A week ago, actor Richard Summers-Calvert read the phrase ‘Glup Shitto’ for the first time. “I went, ‘What's this?’,” he recalls of seeing it hit his mentions. “’Is it rude?’”
Yes, and no. Coined by Tumbler user ‘gomjabbar’ in 2020, the term began as a somewhat derisory Star Wars meme, poking fun at the saga’s myriad oddball bit-players. That guy in the background of the Cantina, who someone will inevitably claim as their favourite Star Wars character? Oh, that’s Glup Shitto. In the intervening years, the notion of a ‘Glup Shitto’ has been re-embraced. It’s a badge of honour. If you love Star Wars, it’s likely for the Glup Shittos. And a new one has just entered the chat: welcome, Biddy Blas.
It happened as soon as Star Wars: Galactic Racer launched; a new super-speedy racing game which casts players as Shade, a rising star battling on the track for dominance against all kinds of galactic foes. There’s Sebulba from The Phantom Menace, your in-game nemesis Kestar Bool, and… wait, who’s that? A little crocodile man, with a snout full of jagged teeth. Waist-height, in human terms. A little helmet and goggles on. And it gets weirder when he speaks: a screaming high-pitched yelp, belting out Huttese phrases with gleeful venom. The only way Jabba would ever speak like this is if someone stood on the tip of his tail. He is Biddy Blas, the one and only. And he’s voiced by Summers-Calvert, who had no idea the sort of instant internet fame the character would achieve.
The memes began on day one. “And then day two, it was just another thing. It just got bigger and bigger and bigger,” he says. “When something like this happens, it can be quite daunting.” Thankfully, the internet only has love for Biddy Blas. “Whether you love him, or you love him because you love to hate him, [Biddy] is unanimously appreciated,” he grins.
There’s one big question, though. “I'm having people argue online if I am a Glup Shitto, or not a Glup Shitto,” he says. “I absolutely am a Star Wars fan. I love Star Wars. However, this experience has made me realise maybe how little I knew about Star Wars. I'm just below the knowledge of ‘Glup Shitto’.” Start your engines.
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Even before he knew what Biddy Blas looked like – before he knew about Glup Shittos, before he even knew that he was auditioning for a new Star Wars game – the limited character information Summers-Calvert received led him down a specific path. “I decided that this character has little man syndrome,” he says. “Maybe lacking confidence, slightly anxious, and it comes out in rage.” This is what he channelled in his first read (in Basic, of course).
It wasn’t exactly what developers Fuse Games first envisioned. “I was imagining in my head more of a deeper fantasy dwarf voice,” says Ren Alex-Rose, Narrative Designer. “And then when we heard Richard's audition, we were like, ‘No, that's it. That's absolutely it. That is the perfect direction for this character.’”
We wanted a bad loser, and a worse winner.
In the game’s earliest stages, Biddy Blas was simply known as ‘Rager’ – one of many memorable competitors for Shade to race against. “We wanted a character that really embodied the spirit of anger and rage – a bad loser, and a worse winner,” says Nathaniel Daw, Galactic Racer’s Narrative Director. The influences were many. It was partly Daw’s own outbursts when playing games online (“There’s a reason I don’t play multiplayer anymore,” he laughs), and Alex-Rose’s dog. “He's small and he's got an underbite, and he's very angry about that all the time,” she says.
Cross-referencing this archetype with the roster of Star Wars species, they settled on a little-seen one: the Crocin, briefly glimpsed in Solo: A Star Wars Story, angrily losing a game of Sabacc and shredding his cards in his jagged maw. “As soon as we saw the artwork, we said ‘This is perfect. Put him in,’” says Daw. In fact, we have his wife to thank for Biddy Blas’ eventual design. “She said, ‘You need more little weird guys [in the game]’,” he recalls. “In the last week, she's been saying, ‘I told you! I told you that's what you needed!’”
Summers-Calvert knew none of this when he first went up for the role. But hearing about the demeanour and stature of ‘Rager’, he was ready to take a bold creative swing. “The moment I heard there's a smaller character, I went higher pitched,” he remembers. “His energy needs to be three times the size of him.” It was an instant hit with the Fuse team; the role was his. But stepping into the booth brought new challenges. “I found out I was speaking Huttese when they displayed gibberish up on the screen,” laughs Summers-Calvert. “And I was like, ‘What is this?’”
That might be a key reason why Biddy Blas has become so beloved: frankly, you’ve never heard Huttese spoken like this. For all the character’s screeching alien dialogue, it’s easy to transpose it over the English translation underneath; it’s nonsense, but intentional nonsense. “[The lines] are authentic,” Summers-Calvert says. “I have read the English verse, so I know exactly what I'm saying, the inflection’s in the right places. And then I go from that to sight-reading Huttese. That's why it's worked, I feel. I'm very proud of that.”
