimmer was loathed by his brothers and classmates, who went on to achieve great things while he remained a lowly Second Technician. Any references to his underachievements are immediately blamed on mitigating circumstances. He includes his only two achievements after his name, B.S.C. and S.S.C. (which stand for Bronze Swimming Certificate and Silver Swimming Certificate). He steadfastly believes in the existence of aliens and attributes any unexplained events to such aliens. It was Rimmer's incompetence which led to the leak, killing him and the other crew members. Rimmer was resurrected by Holly as a hologram after Lister's stasis.

  • Abusive Parents: Rimmer. When he was 14 years old, he went to court and divorced his parents. He and his three brothers were abused by their father in various ways; the most severe of them was the use of a rack to try to accelerate their growth. Rimmer's father had been refused entry to the Space Corps for being an inch below regulation height. Indeed, all of the abuse they suffered was to make them succeed where Rimmer Snr. had failed; unfortunately, Arnold continually tries to use this as a Freudian Excuse for his constant failures and annoying behaviour, whilst his brothers each become successful in their own Space Corps specialty.
    • Ironically, a deleted scene from the series six episode Rimmerworld reveals that Arnold might be the best adjusted of his brothers: at some point before the accident that left Red Dwarf without a crew, Rimmer's three brothers suffered long-delayed psychotic breakdowns, each one resulting in a significant body count.
    • The Freudian Excuse even worked once: when asked to justify his existence to the Inquisitor, Arnold notes that yeah, he may have squandered his life, but compared to his childhood, it's an improvement. It works.
  • Achievements in Ignorance: If Rimmer really did screw up fixing the drive plate, according to Rimmer's comments in season 8, it's supposed to such a trivial task that only an epic screw up could possibly fail.
    • Also, briefly in Cassandra
  • Age-Appropriate Angst
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: According to Kochanski, he might have just been uptight and irritating to Lister because he had to keep him sane.
    • Kryten, however, shows maybe how he really is, in This clip.
  • Anti-Hero: Type I.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Rimmer is an atheist and doesn't even pay lip service to the tiniest possibility of there being a god, but spends the first two series searching for aliens everywhere he can and declaring the flimsiest evidence to be proof of alien existence and involvement.

Lister: Your explanation for anything slightly peculiar is aliens, isn't it? You lose your keys, it's aliens. A picture falls off the wall, it's aliens. That time we used up a whole bog roll in a day, you thought that was aliens as well.
Rimmer: Well, we didn't use it all, Lister. Who did?
Lister: (Beat) Rimmer, aliens used our bog roll?

  • Armchair Military
  • Attending Your Own Funeral: Rimmer has a videocassette of his death.
    • Also done in Stoke Me a Clipper. Ace Rimmer dies and Rimmer leaves the crew to become Ace. Lister claims that Rimmer, not Ace, was killed and Rimmer, acting as Ace, attends Ace's funeral which the crew think is for Rimmer.
  • Back from the Dead: Rimmer pulls this a few times, only to die again fairly quickly afterwards.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Sort of. Rimmer didn't deliberately rape Yvonne McGruder, but she was concussed and thought he was someone else. The continuity of Last Human establishes that McGruder already liked him and became convinced that she imagined the whole thing after she relapsed.
  • Broken Ace: Rimmer minus negativity and neuroses equals Ace Rimmer (what a guy!). Apparently.
  • Born in the Wrong Century: Rimmer loves to use this as an excuse for his behavior.
  • By The Book Technician
  • Cannot Tell a Joke: In "Better than Life", the newly-titled "Admiral" Rimmer is attempting to tell an anecdote, but can't remember exactly what happened. It was so bad that even the fictional officers from his ideal dream went through a couple of seconds of embarrassed, uncertain silence before bursting into sycophantic laughter.
    • His anecdotes in general tend to be not very amusing, at least the ones that are meant to be are. The ones that aren't meant to be funny are usually hilarious.
  • The Chew Toy: Lampshaded in Better Than Life where, even in a video game which fulfils one's ultimate fantasies, Rimmer is the Chew Toy: "My brain's rebelling because it can't accept nice things happening to me!"
    • In the books, his self-loathing is so powerful that when he visits the others in BTL, his brain corrupts their fantasies because of this.
  • Commuting on a Bus: (sort of) for part of Series VII
  • Consulting Mister Puppet: Rimmer to Mr Flibble in "Quarantine" (former Trope Namer).
  • Control Freak
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: "Better dead than smeg"
  • Deadpan Snarker: Rimmer gets some of the finest lines in sitcom history.
  • Determinator: Rimmer has taken (and spectacularly failed) the same officer's exam over 17 times. That he still goes back and retakes it shows his stubborn determination to become an officer.
    • And he takes a different officer's exam at least 9 times as well.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Rimmer, of all people, knees the Grim Reaper in the groin.
  • Dirty Coward
  • Dude in Distress - Terrorform.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: In Meltdown, Rimmer becomes a combination of this and The Neidermeyer.
  • Embarrassing Middle Name: Arnold Judas Rimmer; he tells people who first meet him that it's "Jonathan."
  • Enemies with Death
  • Everything's Better with Penguins: Mr Flibble.
  • Freudian Excuse: Almost everything is on his parents, or in earlier episodes, being dead. He even blamed Lister for his shortcomings very early on.

