Henchman
- For the in-game character, see Fat Demon.
"Ah jeez."
—Henchman's catchphrase
"The...soul counter stopped."
—Henchman, Carn-Evil
Henchman is, as his name suggests, The Devil's henchman and the secondary antagonist of The Cuphead Show! He is voiced by David Wasson.
Profile
Appearance
Henchman is a Fat Demon. Fat Demons are large, heavyset devils colored in brilliant purple. They have long beaky noses, a pair of short thin horns, small wings from their humps, elephant hoof-like feet, pointy devil tails, and slightly loose gloves. All Fat Demons have yellow eyes with red pupils. Henchman has slightly different colours than an in-game Fat Demon: His face is white, while his horns, wing-webs, and gloves are all yellow.
While Henchman is essentially naked, he is briefly seen wearing a tailcoat identical to King Dice's near the end of "Roll the Dice". Clothed or not, he goes barefoot throughout the episodes. In "Sweater Off Dead", he's briefly seen wearing a party hat.
Personality
Despite being a demon and the Devil's primary assistant, Henchman doesn't seem to have a malicious bone in his body and seems to mostly concern himself with cheering the Devil up or, at least, keeping him from incinerating too many demons. When Mugman is taken by the Devil, rather than show malicious joy like his boss, he instead looks horrified and perhaps even empathetic for Cuphead, showing how he knew Cuphead pushed his luck too much and, unlike his boss, didn't want anything bad to happen. However, this is downplayed as he does still encourage the Devil to cause mischief around the Inkwell Isles when the latter is feeling down and excitedly asks the Devil for details once he's returned from his rampage. The Devil trusts him enough to admit to him that he failed to get Cuphead's soul at the beginning of "Sweater Luck Next Time" and let him treat his injuries at the end of the same episode. Henchman always stays by the Devil's side, no matter how scary and violent he can be and even sheds a tear of pride and joy when the Devil is inspired by him to go out and do some evil deeds again in "The Devil's Pitchfork". In both of the aforementioned episodes, it is implied that he is good at giving advice, often giving the Devil ideas that work (or can work) to his benefit.
Though the first impression he leaves is one of the stereotypical dopey flunky, he later proves to be very emotionally intelligent and quick enough on the draw to keep up with the Devil's mood swinging tendencies and fiery temper. Most notably, he realises immediately when the Devil has reached his rage-breaking point when Cuphead insults him one too many times in the second season's finale. Henchman is a sincerely affable demon who genuinely cares about the Devil and even looks out for his fellow demons, such as saving King Dice from the Devil's literal fiery temper and giving the invisible sweater to Stickler so the Devil can't hurt him, despite disliking him like his boss does. In general, Henchman is shown to be intelligent, gentle, and down-to-earth.
He is a big fan of the game show Roll the Dice, and is appointed as the host after King Dice's failure to obtain Cuphead's soul.
Powers and Abilities
- Flight: While Henchman has considerably smaller wings than the other demons, at least compared to the rest of his body, his wings can function as well as any other demon.
- Giving advice: Henchman is shown to be quite good at giving advice, especially to the Devil.
- Even Temper: Contrast to the Devil, Henchman is very equanimous and can easily calm his boss down during his tantrums.
- Dancing: Henchman seems to be somewhat good at dancing, as shown when he joins his boss and co-workers on the conga line. A better example of his dancing ability is shown in a deleted scene where he (literally) dances with the Devil while the latter tries to avoid Stickler and has almost no problem in matching his boss' dance steps.
Weaknesses
- Clumsiness: Henchman is shown to be quite clumsy, which is mainly demonstrated near the end of "Roll the Dice", where he trips over himself and gets stuck in a band member's tuba after having been appointed as the new host of King Dice's show.
Appearances
Season One
Carn-Evil
Henchman is writing down the soul counter before the Devil starts singing. During the song where the Devil starts dancing, he interruptedly tells him that the soul counter has stopped counting. Later when Cuphead and Mugman escaped Carn-Evil, he said to the Devil that he never saw the him let someone escape before. The Devil soon hits his head with his trident as the episode ends.
Roll the Dice
Henchman is sent to retrieve King Dice after his failure to obtain Cuphead's soul. He excitedly asks for King Dice's autograph in the elevator down to Inkwell Hell, but is rejected. After King Dice is removed as the host of Roll the Dice, Henchman is appointed as its new host. He is much clumsier dancer than King Dice, and falls into a band member's tuba as the episode ends.
Sweater Off Dead
Henchman is touring the Gluttony Department with the Devil, before the Devil holds a party in celebration of collecting souls. He then joins in on a conga line from the Devil after he tries to get rid of Stickler. After the Devil has to go out to collect Cuphead's soul, Henchman sarcastically compliments Stickler.
