Sardo is a character from Gary's, and later Tucker's, stories in the Midnight Society, the flamboyantly-dressed money-grubbing magic/occult/novelty shop Magic Mansion salesman who offers his goods as mystically successful, despite being surprised to learn of their abilities when they bring their buyers trouble, from their magic or a villain gong after them.In The Tale of the Super Specs , he sells the aforementioned Super Specs to Weeds as part of his April Fools' Day supplies after he explains they're for X-ray vision and Weeds reads the Spell of Second Sight for them. Marybeth sees dark figures whenever she wears them, and after she tries to dispose of them they keep returning to her. She learns from Sardo that the spell Weeds has opened the doorway to another dimension whose inhabitants she's seeing. After getting Weeds' magical supplies and going to Marybeth's house where the portal between the universes vying for the same space is, Sardo begins acting as (or rather, faking the part of) a medium to deal with the creatures, using common magic words and gesturing over a crystal ball. Everyone notices the aliens before the room goes dark, and Sardo, after letting slip that he's surprised, thinks he's succeeded. But a giant pair of eyes appears, and Sardo ducks under the table begging the owner to capture the kids but spare him. A deep, sinister voice sounds and Marybeth and Weeds grip the table against a powerful wind before what looks like them, but with a woman instead of Sardo calling the girl Arlene instead of Marybeth, explains they won the battle against a group of their alter egos for the same space - heard in the deep pitch by Sardo, Weeds, and Marybeth, trapped in a crystal since Sardo had no real magical skill and was defeated.In honor of Gary's birthday, David uses the amusing character. In The Tale of the Dark Dragon , the only time he was told in a story by someone other than the brothers, Sardo is approached by Keith after seeing an ad for Popularity Potion, which Sardo claims is his hottest item but needs to have described to know what to look for. He instructs Keith to take only one drop daily because of its potency. Keith tests it on the shop rabbit and it seems to work, curing it of an itch, but after Keith leaves Sardo finds it's become fanged and monstrous. After it initially causes pain, Keith thinks it has worked on him, curing his injured leg so he no longer needs a brace and uses his new confidence to create an altar ego, a cousin named K.C., to win over Shelly. But the next day he finds himself growing scales, though takes it again for another date with her. When he grows more scales and fangs, he approaches Sardo, who admits no one else has bought the potion yet. Sardo misses the warning in his book that Keith finds to see the next page, where they read before the potion's effects will be complete the user must conquer an internal dark dragon. By the time Keith returns home, he looks inhuman and, when Mariah approaches trying to get him to explain what's going so she can help, his voice has a rasping echo. He goes to school for the dance K.C. asked Shelly to and drinks the potion there, seen by Mariah. As Shelly answers her boyfriend and Keith's friend Gary's request to dance after he's won homecoming king, Mariah arrives unrecognized by Keith at first since she is more beautiful than before and no longer needs glasses - she took the potion so Keith would return the love she reveals for him. When she begins to hurt, she reveals she drank all that was left, and begins to transform rapidly. As each explains they took it to be someone other than the selves they no longer wished to be for feeling like a misfit and being unnoticed for plainness, respectively, they realize their love for each other's being who they are is mutual, and the curse is broken, letting the potion fully work.In 'The Tale of the Carved Stone , while getting a pair of prop eyeglasses for Alison, Sardo claims the rock with engravings she found is a stone that will cause her to meet a friend when rubbed. It doesn't so she doubts it, but when she tosses it toward the mirror afterwards, she sees someone on its other side in the same room with different furniture. When she steps toward it, she ends up passing through it and back in time from the stone, and does make a friend in Tom Bradshaw, a previous occupant of the house. But when they're about to return to her time, they encounter Brother Septimus, an evil monk specializing in magic who desires the stone to travel through time for his own sinister purposes. He captures Sardo, pressing him to hand over the stone and trying to hypnotize him. Though terrified, Sardo is determined to escape and get rich off the amulet. Tom narrowly escapes and hits the mirror with a slingshot, breaking it and trapping Septimus, though destroying his and Alison's connection. Sardo is disappointed to lose a chance at wealth, though is relieved the world is safe and even touched to see a fond message to Alison from Tom