SIDEKICK: Jeeves
FAITHFUL COMPANION OF: Bertram Wooster
The much-put-upon-but-always-dignified manservant is a pop culture staple — recent examples include Geoffrey from the Fresh Prince, Mr. Belvedere, and Farnsworth Bentley — and was first introduced in the form of Reginald Jeeves, the valet of English gentleman-naif “Bertie” Wooster. From 1915 to 1974 (in nearly three dozen short stories and a dozen novels), P.G. Wodehouse (writing in Bertie’s voice) spun the wondrously comic situations and entanglements that are only resolved by the quiet actions of the utterly unflappable and supremely competent Jeeves.
INTERESTING FACT: Jeeve’s first name — Reginald — was not revealed until 1971, in the second-to-last novel in the series.