THE BEST TV CHARACTER EVER (IMHO)

On Barney Miller, Ron Glass' character, Det. Ron Harris, was one of the first fully-drawn, non-stereotypical Black characters on television. Smart, handsome, educated, talented, arrogant, a clotheshorse, he was a gem of a character and Ron Glass played him to the hilt.

One of my favorite episodes, other than the one about the hash brownies, was when he went undercover as a woman. They told him how lovely he looked and he said, "well, I want to look good...but not better." And then Dietrich asked him out on a date???

Ha, I had forgotten about that one. Oh man, I loved Harris, he was man .... {fans self}

Yeah, Jody on Soap was most likely the first openly gay character. And he was great, too. Very believable, his struggles with his identity and how hurt he was when Dennis left him. His family's behavior around him also made perfect sense - Burt was repulsed, Danny was in denial, Mary wondered where she'd gone wrong and Chuck made fun of him.

Dietrich (Steve Landesburg) and Harris (Ron Glass) had a hilarious relationship as coworkers. Dietrich would always irritate Harris. I remember when Dietrich was told that he makes bad coffee. Dietrich replied: "It keeps me humble."

Me too jespah. I thought Ron Glass was the finest thing on the tube back then. Did you know that he was/is gay in real life? Not that it matters. He was still the FINEST man on the tube IMO!

I remember the very first "Soap" when Mary caught Jody trying on one of her dresses and then took his fashion tips on how to accessorize it! It was a hoot. And Burt...! What a fool. With a gorgeous head of hair.

At the time he was an amusing sidekick to Dobie, edgar. ("Work?!") But, really, I'd hardly put him right up there with the John Cleeses of the comedy world.

I put Bob Denver down a bit, but he connected with a lot of people with his Maynard and Gilligan acts, and I watched him about as much as anybody.

John Laroquette now does a really sappy "collectibles " show. The kind of collectibles that are in your nightmares of hell. Like an entire house decorated with Lalldro or Hummel figurines.

However, whatever happened to Steve Landesburg? Is he dead like Gary Busey?

Gary Busey is not dead, he's only sleeping (or in a coma)

I heard that Steve Landesburg makes a lot of money as the voice of radio and tv commercials. Many commercials are produced here in Chicago. One of my female co-workers walked past him on the street once and automatically said "hello" because he looked so familiar. When he said hello back to her in his deep voice, she slapped her forehead and said: "Oh my God! It's you!" He then slapped his forehead and said "Oh my God! It's you!"

Easily Homer Simpson
greatest character EVER!!!!


Listen to The Ten Commandments Of Bart by The Simpsons : Edit [Moderator]: Link removed

This thread has brought back some wonderful memories. Most of the characters mentioned are ones that provided truly good entertainment.

WKRP was one of my all time favorites as was Paladin. John Cleese is a genius in whatever he does. Can't remember if Gunsmoke was mentioned. Miss Kitty was fabulous as the character of a saloon owner, possible prostitute. She was her own woman, independent, smart and sure of herself. Yeah, she always said, "Be careful, Matt," but who wouldn't? He was a hunk.

Another favorite was Patrick McGoohan, writer, producer and star of The Prisoner. It was a surreal portrait of a so-called prison camp for brain-washing those who questioned governmental authority. Looking at a site on the Prisoner, they mentioned the signs that were frequently seen around the village:

"Questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself"
"Humour is the essential ingredient of a democratic society"
"A still tongue makes a happy life"
"Of the people, By the people, For the people"

He never failed in maintaining his individuality. "I am not a number!"

A more recent character, I think Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane is truly one for the books. As is David Hyde Pierce as Niles.

Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo and Art Carney as Ed Norton...

but others that grabbed my interest were Helen Mirren as Jane Tennyson in Prime Suspect, as Sozobe mentioned, and Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart in House of Cards. Have to credit the writing in a lot of shows I really liked...

I would probably have to put Art Carney at the top as being influential to the medium. After the Honeymooners, just about every show had to have a goofy sidekick type character. Unfortunately, few of those characters could carry it as well as Art Carney. Don Knotts was one who could.

