Griswold met The Car as a teenager, and from the moment he laid eyes on it, he knew he had to have it. See, it was owned by some ritzy dude who liked speeding down streets and mocking any poorer than him. He’d stopped in front of Griswold once and laughed at his homelessness, and that was enough to sign his death wish. Next time he tried poking fun at Griswold, he got his neck snapped and his car stolen. Unsure how to drive, there were some serious crashes early on, but The Car never gave up, never slowed down. It worked tirelessly to take him wherever he needed to go, and it wasn’t long before he viewed The Car as something more than a tool. As the only reliable thing in his life, he believed it a great friend, and put much faith in it.

As the years passed and Griswold’s criminal reputation grew, with him robbing every store he could and not being afraid to plant a knife in someone’s throat, The Car became known as a symbol of terror. If it pulled onto your street, you knew who was behind the wheel and you knew trouble was to come. Still, The Car ate bullets and popped tires without even a disgruntled puff of smoke, and he vowed to always defend it because it had always defended him.

However, one day, tragedy struck. It was blown to hell and back by an enemy of the Panty Mafia, a local gang who thought they stood a chance. Griswold annihilated them in bloody fashion without shedding a tear, and when he returned to Bon’s Castle, he demanded the Snakes fix it up! He had never let anyone even ride in The Car, and hated the idea of anyone else having to put it back together, but he didn’t know how and needed their help. He kept his gun trained on them the entire time as they fashioned it back together, turning into a Frankenstein-ish monster. He wanted it bigger than ever. Better than ever. Stronger than ever.

But, most of all, he wanted to finally be able to talk to his best friend.

Thus the Anti-Asshole AI was created. This AI, expertly crafted to meet Griswold’s demands, believes everyone except Griswold is an asshole who can be killed at the drop of the hat. Armed to the teeth with rockets, guns, flamethrowers, and even a radio which plays ancient pop hits, it became more deathly than ever before, and Griswold’s new favorite past-time became to set The Car in “Hunter” mode, causing it to ride around and run over anyone it saw. The next day, when it would return soaked in blood, he’d drink beer and they’d watch the footage together, laughing.

To him, this was a dream come true. His best friend had finally been brought to life and given the chance to reach its full potential. However, this happiness didn’t last long—once Bon and Kern brainwashed Griswold by turning him into a cyborg, a rift formed between him and The Car. Maybe he never noticed, maybe he couldn’t notice, but The Car talked to him less and less, and even began to go against its coding and view him as an asshole because, deep down, it knew he was no longer himself, but someone else.

Griswold never knew this, but The Car even began planning to kill him off. See, as the Anti-Asshole AI, it believed it was its Anti-Asshole duty to free its friend from the bonds of Assholery that he’d become trapped in. The Car was destroyed before it ever got to enact this plan, and while Griswold would never admit it, letting his friend be destroyed again was crushing. He silently vowed to rebuild it again, to make it stronger than ever, but…

Well, we all know what became of Griswold.

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TRIVIA

-Aside from being able to communicate through its electronic screen, the car can speak, and its voice is actually incredibly elegant. When Griswold had it repaired by the snakes, he told them this was the voice he always imagined it possessing.

-Like Griswold, the car has a built in killswitch. Unlike Griswold’s, this killswitch was only set to activate if Griswold died before the car, at which point it would go on an endless rampage until someone brave enough stepped up to stop it.

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PRODUCTION TRIVIA

-As with a lot of smaller characters such as this, when we started outlining, or maybe even writing, I don’t remember, the car had zero personality. It was just, literally, a car. The asshole joke, and everything about Griswold becoming its best friend, just developed naturally, over time.