Mitch Kellaway

1991 Comic
Mask Persona
Film
Animated Series

Gender

Male

Nicknames/alias

Big Head (in his Mask persona)
Detective Kellaway
Lt. Kellaway

Species

Human

Occupation

Police Detective
Police Lieutenant

Hometown

Edge City (possibly)

First Appearance

The Mask (Comic) (1991)

Portrayer(s)

Lieutenant Mitch Kellaway is a supporting antagonist in The Mask (Comic) (1991) and the secondary antagonist in The Mask 1994 film. He is played by the American actor Peter Riegert in the movie and voiced by Neil Ross in The Mask: The Animated Series. In the 2024 movie, he is played by Chris Sapp and is named "Floyd Christmas" along with "Dodge Viper", who is played by Steven Yasnak.

History[]

Comics[]

Lt. Kellaway, a hard nosed cop with an attitude and a pretty messy history with The Mask. After becoming Big Head himself and killing quite a few high-end mobsters, he got the attention of Walter, who wanted him dead.

The Mask[]

After Kathy had killed Stanley Ipkiss, she decided to take the Mask to Kellaway for safekeeping.

Believing she was not of sound mind, Kellaway tried the mask on as a joke...and became the second Big Head. Kellaway as Big-Head decided to try to take down all of the big crime lords that had made his career a living hell.

After a while Big Head's methods got rather brutal and thus Walter, a giant of a man took a vendetta out against Big Head for killing his former employers.

Because of all the "shenanigans" and "going on's", the police start a hunt for the green headed killer, and after meeting up, Kellaway as Big-Head does show himself to be the one who tries to resolve things peacefully between them as he only wanted to bring justice to those who got away from the legal system, but the police decide to attack him instead, which he can see that things will not go peacefully as he wants them to be, so he decides to attack them instead.

During the inevitable fight between Big-Head and the police, Kellaway as Big-Head almost kills his partner Lionel Ray by putting a dynamite inside his mouth, but stops at the last second as he saw that the mask is trying to get control over him to make him kill his best friend. Realizing what he almost did, he fled the scene, then puts the dynamite inside him which it explodes, but he survives it and he buries the mask in cement in his basement.

The Mask Returns[]

Kellaway is the target of the crime lords he previously hassled, he makes his way to the basement to retrieve the mask but is shot and put into a coma before he can do so.

The Mask Strikes Back[]

Kellaway comes back in "The Mask Strikes Back" and manages to find the four teenagers who are taking turns being Big-Head. He then tracks down Archie and Walter, but loses the mask after Walter gets frustrated when it doesn't work for him and throws it a long way into the distance.

Batman and The Mask Crossover[]

After the Mask shows up in Gotham, he is called in to help. He attempts to persuade Joker to give up the Mask, but fails. After removing the Mask from the Joker and having it handed over to him by Batman, Kellaway returns to Edge City to the grave of the original Big Head, Stanley Ipkiss, where he puts it beside the corpse of the man, telling both to rest in peace with utter sincerity.

Film and Television[]

1994 film[]

Lt. Kellaway is a secondary antagonist in the film. He is portrayed as a short, middle-aged man with a dimwitted partner named Doyle. His personality through out the film is cynical, unfriendly and rude. After the Mask robs the bank and has been reported harassing Mrs. Peenman, he believes Stanley to be the culprit especially after finding a piece of Stanley's pajamas that he had been wearing when he had previously been interrogating him. He follows Stanley to Central Park after he puts on the mask and attempts to woo Tina Carlyle.

He then arrested Stanley and had the other policemen search him. However they soon find a picture of his wife Margaret with her phone number on it that implies the Mask was having an affair with her, which made him furious.

The Mask manages to escape after distracting the rest of the force with his version of Cuban Pete and Kellaway licks his wounds saying to Doyle that this humiliation will put his work with the police force in jeopardy. Soon he sees Stanley being thrown out of a car with a green colored mask planted on him by Dorian Tyrell and his men to prove his suspicions correct. Soon they put him behind bars.

However thanks to Stanley's dog Milo, Stanley manages to escape from the prison and takes Kellaway at gunpoint to drive him to the Coco Bongo where Dorian who had kidnapped Tina and now had the mask in his possession, was going to to crash the charity ball.

Stanley left Kellaway handcuffed in the car and tied the radio round his neck to call for backup while he took care of Dorian. Kellaway was later freed just after Stanley had managed to retrieve the mask and stop Dorian once and for all.

