Damn those stern, sneaky authority figures who delight in seeing anyone below them in the pecking order squirm. This is so often the case in schools, where teachers abuse their power and take some sadistic pleasure in dishing out lines or sending the perceived miscreants to detention.

We can all look back at our school days and have a collective hiss over various cruel teachers, but for those who kept track of the latest happenings in Sunnydale High School on Buffy there was much fun to be had in watching Principal Snyder in action.

A real caricature of those pesky pupil-haters from our youth, his mental outlook was matched by his withering physical stature, complete with bald head, weasly features and nerdy voice. (Apologies to the superb actor Armin Shimmerman if you're reading this - the make-up ladies did a fine job!)

You can tell Snyder was the bullied kid at school, now exacting his revenge on the aesthetically superior and wise-cracking miscreants who he once aspired to be like. The pleasure he extracted from his ultimately successful attempt to expel Buffy Summers was such an honest and heartfelt emotion that you just felt sorry for the guy.

He did have a bizarre fetish for the Sunnydale Swim Team though. Could this be some kind of long-lasting desire not be such a nerd and somehow capture the glorious, exuberant youth he clearly never had? Or perhaps he just liked looking at young guys in Speedos. Hmmm...

So why is he a Cult Spy Icon despite all his odious traits? Well, he was a joy to boo and hiss at throughout the second and third seasons of Buffy and was sorely missed when he was gobbled up by the monstrous Mayor Wilkins shortly after his speech at Graduation Day.