2D (Gorillaz)

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Birth Name: Stuart Pot (aka Stu-Pot)
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Birthday: May 23, 1978
Religion: Buddhism
Heritage: English
Addiction: Painkillers
Age: 28
Voice Actor: Nelson De Freitas (speaking) and Damon Albarn (singing)

Stuart Pot is a fictional character member of the virtual band Gorillaz. Born in 1978, he is the band's official pretty boy, known almost exclusively as 2-D and formerly known as Stu-Pot (born 1978). He performs the lead vocals and plays the keyboard for the band. He was created by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett.

Contents

[edit] Background

2-D, real name is Stuart Pot, (last name often thought to be Tusspot, though his family changed their name to Pot shortly before Stu was born), also known as Stu-Pot. He was born to David and Rachel Pot and grew up in Crawley, West Sussex. He always loved music, and zombie films (a recurring theme in his life). At the age of eleven he fell out of a tree, cauing a total loss of bodily hair. When it did grow back it was naturally, if inexplicably, a vibrant azure blue.

The drama in his life began when Satanist hooligan Murdoc Niccals purposefully crashed his Vauxhall Astra through the wall of Uncle Norm's Organ Emporium, where Stu-Pot had been working, in an attempt to ramraid it and steal the synths. Murdoc's bumper crashed into Stu-Pot's face, landing him with an eight-ball fracture in his right eyeball, and putting him into a deep catatonic state. Murdoc was arrested and sentenced to carry out 30,000 hours of community service as well as care for the vegetablized Stu-Pot for 10 hours every week.

Not long after, in an attempt to impress some women, Murdoc performed a 360 in a Tesco car park in Nottingham with his vehicle. This sent Stu-Pot crashing through the windshield, hitting his head on the curb. He woke from his coma and also dented his left eye to match his right one, thus gaining him his trademark black, irisless eyes. It was then that Murdoc dubbed him "2-D"; ironically enough, the origins of the name "2-D," at least in the the fictional background story of the Gorillaz, have nothing to do with the phrase "two-dimensional", but rather stands for the two dents in his head. Rather amusingly, Stu-Pot adores his new nickname, dropping use of his birth name completely and even signing formal letters with the first name "Two" and surname "D".Due to his history of violent blows to the head, coupled with a complete lack of natural intelligence, 2D has come out the other side possibly one of the stupidest celebrities in existence. Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett commented on this, saying that he has a sheet of paper where a brain should be.

Because of the so-called 'eight-ball fractures' in his eye sockets, 2-D currently suffers from very intense migraine headaches. As a result, he is pretty much permanently doped up on painkillers. This doesn't help his pathetic intelligence either.

In recent times, 2-D has had his organs replaced with Murdoc's because of Murdoc's desire for an extended life expectancy.

There is a generally accepted rumour that 2-D is actually a father. An e-mail can be found on his computer at the Gorillaz website[1] regarding child-support for his apparent four or five illegitimate children, each conceived with a different woman. As the email quoted, "The spiky blue hair on these offspring is a dead giveaway." Additionally, an MTV Cribs special on Kong Studios said on their profile of 2-D that he is rumored to have fathered "scores" of illegitimate children.

After the El Manana conspiracy, 2-D and Russel were frantic about Noodle's supposed death. It was a hoax, however, and the band has once again gone seperate ways but not for long (so promised Murdoc in the autobiography Rise of the Ogre; their biggest project to date is apparantly being planned) and the singer was, according to Murdoc, "poncing off somewhere. He's probably gonna try and become an actor or a model or whatever..."

[edit] Miscellaneous interests and quirks

[edit] Interests

2-D's interests include Flickcombs, video games, melodicas, zombie films, and painkillers. As seen on the official Gorillaz website, he owns a triple plasma screen entertainment system devoted entirely to the purpose of playing "widescreen Pong." Additionally, 2D is known to be very innocent and trusting, and especially accident-prone, as exhibited in the video for the song Rock the House (where he is hit repeatedly with billiard balls), as well as in a promo for the song DARE (in which he was hit by two bumper cars). One area of interest is the variety of slogans he wears on his T-shirts, which he states are made up by Jamie Hewlett. 2-D says that he doesn't actually know what they mean, but he wears them because they make him look informed on popular culture. Among such slogans are "Born a Zombie from Mercur," " Born to lie", "Hello Kinky", "Tazar Yoot", "Pink rabbit says: Shoot to ill" and "T-Virus," (a likely reference to the T-Virus from the Resident Evil video game series.) One of his other favourite movies is Napoleon Dynamite, as illustrated when he does one of the "Happy Hands" signs from the movie in the music video for Dirty Harry. He also admits that he uses his Motorola phone to play pong or other games while the other members do their solo parts (as seen in such performances as the duet with Madonna at the annual Grammy award show).

[edit] Quirks

Additionally, during the period of the Gorillaz' first album, 2D was intimidated and violently bullied by Gorillaz bassist, Murdoc. But after returning home to work at his family's fair, he realized that he was the "real driving force behind the Gorillaz," and subsequently returned to the band with more confidence on their second studio album Demon Days. Despite his awesome level of mental deficiency, his occasional bouts of insight and philosophical statements can be taken to imply some sort of activity in his brain. It is debatable, though. Despite missing his two front teeth, 2D can speak and sing clearly.

2D's speaking voice, provided by Nelson De Freitas, is very high-pitched. His singing voice, provided by Gorillaz co-creator Damon Albarn, rarely reaches such a pitch, even occasionally falling short of a bass voice (most notable in Rock It). Most of the time, however, his singing is an exaggerated tenor.

It is also insinuated, that while nicer, 2-D can be just as selfish as Murdoc. In Rise of the Ogre, the Gorillaz autobiography, he said often that he had written the lyrics to many of the songs on the band's self-titled debut album. He would begin telling how he came to write the stanzas of each song. Finally frustrated, Murdoc, after smacking 2-D around a bit, reminds the singer that it was actually he who wrote the first album; the bassist then begins the true version of how the lyrics came to be. This is paralleled later, but instead of 2-D taking credit from Murdoc, it is Murdoc trying (unsuccessfully) to take credit for the second album "Demon Days", which is actually Noodle's work. 2-D's selfishness and irresponsibility (he has fathered several illegitimate children; obviously the result of using defective contraceptives or not using any contraceptives at all) stem from his childishness and immaturity(which in turn stems from his idiocy).

It has been noted by a few fans that 2D's appearance is similar to, and may have been inspired by Jack Skellington from the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. However, this is merely speculation.

Also stated in Rise of the Ogre, he lost his front teeth in a food fight when a eclair was pushed into his face. The party was to honor the Gorillaz label signing.

[edit] External links

Gorillaz
2D | Murdoc Niccals | Noodle | Russel Hobbs
Gorillaz discography
Albums and EPs: Tomorrow Comes Today | Gorillaz | G-Sides | Laika Come Home | Demon Days
DVDs: Phase One: Celebrity Take Down | Demon Days Live | Phase Two: Slowboat to Hades
Singles: Clint Eastwood | 19-2000 | Rock the House | 911 | Tomorrow Comes Today | Lil' Dub Chefin' | Feel Good Inc. | DARE | Dirty Harry | Kids With Guns / El Mañana
Related articles
Britpop | Blur | Damon Albarn | Jamie Hewlett | Dan the Automator | Danger Mouse | Del tha Funkee Homosapien | Zombie Flesh Eaters | Passion Pictures | Deltron 3030 | Gorillaz movie | Rise Of The Ogre
In other languages