“ |
Nothing's illegal when you're on the side of justice! |
” | —Hal Monitor in SMG4: Officer Meggy | ||
Hal Monitor, also known as Mr. Hal Monitor or just Mr. Monitor, is a recurring-turned-minor character in the SMG4 series.
He is programmed to be an overpowered and over-responsive police officer, devoted to eliminating crime across the Mushroom Kingdom. Most of his appearances involve him antagonizing the lawbreakers when illegal acts are committed. He was Meggy's partner-in-crime in SMG4: Officer Meggy before she left the police department.
He has not appeared in recent episodes aside from bloopers with fan-submitted plots, with Peach Toadstool acting as his replacement as the proper authority figure until SMG4: Cooking with Mario & Bowser: World Tour, where he is shown to be working in a U.S. prison.
Appearance[]
He is a tall, thin man with a computer monitor for a head. He wears a traditional security guard uniform.
Background[]
Almost nothing is known about Mr. Monitor's past. According to himself, his father died at some point in his life, as he told a disguised Mario in SMG4: Mario Runs Out Of Toilet Paper. It was likely that event which pushed Mr. Monitor over the edge and gave him an immense hatred of what he deemed "illegal."
In SMG4: Officer Meggy, he was revealed to have a somewhat lonely life, as he apparently lives in an appliance store and treats both a microwave and a toaster as his wife and child respectively. However, it is never said that they're not alive. It's possible they are still communicating with Mr. Monitor, possibly through beeps that are too high-pitched for Meggy's ears.
Personality[]
Despite appearing as a kind and normal person, whenever he sees or hears disorder, he shows his true colors as a violent, aggressive, brutal, destructive and slightly psychopathic mood-swinger who hates any type of disorder or illegal activity and will give out severe and gruesome punishments to anyone who does so, which includes tearing out genitals and organs and blowing victims up, sending them to the sky burning. He also attacks people whose crimes are justified or are incredibly minor issues (examples being when Wario was going to get across the street when there was a red light and Bob Bobowski insulting him and the school). However, such actions of his made himself breaking police protocol, due to attacking the defendant without ever thinking, and terrorizing criminals or even those he deems as criminals in a fashion much like a criminal himself, except with the power of law enforcement behind him. As a result of his temper, he is usually seen with a disturbing angry face. However, despite of his law-enforcing nature, there are hints of him not being above his standards, as when he sees a monitor-headed girl, who's just a dummy made by Mario as a distraction, his reaction is hoping that girl is of legal age before pursuing her when he breaks a law and doesn't know yet he gets upset and explodes. Despite his violent and destructive behavior, Hal still has good intentions.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Warping: First seen in SMG4: Mario's Magical TV, he has the apparent ability to warp to a given location through screens. This is shown when he warps through one of his security cameras and begins attacking Wario when he tries to steal a package. He later uses this ability to warp to Mario's location when the latter was about to get executed by the Council of Tax Fraud.
- Superhuman Strength: In SMG4: Mario Commits Tax Fraud, he saved himself and Mario from getting crushed by a giant spike-ball and hurled it into the sky. He was also able to send Saiko flying into the sky after one kick in SMG4: War of the Fat Italians 2020.
- Crime Sensing: Mr. Monitor can somehow instantly arrive at the location of a criminal the moment they commit a crime, even minor ones, as shown when he barges into Peach's Castle after Bob insults him and Mario and Luigi's house not long after Mario committed tax fraud.
- Indescribable Ability: In SMG4: Mario Commits Tax Fraud, he punished Mario with an indescribable ability that is powerful enough to send him flying to the sky set on fire. This ability was used again when Mario tries to escape the prison through the sewers.
- Transformation: In SMG4: Wario Tries To Stop Himself From Dying, he turned himself into a segurity gun in order to stop Wario from committing crimes. In SMG4: Mario's Internet Safety he transforms into a Optimus Prime body which was strong enough to throw a car that was downloaded into the world by Bob. He can even turn himself into a police car to quickly pursue the criminals he is chasing.
- Explosion Immunity: In SMG4: Officer Meggy, Mr. Monitor protects Meggy from a Bob-Omb explosion by shielding her with his body. Mr. Monitor appears to be entirely unaffected by this.
- Video Capability: His head, being a computer monitor, is fully capable of playing videos on it. He utilizes this against criminal Shy Guys in SMG4: Officer Meggy, by playing a video of a kawaii Mario dancing in order to distract them.
Weaknesses[]
- Water: With his head being a computer monitor, realistically it short-circuits when exposed to water, as demonstrated in SMG4: Mario Runs Out Of Toilet Paper. Ironically, his temporary partner Meggy used to have the same weakness. In SMG4: Officer Meggy he and Meggy shown to hide in a lake to ambush Tari for breaking the law, yet is shown to be fine despite his head being completely submerged.
- Hacking: Also with his head being a computer monitor, he is also considered a computer, making him vulnerable to hacking, shown in Mario using his hacking ability to trick him into attacking those who committed legal acts in SMG4: If Mario Was In... Cyberpunk 2077.