Two others I think we should include were Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. I think they were successful for two reasons:

A) they were the first "lifestyle" comedy where the appeal of the show was at least as much for the characters' lifestyle as it is for the jokes and plot

B) they brought TV comedy out of the WWII era. Before, most shows were cast with ex-vaudeville characters doing vaudeville like things. The Dick Van Dyke show was truly about people who came of age post WWII.

So many names, it is hard to pick out just a few. But a couple of names really deserve mention. Telly Savalas as Kojak personified New York grit. James Garner as Jim Rockford as the artful con man who works the right side of the law.

Finally, this show changed drama on TV completely for the better, by bringing a new level of realism that never existed before: Hill Street Blues.

sawyer form lost. he just cracks me up. I thin he is hillarious

Jean Luc, Archie Bunker, Gilligan (and a shout out to our dear friend "Old Dog from Abuzz who wrote the character for the show too!) and Homer T Simpson, timeless, timeless characters from the small screen, all good personalities, but one stands out, one abounds, (not abides, this is the small screen after all), one towers over the rest like a hairy titan, whose acting skills and emotions bring heaven down to earth.

He is of course, Master Thespian, Warren "The Ape" Demontague who carried Greg the Bunny throught thick and thin, and thinner yet from access cabel in New York to the IFC channel to a stint on Fox, then back to IFC.

Warren a true hero, more sick and twisted than I could imagine (and I can imagine a lot, if you know what I mean and I'm sure you do), the guy who would sell his own mother for crack, menthols, and a quart of Old English and when the high wore off provide a soliloquy about the regrettable but necessary loss that rivals the immortal Garrick's Lear.

Warren, warts, fur, and all.

Pure prozac-inspired genius.

I worship at his feet.



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Kuvasc-Was that character really on TV , or is he just a creation of a clever mind on the internet. (Anything saying MySpace kind of creeps me out since , in Pa all the teenage murders have been linked to sexual predators or other similar whackjobs posting on "Myspace" or another one called
"xanga". Its my understanding that these are mostly kids with a few older predators and some state police trolling for stings.

Monague seems like a really clever character. His ramblings of his unrepentent life seem like something out of "Sweet Thursday" or characters out of Jimmie Breslin's head.

When did the ape puppet appear on tv?

By the way, for those who are unaware, Homer Simpson first appears in literature in Nathaniel West's novel The Day of the Locust. In that novel, Simpson is a bookkeeper in a hotel in Kansas City who embezzles funds, and ends up in California in the Hollywood area (the scene of all the action). He moons after a woman who is a stage mom with a little blond haired boy, who is obsessed with her boy and has little interest in Homer. In the final scene of the novel, Simpson is seen stomping the little blond boy to death in the street. The earliest appearance of Homer Simpson on television was in very brief vignettes on The Tracy Ullman Show, and his choking of Bart (a little blond boy) was prominent. I don't know it for a fact, but i strongly suspect that Groening got the idea for the Homer character from The Day of the Locust.

Farmerman,

oh Greg the Bunny and Warren are real, as real as "fabricated" Americans can be in these times of awful discrimination.
against their kind

I caught their re-entry to the Independent Film Channel (IFC) shorts in a half-hour special called "Fur on the Asphalt" and nearly died from laughter. it was a parody on "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and had drugs, sex and Rock n' Roll and motocycles in the city of sin, also $5,000 a night call girls who would do anything for Warren. he wound up like Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, gas mask and all.

in their recent stint on IFC they parody classic films from the perspective of a semi-autistic Greg the Bunny rabbit and Warren, an actor ape who seethes for being forced to work below the station and his magnificent acting talents would dictate were there a God in Heaven.

the shows are parodies of classic films, like Easy Rider, the GodFather (called the God Pappy,") Annie Hall (where Greg has a relationship with a crustacean, quite akin to one a New York Jewish boy had with a blond shikse) the Shankshaw Redemption, where the actor who played the warden was in the short film, as the warden... he was also in the FOX series too, Sex, Lies and Video Tapes, Pulp Fiction (called Dead Puppet Storage), Barton Fink, Eraser Head, some exquisitely funny stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_the_Bunny

here is one, Dead Puppet Storage to check out my all time favorite TV character.


http://www.vidking.com/viewvideo.php?id=704

HOMER From THE SIMPSONS and JOE from FRIENDS