Lord John Whorfin was a (Red) Lectroid from Planet 10.
Whorfin was a hated military leader of the Red Lectroids, described by John Emdall as a bloodthirsty butcher similar to Adolf Hitler. Whorfin and his troops ruled over Planet 10 until freedom-loving forces of the Black Lectroids overthrew him. Whorfin was condemned, along with his Red Lectroid followers, to spend an eternity in the Eighth Dimension.
In 1938, Princeton professor Dr. Emilio Lizardo developed the OSCILLATION OVERTHRUSTER, a device that allows trans-dimensional travel through solid matter. Testing it for the first time, a minor problem causes Lizardo to become briefly stuck in the eight dimension, where Whorfin is able to possess Lizardo's brain. Escaping from the laboratory, Lizardo/Whorfin is able to free a number of Red Lectroids. This is seen by a young Orson Welles, who reports the events on radio. The Lectroids capture Welles and force him to tell everyone it was just a story. They then form Yoyodyne Propulsion as a cover for their advanced technology.
Whorfin and Lizardo fought over the control of their shared body, leading those around them to believe Lizardo was insane. They are locked in the Trenton Home for the Criminally Insane where they spend the next 40 years. Whorfin attempts to build his own overthruster in a bid to rescue the rest of his army and return to Planet 10 in triumph, but the drugs administered by hospital staff allow Lizardo to maintain partial control and the system is never completely developed.
After seeing a news report about Buckaroo Banzai's success with the Jet Car, Whorfin regained his memories and takes full control of Lizardo's body. After talking by phone with his lieutenant, John Bigbooté, Whorfin killed a guard on his way out and stole a car (which he quickly crashed). Whorfin directed his top men (Bigbooté, John Gomez and John O'Connor) to kidnap Professor Hikita to force him to build an overthruster. They capture Hikita at a televised conference, but he is freed by Banzai and the two are rescued by members of Team Banzai.
Bigbooté and the others infiltrate Banzai headquarters and kidnap Penny Priddy before being forced away. Unknown to the Lectroids, Priddy has the working overthruster. Whorfin tortures her in order to force her to reveal the secret of the overthruster's operation. When this was unsuccessful, Whorfin used Penny as bait to force Buckaroo to come to him with his working version.
After returning to Yoyodyne, Whorfin found his Lectroids in bad shape. Morale was very low and no one seemed to care about their return to Planet 10, so Whorfin started with several executions and ordered the Lectroids to work exceptionally hard on the Panther Ship. To that end, Whorfin gave several pep talks to his troops while they worked. The most famous one depicted in the movie has one of two most favorite lines of Peter Weller from the movie: “Character is who you are in the dark.” (The other one being “It's not my god damn planet, monkey boy” by John Bigbooté).
Banzai arrives in the Jet Car, without the overthruster. Whorfin tortures Buckaroo in the Shock Tower and sends Penny to the Pitt. When the rest of Team Banzai attacks Yoyodyne, Whorfin decides to try leaving the planet on the Panther ship. Having never decode Banzai's overthruster, he decides to use his own model that he developed while in the institution. However, Whorfin's overthruster was very crudely built (like most Lectroid technology) and was not working correctly, so the ship reached the eighth dimension only partially, freeing Lizardo in his young body and transforming Whorfin “into the most hideous of Lectroids” (these events are not depicted in the film).
The Panther ship crashed through the wall of Yoyodyne and started flying over New Jersey with Buckaroo and John Parker in the energency pod. Whorfin, tired of Bigbooté's complaining, shot his lieutenant in cold blood. Whorfin also released the ship's emergency pod to get rid of Buckaroo and John Parker. The two quickly learn how to fly the pod and eventually destroyed the mothership with laser fire.
It was supposed that Whorfin died when the Panther ship was shot down. However in Return of the Screw he appears again (with a Lectroid looking suspiciously like John Bigbooté). He offers Xan a way to rule the Earth using seismic resonators. He also has a spawn (a child).