- “We have a thing called the window of opportunity. If we miss the window of opportunity, then the project fails. And if the project fails, I get very, very, angry!”
- ―Phillium Benedict, to his scientists
Dr. Phillium "Phil" Benedict is the main antagonist of the 2001 Disney animated film Recess: School's Out.
He is the founder and leader of the Anti-Recess Legion, who plans to eradicate summer vacation and create a permanent winter in a lunar perigee, in order to raise U.S. test scores, and to become President.
Personality[]
Described as a "rogue teacher" by Principal Prickly, Phillium Benedict can best be described as arrogant, pompous, greedy, delusional, evil, and completely insane with an insufferable ego. He despises kids having fun and wants to abolish recess. He claims that he wants to do this to raise children's test scores, but it's clear that he just cares more about regaining the broken reputation that he refuses to move on from. He is also extremely full of himself, something Prickly snarks to him about at one point. Benedict also has a tendency to sarcastically ask a rhetorical question regarding an unexpected event and after getting an answer angrily ordering them to deal with the event. He's shown to have cynicism towards the concept of freedom, or at least freedom beyond the extent of his era, as when Prickly tried to reason with him against shutting down recess about how it's the only time students will have any real freedom while they're at school, Benedict just before explaining his motives about trying to get test scores up commented that "freedom" was only good for picking up chicks, indirectly alluding to the concept of free love. The same comment also implied some chauvinism in his character.
Benedict is also extremely argumentative, easily provoked, and abusive towards his minions. Whenever they bungle with his insane plan, he is quick to fly into a screaming rage.
In a way, Benedict is a man-child, with even his plan seemingly lifted from a bad guy's doomsday plot in a movie. It is possible that Benedict may have ignored or skipped classes about Earth and agriculture, given his blindness to the damage-bringing permanent winter to the world would cause the environment; effectively dooming all life on Earth. Additionally not knowing how the moon affected the oceans; which could cause (un)natural disasters. Alternatively, if he did know and simply did not care, it could be said that his desire to raise test scores outweighed any logic he might have had, however little that was. His madness was such that after TJ and Prickly stumbled upon the mural at Prickly's office door, the latter privately exclaimed in shock that "I told 'em that guy was a nut!"
Though he does have small good side to himself and that was his love for Muriel Finster; stating she was the only love of his life. Even though she had aged considerably since the 1960s, Benedict still considered her beautiful and begged for a second chance with her.
Background[]
In the Spring of 1968, Phillium Benedict was once named the youngest Principal of Third Street School and former best friend of Peter Prickly. Benedict also had a romantic relationship with Muriel Finster, and it's implied that he had enough good looks that he was also the heart-throb of several of the female teacher-trainees. Starting up to the time period of the first year, he also adhered to some of the more radical elements of the 1960s, such as expressing his belief to Prickly that the "young is in, and the old is out, way out".
While in his office, Benedict called in Prickly for their talk of changing the school routine after he proposed an idea of having to hold classes outside during the playground: recess. Benedict liked Prickly's suggestion. However, he voiced that for his first official act as principal, he decided to just get rid of recess. This shocked Prickly, who tried to tell him that state recess is like a major play-in and is the one place in a day where kids have their freedom. Benedict denied it, as he stating that love and freedom were only meant to be good for picking up women, but told Pete that recess wasn't going to help in more interest in furthering his career and raising test scores. Bendict explains that in order for his career to move forward, the test scores need to go up and the only way is to have the kids remain in class where they belong now and starting the next day he would abolish recess once and for all. Predictably, Benedict's plan didn't work that well with anyone on campus (including Prickly and Finster) and all of the students felt miserable and unable to alleviate their stress over their studies after Benedict put his no-recess policy into action, resulting in lower test scores dramatically. Benedict stubbornly ignored the fact that his no-recess policy is actually causing the low test scores and continued enforcing it as a result.
