Mr. Mxyzptlk

Mr. Mxyzptlk
File:Mxyzptlk.png Imagine saying his name five times fast.
Species	Imp
Gender	Male
Marital status	Single
First appearance	CotSF: "The Rise and Fall of the Super Friends" (1978)
Played by	Frank Welker

Mr. Mxyzptlk (pronounced miks-ill-plick) is a mischievous imp from the Fifth Dimension homeworld of Zrfff, and a recurring villain in the Super Friends franchise. He is a practical trickster with reality-warping powers who enjoys making the lives of Superman and the Super Friends team difficult. He is voiced by Frank Welker.

Character description

Mr. Mxyzptlk is a short humanoid imp with a balding head and white hair, who consistently wears a orange and purple jumpsuit, and a purple bowler hat. He is usally a trickster in the classic term, and has a playful personality. He loves playing light-heated mischief on his targets, and uses his abilities to cause mild harassment, rather than using it for malicious destruction or torment. As such, he is usually seen more of annoyance than a legit threat.

Powers

As an imp, Mxyzptlk posses vast magical abilities that allow him to have the following:

• Reality alteration: He can manipulate reality and the laws of the universe in such a way as to appear magical, and in almost any way he sees fit. The extent of this power largely appears to have no limits, such as being able to transform humans' bodies and minds, bringing inanimate objects to life, and summoning items out of will.
• Flying: His magic also grants him the ability to levitate himself, appearing as if he is floating in the air.
• Teleportation: He can disappear and reappear with or without the snap of his fingers.

Weakness

He only has one weakness. If he is tricked into saying his own name backwards, "Klytpzyxm" (pronounced kilp-ill-skim), he teleports back to the Fifth Dimension for a minimum of ninety days. It also appears that when he leaves, any effects of his magic are removed as if they never happened beforehand.

Despite his powerful abilities, the extent of Mxyzptlk's potential seems to be limited by his childish personality, making him a prime target of gullibility when being tricked into saying his name backwards.

Appearances

TV series

• Challenge of the Superfriends
• The World's Greatest Superfriends
• Superfriends
• Superfriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show

Behind the scenes

• Mr. Mxyzptlk is a DC Comics character created by Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. He was initially created to appear in Superman #30 (September 1944), and his name originally was spelled as "Mr. Mxyztplk". But due to a publishing lag time, first apprared in the Superman daily comic strip by writer Whitney Ellsworth and artist Wayne Boring.
• In Challenge of the Superfriends and The World's Greatest Superfriends, Mxyzptlk was originally given a squeaky voice. From the 1980 Superfriends shorts onward, his voice was toned down to the one similar to Frank Welker's perfomance as Toyman.
• In "The Man in the Purple Hat" storyline of Action Comics #975, Mxyzptlk reveals that he has been the same person, regardless of which continuity or medium he appears, and which variations he goes by. Although never fully stated within the comic, this retroactively makes the Super Friends version of the character the same as the one in the mainline DC Comics universe, in addition to various other incarnations that did appear in the storyline.

In popular culture

• In the Superman: The Animated Series episode "Mxyzpixilated," Clark Kent mispronounces Mxyzptlk's name as miks-ill-plick (as in how he was addressed in Super Friends), whereas Mxyzptlk corrects him by saying it as mix-yez-spit-lick in this series.
• In Superman and Batman: World's Funnest, Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite battle each other in almost the entire DC Universe, and travel to the universe of the Super Friends cartoon. Mxyzptlk appears as his counterpart in that universe, and is perplexed with some of its quirks, including the stiff movements.