Lister: Rimmer, you can't blame me for your lousy life.
Rimmer: Oh, yes, I can.
Lister: See! It's always the same. You never had the right pens for your G.E. drawing. Your dividers don't stretch far enough.
Rimmer: Well, they don't!

Lister: See! In the end you can't turn around and say, "I'm sorry I buggered up my life." It's all Lister's fault!

  • Gung-Holier Than Thou
  • Hand Puppet: Mr Flibble, a cute but evil toy penguin through which Rimmer channels his hex energy while infected with the holovirus in "Quarantine".
  • Hard Light: post-"Legion", Trope Namer.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold: Very, very well hidden. It only slips out two or three times over the course of the entire series.
  • Hilariously Abusive Childhood
  • Honor Before Reason - Only once. When the crew's future selves appear and start attacking, Rimmer gives the order to fight as he's "better dead than smeg."
    • Last Stand - When Lister, Cat, and Kryten are all killed by the fire of the future Starbug crew, Rimmer is the only one left, desperately trying to stop what's happening. Despite how hopeless it looks, he picks up a bazookoid, makes a mad charge, and blasts the time machine. His single act of courage and bravery ends up saving his ship mates.
  • Implacable Man - Carefully balanced/outweighed by his cowardice.
  • Intangible Man: As a soft-light hologram, Rimmer is often complaining that he cannot touch or taste or feel anything, and in one scene in Balance of Power when Rimmer tries to block Lister's path, Lister simply walks out through Rimmer. This largely stops being mentioned after Kryten joins the regular cast, as he carries out most of the tasks Rimmer would otherwise do, and is dropped altogether when Rimmer gets his Hard Light body in Legion.
  • It's All My Fault: Its hinted at in "Justice" that Rimmer blamed himself for the death of the entire Red Dwarf crew and gets charged for 1169 counts of manslaughter. He is acquitted as Kryten points out that the accident would likely have occured anyway and that Rimmer was clearly unqualified to repair the drive plate, being so incompetant he should have never been put in that position in the first place. Though in Back In The Red, it's stated that repairing the Drive Plate was such an easy task that only someone with the brain the size of a newt's testicle could possibly screw it up.
  • Lawful Stupid
  • Lovable Coward - In later episodes.
  • Madness Mantra: Rimmer when he suffered a nervous breakdown during one of his failed astro-navigation exams, referenced in the episode The End.

Rimmer: Up, up, up, that's where I'm going!
Lister: Not until you pass an engineer's exam. And you won't do that because you'll just go in there and flunk again.
Rimmer: Lister, last time I only failed by the narrowest of narrow margins.
Lister: You what? You walked in there, wrote "I am a fish" four hundred times, did a funny little dance, and fainted.

  • Man, I Feel Like a Woman: Rimmer becomes Kochanski in Balance of Power. He doesn't concern himself with feeling his feminine physique until the process is only partly reversed by Holly.
    • Not that he was in any hurry to get that last body part replaced.
  • The Neidermeyer: Rimmer in Meltdown manages to kill all of his own army, but considers it a victory because all the enemy wax droids are dead. A disgusted Lister gets him back.
  • Of Course I'm Not a Virgin: He's not, but has had so little sex that he might as well be.
    • He comes clean (against Lister's advice) after getting catastrophically drunk celebrating his "death-day". The details of the one time are really quite depressing. Another episode discloses the fact that his partner may have been too concussed to have given consent
    • He does manage a genuine affectionate sexual relationship later on in the series. Naturally, it doesn't last.
  • The Other Marty: Alfred Molina was originally cast in the role by Word of God says that he wanted to make too many changes to the character for the writers' liking.
  • Projected Man
  • Put on a Bus: Rimmer took over from Ace and left Starbug to be a Big Damn Hero for a while.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Rimmer is almost always the target of these.
    • The core of Kryten's defence in Justice is essentially one protracted "The Reason You Suck" Speech, pointing out in excruciating detail the worst of Rimmer's character flaws to demonstrate how incompetent (and therefore unculpable) he is. It works perfectly, in spite of Rimmer's objections to his own defence
  • Reincarnation: In "Marooned," Rimmer claims that, in a previous life, he was Alexander the great's chief eunuch.
  • Small Name, Big Ego - Ego is Rimmer's other middle name.
  • Strange Salute: The novels establish that it's actually Rimmer's own invention, and he's trying to sell the Space Corps on the idea of adopting it. This tells you almost everything you need to know about Rimmer.
    • He calls it the "Rimmer Salute" explicitly in the series on one or two occasions as well.
    • Series VIII establishes on screen that the salute was developed by Rimmer.
    • Made funnier during the intro for the intro for the 10th anniversary Red Dwarf night, the salute was delivered by Patrick Stewart.
  • Super Strength - Gained with hard light. Doesn't stop him cowering in terror under the nearest convenient table when the crew are in trouble in future episodes, resulting in it being something of an Informed Ability
  • That Was Objectionable: Rimmer repeatedly objected to his own defense counsel in "Justice" -- and was overruled by the judge AI of the prison spacestation every time -- because Kryten's defense strategy hinged on proving that Rimmer was too all-around incompetent to have been liable for the disaster aboard Red Dwarf that he felt guilty for.

