Father Jack Hackett
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Image:I Love My Brick!.jpgFather Jack Hackett is a fictional character in the Channel 4 television series Father Ted. The character (played by Frank Kelly) is the deeply alcoholic, and at times violently psychotic, third priest in Father Ted's household.
Through much of the series he is comatose in his favourite chair and most waking moments are spent calling for "Drink!"
With a complexion reminiscent of boiled ham he is, however, capable of impressively nimble feats: it is unwise to leave unattended a freshly opened bottle of wine with Jack within 5 metres of it.
The drink does, sad to say, appear to have taken its toll on Jack's cognitive functioning. The few lines he does speak are usually "Drink", "Feck", "Girls" or "Arse", though occasionally he branches out into comments like "Are those my feet?", "I like cake", "Feckin' birds again" and "I'm a happy camper". One of his more offensive comments was regarding a plague of rabbits that had decended upon the house, referring to them as, "Hairy Japanese bastards!" Occasionally he has longer lines, whose rarity just add to the comic effect. Father Ted spent a painful few hours trying to get the priest to utter a phrase which didn't refer to the demon booze, but to little avail. The end result was Jack being able (for a short while) to use the phrases "Yes" (for simple questions) and "That would be an ecumenical matter" (for diversionary tactics).
Bishop: "Are they treating you well?"
Jack: "That would be an ecumenical matter."
In the episode Night of the Nearly Dead, he addresses the visitors and Father Ted, Dougal et al about the horrid intentions of the elderly women who invade the house:
"They'll lie in wait like wolves...the smell of blood in their nostrils...waiting...interminably waiting...and then...!!!!"
Jack is a very violent man. He regularly throws punches and bottles. Apparently he once gave Dougal a big kick up the arse, but most of his violence is taken out on Ted. On various occasions Jack has smashed Ted over the head with a hammer, attached clothes pegs to his nipples, punched him in the stomach, smacked him in the face with his walking stick, run him over with a car, dropped a big spider in his mouth and punched him through the big living-room window. Ted has stated however, that Jack would never hit you out of spite, he'd only hit you because "he thought it was funny."
Jack is also fond of running head first through the window, but Ted put a stop to that by fitting plexiglass. The only thing that has a calming effect on Father Jack is the colour blue, while he can be made to stand up if the French National Anthem is played on a record.
Unlike Father Ted and Father Dougal, Jack is not afraid of Bishop Brennan, constantly telling him to "Feck off!" or shouting "Arse biscuits!" in his presence. Once, when Bishop Brennan tried the unwise task of waking Father Jack up, he was met with an almighty "FECK OFF!" and punched in the face. Jack also locked Bishop Brennan's sarcastic PA Father Jessup in his godforsaken, incredibly foul-smelling underpants hamper.
He is affected by leap-years, and for a short period becomes a lovely character, dancing in fields with children and puppy dogs. In an act of unusual love and affection, he briefly had a pet brick (he hugs it and yells "I love my brick!", before flinging it at an unsuspecting Ted). He tends to dream of his "glory days" of teaching Catholic school girls netball and judging wet t-shirt contests. He was also the first priest to denounce the Beatles.
His personal hygiene is dubious - his head once went septic, and the others use his copious amounts of earwax for candles. He also appears to be infecting the wall behind his chair. Ted and Dougal react with sheer horror when they think it might be time for "his bath!!" When he died in series one, it was discovered that he had amassed a personal fortune of £500,000, which he had left to Dougal and Ted on the condition that they spend the night with his corpse. When it emerges that he is in fact still alive, they express their relief and then decide they really do need to try out several new different types of floor polish (the liquid imbibed by Jack leading to his apparent death)...and perhaps leave them lying around the house for easy access.
Homages
In the sci-fi show Farscape, there is an obvious nod to Father Jack in the episode "A Prefect Murder", in the character of Paroon, a strange alien priest. The character's face has been moulded in the same shape as Jack's famous grimace.
There is a page dedicated to photoshopping Jack's face onto various recognisable images for use as avatars.
Jackatars (GGC Media)