‘Ding dong, bookie, ding dong!’ is just iconic.
That wild Biddy Blas energy was apparent in the recording sessions. “I do think we laughed more in Richard's sessions than maybe any other,” admits Daw, who was there through it all. He would help direct Summers-Calvert’s performance, modulating between Blas’ in-race put-downs (“Remember, you’re a high-pitched menace”), paddock interactions (“For this, we can bring it down”), and pure high-speed terror. “I have a fond memory of intense screams during the racing,” the actor laughs. “I remember veins popping out of my head.”
All the pieces were in place: the Crocin design, the rage-fuelled character dynamic, the unhinged voice. Even before release, the Fuse team wondered if a star was born. “I can remember doing an interview before release where someone said, ‘Who's your favourite character?’ And I did say Biddy Blas,” says Daw. “So before all of this, I called my shot. I'll claim that!”
It was time for the world to meet him.
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“Scrib doon!” This is the Biddy Blas line that did it. In the first stage of Galactic Racer’s campaign, players get an early interaction with the Crocin rager: a braggadocious encounter in which he gleefully informs you of his name (“Biddy Blaaaas!”) and tells you to write it down. Or, in Huttese, “scrib doon”. This was the clip that Summers-Calvert put on his own social feeds, by way of announcing that he had – against all his expectations – somehow entered the Star Wars galaxy.
The genie was not going back in the bottle. “The next morning, I woke up and my followers had jumped up,” he says. “It got to a point where I'm seeing likes and shares and retweets that are so beyond what my brain can fathom.” Affection for Biddy Blas spread across the internet like wildfire. “I've never experienced anything like this. Not to this level,” he adds. New Biddy memes arrive every day. ‘Scrib Dune’, with sandworms. ‘Scrib Doom’, like the classic ‘90s shooter. ‘Absolute scrib doon’, to paraphrase internet-Scorsese. The world at large seems charmed and delighted by the unexpected anti-hero.
The deeper you get into the game, there’s much more than just “scrib doon” – Galactic Racer is littered with meme-worthy Biddy-isms. “‘Ding dong, bookie, ding dong!’ is just iconic,” the actor laughs. “I really love that one.” (“In Huttese, ‘Bookie’ is ‘buddy’,” clarifies Daw). There’s the misspelt trophy. “‘It says Buddy Blas!’, he’s screaming at them,” Daw chuckles. “It’s the worst thing that could happen to him.”
And then there’s the character’s unexpected sweet side. Beneath the blaze and the bluster, all that obnoxiousness, is a character simply wanting to make his family proud. “He's very much a mama's boy,” says Alex-Rose. “He'll send his credits home to his mama, and it's his mama's dream to see him on a cereal box. Yes, it's his dream to be famous – but it's all for mama.” There’s an inherent goofy pathos to Biddy Blas that’s hard to dislike. “People online love just seeing him sat down,” points out Summers-Calvert. “It’s because his legs don’t touch the floor. His limbs are too short.”
Already, Biddy Blas is making his way beyond Galactic Racer. Fans are building custom LEGO sets, imagining fan-canon, and… other things. “The Biddy Blas thirst traps... that is so left field,” laughs Summers-Calvert. There’s the more wholesome stuff too. “I love seeing all the fan art,” Alex-Rose says. “Seeing people engage with our work using their own talents, their own interpretations, little comics that they make, is really fulfilling. I have people that I haven't spoken to in a decade sending me things. It's wild.”
I love him so much, I want to throw him at the wall.
The next step? Biddy Blas cosplay, surely. “Please. Please,” begs Daw. “Nothing would please us more than to see cosplay of all these characters. Please do it!” Who knows – maybe even an appearance in live-action, or an animated series, could be on the cards. “Our dreams are as big as Biddy's dreams,” saw Daw. “He wants to be the most famous Crocin in the galaxy.” Alex-Rose concurs: “It’s our dream for him too.”
For now, gamers can spend plenty of time with Biddy Blas as they race through Galactic Racer’s hard-as-nails campaign. “Yes, I’m playing the game,” says Summers-Calvert. “Yes, I love the game. Am I any good at it? That’s another question.” Whizzing round those tracks means even the actor himself is being taunted by Biddy Blas. “He's incredibly annoying,” he laughs. “There's that thing called ‘cuteness aggression’. I love him so much, I want to throw him at the wall. That's how I feel about Biddy Blas.” Your new favourite Glup Shitto is here, and you’ll want to remember his name. Scrib doon.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is out now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and more