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Anybody can make a list of the great sidekicks. The Sundance Kid, Scottie Pippen, bar-backs, Miss Elizabeth, and Fozzie Bear fly off the top of my head on a moment's notice. But how many of us pay tribute to key figures on the next rung of the totem pole? The time has come for us to give these third wheels the Willy Loman treatment and declare that attention must be paid. Why 9? It's the result of 3 squared, of course!

(Please Note: I don't know where this recent internet sensation of starting a list with number one stems from but it doesn't live here. It's like starting The Usual Suspects with Kevin Spacey lighting a cigarette while Kobyashi waits in the car.)

9. The Dark Knight Rises

I know it hasn't even started filming, but Christopher Nolan has yet to take a step back in quality. He'll quietly be directing with a "Kobe Bryant being reminded MJ has 6 titles" level chip on his shoulder after back-to-back Best Director snubs, so he gets to wrap up his trilogy of my all-time favorite superhero any damn way he wants. I'm calling shotgun on the bandwagon for this one now.

8. Chico Marx

Groucho was the Marx Brothers' impertinent wit and Harpo its silent heart, but Chico was the straight man on film and the true brains of their success behind the scenes, procuring their first international contract, first Broadway show, and hugely lucrative MGM contract. He also created the template for phony, over the top Italian accents used in all walks of life, entertainment and otherwise.

7. Thomas Jefferson

Our third president co-founded the Democratic - Republican Party, a cross mix of viewpoints that dominated American politics for 230 years but couldn't survive a talking head cable news segment today. He also dabbled in writing independent declarations and served as a Founding Father, which was appropriate since Jefferson procreated his way to 12 kids -- 6 from his wife before she died, 6 from the slave with whom he had a three decade love affair. But the most important reason to love Tommy J? He's the face of the 2 dollar bill, and who doesn't get excited when they come into possession of a 2 dollar bill?

6. Tom Hagen

The Corleone consigliere spent The Godfather having his heritage slurred by a movie producer, kidnapped by an up and coming drug dealer, and stripped of his position when his baby brother took the family reins. But The Godfather II was Hagen's "little engine that could" moment when he became the Don while Michael handled business with Hyman Roth and discovered Fredo had been manipulated by Junior Soprano. Hagen deftly blackmailed an unfriendly senator, talked a long-time family solider-turned rat into suicide, and asked for enough money from Francis Ford Coppola to assure he was left out of Godfather III.

5. The Letter 'C'

Quick, how many words that describe the female sexual nether region, medical or otherwise, start with the letter C? Good stuff, right? But C is in this spot as a tribute to its eternal place as everyone's favorite middle grade. Raise your hand if you did everything in college you could and graduated Magna Cum Laude? Now raise your hand if you used college as an excuse to do a copious amount of partying and put in just enough work to graduate with a 2.0 GPA - AKA a 'C' average? (By the way, your intellect is evident in the fact you just raised your hand in front of a computer screen.)

4. James Worthy

If I wanted to be more current, I could put Lamar Odom here (he did marry a Kardashian after dating her for 45 seconds, after all), but while Lamar could be the number one guy for 25-30% of the teams in the NBA, "Big Game James" could have been the man for 90% of teams during his heyday. Instead, Worthy took his third billing and parlayed it into three championships and an NBA Finals MVP. He also took Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's "alien with goggles" look and made it a "super cool alien with goggles" look, though it is unknown if he utilized the look when getting busted for requesting the company of multiple hookers.

3. Ron Weasley

The humanity of Hogwarts, Ron is our window into that fantastical world because he reacts the way we might: a bit of fear, a bit of humor, an occasional sojourn into outright cowardice, but in the end he comes through with equal parts bravery and loyalty. Besides, Harry may be the chosen one, but Ron had the sense to look at Hermoine Granger and realize she would grow up to be Emma Watson.

2. The Third Member of a Threesome

Attempting to explain the pleasure that emanates from being the center point of multiple intertwined bodies rolling around in beds made for two is much like attempting to explain the appeal of professional wrestling: if you get it, no explanation is necessary. If you don't, no explanation will do. I implore all of you to get it at least once. (You know...if I had first-hand experience in that sort of thing. What are you looking at? Let's just move on to number one...)

1. George Harrison

How important were The Beatles to the culture as a whole? I just put their third banana ahead of a flippin' threesome, for crying out loud! The classic question is always John or Paul, but amongst fellow artists, George's musicianship as a guitarist reigns supreme. (The guy got people to care about the sitar. I know it was the 60's and mind altering substances led people down some roads less taken, but seriously...THE SITAR!) Despite this appreciation, his significant songwriting skills were relegated to one or two tracks per album (Though let's face it, if Emmitt Smith joined a team with a starting backfield of Jim Brown and Walter Payton, he's not getting a lot of playing time, either.)

Harrison had the last laugh though by being the last Beatle to have a solo number one with Got My Mind Set On You, and what has been The Beatles most downloaded single since their music finally became available on iTunes last year? Here Comes the Sun. Its writer and lead vocalist? George Harrison.