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Look at your hand. Spread out all five fingers, palm facing down. Now curl your two middle fingers and tuck in your thumb, while keeping the index figure and the pinkie extended, in what is sometimes referred to as the "rock-on" hand.

This is the bull.

Now spin your hand around so that the curled-in fingers are facing you and the back of your hand is facing the world; i.e. you're giving the world the back of your hand.

These are the horns.

And if you know anything about Paul Gleason, you know that if you mess with one, you'll get the other.

Until 1985, Paul Gleason had enjoyed a happy H!ITG! career, stretching from the mid-'60s through the early '80s, playing lots of typical H!ITG! roles: lieutenants and sergeants and police detectives and the like.

Then a funny thing happened. America messed with the bull. And America got Paul Gleason.

Principal Richard Vernon, as played by Paul Gleason, was the warden to five imprisoned kids in 1985's teen-angst masterpiece The Breakfast Club. He was, moreover, the High-School Principal as Preening, Malevolent Prick. Who can forget the scene in which he and Judd Nelson scream back and forth at each other, recklessly trading salvos of spittle, as Gleason tacked on one detention after another like a gleeful torturer applying the lash?

You mess with the bull...well, you know.

For most character actors, a performance this monumental, this teen-brain-searing, would be enough in one career. Gleason, however, didn't waste time before adding another nearly-as-iconic role to his résumé: FBI Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson in Die Hard. Or, the Police Chief as Preening, Malevolent Prick.

Paul Gleason sure goes give good A-Hole.

How iconic were these roles? Well, Gleason spoofed both of them later in his career, reviving Richard Vernon in the teen-comedy Not Another Teen Movie, and playing FBI Agent Dwayne T. Robinson in the action spoof Loaded Weapon.

That's right, kids. Not one but two character roles that were iconic enough to earn their own spoofs.

Damn.

Not to mention appearances in Van Wilder, Miami Blues, The Great Santini, and, this week, in something called Abominable about, yes, the snow man of the same name. Gleason plays Sheriff Halderman. We're gonna guess he's an A-Hole.

So, in honor of the incomparable Paul Gleason, we'd like to extend our index finger and pinkie in a salute. Though this time, we aren't making the bull. This time, it's the "rock on" hand.

Rock on.