Zigzag

Zigzag
Zigzag in his laboratory.
Alignment	Villain.
From	The Thief and the Cobbler
Enemies	Tack Phido (eventually)
Allies	The Sultan (or so he pretends) Phido The Mighty One-Eyes' leader
Occupation	Grand Vizier and sorcerer. Betrayer.
Fate	Is eaten alive by his former minions Phido the Vulture and the Crocodiles.

Zigzag, also known as Zigzag the Great, is the one of the two main antagonists (along with The Mighty One-Eye) of The Thief and the Cobbler.

Description

Zigzag is the Sultan of the Golden City's Grand Vizier. The Sultan's laziness allows him to rule the city almost alone, and he does so with an iron fist and a good dose of megalomany. He pretends to be a sorcerer, although he doesn't seem to have real magic powers of his own (he only knows some rather impressive parlor tricks and has an ability to make any given animal do his bidding). He has light blue skin and six fingers on each hand, and seems to avoid sleeping. He always speaks in rhyme, for no obvious reason.

Zigzag has a pet and a minion, whom he frequently abuses, in the person of Phido the Vulture, a sleepy and starving-looking vulture. Zigzag nelects to feed Phido so long that he is eventually eaten by Phido himself.

Earlier versions

In the planned Nasrudin film, Zigzag was "Anwar" the Grand Vizier. In the surviving clip of the Nasrudin "Bread" scene, Anwar and the other voices are provided by Kenneth Williams (who also plays Goblet and Tickle in the final film). Anwar was the Grand Vizier of Persia [which became The Golden City]. India [which became the One Eyes] had a similar character called Parata. [Quote: "I am so extremely cunning that I do outwit myself!"] The character was redesigned based on Richard Williams' reaction to Vincent Price's own expressions. While Price recorded his dialogue in the early 1970s, further dialogue was changed and rerecorded over the years. Richard Williams was still trying to get Price to record new dialogue shortly before Price's death. There are one or two lines in the final film which sound more like Richard Williams than Vincent Price.

Quotes

• "Oh, greatest king on all the Earth,
  This lowborn cobbler of no worth
  Attacked me in the square today...
  Shall we take his head away?"
• "Calm down, Your Highness. Invaders? One-Eye?
  Why, this is against what has been prophesied.
  Has it not been written we are safe from any threat,
  As long as those 3 golden balls are on the minaret?"
• "We'll see who wins at the end of the day...
  We'll see who ends up grieving!
  I'll go to the One-Eyes right away!
  I'M TAKING THE BALLS AND LEAVING!"

Trivia

• The majority of ZigZag's dialog rhymes are in the style of the late Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, so Richard Williams calls ZigZag "the evil sorcerer version of Dr. Seuss".
• ZigZag may not need to sleep, since he taunts all of those who are asleep during the movie. he says, "sleep... sleep... sleep... they sleep... they're all sleeping, but I am quite awake!" he then says that men are easy prey because of this.