Grigori Rasputin in Popular Culture - Television

Television

• In Season 3, Episode 12 ("Strings") of the Canadian vampire drama Forever Knight, Nick has a flashback which reveals his friendship with Emperor Nicholas II. Rasputin is shown to have significant influence over Empress Alexandra, because she believes he can cure her son Alexei. It is implied that Alexei is actually suffering from vampirism, and Rasputin himself is shown to be a newly turned vampire created by LaCroix. LaCroix turns him to enjoy the irony of a demonized holy man, (thus implying that Rasputin was actually a sage), and to control the Russian empire by controlling Rasputin (who is bound to him through the sire bond). However, Rasputin resists LaCroix's control so LaCroix has him shot and thrown into a river, even though it will not kill Rasputin, in order to ignite a "revolution". Rasputin comes back and tries to kill the emperor in order to gain control of Russia, but Nick stakes him, thus killing him permanently.

• In 2001 on the daytime drama Passions, the witch Tabitha Lenox has a flashback to 1916 Imperial Russia where Rasputin is established as her love interest. Tabitha gives Rasputin advice of how to bring down the imperial family, and also gives him the idea to spare one certain member to which he agrees.

• Rasputin was referred to in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel Spike and Dru: Pretty Maids All in a Row, implying that Rasputin was a demon with mind-controlling powers which resided on his eyes. A 5th-season episode of the show also has a scene where Buffy debates with a history professor over whether Rasputin had genuinely been killed. A 5th-season episode of Angel featured a vampire named Nostroyev who claimed to have been Rasputin's lover.

• One of the Punk Frogs in the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon was named Rasputin the Mad Frog.

• In Season 3, Episode 11 (Pine Barrens) of The Sopranos, Paulie Walnuts compares a Russian mob figure to Rasputin after he evades them in the Pine Barrens, despite apparently being shot in the head.

• Rasputin appears in an Animaniacs short (voiced by John Glover), suffering from a toothache and treated by the palace dentists, the Warner Brothers and Dot. In one memorable and hilarious scene he is given anaesthesia—in the form of a mallet to the head wielded by a young girl. Dot comments on the obscurity of the joke and tells kids to ask their parents what it means. Rasputin loses his hypnotic talents when all his teeth get yanked out and he cannot properly enunciate.

• In the cartoon The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, he appears with Attila the Hun and Abraham Lincoln to give Mandy advice after she summons spirits from Grim's skull. He is shown with a sword through his head, although no accounts of Rasputin's death involve a sword.

• In the Red Dwarf episode 'Meltdown', Rasputin is one of the rogue wax droids. The Abraham Lincoln wax droid mistakenly refers to him as "Rice-puddin'".

• In the Seinfeld episode "The Suicide", Jerry asks Elaine, "If you named a kid Rasputin do you think that would have a negative effect on his life?" Later on in the episode two friends of George name their son Rasputin.

• In Smallville Episode "Run", Lex purchases a manuscript that was said to be the only thing that was hanging in Rasputin's chamber while he was studying at the Grigori monastery. He believed it would lead him to unimaginable power. Legend has it that Rasputin would stare at it for days at a time hoping to penetrate its secrets. The border designs of the manuscript say, in kryptonian, "look deeper", and when Clark uses his X-Ray vision he sees that there is a map which leads to one of the three stones of power.

• In an episode of M*A*S*H, Trapper mentions to Radar that "Rasputin" (Hawkeye) "swallowed a whole drug store," and didn't fall asleep (as Trapper was trying to sedate Hawkeye).

• In Metalocalypse, the Tribunal member Vatar Orlaag has a physical appearance that resembles Rasputin.

• In the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats, the antagonist's canine companion is called Rasputin.

• In the BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel The Wages of Sin, the Third Doctor and his companions Jo Grant and Liz Shaw meet Rasputin prior to his death and learn that he is actually a more pleasant individual than history records — the Doctor noting that all evidence of his villainy was written by his enemies who filled in certain blanks to suit themselves, such as their ignorance that the reason he was so close to the royal family was his secret treatment of the young prince — but the Doctor is nevertheless forced to allow Rasputin to die, despite having the chance to save him, in order to preserve history.

• The pitch document for the short-lived HBO series Carnivàle credits Rasputin as being one of the Avatara.

• Warehouse 13 featured his prayer rope, used to conjure images of the dead. Apparently after being successfully assassinated the first time, his followers used it to make it seem like he had cheated death.

• In "Doctor Who episode Let's Kill Hitler, one of the tessalector crew says that in their previous assignment they copied Rasputin but got the skin tone green.

• In " The Crow: Stairway to Heaven" episode Never say die Rasputin's spirit is summoned, leading to a conflict with the shows protagonist, Eric Draven