A List of Famous Spikes

As I fueled the hype for the new Where the Wild Things Are last year, there was some confusion regarding the film's director, Spike Jonze, and director Spike Lee. D'oh! It turns out there are a lot of famous Spikes, so I thought I'd provide a Spike glossary for the confused.

Just Spike: Hoo, boy, there are a lot of fictional characters named Spike. There's the raperiffic Buffy the Vampire Slayer* character, Snoopy's brother, and some bros in Marvel comics. But wait, there's more! There's the heroine from Degrassi, Fonzie's cousin, and the character from the world's greatest soap opera, Passions.

Spike Gray: Born Jonathan Gray, a musician best known as the frontman of The Quireboys.

Spike Jones: A famous musician and bandleader.

Spike Jonze, right, with author Maurice Sendak and Sendak's German Shepherd Herman.
Lifted from We Love You So.

Spike Jonze: (pronouced "Jones") Born Adam Spiegel, a film director known and lauded as the director of Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, and Where the Wild Things Are. Also credited as co-creator of Jackass. Jonze got his start as a skateboard video director, which led to a career in music videos. He famously worked with the Beastie Boys ("Sabotage", "Sure Shot"), Weezer ("Buddy Holly", "Island in the Sun", "Undone (The Sweater Song)"), Sonic Youth, the Breeders, Dinosaur Jr., and Fat Boy Slim ("Weapon of Choice", "Rockafeller Skank").

Spike Lee: Born Shelton Jackson Lee, Lee is the director, writer, and producer of of the following films: School Daze, Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Crooklyn, He Got Game, Summer of Sam, Bamboozled, and She Hate Me. He recently directed and produced Miracle at St. Anna.

Spike Mendelsohn: Born Evangelos Mendelsohn, this Spike is best known as a Top Chef contestant during season four (Top Chef: Chicago). He currently owns Good Stuff Eatery in Washington, DC.

Additional Resources:
Spike, Wikipedia entry (list)
Top Chef Web site

*I started watching BTVS pretty late in its series run, and promptly joined Team Spike. In my defense, I was young and unfamiliar with any other men suffering from cocaine-related gauntness, and that was before he forced himself on Buffy. Angel was out of the series by then too, and having started from the beginning, I relinquish my sandwich boards for Team Spike, and join my sister on Team Angel.