Nowadays Vincent D’Onofrio is best known for roles in shows like Daredevil, but back in the late 1980s when his career was just getting started he had a small role in Adventures In Babysitting as a mechanic mistaken for Marvel superhero Thor – here’s his character explained. Released in 1987, Adventures In Babysitting is the directorial debut of Home Alone helmer Chris Columbus and tells the tale of a teenage babysitter from the Chicago suburbs who has the night from hell when she and her young charges venture into the big city.
Elisabeth Shue (Cobra Kai) tops the Adventures In Babysitting cast as beleaguered babysitter Chris Parker, who heads into the Windy City to rescue her stranded friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller). Under her care are lovestruck 15-year-old Brad Anderson (Keith Coogan) who has a major crush on Chris, his hormonal best pal Daryl Coopersmith (Anthony Rapp), and Brad’s eight-year-old sister Sara (Maia Brewton). It soon becomes apparent young Sara is a big fan of Asgardian god Thor; not only does she declare him her hero, but Sara also wears a Thor-style winged helmet for most of the film.
The intrepid quartet’s misadventures into Chicago proper lead to a flat tire which brings them to the garage of mechanic Dawson, who is played Vincent D’Onofrio sporting a rather fetching blonde mullet. Sara mistakes the mechanic for her hero Thor and isn’t too impressed when Dawson balks at the fact they only have 45 of the 50 dollars needed to pay for Chris’ new tire. She insists “Thor” is acting unheroically out of character because he doesn’t have his signature headgear and gives Dawson her own helmet. This sparks a change of heart in the gruff mechanic who lets Chris off with the few remaining dollars she owes and gives Sara back her Thor helmet, telling her he already has one at home.
Thanks to the MCU, Thor is pretty popular these days but back in the late 1980s the God of Thunder wasn’t especially well known outside of Marvel comic books and Norse mythology fandoms, which made the Thor references in Adventures In Babysitting an interesting choice. However, there’s logic to the inclusion of Vincent D’Onofrio’s pseudo-Thor according to director Chris Columbus. Apparently, an earlier version of the script had Sara obsessed with the then more popular Masters Of The Universe heroes He-Man and She-Ra, but Columbus himself had no idea who the characters were. As a big fan of the Marvel comics, he thought Thor might be a fun character to go with instead and so Vincent D’Onofrio’s mechanic/God of Thunder role came to be.
Little did Chris Columbus or Vincent D’Onofrio know that twenty-odd years later Thor would become a major player in the multi-billion-dollar MCU franchise and one of its most popular characters. So, while Chris Hemsworth might be the most famous actor to portray Thor on the big screen, technically Vincent D’Onofrio beat him to the role by a good two decades – even if his iteration in Adventures In Babysitting was the product of a kid’s overactive imagination.