The Collector is a villain in the Richie Rich series of publications by Harvey Comics, and in the animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The animated version was voiced by Robert Ridgely, and appeared in three episodes.
About The Collector[]
The Collector made his first appearance in Harvey Comics in a late 1981 issue of Richie Rich Fortunes. In the animated series, his first appearance was on the Season 3 premiere, and his hideout was in a castle on an island in the South Pacific. In his first appearance, he has a pet hawk who was perched on his right shoulder. He used a special gun designed to shrink his victims to about six inches tall and held them in drinking glasses. This is first seen with the kidnapping of "Fastball Fernandez", the world's greatest baseball player. His son Miguel contacts Richie saying his father has vanished. Richie and Gloria then watch a news report about Fastball Fernandez's disappearance, which is believed to be connected with the disappearance of other noted people. The news report is interrupted live when the anchorman himself is abducted! Richie's parents are preparing for a vacation, when there is a knock at the door. Mr. Rich opens it on the expectation it is Cadbury, but instead it is the Collector. Mr. Rich demands to know why this intruder has gotten into the Rich mansion and what he wants, only for the Collector to use his shrink ray on Mr. Rich, then on Mrs. Rich. Earlier the Collector had also kidnapped Professor Keenbean. When Richie cannot find his parents nor Professor Keenbean, he feels that this has to do with the disappearance of Fastball Fernandez and the anchorman, then follows leads to an island in the South Seas. Unfortunately for them, they are caught, and Richie is shrunk and placed in a glass next to his parents as part of a collection of the "World's Wealthiest Family". Dollar attempts to attack the Collector, but is fended off by the Collector's hawk and then the Collector shrinks the dog, putting him in a glass as the "World's Last Dollarmation". Gloria demands to know the reason for this obsession with shrinking people, to which the Collector says he became known as "the Collector" as he earned a reputation for devoting himself to collecting rare items, such as butterflies, stamps and coins. When he completed those more mainstream collections, he had thought he lost his purpose in life as there was nothing more to collect, until he realized there was the most challenging collection of all: people! True to his words, the Collector shrinks Gloria then places her in a glass with "World's Prettiest Little Girl".
Richie is able to free himself, his parents and the others when he realizes one of the captives is the "World's Greatest Opera Singer". The Collector then appears and says he will use the ray on them all to "shrink them down to nothingness". Fastball Fernandez fights back by grabbing an olive from the dinner table and hurling it at the Collector, causing him to misfire and hit a mirror. The rays ricochet back at the Collector, who is now the same size as the others. The group then uses a lid from a silver platter to imprison the villain until the authorities arrive, with Richie noting "Now the only thing he will collect is a prison sentence".
He made two more appearances in the fourth and final season, in the episodes "Rich No More" and "Irona Story". In the latter episode, The Collector had escaped from prison, kidnapped Irona and made her work for the villain. He plotted a robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris, and then fled to the Swiss Alps, where Richie had ultimately captured the villain.
Trivia[]
- The Collector was Richie's sole recurring villain in the series. Other main enemies of an episode appeared only once.