Sweater Luck Next Time
Henchman congratulates the Devil and asks him if he wants a slice of leftover congratulations cake. The Devil roars at him and comes clean that he did not actually steal Cuphead's soul, he only said that to buy himself some time before Stickler finds out. Henchman tries to make the Devil feel better by giving him a ride at "The Obliterator" which did not cheer the Devil up. At the last part of the episode, Henchman repeatedly put some antiseptic on the Devil's wounded skin which caused the Devil to scream repeatedly in pain.
Season Two
Release the Demons!
Upon seeing the Devil tearing the pages of a book entitled "Controlling Your Rage," still upset about not having retrieved Cuphead's soul yet, Henchman tries to lighten up his mood by complimenting him about his fur having almost grown back. When that doesn't work, he attempts to calm him down with some tea, to no avail as the Devil blasts it with his pitchfork once he hears the word "cup." He then asks Henchman to bring him his finest demons.
The Devil's Pitchfork
Henchman comforts the Devil after his previous defeat and attempts to cheer him up by opening his curtains to reveal souls being tortured outside and reads the headlines of tragic events in a newspaper. After that fails, Henchman then encourages that the Devil to use his pitchfork to blow off some steam and to torment those in the Inkwell Isles above. He then appears after the Devil accidentally leaves his pitchfork as he explains what he did, and Henchman says to retrace his steps on where he left it. After the two go back up to the surface, and the Devil is unable to find his pitchfork, Henchman compliments him for blowing up half the forest (being oblivious that Cuphead and Mugman were the ones that did it). He later then catches onto Cuphead's act with the pitchfork and later in the elevator horrified when the Devil kidnaps Mugman.
Season Three
Relationships
The Devil
"Thank you, Henchman."
—The Devil to Henchman, various episodes
Henchman is, as his name suggests, the Devil's henchman. Henchman has a friendly and helpful approach towards the Devil and, despite his clumsiness, the Devil is rarely aggressive towards him and even seems to appreciate him, such as knowing that he is a big fan of the King Dice show and never misses an episode. He cares for The Devil and wants to do everything to help him, such as trying to cheer him up with some cake and caring for his wounds, as shown in "Sweater Luck Next Time". Demonstrated in the same episode, The Devil trusts Henchman enough to admit to him that he failed to get Cuphead's soul. The Devil also seems to pay attention to Henchman's advice, notably concerning the Obliterator, which could allow him to force Cuphead to remove his invisible sweater.
In "Release the Demons!", seeing the Devil tearing the pages of a book entitled "Controlling Your Rage," still upset about not having retrieved Cuphead's soul yet, Henchman tries to lighten up his mood by complimenting him about his fur having almost grown back and attempts to calm him down with some tea, to no avail as the Devil blasts it with his pitchfork once he hears the word "cup." He is later seen helping the Devil send a squad of his finest demons. However, as he expresses his vengeance about Cuphead, he accidentally ends up destroying them, as well as his second finest demons. Over the course of this, Henchman demonstrates his cognizance of the Devil's incinerating outbursts, hiding behind a stalagmite and later pulling King Dice back too. Throughout most of the episode, Henchman corrects the Devil when he refers to Cuphead as "cup". Although it's clear that the Devil is very annoyed by this, he merely thanks Henchman for reminding him.
In "The Devil's Pitchfork", Henchman attempts to cheer the Devil up, who is upset over no longer being able to collect Cuphead's soul because he missed the deadline, by reading the headline of the newspaper. This doesn't work until he hears a review about him, and how that his touch is getting frantically weaker, thus angering him and using his pitchfork to roast the newspaper. Henchman then encourages the Devil to cause mischief around Inkwell Isles and thus finally cheers up the Devil, who thanks him (sincerely this time) and goes out to do so. Afterwards, the Devil blissfully tells Henchman about the trouble he caused. Later in the same episode, Henchman helps him look for his pitchfork and tells him to retrace his steps, which makes him realize that he left it lying against a tree. Shortly thereafter, they find Cuphead and Mugman are the ones who have Devil's pitchfork. The two demons are later seen descending with Mugman in the elevator, leaving Cuphead standing in the woods alone, devastated.
Despite the fact that he gave the invisible sweater to Stickler, who the Devil is incredibly fed up with, the king of the underworld does not seem to be angry with Henchman about it after he finds out and doesn't even bring it up.
The Devil is notably a lot less harsh on Henchman, compared to his other minions. Even when Henchman annoys him, the worst the Devil does is just give him a sarcastic, "Thank you, Henchman," even when alluding to things that will bring out the Devil's extreme anger. He generally seems to be the closest thing the Devil has to a friend, being the only demon seen to act as his advisor and generally just caring about the Devil's health and well being, as well as the only demon who the Devil confides in and never seriously threatens in any way, indicating that he genuinely values Henchman's companionship on some level.
