"They wouldn't put me on a pedestal, so I'm layin' 'em on a slab!" – The Penguin
Taking from our dear friend Oswald Cobblepot, it seems like enough time has passed since our Penguins hockey team lost in four games to the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference Finals. You know, enough time to let old wounds heal before we rip them back open.
Much was made about the offensive drought suffered by the stars of the Pens in the ECF, as the Bruins outscored Pittsburgh 12-2 during the series. The Pens were Halak'd by another insanely hot goalie while anything they threw at the net seemed insignificant. Poor shots, usually something you see from comic book and movie villains.
Re-enter Oswald Cobblepot. One of the most recognizable parts of Tim Burton's Batman Returns Gotham world was the assortment of umbrellas given to Cobblepot's Penguin. He had a child's mobile on one, a flame-thrower in another, even a sick swordbrella. But the one we're focused on is his gunbrella. Remember, the bad guys are usually crappy shots:
So did Oswald Cobblepot hit anyone with his gunbrella? And how was his shot compared to the Pittsburgh Penguins versus the Bruins?
Well the Pens only scored 2 goals all series, by separate players. Brandon Sutter scored in Game 2, Chris Kunitz in Game 3. And all the big guns came up blank. Here's the shots/goals breakdown of the 2 goal-scorers and some of the stars who failed:
Sutter 1/6 = 16.67%
Kunitz 1/12 = 8.33%
Geno 0/21 = 0.00%
Neal 0/20 = 0.00%
Letang 0/16 = 0.00%
Crosby 0/13 = 0.00%
Those last four could make a sick storm trooper squad.
But back to the man of the hour, Oswald Cobblepot. He's relatively calm throughout the first half of the movie, and only starts to flip out after Batman turns the city against him with Cobblepot's own words. Before this, the only "shots" fired are a quick flame-throwerbrella burst into the air and and hypnotizing umbrella that shot a blank at Christopher Walken's Max Shreck. We can count those as warmup or practice shots.
But then Batman does his Batmanning and Cobblepot remembers his arsenal.
As soon as Batman throws a wrench in Cobblepot's plans, Oswald unleashes tons of machine gun blasts into the Gotham crowd. Now this is an estimation, but we'll say 40 shots were fired, and there were no visible injuries or deaths. The Penguin is immediately playing himself onto Pittsburgh's top line with his initial percentage.
Shots into the crowd 0/40 = 0.00%
Furius, Cobblepot returns to the sewers, rejecting his human name and re-assuming his Penguin moniker. There, he begins his quest to kidnap every firstborn child, to which some clown gets weird. The Penguin takes one shot, killing the clown. This is like Sutter's 1/1 Game 2. Only The Penguin won.
Sewer-clown shot 1/1 = 100%
So The Penguin goes above ground once again to personally grab Max's son Chip because of course this epic bro's name is Chip. The Penguin takes one shot and blows away some mannequin's head. No human injury, so The Penguin gets an 0-fer.
Party shot 0/1 = 0.00%
And that's it. The Penguin went roughly 1/42 in shots in Batman Returns, for a shooting percentage of 2.4%. He's a Pens top-6 forward caliber player, and should be signed immediately.
"You gotta admit I played this stinkin' city like a harp from hell." – Oswald Cobblepot
Go Pens.
