Ms. Muriel Periwinkle Finster is the assistant teacher and the main anti-heroine from the TV show, Recess. Like Prickly, she is sometimes good or neutral. She is in charge of lunch, recess and detention tasks. She is the childhood friend of Principal Peter Prickly and ex-girlfriend of Dr. Phillium Benedict (whom she broke with because he hates recess). She is also TJ's fifth grade teacher starting in Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade after the original and desired Miss Milky had consigned out to another school. She sometimes has a major role in the series and Recess: School's Out. In that movie, she serves as the tritagonist. She was voiced by April Winchell also voices Peg Pete in Goof Troop, Sylvia in Wonder Over Yonder, and Terk in Disney's Tarzan.
Description[]
She usually serves as the constant nemesis of the child hero. Although Ms. Finster is technically a teacher and enforcer of discipline rather than a true villain, she is nevertheless shown to be a control-freak and sometimes even downright malevolent: though it could be argued her malevolence is played upon more due to children generally disliking authoritative figures. She is also best friends with the current principal, Principal Peter Prickly. At the age of 10, Miss Finster was once a troublemaking kid who used to climb Thaddeus T. Third's statue. Ms. Finster is however quite open in her views that children should be treated fairly harshly and views most children as little more than "hooligans". She even employs Randal C. Weems as her eyes and ears on the playground: rewarding him with cookies and other such perks for being what the other children refer to as a "snitch". Despite being fairly old, Ms. Finster is a formidable fighter. Of course, she never utilizes these techniques on any of the children, but she has been seen using them against the villains in "Recess: School's Out" (in which she serves as the tritagonist), as well as for purely recreational use: she seems to be especially skilled at Muay Thai. Ms. Finster was not always the overbearing authoritarian she is today. When she was younger, she was a good-natured teacher and was well-liked by her students.
However something happened in her past that changed her into the bullying tyrant she is today. Despite her usual antagonistic role, she has moments of being more of a friend and has appeared as a hero (or at least benefactor) on rare occasions, suggesting that deep inside Ms. Finster is still a caring individual. She also is willing to defend any children from harm's way as she's seen in one episode defending one of the child heroes, T.J. Detweiler from an evil school administrator named Dr. Slicer who's punishing T.J. by naming him 'Captain Sappy' for getting into Principal Pricky's way, despite Ms. Finster stating the fact that T.J. was actually expressing the whole school's true feelings for Prickly. Ms. Finster, ironically, despite often appearing as a bully does not tolerate others bullying in her presence, be they adults or children.
In the film, she even aided the students and the rest of the staff in stopping her ex-boyfriend named Dr. Phillium Benedict from sending the earth to a new ice age as a part of his villainous plan to raise test scores and become president of the United States.
Trivia[]
- Miss Finster is not actually a villainess, since she only wants to keep children from having fun and get children in trouble for misbehaving at school, it doesn't mean she was villainess, she just anti-heroine.
- Ms. Finster also acts as a vital force of order in the Recess hierarchy, as it was shown in one episode where she was injured and thus unable to police the school properly, which resulted in it quickly devolving into a dystopian anarchy, making T.J. and his friends appreciate her role.