Kojak is the tertiary antagonist in the 2001 Disney animated movie, Recess: School's Out. He is Dr. Phillium Benedict's chief of security and lieutenant of the Anti-Recess Legion.
Role in the film
Kojak first appeared during Dr. Phillium Benedict's raid on a military outpost in the Southwestern United States, where he leads the bodyguard forces, also blowing down the door to the control center of the experimental weather altering laser before the base personnel could erase the access code after triggering the alarm, and then tasered them into unconsciousness. He eventually relocated with Benedict to Third Street School where he presumably acted as the head of security and letting people cleared for entry to their new "base". He chased off T.J Detweiler after the latter ended up witnessing one of their tests while fuming about the bad summer vacation so far. Aside from making sure one of Dr. Benedict's plans don't fail, he was ordered by Dr. Benedict to impersonate Principal Prickly while Benedict was holding the real Principal Prickly captive (presumably in order to ensure that no one got suspicious about Pricky's disappearance) after the latter was captured during an attempt by T.J. to have the school investigated (which also nearly caused T.J.'s friends to believe he had lied to them as an excuse to get them back together as a result). He especially seems to hold a grudge against T.J. (presumably because of the "ugly bald guy" comment made on T.J.'s tape recorder when he was snooping on them earlier in the film).
Later, while TJ was investigating the school directly for any evidence (and found Principal Prickly's discarded golf pants in the school dumpster), he also witnessed "Prickly" walking with some of Benedict's forces, with his unwittingly unmasking himself in front of T.J. Later that night, the man alongside an agent was ordered to escort Dr. Rosenthal to "detention" after the latter failed to provide results for the weather altering laser for the second time. He shortly afterwards witnessed an escape attempt by TJ and his friends from the lab-transformed school auditorium, with his proceeding to be headbutted in the groin by Spinelli after the latter referred to him as "alien scum" and told him to get off the planet Earth (referring to Gus's earlier speculation that Benedict and his forces were actually aliens).
He also caught T.J. and Principal Prickly when they located his office and took away T.J.'s (already confiscated) Walkie Talkie, although not before T.J. relayed to his friends what Benedict's true plan was (the elimination of Summer Vacation) after stumbling on a mural on the office door that was presumably painted by Benedict and his henchmen.
He later caught Spinelli, Gretchen, Gus, Vince, and Mikey in the halls when they and the student body attacked the school to stop Benedict, but T.J. and Prickly dumped corn chowder on him before he could attack them, as well as the can, which resulted in him falling down the stairs and presumably being knocked out. After regaining consciousness and presumably removing the drum can and most of the chowder off his body, he stormed into the lab-transformed auditorium while Benedict's henchmen and a joint effort of the faculty and students were fighting and furiously attempted to attack and pulverize T.J. in revenge for his earlier humiliation. However, Ms. Finster stopped him and got into a fistfight with Kojak, only for him to end up knocked out by Finster before he could even make the first swing, let alone land any hits on her. T.J. thanked Finster for saving his life, with Finster stating she was merely doing her job.
It is unknown what happens to him at the end of the movie after he got punched out by Ms. Finster during the final fight. Either he was smothered in the crash after the laser was destroyed, or was sent to jail with his boss.
Trivia
- The name Kojak is a reference to a TV-detective who is also bald. It's not his actual name, but rather a nickname given by Ms. Finster when she fought him in reference to his baldness.
- While voiced by Clancy Brown for the most part, he was briefly voiced by Dabney Coleman, the voice of Peter Prickly, while TJ was snooping around, owing to him being disguised as Prickly at the time.
- According to Kojak, he was a "man of many talents", including acting while in disguise (with some of the goons comparing his acting abilities to that of Robert de Niro). However, while he maintained it was easy to fool Prickly's wife, one of his henchmen implied the possibility that she was suspicious of him.
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