Is there a more useless character than Waluigi?

I was playing Mario Kart Wii the other day and I was considering all the characters that Nintendo has added to their franchises over the years. While contemplating the characters I was hard pressed to find a more useless character than Waluigi. I mean what value does he add to these games? I would say that some of the Bounty Hunters in line with Boba Fett during Empire Strikes Back are more or at least equally useless but writers have gone on to give them their own adventures, which is more than I can say for Waluigi.

For those of you who don’t know, Waluigi is supposed to be one of the Mario Bros evil ‘cousins”, and a direct rival of Luigi; thus his name. Now his name doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. From my understanding the “wa-” syllable in japanese means bad so he is essentially bad Luigi, but it’s not like his brother’s name is Wamario he’s just Wario, which at least sounds like it could be a name albeit an awful one at that. Also check out his character design, from the moment I laid eyes on him I had a feeling of familiarality. It wasn’t until I got to play with him in Mario Kart Double Dash that I put it together. He is the spitting image of Dick Dastardly. Their hooked features, lanky body types, purple clothing and sinister mustaches are all undeniably similar. Which on one hand is kind of fun because it makes me feel like I’m racing in one of the Hanna-Barbera Wacky Races cartoons that I grew up watching, but talk about a lack of ingenuity.

Unfortunately for Waluigi he has never really been given a chance to win gamers over. When I heard Nintendo was making Super Mario Bros. Wii, which allows 4 players to be on screen at the same time. I assumed that Wario and Waluigi were finally going to be given a chance to have an adventure along side of there more benevolent counterparts. But instead the 3rd and 4th characters are given to two Toad characters, Nintendo claimed that although the Wario and Waluigi were a consideration due to their appearances, they opted against using them because they didn’t think a team up between them all would be believable.

I’m not surprised that Nintendo would continue to shaft Waluigi since they have shafted Luigi so many times before, not featuring the less famous plumber until Gamecube’s Luigi’s Mansion. Poor Waluigi was even left out as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

In your opinion what other characters classify as useless?