Afterward, Benedict was forced to deal with many of the students' angry parents that started and laid down a protest against the school, demanding that recess should be reinstated. In spite of this protest, Benedict was unwilling to give up his anti-recess policy since he was principal. This left Prickly no choice but to contact the superintendent and report about the situation to stop the issue, who calmly assured the parents and teachers that Benedict's anti-recess policy will never be carried out in the district, much to their joy. Benedict refused to back down, became rude and tried to protest with his superior for disagreeing with his beliefs, who then rightfully senses that Benedict has become very deluded and power-hungry, subsequently demoted him of his duties and replaced him as the Principal of 3rd Street Elementary School and promoted Prickly the position, much to their shock since Prickly wasn't expecting to become principal. Benedict was upset and accused Pete of turning his back against him to steal his job as principal, ignoring Prickly's insistence that he never intended anything of the sort and even tried to truthfully explains that he only brought the Superintendent in an attempt to reason with Benedict. Benedict broke off his friendship with Prickly and then turned to his girlfriend Finster, expecting her to leave with him. However, a disgusted Finster refused and promptly ended her relationship with Benedict since she could never be with a man who hated recess as well as his rude and obnoxious behavior. This rejection, along with his demotion, caused Benedict to develop a grudge against Prickly for his losses even though he assured him it wasn't his fault. In his fury at the turn of events, Benedict rants out against everyone before he accidentally tripped and fall off the school steps hard onto the pavement, which presumably resulted in his legs possibly being damaged enough to require the use of a cane as he got older in his years, warranting concern from witnesses. Benedict refused help from Pete and Muriel by angrily telling them to back off when they tried to help him out, but not before he angrily swears revenge against Prickly for costing him both his job and Muriel's love.
During the next thirty years, Benedict quit teaching, went into politics and eventually he had appointed to become the U.S. Secretary of Education. Despite his success two years prior to the film's events, Benedict still remembered Prickly costing him his job and destroying his relationship with Muriel (refusing to accept the fact that it was his own fault for making them turn on him for his cruel behavior in the first place). He maintained his position and attempted to abolish recess again, this time on a nationwide scale, but he was soon foiled and fired by the President, who saw through Benedict's plan to implement it.
After having failed at his latest attempt to get rid of recess after being dismissed from his previous job, Benedict had founded and created the Anti-Recess Legion, amassed an army composed of men dressed like Secret Service Agents, ninjas, scientists and technicians, including with hiring two lackies, his second-in-command named Professor Fenwick and his chief of security and lieutenant named Kojak, and was bent on the formulated plans to eliminating Summer Vacation, the biggest recess of them all, for good. This group became notorious enough that they had news reports being given about them and their activities by the time the 1998 school year ended.
Role in the film[]
Benedict starts off his first plans by having the legion break into a U.S. Military Base and steal a Tractor Beam from a U.S. Military Base after tasering two military officers. In the next part of his plans, Benedict and his henchmen take over 3rd Street School and used it as their base of operations, since it is closed for the summer and also the last place on Earth that the authorities would ever look for the stolen equipment. He also rigs the lock of the school to shock and transport anyone carrying the keys into the school in case someone (i.e., Principal Prickly) did actually attempt to investigate and orders Kojak to pose as Prickly outside the school property just to ensure no one got suspicious after the real Prickly was taken hostage. He also had Fenwick and the scientists conduct frequent tests at the school involving miniature tractor beams in the Cafeteria, one of which T.J. accidentally witnesses while fuming about how his summer was going (since all of his friends were at the separate summer camps and in fact the only kid still present in the neighborhood that he could hang out with was the infamous school snitch Randall Weems). He also had the Auditorium altered to be the main control room for the tractor beam while cuts off the school's phone line so that no one will ever contact the authorities. After Prickly ends up captured when he reluctantly tries to investigate the school at T.J.'s request, Benedict then has him bounded, gagged, and also had his golf pants removed and disposed, presumably as revenge for Prickly's role in getting him fired.
