You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, which I about how we create them and why we suspend

our disbelief.

I'm Eric Mollinsky.

This month, we are kicking off a mini-series about Sidekicks.

You could even say that the month of May is the Sidekick to Summer.

I mean, nobody's ever said that before, but we can make that a thing.

Hashtag Sidekick to Summer.

And Sidekicks are often ticket for granted as a trope.

But looking at Sidekicks brings up a lot of questions about who gets to be put in those

goals, why a Sidekick needs to be in a story, and what they reflect back on us and our

experiences when we're losing ourselves in these adventures.

Now we could have started with Sancio Panza, who's considered the first Sidekick in Western

literature from Don Quixote.

But Sancio Panza is not exactly iconic in pop culture.

In fact, I had to look up his name to make sure I got it right.

We could have also started with Robin, but there's actually been like a half dozen characters

that have taken up the mantle of Robin because they always end up outgrowing Batman.

But there is one Sidekick who has appeared in every form of media.

Literature, film, TV, comics, anime, plays, musicals, puppetry, opera, wherever fictional

characters have existed over the last 130 years, you will find John Watson, forever loyal

to Sherlock Holmes.

When Watson was invented in the Victorian Age, when Buffalo Bill's Wild West show was

...