"A man of such awesome stupidity, he even objects to his own defense counsel!"

    • One feels he was taking advantage of the (golden) opportunity to insult Rimmer as well.
  • Try to Fit That on A Business Card: Rimmer, sad pathetic weasel of a man that he is, would give his full title as Arnold J. Rimmer, BSc, SSc - in this case they stand for Bronze Swimming Certificate and Silver Swimming Certificate. This is made even worse when it's stated in one episode that he can't swim, meaning he was self-aggrandizing with forged/stolen swimming certificates, of all things!
    • That's because there was a hidden microdot in one of his certificates, you twonk!
  • Unreliable Narrator: The Rimmer ride from Blue, while programmed by Kryten, was based on entries from Rimmer's journal.
  • Virtual Ghost
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy
    • Inverted in one of the novels, Last Human.

Cat

Played by: Danny John-Jules

Cat (sometimes The Cat) is the last known member of felis sapiens (also spelt felix sapiens), a race which evolved from the kittens of Lister's pet cat Frankenstein. Cat is known for his outlandish fashion sense, and gauges danger by how it will affect his looks.

Cat: Hey, monkey, you're sick. Sick, helpless, and unconscious. If you weren't my friend, I'd steal your shoes

    • Likewise, it takes until around Series 3 before his reaction to Lister or others being in mortal peril becomes anything more than "So?"
  • A Cat Named Cat
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Initially - he becomes more of a Bunny Ears Lawyer as time passes and the need for his skills increases. Imagine a wild cat becoming more domesticated or a kitten growing up.
  • Completely Missing the Point: Frequently.
  • Cool Cat: His entire raison d'être.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's not afraid to use a bazookoid when he needs to.
  • Human Outside, Alien Inside: The Cat looks almost perfectly human, except for rather overly prominent upper canines. He has six nipples and, according to a medical analysis, color-coded internal organs and both a heartbeat and a pulse that are much "cooler" than those of a human's. The former is portrayed as a catchy rhythmic beating sound, the latter a full-blown tropicano-type musical number.
    • According to the Backwards novel, male Felis Sapiens have not diverged from the reproductive model of their housecat ancestors. Meaning that their penis is covered in dozens of tiny, painful barbs. A pity the attractive hillbilly girl that Cat loses his virginity to (sort of) fails to see these barbs before they, uh, get put to work.
  • Large Ham: His actor described him as having the body of James Brown, the voice of Little Richard, and the face of Richard Pryor. Damn.
  • Last of His Kind: In a sense. The Cat Species left Red Dwarf many years ago, leaving behind only the stupid, the sick and the crippled. After the death of the Blind Cat Priest in "Waiting for God", the Cat becomes the sole survivor of the Cats that remained aboard Red Dwarf.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: The religion of the Cats state that "It is a sin to be cool."
  • Sharp-Dressed Man
  • Took a Level in Badass
  • What Could Have Been: One story would have dealt with Cat's gradual 'domestication' but was, sadly, not filmed.

Holly

Played by: Norman Lovett (1988, 1997-1999, 2017, 2020); Hattie Hayridge (1989-1992)

Red Dwarf's computer, Holly starts off amazingly intelligent with a purported IQ of 6,000. However, he has become senile before Lister's return to non-stasis. After an encounter with his counterpart from an alternate universe, a blonde female named Hilly, Holly performed a sex change on himself.

Kryten 2X4B-523P

Played by: David Ross (1988); Robert Llewellyn (1989-present)

Kryten is a 4000 series mechanoid. He was encountered by the crew on the wreck of the starship Nova 5, where he had obediently served his three female owners, not realising they had died on landing. Kryten was helped to break his programming by Lister and eventually chose to oppose Rimmer, before leaving on Lister's space bike. He crashed and was rebuilt by Lister, giving him a new accent and new programming.

