Oh, and it wasn’t a behind-his-back-when-he’s-not-listening thing, we called him “Shaggy” to his face. Then he’d break out a Scooby Doo impression. That guy was one of the more awesome teachers I had in high school.
Strong Sad is actually a New Jersey transplant to Texas. He dated a friend of mine. He even wears shades of grey and white. He fears slugs and all insect life with an astonishing passion.
My fourth grade teacher was Miss Piggy, even to the point of dressing like her for Halloween. I miss her dreadfully, and ever since her death I have had a particular fondness for the character. 
I don’t think Strong Sad would fear slugs and insects. Seeing as he has no true friends other than Homsar, he would probably have intimate conversations with them. After all, he enjoys board games more than most people- that is, not only does he enjoy board games more than most people do, he enjoys board games more than he does most people. Like one time when he and Hi-Ho Cherry-O were playing The Game of Life…
I knew a ‘Sebastian Flyte’ guy too - straight down to the teddy bear (and the eventual alcoholic decline). But I was pretty sure that the guy had simply read ‘Brideshead’, deliberately imitated Sebastian, and assumed nobody else had read the book or would be able to recognize where he picked up his affectations.
I also met a ‘Cliff Clavin’ - He hung out in a crummy dive bar I used to go to, and bragged about his great job with the postal service. He even had a cheesy ‘Clavin’ mustache.
There’s a guy who gets on my tram to work who looks like Mr Bean. That is to say, he doesn’t look like Rowan Atkinson or Edmund Blackadder, he looks like Mr Bean.
Doesn’t behave like him, though. Thankfully.
I once helped Wolverine pick out some sheets. Seriously: hair, sideburns, jeans and leather jacket, the whole nine. He pretended confusion when I asked him if he hears all the time how much he looks like the character, but honestly, who cultivates that look and doesn’t know eventually, even if they didn’t intend it when they started?
I also rang up a sale for Hiro Protagonist. But Stephenson didn’t get into a lot of detail about his appearance, so that may have been mostly my perception.
When I lived in Rochester, NY there was a guy who called himself “Zonker Harris” – and he looked like him. He was in the SF fandom bunch, and he was still at it when I ran into him many years later. For all I know, he’s still at it.
I’ve had two encounters with fictional characters in my life.
First was my father’s mother. You know the Jewish Grandmother[sup]TM[/sup] of all the jokes? That’s my grandmother. This is the woman who would complain about the rampant theft in modern society, while calmly filling her purse with sugar packets from the dispenser on the table in the resturant we were in. She told my father, in front of my mother, when I was twenty years old, “Lokimom is such a nice girl, but are you sure you couldn’t have found a nice Jewish girl?”
Because of her, I have this tendency to suspect that most ethnic stereotypes have some basis in fact.
The other time was when I saw Ten’ou Haruka and Kaioh Michiru in Queens, waiting for the N Train. Complete to the long, wavy green hair on Michiru, and the cello. No, I didn’t have the chutzpah to ask for autographs. I did, however, think about it… 
The oldest daughter of some friends of ours was a dead ringer for Cindy Lou Who when she was no more than two.
Another friend has given birth to Ralphie Parker. He even loves Ovaltine! (Though he’s only three at the moment.)
That would be Milton Waddams. The reason I know is, I finally got around to renting Office Space a few weeks ago and when he came on I was instantly yanked out of the movie. “My god,” I said. “It’s Larry!” Larry worked at the same cube farm I did years ago and was the spittin’ image of Vernon. There was some comic exaggeration but it was the same face, same glasses, same stuttering mannerisms when he was stymied. Larry was (marginally) more effective than Vernon and I don’t think he wound up in Cancun (or wherever it was) but the resemblance was uncanny.
Hehe, you need to see a movie called The Hebrew Hammer.
Also, my Air Force JROTC instructor in high school could have been the basis for Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove. He didn’t LOOK like Slim Pickens, but I could easily see him putting on a cowboy hat while flying his B-52 (the guy flew B-52s from around the Vietnam War until the Gulf War) once he had heard that WWIII broke out.
Along similar lines, the assistant-instructor, a retired Master Sergeant, could have been the Sergeant Major from Halo, except that he was an administrative-type in the Air Force.
My parents often reminded me of George’s parents on Seinfeld. Not in the way they looked or the mother’s voice but the way they always fought over stupid stuff. I swear they had some of the same exact arguments. It got so I couldn’t watch the show if they were on.
There’s this character in the cartoon Home Movies who has a thick accent I have never been able to identify. I thought it was just a made up accent. Until I bought a hot dog from a guy selling them on campus somewhere–and he talked exactly like that guy.
What kind of accent is it?
-FrL-
i once stopped at a red light, looked at a car in the next lane, & saw Kari, the babysitter from The Incredibles.
http://fan.brokenstar.net/kari/images/screencaps/screencap07.jpg
If you’ve ever seen Mission Hill…
I used to work for Ron. Except it was a burger joint, not a waterbed store. And I don’t THINK he did coke (he might have, I don’t know). And, unfortunately, he never got in trouble for his tax evasion.
But. the accent, the personality, everything else (including committing tax evasion and labour law violations)…dead on.
When I was a framer I worked for Napoleon Dynamite’s uncle Rico. Guy was always bragging about what a great qb he was in high school, but everyone on the crew dogged him about being a framer.
On one tech support job I worked with Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. Tall, lanky, same hair & whispy goatee. Same bagy bell bottoms and non-descript Tshirts.
I had a biology teacher in high school who looked, and talked, exactly like Vincent Price. It was uncanny. So much so, he was somewhat sensitive about it, though he had a good sense of humour and was an altogether great fellow.
One of the guys I went to college with at Texas A&M tended to model himself after Bluto from Animal House. He didn’t LOOK anything like the guy, but the manneurisms and attitude were exactly the same.
Another guy I went to college with was a dead ringer for Mario (the plumber), except without the tall skinny brother.
I’d swear my boss is Esme Weatherwax. She can even outstare a snake.
All we need now is a Magrat or Agnes/Perditia
I marched with a kid who was a dead ringer for Farva from Super Troopers. I kid you not, every DAMN THING thing about Farva was a copy of this guy. Not sure how they did it. Must have been a spy…