Criminal Record[]
Despite being a police officer and claiming to hate anything illegal, he has actually been committing crimes more than stopping them, but he has never gotten into trouble due to his status.
- Murder: He has killed several people during his attempts to uphold the law, innocent or not.
- Death threats: He threatened to kill the SMG4 Gang just because he thought Bob was insulting him.
- Kidnapping and taking a hostage: In SMG4: Mario's Bed and Breakfast, when Mario delivered supplies to him, it was revealed that he was holding somebody hostage, which Mario completely ignored.
- Stepping on the grass: The only crime that he's actually regretted. In one of the challenges of SMG4: War Of The Fat Italians 2021, Saiko Bichitaru tricks him into following her into a grass field, causing him to have a mental breakdown and explode (as Joke Death).
- Abuse of power: As mentioned above, he hasn't been punished for the crimes he has committed in his mission, due to his status.
- Police Brutality (mainly): He and other RMPK police officers have committed this in their various appearances.
Trivia[]
- Mr. Monitor is the first original character to be introduced in Season 10.
- He is the fourth major character to be voiced by a Speakonia voice, the first three being Chris Gordman, Swagmaster69696969696, and Grand Dad.
- The voice used for Mr. Monitor specifically, Adult Male #2 American English/the BonziBUDDY voice, was also used for Bingus in SMG4: The Tari Abnormality.
- It's possible he is a robot, suggesting by his computer head.
- However, he still needs to use the bathroom as implied in SMG4: If Mario Was In Friday Night Funkin 2, though this was likely played for laughs.
- Hal Monitor's name is a reference to his job (a hall monitor) and his head being a computer monitor.
- His father is revealed to have passed away in SMG4: Mario Runs Out Of Toilet Paper.
- Mr. Monitor commits Invasion of Privacy himself at the beginning of SMG4: Mario Commits Tax Fraud and at the end of SMG4: Mario School Club to detect actions he deems 'illegal'.
- However, in SMG4: Officer Meggy, he states that "Nothing's illegal when you're on the side of justice", so this was most likely pardoned.
- This character's model is currently not available to the public for download on Steam Workshop. However, the models that make up Hal are:
- Hal's body is a National Bank Security player model, uploaded by currently-named Colonel Canny on Steam.
- Hal's hat is from the "Pyroland Protector" prop set; custom-made for Team Fortress 2, created by Steam user Astute.
- Hal's monitor used is the [OR] Monitor content [PROP], created by STeam user ТЮЛЕНЬ.
- There is a fan-made model by MrTheWizard
- He is revealed to be married and has a child in SMG4: Officer Meggy.
- Comedically, his family is revealed to be inanimate electronics. Additionally, he also views other electronics as "humans" and compares electronics smuggling to human trafficking.
- In SMG4: If Mario Was In... Cyberpunk 2077, he technically cheats on his wife by flirting with Mrs. Monitor (a dummy created by Mario).
- In SMG4: Mario's Magical TV, he is referred to as "Mr. Hall Monitor", but in SMG4: Officer Meggy, his name is revealed to be Hal Monitor.
- He is similar to Robocop, as both are robot police officers who brutalize criminals and are incredibly powerful. However, unlike Robocop, Hal is both emotionally and mentally unstable, his ways of punishing criminals are arguably more brutal than Robocop's, and his "acts of justice" break the law numerous times. Still, he believe his actions are justified as he's trying to protect and serve.
- Interestingly, he has several clones of Robocop as his co-workers.
- Excluding Beeg SMG4 and Long SMG4, Mr. Monitor and Fuego the Water Bottle are the only major original characters introduced in Season 10 that is not part of the Anti-Cast.
- They are also the only original characters to not be released on the GMod workshop, while Hal only has fan-made models.
- Excluding some cameos, Hal didn’t make any appearances from May-November after the criticisms from SMG4: Officer Meggy, with his Line “Nothing’s Illegal when your on The Side of Justice” presumably in light of the recent acts of police brutality in the United States after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. He finally made his return in SMG4: Cooking with Mario & Bowser: World Tour.
- Despite his name being spelled as "Hal" SMG4 and Kevin revealed that it is actually pronounced "Hall" in a Hobo Bros video reacting to Meggy's wiki page.
- As well as being a play on words of hall monitor, Hal's name may also reference HAL-9000 from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, as they are both artificially intellectual devices that can be almost anywhere at any given moment, know too much for their own good, and are major threats to humanity. This is yet to be confirmed.
- As shown in SMG4: Officer Meggy, Hal runs a copy of Windows XP as his Operating System.
- Is still unknown who his father is, but some fans have theorized that his father is actually Mr. Puzzles, a highly psychopathic but intelligent entity who responsible for Peach Castle being permanently destroyed by the entity as well turn One Shot Wren into a egotistical and sociopathic outlaw and tricks Marty and Mario to steal SMG3's notebook at Casino Paisano, meaning that they have possible close relationship. However, Hal's statement that his father is dead makes this unlikely.
GMOD model[]