Cribbins

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File:Cribbins.jpg
Cribbins, as drawn by Matt Smith

Nobody knows the first name of Cribbins. He does know Albert Spangler though, and knows he's a crook. Mostly because he's a crook himself.

Cribbins appears to be an Omnian priest. Another important feature are his false teeth, which do not fit entirely well in his mouth. An unpleasant clue to an even more unpleasant personality is that Cribbins forcibly removed them from the mouth of their previous owner, just before killling him. This is the key event that dissolved his grifting partnership with Moist, who had become increasingly unhappy with his partner's sadistic tendencies. Moist had no part in the murder, but was even more determined afterwards to pursue the art of the con-man in a non-violent way that left nobody physically injured or dead (least of all himself).

Cribbins is at least partially motivated by a need to avenge the affront of his young partner's deserting him (but more so by a desire to blackmail Moist and take him for what he can, believing that now Lipwig has gone legitimate, he will want nobody to be reminded of his past.)

His tooth-related downfall spares Berenice Houser from yet another reason to be disillusioned with men.

Annotation

British comedian Dick Emery created a stable of memorable characters, one of whom was a sanctimonious Church of England vicar who turned out on closer examination to be not so pious as he appeared - this was a priest who would invest the steeple repair fund at the bookies, pay attention to the spiritual welfare of employees at the local strip clubs, and essentially use the priesthood as a cover for lying, cheating, conning and conniving. Distinguished by a set of large and ill-fitting false teeth and an accompanying speech impediment, no name is assigned to him in the TV series, but I'm sure in the spin-off film he was called the Reverend Cribbens...