4 Talk

Principal Snyder

Principal R. Snyder

First appearance	"The Puppet Show"
Last appearance	After These Messages... We’ll be right back!

Information
Name	R. Snyder
Status	Deceased
Classification	Human
Affiliation	Sunnydale High School Administration Pawn of Mayor Wilkins
Portrayed by	Armin Shimerman

Snyder: "One day the campus is completely bare, empty... the next, children are everywhere. Like locusts. Crawling around, mindlessly bent on feeding and mating, destroying everything in sight in their relentless, pointless desire to exist."

Giles: "[...] Have you ever considered, given your abhorrence of children, that school principal is perhaps not your true vocation?"

— Principal Snyder and Rupert Giles^[src]

Principal R. Snyder was the conservative, paranoid and authoritarian Principal of Sunnydale High from 1997 to 1999.

1 Biography
2 Behind the Scenes
3 Appearances
4 References

Biography Edit

After Robert Flutie was devoured alive by the Pack, Snyder replaced him as the principal of Sunnydale High School. A strict disciplinarian with a dictator-like personality similar to Adolf Hitler, he did not have any friends among the Scooby Gang or any other student for that matter, with the sole exception of the Swim Team. Snyder also took an immediate and profound dislike to Buffy Summers, and frequently tried to find excuses to expel her. During his time as principal, he coerces students into serving as chaperones for young children on Halloween, bullies Willow Rosenberg into tutoring Percy West, gives a passing grade to a swim team member who is failing computer class, and forces everyone to sell candy for the marching band.

Unlike most other people in Sunnydale, Snyder was well aware of the existence of the Hellmouth and the supernatural; in fact, along with Police Chief Bob Munroe, he was one of the many people Mayor Richard Wilkins had put in place to cover up supernatural activities in Sunnydale. Snyder was specifically chosen as principal because the authorities believed he was uniquely suited for the job's equally unique pressures, but precisely what in Snyder's past might have so qualified him was never discussed. In fact, the primary reason for his shoddy treatment of Buffy was because Mayor Wilkins had ordered him to act in such a manner.

Snyder finally expelled Buffy when she was found beside Kendra's body,^[1] subsequently calling the Mayor to inform him of the good news. He refused to allow her to return even after Buffy was cleared of all charges, stating that it was because of Buffy's poor grades, spotty attendance record, and "tingling pleasure" that he is finally rid of her. However, the school board and some physical pressure from Rupert Giles forced him to allow Buffy to return.

Since the school board later involved Snyder in Mayor Wilkins' sacrifice to the demon Lurconis, its members were also clearly aware of at least some of the supernatural events occurring in Sunnydale (although the fact that Snyder was apparently unaware of what was happening, given that he ate the cursed candy himself, suggests that even he was ignorant of the big picture). Ironically, Snyder's teenage mentality during the Milk Bar incident actually enjoyed spending time with Buffy and the gang while they investigated the cause of the adults' youthful regression, although Buffy merely tolerated his presence.

Snyder was finally killed during the Graduation ceremony when Mayor Wilkins ascended, his stern belief in imposing order and discipline ironically proving to be his own undoing; while yelling at the resulting giant snake that he would not tolerate this kind of behavior, Wilkins ate him alive.

Behind the Scenes Edit

He was portrayed by Armin Shimerman.

Principal Snyder is named in honor of George Snyder, Joss Whedon's personal assistant at the time.

On several occasions in the series you can clearly see on the name-tag on his desk that the first letter of his first name is 'R', although his full name is never revealed in the series. The novel One Thing or Your Mother, which explores Snyder's abusive childhood at the hands of his mother, reveals his first name to be "Cecil". This contradicts the intial "R" seen in the television show, and is of dubious canonicity.

Armin Shimerman originally auditioned for the role of Principal Flutie, but lost that role to Ken Lerner. He was the longest running principal on the show. When he was hired to play Snyder, Shimerman was told that each principal would get killed after a handful of episodes as a running gag. But it turned out that the creators liked Snyder enough to keep him through the remainder of the high school episodes.

Shimerman also played Quark, a major character on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, at the same time he was performing Snyder on Buffy. He noted his dual roles made his accountant very happy. Line producers on Star Trek and Buffy would try to schedule his scenes so he could tape his Deep Space Nine scenes in the morning, then get out of makeup and drive across town to film his Buffy scenes in the afternoon. There were a couple of Deep Space Nine episodes where Quark was heavily featured and it wasn't possible for him to do the Buffy episode that week so Snyder's lines were rewritten as off-camera asides. Shimerman noted that he got fired from both jobs on the same day.