Benedict later claims Prickly's office as his main office, which is fitting due to being a former principal of the school as he points out to Fenwick after he asks him about it. As the plan progresses, Benedict eventually proceeds to viciously rant and insult his science staffs for the then-current setbacks to his plan, even refusing their request to relocate to another location (since his grudge against Prickly and Third Street School is so powerful), before ultimately ordering the second test upon being told it is ready. Unfortunately for him, the second test fails, barely moving the moon a few feet before the laser is forced to shut down unexpectedly due to the tractor beam still having bugs in the system, causing him to eventually have the first head scientist, Dr. Rosenthal detained in fury, making it clear that Benedict didn't care what Rosenthal had told him before about potential problems and promoted Rosenthal's assistant into that position. Shortly afterwards, T.J. and his gang ended up being forced to expose themselves due to Mikey having an unexpected and uncontrollable urge to belch, as well as the vents giving way to his and their weight. Benedict then angrily orders his henchmen to seize the children. Though the gang manages to escape, T.J. is captured and imprisoned, along with Prickly, in the storage room. There, Benedict formally introduces and reveals himself, the bit of his and Prickly's former ties to a shocked TJ and falsely claims to both Prickly and T.J. that he is running a "night school", but they aren't convinced with T.J., in particular, demanding to know why the "night school" has a laser dish in the auditorium as Benedict commented on his rudeness and told Prickly he needs to teach his pupils better. After Benedict leaves out and locking them up, Prickly explains to T.J. about Benedict's past history. Eventually, Benedict learned that T.J. and Prickly had managed to sneak into his office through the air vents and found a walkie-talkie, which the latter had confiscated from the former the prior school year before had Kojak to capture them again, but although not before T.J. alerts his friends through his walkie-talkie that Benedict's plan is to get rid of Summer Vacation after stumbling on a graffiti mural in the principal's office (presumably painted by Benedict himself and/or his men) depicting the end of Summer Vacation.
The next day, Benedict summoned Prickly and T.J. back into the office as their detention while holding the confiscated T.J.'s walkie-talkie. Benedict, in a rather ironic echo of what Prickly told T.J. during the last day of school, asks him if he was causing trouble due to hating him, though Prickly made it of clear that while he doesn't hate Benedict, he does view his plan as completely insane, prompting Benedict to rant out against him about what happened to him earlier in the past of Prickly ruining his life before insisting he will declares to be proven right. Benedict uses a hologram presentation to present and then explains how he will plans to accomplish his goal: on Lunar Perigee (the time when the Moon's orbit is closest to the Earth, which happens to be 12:22 PM), he would fire the tractor beam at the Moon to alter its orbit that would disrupt the Earth's weather patterns with the intention of causing the entire Earth to freeze over into a new Ice Age and eliminate Summer, thus eliminating Summer Vacation. T.J., disgusted with what Benedict was planning, told him that he won't get away with it. However, Benedict is confident and retorts back that he can't be stopped even if anyone else knew about his plan right before proceeds to having both T.J. and Prickly locked up in a cage to prevent them from escaping and interfering again. They soon manage to escape since Prickly had fully anticipated and swiped the cage's keys from Benedict's front desk when he wasn't looking as he and T.J. start their mission to stop Benedict and save Summer Vacation.
Meanwhile, T.J.'s friends gathered up all of the students from the various camps with the help of T.J's older sister Becky to help rescue T.J. and Prickly and reclaim the school. Gus manages to formulate a successful plan for the students to distract and trap several of Benedict's men, allowing the students to reunite with Prickly and T.J.; even Gretchen takes the time to shut down the auditorium's power while locking up Fenwick and some of Benedict's scientists inside the electrical room. Evidently under the pressure of time as well as the kids' resistance, Benedict slowly loses his cool and starts barking orders at his remaining henchmen to make the necessary preparations, including getting a back-up generator after Gretchen sabotages the fuse box even when Prickly and the student resistance manage to enter the auditorium to stop him, Benedict confidently has more guards arrive. He then explains to the congregated student body that his main motivation for his plans is because the top three highest countries in the world with the highest test scores - Canada, Iceland, and Norway - all had cold climate, which meant that children there couldn't play ball, but the only other method in his mind was for the students to stay inside and study so that they don't have Summer Vacation and fun (which, in truth, they most certainly do) and also implied that he may potentially be elected President of the United States and be hailed as a hero should he succeed. However, T.J. rightfully counters this by stating that even if Benedict's plot could bring in a new Ice Age, the kids around the world would just adapt and having lots of fun in a cold climate, such as a riding bikes in the snow, playing kickball in the slush, or camping out in igloos and stating Benedict may take away Summer the season, but he would never take away Summer Vacation. Despite this, Benedict still plans on eliminating Summer Vacation once and for all, much to everyone's horror. However, before Benedict can get his scientists to fully activate the tractor beam, Finster arrives to the rescue, much to both Prickly and the students' delight. Meeting Finster again for the first time in thirty years, Benedict is amazed by her continued beauty after these years and begs her to come back to him, but she ignores his flattery by calling him a "two-bit recess hating pretty boy" and rightfully said that she would rather eat playground dirt instead than join him and let him succeed in his plot. Angry at Muriel's rejection, Benedict angrily swears that it can be arranged to literally make her eat playground dirt. Finster promises that she'll take him down before that would happen, as he laughs at the notion. Muriel soon reveals to brought all of her reinforcements composed of the school's teachers and faculty to help Prickly and the students to stop him and his men for good after Benedict sarcastically asks what army she possesses to even take him down. Because of this and being at the end of his wits, Benedict furiously orders his men out to attack all the students and teachers. The students and teachers manage to fight back against Benedict's men; even with Finster manages to knock out Kojak in a fistfight to protect T.J. from harm.