  • Asymmetric Dilemma
  • Battle Butler
  • Berserk Button: If you blow off his dinner to play a VR game, he'll drag you out. With a tank.
  • Camp Straight: Particularly in his first appearance, he's pretty campy, but his "ideal love interest" was the female equivalent of his model of mechanoids.
  • Clingy jealous droid: Towards Lister, going well towards Ho Yay.
  • Deadpan Snarker: In later episodes, especially after gaining "lie mode."
    • Hell, he even has a deadpan mode.
  • Embarrassing Middle Name: 2X4B. He has always felt its a little jerky.
    • Though its better than one poor sod he knew who had the middle name 2Q4B...
  • The Other Darrin: Played by David Ross in a single series 2 episode before becoming a main character the following series. The actor was changed as Ross wasn't available.
  • Robot Buddy
  • Straight Man overlapping with The Smart Guy: Kryten is typically the one coming up with a solution to the Dilemma of the Week, moreso after Holly stops being a regular character.
  • Technical Pacifist: While he is programmed not to kill, he has broken his programming enough to bestow violence upon those threatening his crewmates.

Kristine Kochanski

Played by: Claire Grogan (1988, 1993); Chloë Annett (1997-?)

Navigation Officer Kristine Kochanski was Lister's partner, who perished along with the other crew members. Shortly after Rimmer's departure from Starbug, the crew encountered an alternate version of themselves where Kochanski had survived the leak instead of Lister. Kochanski was saved from falling into a dimensional vortex by Lister, but the vortex closed, preventing her from rejoining her crew.

  • Action Girl: Both Kochanskis definitely have their moments.
  • Brainy Brunette: The second Kochanski definitely qualifies.
    • The first one has to be fairly smart as well, given that she was an officer.
  • Characterization Marches On: In her earliest appearances when played by Clare Grogan, she was quite friendly, flirty with Lister and had a Scottish accent. By the time she had joined the main cast (and Ms Grogan had been replaced by Chloë Annett) she was rather neurotic, very upper class and had an English accent (although still canonically from Scotland).
  • Fridge Brilliance: The reason the two Kochanskis are so different personality wise? Is because they're from different realities.
  • Love Interest: Not exactly, however Kryten thinks she's this for Lister...and occasionally so does Lister.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": At first the character was credited only as "Kochanski", but judging by the name written on her hologram box in Series 1 (which reads "KOCHANSKI C.Z."), Kochanski's first name was meant to be spelled "Christine". Then the first novel came out and spelled it "Kristine". Then the TV series officially established the spelling as "Kristine".
  • The Other Darrin

Other Characters

Ace Rimmer

Played by: Chris Barrie (1991, 1993, 1997)

Pandimensional super-hero, Ace Rimmer is Rimmer's counterpart from another dimension. Ace was held back at school, which spurred him on to succeed. Any non-Rimmer character may remark 'what a guy!' upon meeting Ace.

Captain Frank Hollister

Played by: Mac McDonald (1988, 1999)

The overweight captain of Red Dwarf who is killed off (along with the rest of the crew bar Lister) halfway through the first episode. Hasn't stopped him being the most frequently reccuring non-main cast member.

  • Break the Haughty: Series 8 episode Pete (Part 1 and 2) Is one long Break the Haughty for Captian Hollister.
  • Da Chief: In series VIII. Especially in Pete.
  • Fat Bastard (Not all that much of a bastard but he does get a lot of fat jokes)
    • To top it off, Rimmer describes him as exactly this once.
  • Pointy-Haired Boss In series 8, it's revealed that Hollister bribed and blackmailed his way up to Captain Rank.

Talkie Toaster

Played by: John Lenahan (1988); David Ross (1991)

A very minor, but very well-remembered, character, Talkie Toaster belongs to Lister, is equipped with artificial intelligence and, to the annoyance of everyone, completely obsessed with making toast. Was destroyed off-screen by Lister sometime during the first two series and rebuilt (with a completely different voice and appearance) by Kryten in Series IV.

  • Ascended Extra: Talkie Toaster appears only in three episodes in the TV show, but plays an important and major part in the novel Better Than Life, and later went to do character interviews (complete with offers of toast) on the official Red Dwarf web page.
  • Catch Phrase: "Would you like some toast?" and endless variations thereof.
  • The Other Darrin: His second voice, David Ross, was the original Kryten.

Mr Flibble

Played by: Chris Barrie (1992)

Another minor character who has achieved surprising fame despite his lack of screen time, Mr Flibble is a penguin hand puppet used by Rimmer when under the influence of a holovirus. Is known for his capacity to become very cross.

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