Wayne Brady as James Stinson, Barney’s younger, gay, married, Afrixan American brother.
…whose marriage Barney opposed, not because he had a problem with gays, but because he had a problem with marriage
I can definitely see that. I can’t recall, was that episode before or after it was revealed that Riker had turned down three offers for his own command?
The Young Ones had four in one episode: Lord Monty - Hugh Laurie, Lord Snot - Stephen Fry, Kendal Mintcake - Ben Elton, & Miss Money-Sterling - Emma Thompson
After. He turned down a captaincy before the series began; he turned down a second during the second season, and implicitly turned down a third during the Borg War. (Admittedly, if he’d accepted that one he’d have been space dust.) And then was shocked–SHOCKED!–that both Janeway & Sisko, technically junior to him, made captain before he did.
re: Gandolph Fitch
If you guys who don’t know who he is care to learn, (and you should!) then watch The Rockford Files episodes The Hammer of C Block and Just Another Police Wedding (which also starred Louis Gossett Jr.).
Brad Pitt and Sean Penn on “Friends.” Madonna on “Will and Grace.” Oh! Also, Chrissy Hynde on “Friends!”
The Shoe Fairy from Sesame Street.
Also Bucky Dornster setting up the remote in Del’s Stereo and Sound but probably doesn’t count because he returned for the softball game.
Vito Scotti as Vito Giotto, the wacky housepainter in an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show. “Give me your walls!” Brilliant.
Too bad Ernest T. Bass doesn’t fit the OP’s criteria. He’d win the thread hands down.
What about Christopher Pike’s first officer? Pike gets kidnapped by the Talosians, and naturally it’s his second-in-command who starts making the decisions and giving the orders. (Heck, even when Pike is back side-by-side with her, she keeps calling the shots upon deciding he’s doing a crap job of negotiating with the aliens.)
Harry Morgan as crazy General Steele (“three e’s, not in row”) on MASH.
He showed up at least twice on the show-“Andy Andy.”
Jerry Van Dyke on “The Andy Griffith Show.”
General Steele (as previously mentioned) “A radish will not stand in the way of victory.”
I came into the thread to nominate Frank Grimes on “the Simpsons” so I’ll just second it.
Robert Culps’ “Demon With A Glass Hand” on “The Outer Limits” does not qualify as the series did not have recurring characters, but DAMN was he ever memorable!
I do have one not yet mentioned: Lara Phillips as the foul-mouthed Gossamer Fairy on “Special Unit 2” was a riot.
Greg Morris on the Dick Van Dyke Show. Best five minute appearance ever.
See post #16 in this thread
Christopher Meloni as the puppet-loving pediatrician on Scrubs. I wish they’d given him a spinoff – L&O: SVU doesn’t count.
Chuck “The Cutman” Kimmell from SportsNight.
Roseanne had a bunch of these:
[ul]
[li]There was an old traveling salesman who Roseanne let in the house for a drink of water – he was memorable mostly for being dead for most of the episode. The cop in that episode wasn’t bad either.[/li][li]Kevin Dunn played a needy architect named Burt Drucker in an episode.[/li][li]When Roseanne got a job at a fast food restaurant, she had an overbearing teenage boss who also needed help with his homework, named Brian.[/li][li]Mitzi McCall played an over-the-top superstitious bingo player in an episode.[/li][li]Vicki Lawrence did a turn as an old high school flame of Dan’s named Phyllis Zimmer.[/li][li]Jean Speegle Howard and Jack Murdoch played some elderly nudist neighbors.[/li][/ul]
I’m sure there are more, and there are a number of great characters who appeared in two or three episodes as well (and not even necessarily in arcs, just when the writers needed them) – Joseph Gordon Levitt and Danny Masterson, notably.
You forgot Joan Collins as Roseanne’s cousin Ronnie.
Trivia: Shelly Winters won an Oscar for her portral of Rose-Ann D’Arcey in A Patch of Blue. Decades later, she would play Nana Mary on Roseanne.
It might have been mentioned (I don’t think it was…) but the Interrogator from the season 4 episode “Intersections in Real Time” from Babylon 5.