Fuzzball

Contact with them kills our hero instantly. To his advantage, though, Fuzzball is one of the most manoeuvrable characters ever to star in a computer game, and, using the usual directional controls of the joystick, he can be made to scoot and jump left and right on to the many platforms (and inertia allows him to turn mid-jump), whilst the firebutton prompts him to gob a spit-ball at any oncoming nasties, paralysing them for a few seconds.