As a flip-flop to deena’s thread, who is your LEAST favorite character brought into a successful (or not particularly successful) series? My votes (and I’m going to be very lazy and use actor’s names rather than look up the character’s names when I don’t know them):
Jon Lovitz on News Radio- in fairness it’s doubtful that anybody would have really worked due to the decidedly non-comedic nature of Phil Hartman’s departure, but while I think Lovitz has talent he was just annoying on this show (and they already had Andy Dick for the hyper-annoying character).
David Spade on 8 Simple Rules- alright, I’ll admit it, I never watched it before or after Ritter’s death, but I’m morally opposed to anything that gives David Spade a good paying job.
Precocious children on too many shows to list, but a sample would include Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Step by Step and Married With Children (though the milk carton stunt on the last one was hysterical). Particularly annoying use of this: Frasier- did Roz really need a child? (The actress wasn’t pregnant in real life, the character didn’t work as a single mother and when Jane Leeves really did get pregnant they just made Daphne fat- I don’t know who thought up this one.
The kid who replaced Freddie Prinze on Chico and the Man- it was just too morbid
Donna on Sanford & Son- it made no sense- she’s an intelligent, well spoken professional and he’s a dirty slovenly penniless barely literate junk man, what’s the attraction? (In the show’s lamentable reincarnation he began dating a Beverly Hills socialite… the hell?)
Kellie “Kiss-of-Death” Martin to ER- has she ever helped any show? And I’ll retro it to include Chad “Spencer” Lowe’s artist character on Life Goes On (who miraculously went from a one night stand with an HIV positive woman to full blown AIDS in one year and then recovered and then died and then got better and then… well, it was so PC driven a plot as to define the term for Martians.
Uncle Jack on Land of the Lost- I know that the father wanted off the series, but it would have made more sense to just let Holly and Will go live with Enok or the Pakuni.
There are others I’m sure, but I’ll let some other kids play.
Anya on Buffy. She could have been a much more interesting and complex character, but she had exactly three defining characteristics: 1. Has sex with Xander at the drop of a hat. 2. Greedy. 3. Utterly fails to understand normal human social interaction, which is especially annoying because before she was a regular she understood just fine.
Curse you jinty! I saw the thread title, saw that there were only 3 replies and thought, “At last! I get to be the one to throw out the king of all worst added characters!” I should have known that three replies is more than enough to get Scrappy doo in the mix.
I’ll agree that Anya was bad, but only in seasons 6 and 7 (although that had potential to make her ineresting again in 6, but then went for the cop out and had her back to human.) OK, you were a demon for a thousand years, you “lost” your humanity, but being that way for 4 seasons w/ no developement is jsut bad. Seasons 4 and 5 it aws OK, and indeed, in season 5 you almost make progress…but eh.
And to go along with Anya…Dawn. I hate, hate, HATE Dawn with the burning passion of a thousand suns. She is ALWAYS annoying. ALWAYS. A typical Dawn scene is thus:
Buffy/Mom/Other Authority figure: Dawn, doing <insert dumb idea here> is dangerous.
Dawn: I’m not a little girl! I can do what I want!
B/M/OAF: No, you can’t, you’re a teenager, I know what’s best.
Danw: (screeming in that EARDRUM PIERCICING TONE): GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!!!
At which point she will run off and do the dumb thing, get in danger, and have to be saved. God, if I was Buffy, I would have turned her over to the knights trying to kill her, assuming I hadn’t done so myself by that point.
Cousin Oliver. Why? Because he added nothing to the sick fantasies I had growing up, involving rampant incest in the Brady clan, and that were partialy, kinda substantiated (not really) in Barry Williams’s Biography “Growing up Brady” beat
::ducks::
Oh yeah, definitely Cousin Oliver. He was just so obviously an attempt to re-establish cuteness after the actors playing Cindy and Bobby got too old for Kitty Karry-All jokes. And annoying, to boot.
Although I can’t remember if he ever appeared on-screen, MASH could have done without Donald Penobscott. The whole story line only served to emphasize that the Frank Burns character had been wrung dry, and Hot Lips had been underdeveloped. (I mean as a character, you perverts.)
Albert on “Little House on the Prairie”. The show had been steadily straying from the spirit of the books, but once Albert showed up, that was it. The whole thing formally became a 1970s morality play, with hoop skirts.
The Ingalls family pracitcally started a travelling Ma & Pa orphanage in the final seasons, taking in first Albert and later Jason Bateman, Shannon Doherty and the odd stray animal. I think Charles fathered all those children on his trips into town and just didn’t have the prairie oysters to tell Ma.
Regarding Sam from Diffrent Strokes- the same kid was on an episode of Dukes of Hazzard (as an orphan) and his voice was dubbed for the entire episode by a very high voiced woman. Truly disturbing television.
Crystal Bernard’s character’s snobby sister on Wings added nothing and detracted from a show that didn’t already have a lot of quality to spare.
Happy Days added so many annoying characters: Ted McGinley, his on-screen brother Billy Warlock, Cathy Silvers as Jenny Piccolo (previously mentioned constantly but never seen) and later, of course, Little Richie, all of whom kept it on life support way longer than was merciful.
I think Little House takes the cake for the most bad additions to a show ever. I forget, did Adam come before or after Albert? Both were bad, and never existed in real life. Then there were James and Cassandra. I don’t even remember why or how they came to live with the Ingalls, but they were obviously the new Laura and Albert once Laura and Albert weren’t cute anymore. Jenny (Shannen Doherty) actually lived with Laura and Almanzo, not Charles and Caroline, but was a poor addition nonetheless. And how can we forget Nancy? Ah yes, Nancy … the new Nellie for the new Laura, who was Cassandra. Boy, that sucked. Meanwhile Carrie, who was one of the real Ingalls daughters, got to say approximately 12 words during her whole run on the show. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … Carrie got the shaft! (Okay, so did Grace.)
As badly as I hate all of the additions to Little House, I’d like to cast my vote for Scrappy Doo as the worst addition to a show ever. He was the first one I thought of when I saw the tread title, too.
And those 12 words were split between twins. (At least she still gets residuals; Dr. Baker from the show recently wrote a very bitter piece for National Enquirer about how Landon cheated him out of more than $1 million in residuals by not giving him a contract [he was pay for play and says he never earned more than $8,000 for an episode, though the number of talented actors who never made that for a week’s work in their life adds some perspective to his whining.)
The final seasons of DALLAS attempted to out glitz DYNASTY (the lack of glitz was actually a part of Dallas’s appeal- let Blake have his Faberge decorated office, I like Miss Ellie’s barbecues) by adding European characters and jet-setters and none of them were memorable.
Good call on Designing Women. Jan Hooks was good but the show was too mortally wounded to do her justice.
[slight hijack]Very interesting, considering that he still makes appearances because of the show, which I’m sure he makes money for. I live six miles from the real Walnut Grove and they have a big Wilder festival every summer. Several actors who played characters on the show have come, including Doc Baker. Others who have visited include Allison Angram (Nellie) and most recently Dean Butler (Almanzo).[/slight hijack]
He was onscreen in at least one episode. The one with the MAS*H Olympics. He ends up in the final race against the company’s fat guy and loses by being overconfident.
My vote would go to Hawk from Buck Rogers. Ok, Buck wasn’t any good the first season, but I was 8 and didn’t understand that.