Stickler
While they're not seen interacting that much on-screen and judging by his reaction upon seeing Stickler coming in in "Sweater Off Dead", where he says "Not this guy.", it can be assumed that Henchman does not have a positive view of The Devil's auditor.
He expresses annoyance with him as he keeps pestering the Devil about how he hasn't collected Cuphead's soul yet, even frantically motions for him not to bring it up, and gets angry at him for ruining the latter's party, only to be met with Stickler reacting defensively and refusing to apologize for doing his job. Despite this, his annoyance towards him doesn't stop him from giving Stickler the invisible sweater so that the Devil can't kill him, indicating that he does seem to actually show some concern for him. However, it cannot be said that the feeling is mutual.
As of the second season, Henchman is also shaping up to be the perfect opposite of Stickler. Personality-wise, Henchman is a tad dopey but emotionally intelligent and caring towards his boss, where Stickler is a highly intelligent auditor with a brain like a machine but relentlessly takes his own boss to task over bureaucracy despite the very real dangers of doing so. They also have opposite relationships with the Devil - Henchman is the closest thing the Devil has to a friend, whereas Stickler is completely and totally despised by Old Scratch. This culminates in an attempt by the Devil to flat out try to kill Stickler, only thwarted by the impenetrable, invisible sweater. Furthermore, Sticker either cannot or refuses to pick up on the Devil's mood swings. Henchman, however, is likely the only person in the setting who can safely counter his boss' volatile behaviour and calm him down.
King Dice
They have familiarity with each other. According to the Devil, Henchman is a big fan of King Dice's show and never misses an episode. In "Roll the Dice", when The Devil wants to see King Dice, Henchman asks for his autograph, to which King Dice indignantly declines. Both of them seem to be somewhat alarmed about the Devil's anger, though King Dice didn't seem to realize the danger as seen in "Release the Demons!" where he has a baffled look on his face when Henchman pulls him aside during the Devil's tirade about Cuphead.
In some ways, King Dice can be seen as a foil to Henchman as well: both are the nearest the Devil has to minions/ sidekicks (since he goes through his other mooks in rapid succession), however, while Henchman is a dopey and clumsy assistant who tries to mediate his boss and his surbordinates, King Dice is devious and charismatic, and will gladly manipulate and backstab the Devil's other lackeys to maintain his own credibility. Also, while King Dice is deluded into thinking he is on special terms with the Devil (who treats him as an annoyance at best), Henchman is closest to having a genuine, if unflaunted, friendship with the Devil.
Head writer Deeki Deke once said on Twitter that King Dice might actually hold a one-sided resentment towards Henchman for his proximity to the Devil and that, since Henchman took over and hosted Roll the Dice, it's highly unlikely for King Dice to give him an autograph.
Cuphead
Even though he doesn't have an emotional stake in the idea of taking Cuphead's soul, Henchman wants to do everything to help the Devil with his goal. The only time the two are seen face-to-face is near the end of The Devil's Pitchfork, though they don't interact with each other.
Gallery
Holding a slice of cake
Henchman as seen in "Carn-Evil", during the Devil's musical number.
Henchman in "Sweater Off Dead", wearing a party hat.
Henchman smiling at The Devil
The Devil thanks Henchman
The Devil and Henchman in the Gluttony Department
Trivia
- He is based off of the fat purple demons that appear during the Devil's boss fight in the game.
- At first, it seems like the Devil calls him "henchman" because he doesn't even bother to learn his henchman's name. However, later on when he replaces King Dice as the host of "Roll the Dice" after Dice fails to collect Cuphead's soul, he's introduced as "The Henchman" as if it was his actual name.
- Henchman appears to be the Devil's true right-hand man in the show instead of King Dice, who was his right-hand man in the original game, since he's always at his boss's side managing the affairs of hell.
- Henchman is the only one of the Devil's sidekicks who doesn't refer to him as "sir."
- He shares similarities with Pain and Panic, Hade's sidekicks from Disney's Hercules, being obese like the former. (Quite fitting considering the Devil bursting into flames when angry may have been inspired by Hades.)
- Henchman is unique to his role in the series as he is between two archetypes. Despite being both a tad dopey and the Devil's seemingly annoying and incompetent assistant, he is not really that foolish. He is highly emotionally intelligent and caring towards his boss, and is the closest thing the Devil has to a friend throughout the series. Additionally, unlike most villain sidekicks, he has a good relationship with his boss and, though alarmed about the Devil's anger, he is ultimately not afraid of him whatsoever and is likely the only person in the setting who can safely counter his boss' volatile behaviour and calm him down.
- A running gag in the series is The Devil referring to Cuphead simply as "Cup" and Henchman adding the word "Head" immediately afterwards, as if he thinks his boss has forgotten Cuphead's full name.