Why Teddy From Fear The Walking Dead Looks So Familiar

Since hitting the airwaves back in the Summer of 2015, AMC's "Fear The Walking Dead" has focused and re-focused its narrative as much as any series in television history. Initially following the Clark family in their attempts to survive the early days of the zombie outbreak, the series' sprawling narrative has charted off into parts Season 1 fans likely never could've imagined.

In turn, most of the central players from those early days (save for Alycia Debnam-Carey's Alicia Clark) aren't even on the show anymore and haven't been for a couple of seasons at least. With its near-perpetual narrative shifts and "Fear the Walking Dead" officially passing the 100-episode mark, you can probably imagine loads of new faces have come and gone over the course of its six seasons on the air. And in truth, "FTWD" has added fresh blood to the mix with more regularity than even the iconic series it spun off from, "The Walking Dead."

It's done so with a lot more familiar faces, however, with the likes of Jenna Elfman, Garrett Dillahunt, Colby Minfie, Nick Stahl, and James Le Gros having all made appearances. As "FTWD" Season 6 fans know, some of those faces have recently made their exits too. Likewise, one very familiar face has arrived as the series' new villain Teddy Maddox. It belongs to John Glover. And if you're wondering where you've seen it before, well, it's been prevalent on screens big and small for a few decades now. Here's why Teddy from "Fear the Walking Dead" looks so familiar.

You may not realize it, but John Glover is actually approaching his fifth decade in showbiz, making his big-screen debut opposite Burt Reynolds in the 1973 action-comedy "Shamus." A couple of years later, Glover's profile was significantly raised by a brilliant cameo spot in the Best Picture-winning comedy "Annie Hall" with the actor booking gigs left and right in the years following. Glover really hit his stride in the 1980s, however, thanks in large part to a scene-stealing turn in a classic Bill Murray flick.

That movie is 1988's holiday comedy "Scrooged," which loosely adapted Charles Dickens' immortal tale "A Christmas Carol" into a spooky, screwball romp steeped in '80s sensibilities. It also took a fairly meta approach to its tale, positing Murray's modern-day Mr. Scrooge Frank Castle as a sleazy television network boss who'd do anything to boost viewership, including airing a classless adaptation of Dickens' story live on Christmas Eve.

As in "A Christmas Carol," things change for Frank when he's visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and future. But in the interim, Frank's also got his hands full with the arrival of the ambitious, brown-nosing young exec Brice Cummings, who's clearly jockeying for his job. Mr. Cummings was indeed portrayed by John Glover, who brought some serious yuppie sleaze to the proceedings and did the near-impossible by essentially out-shining Murray in every scene they shared.

You might know John Glover from "Scrooged" or for his similarly sleazy turn in "Gremlins 2: The New Batch." Some of the horror diehards out there no doubt recognize him from his supporting turn in John Carpenter's largely overlooked gothic masterpiece "In the Mouth of Madness." But for an entire generation of Superman fans, the actor will be forever known as the big bad daddy of the biggest, baddest villain on The CW Network's beloved superhero series "Smallville."

The villain in question is Lex Luthor, who was portrayed for the bulk of the series' run by Michael Rosenbaum. For those who've never caught an episode of "Smallville," the show followed the adventures of a teenaged Clark Kent (Tom Welling), charting his journey from high school outcast to ace Daily Planet reporter and superpowered savior we know as Superman. Glover made his "Smallville" debut as Lex's manipulative, power-hungry papa Lionel Luthor in the series' first season and would go on to be credited on 145 episodes between 2001 and 2011.

Along the way, Glovers grandstanding turn as Lionel was frequently the best part of the series, with the actor reveling in the character's every barbed word and seedy deed. And yes, that's saying a lot as the rest of the "Smallville" cast was pretty solid all the way from the series' thrilling pilot episode to its epic finale. 

"Smallville" was hardly John Glover's last turn in the world of DC Comics adaptations. It also wasn't the only time Glover played father to one of DC's biggest bads. It's safe to say, however, Glover's Mr. Sivana in "Shazam!" was a bit less responsible for his son's dastardly turn towards the darkness ... save for giving him a name that positively screams "villain," of course.

As for the vile Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, he was portrayed in "Shazam!" by Mark Strong as a brilliant scientist whose brief but fateful encounter with the film's champion-crowning wizard (Djimon Honsou) as a child sent him on an obsessive, sinister path to claim the boundless power teased. Just FYI — Thaddeus didn't make the cut to become Shazam because he was tellingly tempted by the Eye of Sin. And that little sojourn to the Rock of Eternity actually resulted in a tragic car crash that left his father wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life.

Even still, Glover's Mr. Sivana managed to found his own company and become a billionaire business mogul. Unfortunately, his son continued on the path to villainy, eventually reconvening with The Sins and becoming their vessel for evil deeds. Upon gaining the power of The Sins, one of Dr. Sivana's first deeds was to kill his father and brother, and the entire Sivana Industries board in a truly hostile takeover. That horrendous moment is given some serious weight by Glover's deft work as the slightly pompous and genuinely perplexed Mr. Sivana, who just never fully grasps his son's wicked transformation before Thaddeus unleashes his murderous inner evil.