As the moon is finally about to enter Lunar Perigee, in a last-minute attempt, Benedict angrily pushes aside his head scientist away and attempts to personally fire up the tractor beam at the moon, only to be stopped by Prickly. Benedict then holds out his taser and threatens to shock him to sleep if he steps any closer as he moves the lever, but Prickly foiled it by cleverly tricks and quickly stalls Benedict into letting his guards down by believing that he had a spot on his necktie when he looks at his tie and furiously punches him in the face. Despite this, Benedict still manages to activate the tractor beam after slumped by Prickly's punch and having the lever being jammed in place so Prickly can't reverse it. Recovering, Benedict gloats on about his imminent success. Fortunately, T.J. throws his lucky baseball to Vince and had him aim and throw it at the photon channeler, destroying the tractor beam and the machine, much to Benedict's shock and distraught. Gazing at what's left of the destroyed machine, Benedict yells out in agony and defeat over the failure of his grand plans. The students, teachers and staffs all cheer in victory for defeating Benedict and saving Summer Vacation.
With Benedict's plans exposed and foiled, the students and teachers called in the authorities and news media to the scene and presumably given the evidence. During the news media details of the events happened, Benedict and his cohorts ended up being arrested and sent to prison for their crimes. Benedict is last seen being hauled and escorted into the police car as he furiously tried to protest that he was a former Secretary of Education, only for the policeman to calmly silence him by sarcastically responding that he was also the "former Princess of Morocco."
It is implied that Benedict and his men would be to given a lengthy lifetime sentence in prison as punishment for their crimes while the Third Street Elementary students and teachers are commemorated and declared heroes by the news media and public for saving the world and Summer Vacation.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The cane Benedict carried was similar to the one Goofy's toy factory boss had in An Extremely Goofy Movie.
- Burt Reynolds was originally considered for the role but was later dropped out of the film during production.
- Despite his intelligence and former reputation as an educator, Benedict is very deluded and has a lack of common sense, as he doesn't realize that his plan to bring in permanent winter will only endanger billions of lives as opposed to raising test scores and kids would be granted school breaks either way. Even when T.J. angrily pointed out the flaws of the plot before the final fight, Benedict didn't care and instead continued with his plot, saying that he still could try. His lack of common sense and self delusion was also showcased when Prickly got the position of Principal of 3rd Street School, where he insisted on believing that Prickly ratted him out specifically to take over the position of principal, despite his surprised reaction when he got the job, making it very clear that he had not planned to become principal at all, let alone take it over from Benedict.
- Benedict's plan to remove recess was tested by the government in the episode "Recess is Cancelled". However, as the kids had no way to alleviate their stress, their scores went down. This proves that Benedict's idea was very wrong.
- He would have used his position as Secretary of Education to humiliate Prickly, but he did not, due to wanting to make a bigger statement to the world for his desire to destroy recess and raise test scores.
- Elements of his character, including his leading an evil group as well as the first half of the film obscuring his appearance (either only showing his feet or otherwise framing him in shadow) and his being merciless to minions regarding failure, resembled that of the James Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
- Benedict seems to hate violence, as his henchmen never use machine guns, or any firearms for that matter, as such weapons could kill anyone who stands in their way, and would only go so far as to use tasers. This is evident, as his lieutenant Kojak used a taser to knock personnel unconscious when entering the military base that formerly housed the tractor beam, and Benedict was willing to use a taser on Prickly in the climax. It is likely that Benedict did not want to set a bad example for children to follow if he used violence to enact his plans.
- Dr. Benedict could be considered a dark parallel to both Principal Prickly and Miss Finster, symbolizing what they might become if they hadn't learned to appreciate recess and children.
