Lisa Heffenbacher is one of the titular protagonists of the 2009 revival of The Electric Company (often referred as The New Electric Company). She's an experienced member of the titular company which solves problems and helps people out around town. In addition to being able to create wordballs, her special skill is that she's a master with anagrams and can visually unscramble words or solve word puzzles at rapid speed.
She was portrayed by Jenni Barber.
What Makes Her a Guile Hero?[]
In General[]
- Her special skill is that she can rearrange the locations for letters in various words, and is incredibly skilled with anagrams and various other puzzles. It's a lot more useful than it sounds, especially in cases with Annie Scrambler's involved.
- Even by the standards of the team she works for, she's incredibly smart and crafty in ways that surpass some of her teammates. Plus she's been shown to love science and is very skilled with experiments and other science-related topics.
Season 1[]
- In the series premiere, "Skills", Francine would steal Keith's unique power just he's about to get inducted into the Electric Company. The gang knew Francine wouldn't willingly give back the power, although she may be willing to trade it for greater power. So Keith would pose as a spy for Pranksters and a double agent who'd steal the Electric Company's powers. Her, Jessica and Hector would all play a part in the ruse by using their skills and having it seem like Keith was using them. Francine was willing to trade Keith's skill for what she thought was the Electric Company's stolen powers, only to find out too late the company tricked her into giving Keith his power back.
- Scent of a Human:
- When Hector gets tricked by Annie's uncle into getting hypnotized to have a canine brain in an attempt to make him unable to do his rap music video, Lisa would use her knowledge of dogs to take advantage of Hector's canine instincts to help him and train him to act like a human long enough for the video shoot. While Jessica, Keith and Shock would assist her with the training, Lisa's the one who came up with the idea and takes charge.
- When Annie gives Hector and the gang a note supposedly telling them where the new location of Hector's video shoot was (Stark Peak), Lisa's quickly able to deduce that Annie scrambled the name of the location and she'd change the name back to its actual location (Skate Park).
- Call Me Tiki: When Jessica uses her recording playback powers to play back audio that was heard the moment the parrot got loose to look for some background clues, Jessica would detect the parrot's mating call, but Lisa would piece together that the mating call was mimicked, recorded and played back.
- Lost and Spaced: She and (human-esque Skeleckian alien) Dax would team up during a science fair to create a perfect model of the solar system, complete with a minuscule space pod and a shrink ray (courtesy of advanced Skeleckian technology) to shrink a person down into the pod and make the person feel like they're literally traveling space. They'd even win first place for the project.
- Trouble Afoot:
- She's quickly able to piece together that Manny had tricked Hector into putting on some tricked-out sneakers that were making his feet uncoordinated by using context from Manny's video message.
- Despite Lisa having quite a bit of difficulty with how to crack the code to deal with the tricked-out sneakers, she'd eventually realize there was a clue within the animal names Manny was using, and that the first letter of each of those animal names would spell out the code needed to remove the shoes.
- Scrambled Brains: While Lisa does get tricked by Annie and her uncle Sigmund into getting hypnotized and letting Annie switch brains/bodies with her, she'd later follow Annie around with the latter's attempts to damage Lisa's reputation via scrambling/altering words, only for Lisa to secretly alter those same words for the better, behind Annie, and improve her reputation among the neighborhood, much to Annie's confusion and frustration, to the point where Annie wanted her own body back as she was tired of seemingly restoring Lisa's adoration, rather than damaging it.
- Game On:
- Despite Manny's attempt to sabotage Dino Ranger tech support's instructions from the phone on how to return Deek to his game, the team's still able to piece together what the instructions were, thanks to Jessica replaying the fractured instructions via her skill, and Lisa piecing together that vowels were missing and finding their exact locations.
- She's immediately able to solve Manny's phrase riddle upon realizing the phrase had its vowels removed, and has Deek freed from the billboard he's trapped in.
- War of the Words: When Keith finds out the Pranksters planted a homing device in Hector's hoodie (to track him down and prevent him from getting enough sleep) and removes it, instead of destroying the homing device, Lisa uses it to lead Francine, Manny and Annie astray, making them think that Hector was in his house trying to sleep, and even putting on a convincing act that Hector was seemingly in the house trying to rest. Though in reality, Hector was really in the Electric Diner, having a nutritious snack and getting a good rest, without disturbance. It's shown that the Pranksters eventually get exhausted from futilely playing their instruments all that time.
- Gravity Groove: When Shock and Lisa are tricked into using Skeleckian Gravity Spray -- as a scheme by Francine to try and sabotage their entry in the dance club -- the two of them would improvise, as they'd come up with a new creative dance known as the "Gravity Groove", which involved their heavy feet. Their dance would not only end up as the winning dance in the dance-off, but it would also quickly become a hit among the neighborhood in general.
- Pop Goes the Easel: When most of the Electric Company -- including her-- along with Danny and Bendini (Calvero's long-lost brother) all get trapped in Bendini's unfinished series -- with the only way to get out being for someone on the outside paint the castle and complete the set -- Hector would be the only one left who could paint the castle and rescue everyone. Lisa would indirectly (i.e.: using a wordball) give Hector some motivation and confidence by reminding him there was no wrong way to do art.
