Since we’ve covered disappearing and changing characters, what about annoying characters who were unfortunately inserted into TV shows? I think we can skip Urkel, Scrappy Doo, wacky neigbors, and the countless kiss-of-death TV births (N.B. Family Ties and Murphy Brown); but what are the other more egregious additions?
Personally, I will never forgive Peyo and crew for adding Pee-Wee and Johanne to the “Smurfs.” It was just never the same after that: I mean, really, humans in the Smurf village? My disbelief only suspends so far.
The first one that springs to mind is “Cousin Pam”, the out-of-nowhere addition to the cast of “The Cosby Show” for its final season, evidently so that they’d have someone to use to present “troubled teen issues”.
Then there was Sam, the crappy “cute kid” added to “Diff’rent Strokes” when Gary Coleman got too old and uncute.
And, since someone’s gonna mention him eventually, Cousin Oliver on “The Brady Bunch”.
If you like this kinda stuff, check out Jump the Shark, a site that measures the point at which, for a given TV show, everything started going downhill fast.