Well, I've done Ickis, Krumm and Oblina, now it's the Gromble's and yet another in this year's long list of "Why the Hell didn't I add him in sooner?" AAAHH!!! Real Monsters was one of my favorite shows growing up and while I enjoyed the main three a lot, my favorite character has always been the Gromble. I guess I just have a thing for the crazy teacher arch type, and honestly my love of this character has only grown as I've gotten older as I then realized that he provided a lot more of the sardonic, bitterness that only adults would understand and that's something that the company that made this series, Klasky Csupo, use to excel in and seemed to forget as they got older. They had a great knack of making their main characters apply well to the young, naive, child audience while providing a wealth of adult supporting characters that provided great older humor. Rarely did it get out of hand, but they had that very real, snarky, older cynicism that you didn't quite notice until you were the right age. It added a lot more depth to their earlier shows and is probably why this and earlier seasons of Rugrats for example had much better lasting potential... but I could go on and on about how Klasky Csupo really fell from grace believe me, so I'll spare you all from that.
I knew a lot of people my age that grew up with this show I always remember them hating the Gromble because he frightened them as a child, which always made me think "Isn't that the point?" I mean, I can understand to a point but I never found the Gromble scary, at least not in appearance. Freaky as Hell, sure, but I guess there was just something too compelling to me about a creature that was basically the love child of Dr. Frank N. Furter and a Blue Meanine. Ironic that Tim Curry was a voice actor in AAAHH!! Real Monsters, but didn't voice the Gromble. Something about his strange design made me enjoy him even more and I just loved whenever this guy was on the screen because you could never really tell how he was going to act. He had a great way of flip flopping from reasonably authoritative, to awkwardly compassionate, to outright psychotic and the ways he would punish students was always something bizarre and unexpected. Definitely another gem from the 90's that I wish could be brought back and done justice... but I know that would never happen so I'll just enjoy rewatching it as is.