- Franscent:
- For her science project, Lisa was able to create a hybrid flower from a calla lily and a rare Skeleckian laloopy, which she'd call a "callaloopy", with the flower even blooming as proof it was a hybrid.
- Then, after Francine took Lisa's laloopy and tried to use its smell as a perfume for her project, only for her to realize it would make whoever was sprayed with it smell awful, Lisa agrees to do different serum, realizing she'd have to use a different area of the plant, and deciding use the serum as her new science project.
- When Francine tries to take full credit for Lisa's sweet perfume on the day of the presentation, she swaps out the sweet perfume with the stinky perfume when Francine wasn't looking, tricks the latter into making her stinky, reveals her own contributions for the serum and threatens to drain out the anti-stink perfume unless Francine acknowledged Lisa's role in the project.
- Out to Launch: When Francine alters The Electric Diner's billboard to call Hector a liar and broadcasted live vlogs claiming Hector was a bad role model for people (especially kids) to look up to. The team's would eventually change the billboard back to the way it was before, and Lisa would trick Francine into admitting she had altered the billboard the first time, despite knowing about Hector's good and honest nature, with Jessica capturing the speech on-tape, and using it expose Francine and restore Hector's good name.
- Fromage Here to Eternity: Upon Lisa and Dax realizing Annie was using and following instructions from the monitor as a way to lure the capsule with Skeleckian cheese down to her (Annie), Lisa would change the instructions from her side, which would affect the other monitor (via wordball powers) as an attempt to lure the cheese capsule away from Annie and back to her and Dax. The plan nearly works, although Manny ends up catching on to the trick just before Lisa and Dax could get the cheese back.
- Friends or Aunts: Lisa and Annie both get chosen to be constants in the titular game show, with Lisa choosing to bring Hector as her friend, and Annie choosing to bring her aunt Sandy as her aunt. When Lisa and Hector find out Annie's aunt was a hypnotist, they made sure to prepare themselves for if Sandy tries to hypnotize them, using hand mirrors against her to make herself sleepy -- though Annie's able to snap her out of it in time.
- A Whole New Francine: Lisa was willing to give Francine's "change of heart" the benefit of the doubt and even thought she genuinely changed, but when Francine "catches" Manny using a gadget for a sabotage attempt, Lisa's able to piece together that the attack may have been staged and with Francine was in on it. Just to be sure, she offers Francine a position in the company in 2 years, anticipating that she'd be unwilling to wait that long and would reveal her true nature on stage towards them and in front of the kids.
Season 2[]
- One Smart Cookie: She'd help out Keith and his cousin PJ in the Casey Calloway mystery contest, while skillfully impersonating nosey newspaper reporter Ginger Snap Gonzalez, and even finishing some of the others' sentences. She also had a good amount of knowledge of the book series and was able to keep up very easily. She was pretty much the brains of the group, as she constantly came to PJ's aid whenever he was confused by one of the clues.
- One Bad Apple: She helps out PJ with his writing assignment for school, where he had a come up with a story that takes place in a refrigerator.
- Madame President: She signed up to become the neighborhood book club president as she wanted to express her love of reading and share it was others. Even w having to compete against Francine (who wasn't even interested in book club and only signed up because she wanted a position of power and to beat Lisa), she'd fight Francine's propaganda with some honesty from her side.
- Revolutionary Doughnuts: When Lisa gets word about her great(10x)-aunt Cordelia supposedly being a traitor to America during the Revolutionary War by giving the British Red Coats doughnuts, and becoming the black sheep as a result, Lisa refused to believe her ancestor was a traitor and did some investigation in Cordelia's previous home (now belonging to Lisa's aunt Mildred). While there, she'd open a large trunk containing some of Cordelia's property, and upon discovering that Cordelia loved literacy just like she did, she'd read Cordelia's very long diary from start to finish, and at the very end, she'd notice Cordelia had left a message for a future descendant that had an anagram -- which Lisa quickly solves -- and revealed there was more content to her story than meets the eye in the secret door. Then in the secret room, Lisa would discover a box, and unscramble another anagram leading her to realize there was a "false bottom", and a secret compartment with hidden letters from George Washington that revealed Cordelia wasn't a traitor, and that her giving the British Red Coats doughnuts was simply to distract them. This made Lisa the first in her family to solve Cordelia's puzzles, discover the truth about Cordelia's actions in the Revolutionary War, and clear her name in over 2 centuries. This is easily one of Lisa's most heroic acts to date, and it's definitely proof of just how guile she is.
Post-Season 2
- Even though she would get into a program for young scientists that took her out of town, and therefore couldn't be as active in the neighborhood as she used to be, she'd still get posted by Hector about everything that goes down, and she herself would occasionally help out the Electric Company and talk with them via virtual calls. She even helps Marcus to learn the terms and officially get admissioned into the Electric Company.