Cult Spy Icon: Deputy Andy - 'Twin Peaks'

With his hilarious Tintin quiff and bald patch combo, dimwittedness and sensitivity, Deputy Andy Brennan was the soft arm of the law in Twin Peaks and quickly became one of the most endearing characters in the murky town.

Amid the brutal murders, drugs smuggling and evil spirits, Andy proved to be a regular source of quirky humour that often counterbalanced the invasive darkness of the show. Who can forget his sperm donor mishap at the police station, where he dropped the sample and scrambled around on the floor trying to retrieve it while his fellow officers looked on in bemusement? Genius.

Andy's cute puppy dog eyes and soft voice meant that the squeaky-voiced secretary Lucy fell for him, and the couple's flirtations and secretive encounters were highly amusing. But it was far from plain sailing, as Lucy succumbed to the sleazy charms of debonair department store owner Dick Tremayne, a man that Andy would loathe if he was capable of such a thing.

The two men constantly competed to win over Lucy, with Dick even adopting an orphan boy called Little Nicky to prove that he was father material. There was only one winner in our hearts though. Another funny clash with a similarly smug gentleman took place when Andy stepped in to give visiting FBI forensics legend Albert Rosenfeld a piece of his mind after he mocked him for sobbing about Laura Palmer's murder. "I don't like the way you talk smart about Sheriff Truman or anybody!" shouted Andy. "You just shut your mouth!" Lucy lapped it up as Albert was, for once, speechless.

The regularity of Andy's crying at crime scenes showcased his incorruptible humanity, like when he wept when trying to photograph the butchered body of beauty queen Laura, tragically wrapped in plastic. Andy was arguably the one man in the entire town who was never seduced or taken over by darkness and remained wholly pure and innocent. Even Cooper and Sheriff Truman succumbed or had lapses, through either their own errors of judgment or the actions of others. In both cases, women were involved.

Inspired moments of slapstick throughout the two seasons will be what Andy is best remembered for, though. Being smacked in the head by a stone during Cooper's Tibetan rock throwing exercise was funny, but nothing can compare to when he stood on an erroneous plank of wood outside Leo Johnson's house and got smacked in the face by it. Watching him stagger around in a daze, with his legs squatted apart, is simply unforgettable. The fact that he unwittingly helped the investigation through this mishap was inspired, for a key pair of boots and some cocaine were stashed underneath the plank.

Andy might have been a few cherries short of a pie, but he had a heart of gold and was damn fine entertainment value. We salute you, Andy!

> Click here for a classic moment from Twin Peaks