When Stanley went to leave with Tina, he was stopped by Kellaway who then collided with Mayor Tilton. Kellaway then responded rudely; "Watch it, Chunky!" He then discovered his mistake and tried to apologize, but Tilton was furious and demanded to know what was going on. Kellaway told him that he was arresting the Mask, but Tilton affirmed that Dorian had been the Mask all along and was grateful to Stanley for saving them. Doyle attempted to shake Stanley's hand, but was scolded by Kellaway for it. As Stanley and Tina, along with Charlie Schumaker leave, Kellaway saw the mask in Milo's mouth and tried to tell Tilton; but the Mayor told him to leave Milo alone and said that he wanted to see him in his office first thing tomorrow, presumably for his rude behavior and the false arrest of a citizen. Kellaway reluctantly agrees.

The Animated Series[]

Lt. Kellaway's personality in the Animated Series is much the same as both the movie and the comics, though his appearance is similar to his original comic counterpart.

He thinks the Mask is a criminal menace to Edge City, believing that every big crime and disaster is caused by the Mask (while most of the time it isn't) and that he's linked to other criminals and villains, though the Mask saves his life and the citizens of Edge City various times. He also has a terrible temper as seen in the episode Flight as a Feather when his face goes red with rage and the sound of a boiling kettle whistling is heard (a reference to the expression "Boiling with Rage").

With Doyle, he keeps attempting to capture the Mask and prove that he and Stanley Ipkiss are one and the same but often fails and he always becomes a frequent victim of the Mask's atomic wedgies. According to himself, he has to change three new pairs of underwear a week and often lamenting that underwear is not cheap. Like in the film, he sees a picture of the Mask having an affair with his wife Margaret, which infuriates him even more.

There are times when Kellaway goes overboard, showing himself to be a bullying hoodlum as in the episode 'They Came from Within', acting like a school bully by picking up Stanley's magazine.

However, over time, he starts to accept that the Mask is a genuine hero despite his wild and chaotic nature, and it is implied that he is starting to see the Mask as a friend as he gets invited by him along with those that the Mask sees as friends.

Mask Persona[]

Comics[]

Kellaway's Mask persona is violent, sadistic and genuinely insane, as he takes pleasure in hurting people who made his life difficult, even engaging in acts that broke several laws. But he does have a good heart, as he does have genuine good intentions in keeping innocent people safe and protected, along with the fact that most of the people he attacked or killed were criminals, and shows that he can be polite as well, despite his violent nature, as he speaks like a well-mannered gentleman towards to the Italian man after saving him from thugs that attacked him.

He can be merciful as well, as he spares a corrupted law attorney and instead breaks open a vault that has the evidence to expose him, while leaving him still terrified and a nervous wreck. He also cares about his unmasked self very much, as he stands up for him, and tells them that they given him unfair treatment, along with firing him for no good reason as well.

He also has self-control, as he doesn't attack the police and generally shows himself to be surprisingly a calm, laidback guy who is also cartoonish and is aware that he is in a comic book, as well, as he tells the reader off for figuring out where the evidence is instead of him. He shows himself to be smart as well, as after he picks up a phone, which he orders a pizza to who he thought to be the pizza delivery, which it turns out to Kathy and after he hears her voice on the phone, he takes his face off, so that his unmasked self can talk to her instead and not letting her know that he is out.

Appearances[]

Trivia[]

Unlike the comics, Kellaway never wore the mask in either the film or animated series.
He is revealed to be a fan of Tony Bennett in "Flight as a feather".
While his animosity towards the Mask was understandable in the comics, his movie/cartoon counterpart still hates the Mask, despite being being proven to be a hero. One of the reasons he hates the Mask is because he is always giving him and Doyle atomic wedgies and he finds his antics to be infuriating. Another possible reason for his grudge may be because he suspects that the Mask had/is having an affair with his wife Margaret. It's never been confirmed if the Mask was truly doing that or if he was just messing with his mind.
The reason Kellaway looks nothing like his movie counterpart is most likely because the animators could not get the rights to Peter Riegert's likeness.
Warren Beatty, John Heard, Richard Gere, Tim Allen, Pierce Brosnan, Jeffrey Jones, Christopher Reeve and Paul Gleason were all considered for the role of Mitch Kellaway before Peter Riegert was cast.