John C. McGinley vs. Sam McMurray
Battle of the Backslapping Jackasses

Specialty: Officious, Backslapping Jackasses

Judging from the correspondence we receive here at Fametracker HQ, the character actor John C. McGinley has developed quite a fervent and activist following. Hardly a week goes by that we're not pestered by some strident McGinleyite to add the man's name to the honoured rolls of the Hey! It's That Guy! alumni. And we're certainly glad to do it: we, like many of you, have enjoyed McGinley's work over the years in a variety of tightly-wound, overly officious roles: whether as Sgt. O'Neill in Platoon, Agent Harp in Point Break, Marine Captain Hendrix in The Rock, or his current gig as Dr. Perry Cox on Scrubs.

There's only one thing that's held us back from immortalizing McGinley: the fact that his epic struggle for officious jackass supremacy with Sam McMurray has yet to be decisively concluded.

McMurray, you might remember, created what now stands as the Platonic ideal of backslapping jackasses with his role as the leering, wife-swapping, monster-brat-raising Glen in Raising Arizona. (This is the man who commends his son's facility with the alphabet after spotting him carving the word "FART" into the wall of Nicolas Cage's trailer.) More recently, he's appeared as such grating characters as Don Buckman in Addams Family Values, Lester Leeman in Drop Dead Gorgeous, and "Doug," Chandler's unfunny boss on Friends. (Not to offend the Don, Dougs, and Glens out there, but it's impossible to overlook the fact that the official names for officious jackasses in Hollywood are Don, Doug, and Glen.)

McMurray's résumé boasts neither the breadth nor depth of McGinley's, but it does have a certain admirable purity: he's played, almost without exception, obnoxious dinks, and has done so for nearly two decades. McGinley, for his part, has often ventured beyond the role of grating, meddlesome jackass, but that's still how we think of him: partly because of his memorable work as the obnoxious consultant Bob Slydell in Office Space; partly because of the fact that even his sympathetic characters tend to be high-strung, gung-ho, and borderline obnoxious; and partly because...well, we've always mixed-up his ass with that of Sam McMurray.

In this clash of formidable adversaries, we suspect that McGinley will emerge victorious, if only because Sam McMurray himself is too easily confused with Fred MacMurray, the guy who starred in Double Indemnity, The Shaggy Dog, and My Three Sons. Still, we'd advise McGinley that, while he's out there busily slapping backs, he'd best keep an eye on watching his own.

Back, that is. Watching his own back.

Advantage: McGinley, assuming his role on Scrubs doesn't take him out of the Hey! It's That Guy! category altogether.