Bob the Pleo Forums

The evil and demented mad scientist, Dr. Mel feels it's not just his job, but his duty to eradicate all pleos from the face of the earth.  Just because Caleb Chung, the creator of Pleo is his twin brother, doesn't make it sibling rivalry . . . As the "evil twin brother," Dr. Mel is your typical half-crazed mad scientist (emphasis on the crazy as in "looney"), with his secret lair, outlandish weaponry, and dreams of world domination.  But when he's not in the middle of trying to kill everyone, he likes to hang out at the local pizzeria and socialize with the rest of the townsfolk of Weedovia. His goal in life is to conquer the world, take over Pleopia, and destroy the Pleos.  James, agent 00-00-00-00-007 of His Majesty's Secret Service stands ever ready to defeat his notorious plots, and Bob somehow always manages to befuddle him.

When coming up with the "mad scientist" villain, it naturally had to be a "Doctor" or a "Professor".   All mad scientists are <I>Dr. So-and-so</I> or <I>professor such-and-such</I>.  And since this villain is also our counterpart to our super-spy James, I looked at the James Bond films for inspiration and just as naturally found the first villain, who is also a scientist, "<B><I>Dr. No</I></B>".
I chose the name "Mel" because it was a single syllable like the names "No" and "Bob".  Mel is also the name of two great comic staples, <I>Mel Blanc</I> of Looney Tunes fame, and <I>Mel Brooks</I> (who  played the Yoda knock-off character Yogurt in the movie <I>Space Balls</I>.  Dr. Mel is the "evil twin" because that's the standard running gag used in soap-operas and parodies for decades.  He's the specifically the twin of Caleb Chung because of Caleb's role as the creator of Pleo.

And since our "mad" scientist is really more of a "crazy” scientist than an "angry" scientist, the clown wig was used to help keep that in focus.

Dr. Mel is also one of the only two human characters in comic strip.  The other being Santa Claus.