Mayor Humdinger stands atop his empire of sand, a plump, purple-clad figure against the miasmal shores of his domain. Foggy Bottom, they call it. A fitting name for a place as insubstantial as its leader's ambitions.
There are no citizens here. No bustling streets or cozy homes. Just a cave, a stretch of beach, his trained but feckless team of kittens, and Humdinger himself. He declares himself mayor, but there's no one to vote, no one to govern save for those darned cats who won’t listen to a word he says. It's a title as empty as the town he claims to rule.
Across the way lies Adventure Bay, a stark contrast to Foggy Bottom's desolation. It teems with life, with purpose. Mayor Goodway leads with genuine care for her citizens. The Paw Patrol stands ready to help at a moment's notice. This is what gnaws at Humdinger, what drives him to his endless, futile schemes.
He can't stand it. The order, the prosperity, the simple goodness of Adventure Bay eats at him like acid. But it's the Paw Patrol that sets his teeth on edge. Those pups, always saving the day, always foiling his plans. They're a constant reminder of everything he's not.
So Humdinger builds. He tinkers. He schemes. Gadgets spring from his hands, marvels of engineering that serve no purpose beyond petty mischief. He trains his crew of kittens, a pale imitation of the Paw Patrol's canine heroes—he even has costumes for the newly-added Paw Patrol members, to be deployed on those rare occasions when he kidnaps other cats. Each plan is more grandiose than the last, each failure more spectacular.
There's a stubbornness to Humdinger that borders on madness. He never adapts, never grows. Each failure seems to reinforce his belief in his own brilliance. It's as if admitting a mistake would shatter his entire world.
Maybe it would.
Consider the man himself. He bathes twice a month, as if basic hygiene is beneath him. He struts about in his purple suit and top hat, looking to all the world like a fat and happy cartoon version of erstwhile chat-show host James Corden. There's a dream buried in there somewhere, a childhood wish to be a chubby funster. It's almost poignant, if you forget the chaos he causes.
Humdinger can't stand losing. So he cheats. At contests, at sports, at life itself. He'll do anything to win, to prove his superiority. And yet, he always loses. The cheating never works. The Paw Patrol always comes out on top. But he never sees it coming.
There's a nephew, Harold. Cut from the same cloth as his uncle, but sharper. More dangerous. Evil genius Harold betrays Humdinger time and again. And time and again, Humdinger welcomes him back. It's hard to tell if it's forgiveness or foolishness. Maybe both.
In the movie, Humdinger's ambitions grow. He leaves Foggy Bottom behind, sets his sights on Adventure City. Wins a one-man race for mayor. Bans dogs from public spaces. Steals a weather machine. Causes chaos on a scale he's never achieved before.
For a moment, it seems he might win. The Paw Patrol is scattered, Chase is captured. Humdinger stands triumphant atop his own Tower of Babel, master of all he surveys. But it's an illusion, every bit as hollow as Foggy Bottom.
The Paw Patrol rallies. The tower falls. And Humdinger? He ends up in prison, his dreams of grandeur locked away with him. But even that can't hold him. He escapes through a toilet, of all things. It's a fitting exit for a man who's spent his life wallowing in his own mess.
What drives a man like Humdinger? It's easy to call him evil, but that's not quite right. He's too small for true evil. Too petty. Too mediocre. There's no grand vision behind his schemes, no master plan. Just an endless, gnawing need to prove himself better than everyone else.
He's a man out of time, in more ways than one. His outfit harkens back to the Gilded Age, all pomp and circumstance. His schemes belong in a silent film, all exaggerated villainy and improbable machines. He's the only real throwback cartoon character in a world that exists mainly to say playsets and toys, still playing the same old tune while everyone else has changed the station.
And yet, for all his failures, for all his ridiculousness, Humdinger serves a purpose. Not the one he intends. But a purpose nonetheless.
Children watch Paw Patrol. They see Humdinger strut and fret, full of sound and fury. They see his schemes fall apart, his pride go before his fall. And they learn.
They learn that teamwork trumps ego every time. That kindness and bravery win out over cruelty and cowardice. That growth and adaptation are stronger than stubborn stagnation.
Humdinger never wins. But he teaches. Without meaning to, without even realizing it, he becomes an object lesson in how not to be.
There's a tragedy in that, if you look closely. Humdinger is trapped, not by any external force, but by his own nature. He can't change because he can't admit he needs to change. He's doomed to repeat the same mistakes, to suffer the same defeats, over and over again.
In a way, Foggy Bottom is the perfect metaphor for Humdinger himself. A place of no substance, hidden behind a veil of mist. A realm where nothing grows, nothing changes. A kingdom of six disobedient kittens and one silly, ineffectual man. One man who rules over no one. One man who cannot even rule himself.
Yet Humdinger persists. He'll escape from prison again, his fat ass wiggling as he crawls through a sewer pipe. He'll hatch new schemes. He'll face off against the Paw Patrol once more. And he'll lose, as he always does. But he'll never stop trying.
Perhaps that's the most human thing about him. In the face of constant failure, in a world that's left him behind, Humdinger keeps going. He may be petty, he may be foolish, he may be the architect of his own defeats, but he never gives up.
It's admirable, in a backwards sort of way. Almost. Because Humdinger never learns from his persistence. He takes the wrong lessons from his failures, relying on what doesn't work instead of trying something new.
Perhaps it’s just the hours of forced viewing talking here, but Mayor Humdinger strikes me as more than just a villain in a children's show. He's a warning. A cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked ego, of refusing to grow, of choosing conflict over cooperation.
But he's also a reminder. A reminder that we all have a little Humdinger in us. That part that wants to be the best, that bristles at others' success, that's tempted to take shortcuts. By showing us these traits taken to their extreme, he allows us to recognize and check these tendencies in ourselves.
So Mayor Humdinger sashays across our screens, hatching his schemes, twirling his mustache. He'll never win. He'll never learn. But as long as he keeps trying, he'll keep teaching. And maybe, just maybe, that's a victory of sorts. Not the one he wanted, but the one he deserved.
In the mist-shrouded emptiness of Foggy Bottom, in the echoing halls of his hollow empire, Mayor Humdinger reigns. A king of nothing, forever chasing a final triumph he but dimly understands and can never achieve. “Let be finale of seem,” as Wallace Stevens writes, for “The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.” Or, as Hamlet tells King Claudius, “We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.”
There's the joke, our joke. There's the tragedy, our tragedy. There's Mayor Humdinger, our mayor of the year for 2024 and beyond.