in the past.In The Tale of Cutter's Treasure: Part 1 , Sardo is asked by Rush while buying a magic kit for Max about a chest offering a prize for its opener, but says everyone who has tried failed. Rush manages to open it, which delights Sardo since he gets 5,000 dolls (he collects them), and gives him the first part of the prize, a spyglass. After Max claims the spyglass moves and Rush has a nightmare involving a cemetery he saw through it, he returns it refusing the rest of the prize. Sardo can't dissuade him but is given a business card by Dr. Vink (unseen), who gave him the chest, to have Rush see him when he inevitably returns. In Part 2 , after Captain Cutter's ghost captures Max, Rush returns confronting Sardo, who is skeptical about his story and says he knows little abot the chest but sends him to Vink. After Rush and Max have defeated Cutter, Sardo confronts Vink about how he has not yet been paid as promised for assisting him. Vink offers him twice what he promised before for another job, but his eagerness to join in anything at this makes Vink wary of him.In The Tale of a Door Unlocked , while Sardo is searching for the Popularity Potion for Justin so he can after he wanders in, Justin stumbles upon a miniature door Sardo claims shows the future. Justin takes it and it delivers: the window atop it shows a girl moving through it, but then shows her in a burning room. The next day, the girl, Ashley, joins Justin's class, but when Justin sees the same scene he returns to Sardo. Though Sardo claimed he got the only door in existence, there's another identical one on display. Sardo refuses to listen to Justin, guessing he wants a refund. Later, Justin looks in the door and sees Ashley in an old house searching for her brother and realizes it's showing the present. Seeing it's labeled In and inding a key in a compartment in it, Justin opens it and steps through to the house where Ashley is - and a fire is spreading. The two become trapped searching for a way out, but Justin realizes Sardo's door must be the Out mate to his own, so knocks on his calling for Sardo to free them. At first thinking he's hearing things, Sardo opens it so they exit safely into the Magic Mansion. Sardo reveals he has a third door and offers it, but Justin refuses.In The Tale of Obliion , Sardo offers a box of what turns out to hold a pencil and eraser to Max, who's seeking art supplies, claiming they were used by many famous artists. Max learns anything whose image is removed with the eraser disappears, and gets rid of the family dog who hates him and the piano he doesn't want to play. Shelly starts to tell their mom, but Max follows through with his threat to use it on her by effacing her name. He asks Sardo what to do, who guessingly suggests he follow her. Max does by erasing his and the supplies' names, and finds himself in Oblivion, where Shelly is about to be run through a giant garbage compactor with antiquities by Kronos. He erases Kronos to get him to follow, though he knows nothing more than Max. Max erases Oblivion, preserving their names and his dog's written on his paper with the pencil, leaving them in a void. Drawing the door to their home with the pencil, he erases it so it appears in the space, allowing them to pass through. Sardo is still awkwardly in the ouse when their mom arrives, unaware of how unwelcome he will be. Max explains him as the tuner who took the piano he erased earlier.In The Tale of the Time Trap , Sardo offers an aging potion to Jason for wisdom so he can know what to say to Andrea. Jason rejects it, but accepts the box Sardo claims will give him power if he pushes on it saying his desire. Nothing happens the night Jason tries urging it to give him a date, but the next day a silver-haired genie named Belle appears because of it speaking well of him, causing embarrassment and revealing the box is a genie's prison. After Belle responds to his wishes by getting him in trouble at school, getting him arrested, and trapping him in a void, he returns to Sardo. A wish to have the situation end results in an alternate reality where Jason's home is no longer his so he and Sardo are seen as trespassers by his mom, now married to a cop who brings backup to attack if they don't leave. Jason gives Sardo a wish and, with the possibility of doing something great and altruistic but only one choice, he wishes for a million more. This results in him taking Belle's place as a genie. Jason wishes that it was the previous day again and Sardo's power gives it, causing time to reverse until just before Jason visits Sardo. He doesn't return, leaving Belle trapped.His name is almost always pronounced other than how he likes, usually as Mr. Sardo, to which he chides, It's Sar-DOH, no 'Mister', accent on the DOH. He is also often seen charging exorbitant prices for his wares, but can usually be bargained down to a more fair price and would begrudgingly agree, Okay. But I'm losing on the deal! Another catchphrase is Have you seen our vomit? Show less «