I was reading the IIRC second gorgeous volume of The Complete Peanuts (Go buy it!) and there’s a story that runs across three or four Sunday strips about Lucy entering a golf tounament. You see the bottom half of several adults and in one panel an aerial view showing people with heads and everything! Also, Charlie Brown’s mother has a couple lines in even earlier strips, although they come from off-panel. Quite different than the standard set later in the series, where adults were absolutely never seen.
BTW, Scott, the Little Red-Haired Girl never appeared in the strip, so I don’t know where you think you saw her, but it wasn’t in Peanuts.
–Cliffy
P.S. kunilou is right; Chuckles did appear once in the first season of MTM. Also, Karen’s step-son Mason (from Will & Grace) appeared in at least one episode when Karen went to his swim meet.
Damn, I really won’t allow the possibility that I am wrong about anything, will I? As I posted back on page one, she appears in Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, to the best of my recollection. Please, read it. It’s fantastic.
I recall he didn’t look human even before the spores started mutating him (growing extra eyes and whatnot).
But that opening scene was classic. The movie was originally meant to be released in theaters, but they showed it on TV instead after Transformers and My Little Pony movies brought in disappointing box office grosses. I can only imagine how awesome the opening sequence would have been on the big screen, with full movie theater sound.
Mork and Mindy had Orson, who received Mork’s weekly reports. (“Nanoo Nanoo, Mork.”) His voice was supplied by Ralph Burns.
I suspect Ralph Burns was the unseen character in my other sumbission as well, but imdb doesn’t even list the character at all.
In the one-season The Smothers Brothers Show (1965) Tommy played an apprentice angel. His assignment was to assist his still-living brother Dick in navigating the treacherous moral shoals that threaten a rising young business exeutive. Tommy’s mentor was the voice of a fully-fledged angel by the name of Ralph.
As I say, I can’t swear to the accuracy of Ralph Burns as the voice of Ralph, but I formed an unshakeable impression that that was the case when I first heard Orson speak.
What’s even funnier is how the G.I. Joe movie and the Transformers movie shot each other in the feet…
See, the two movies were developed more or less in parallel, and the original premise in the Joe movie was that Duke was going to get killed in battle (from Serpentor’s snake bite attack). The Transformers writers, catching wind of this, decided to kill off Optimus Prime as a parallel idea.
Unfortunately, since the Transformers audience tended to be 3-5 years younger than the Joe audience at the time, that meant thousands of theatergoers got traumatized at seeing Op get tossed on the scrap pile on the big screen, and required subsequent TV screenings of the movie to include “But Optimus Prime will ultimately return!” endcaps.
The ensuing backlash prompted the Joe team to do a last-minute rewrite, resuing in the movie’s cheap-ass “Hey, Duke isn’t dead!” voiceover near the end.
And IIRC, I believe that Joe and Transformers writer Flint Dille suggested, in retrospect, that the movies should have been released in the reverse order – Joe first, then Transformers, then MLP.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had a twist on this theme. There was this character, Morn, who was just a pudgy alien who sat at Quark’s bar. Never said or did anything but drink. On camera, that is. The other characters were always talking about how he was such a funny, charming, and generally stand-up guy. There was even an episodes were Morn (apparently) died, the whole station went into mouring, and Quark had to deal with the loose ends from Morn’s rather exciting private life, including an estranged femme fatale wife and lots and lots of stolen latinum.
Enterprise had Chef, who I always thought they should have gotten Isaac Hayes to do the voice over an intercom.
The enduring image I have of this character is a scene of him opening his mouth, about to answer a question, but being interrupted before he can speak.
Ziggy was the computer, Gooshy was the engineer who ran it. In the final season of Quantum Leap, they actually showed us Sam and Al’s future, including the lab where the experiment was conducted, Gooshy, Ziggy, and the rest of the staff. In one episode, Sam leapt into a criminal who escaped from the lab to go on a rampage in the future. Then there was the whole recurring “Evil Leaper” character, who leapt into people’s lives similar to Sam, only she tried to ruin them rather than help them.
:smack: My mind plays trick on me. I recalled him as having a semi-transparent orange mask, and a hang-glider. Instead, it was read, and not very transparent. Nevertheless, it was not that hard for me to remove the faceplate, and see what he really looked like. I was disappointed at how average he looked. Still, what could I expect from a used car salesman? http://www.yojoe.com/action/91/cobracommander4.shtml
Gooshy actually appeared in six episodes, played by the brilliant comedian, Dennis Wolfberg (though he had nothing to do, and unfortunately, it’s hard to find Wolfberg’s material anywhere – he was one of the unknown greats of comedy).
On Happy Days Joanie’s friend Jenny Piccalo went unseen for years until Cathy Silvers started playing her late in the show’s run.
And I know it doesn’t count but in the same vein, on Sesame Street, Mr. Snufalufagus was only seen by Big Bird and the viewers. He’d disappear whenever the other characters showed up. I remember flipping around a few years ago and I though I saw Snufalufagus singing with a group of people. I guess he was finally sighted.
I still use a line of his from an appearance on Night At the Improv – “I’m in my late thirties. Actually, my latest possible thirties – I’m 42.” (Well, I’m in my latest possible 20’s, but it’s still a useful line.) Wolfberg passed away in 1994 at the ripe old age of 48. Ugh.
As I posted back on page one, she appears in 