Is Ted Baxter (the news anchor on Mary Tyler Moore) too comical to qualify?
As a kid I used to enjoy the Hardy Boys books. They solved every single case that came their way, even when the police couldn’t, but it only occurred to me later that they always did it by pure dumb luck that provided them with amazing coincidences. Never once do I recall them exhibiting any creativity or ingenuity. I guess that would have been beyond the imaginations of the hacks who churned this stuff out under contract at dirt-cheap rates! (Franklin W. Dixon was not one person but the pen name of many.) Still, it was fine entertainment for youngsters.
Right. Bad memes. Like the one that Glinda was a jerk as she didnt tell Dorothy about the slippers- well, in the books, that was a different Good Witch.
Back to the OP- of course Detective Inspector G. Lestrade. One reason why I say Wolfe is a better detective- Inspector Cramer was very good at his job.
Yeah that scene where like 10% of NYC gets the kill order for Wick as he limps thru.
Les was apparently good at farm news. And not terrible at others- just a very strange person. Herb was a loser.
Yeah, Les won several awards for his farm reporting, including the coveted Silver Sow award.
He was not actually that good at other news. Andy once said that when the Shah of Iran was overthrown, Les completely missed it. Instead his top story that day was a hog who could do math.
In Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance Major General Stanley boasts of his knowledge of a great many things, from history, to math, physical science, art, drama, even Babylonic cuneiform. But in the final stanza he admits he doesn’t know a Mauser rifle from a javelin and admits he knows no more about military tactics “than a novice in a nunnery.”
FIVE time winner of the Buckeye News Hawk (News HOG? I was never sure) award, as well as the coveted Silver Sow (Herb: “Don’t touch Les’s pig-thing.”).
Of course, there was the whole “Chai Chai Rod wig eeze” problem, the swim meet report with the “breast stroking”. And the godless tornadoes attacking Cincinnati.
Magnum was a pretty crappy PI. Got beat-down way too often, did surveillance in a Ferrari fer-Christ’s-Sake (or other equally noticeable vehicle), always needing bailing out from Rick and TC, was always being fooled by ‘clients’, financially inept and usually ended up working for free. And security at The Estate was better done by two dogs than that clown!
Andy Travis was a good program director and even better Day-Care Babysitter.
This is why I love Maine Cabin Masters. No phony drama or fighting, no fuckin’ around. They do really good work, on-time and on-budget and genuinely seem like decent people.
By TV standards Magnum is a top notch Private Investigator. He actually solves his cases, which is really the only criteria that matters (you didn’t say he was a bad businessman. And really, living for free in an awesome estate, driving a Ferrari for free. Working limited hours. I’ll take that “being bad” any day. ). And he got hit on his head a LOT less than Joe Mannix! He got paid more frequently than either Mannix or Jim Rockford, too.
Interestingly, before Andy was hired, Les advocated for a change to an all-news (and hog) format while Herb wanted the station to go all-talk. Considering where AM radio was going in the late '70s and early ‘80s (i.e., the years when the show aired), WKRP probably would’ve been a lot more successful if they’d gone with Les’ and/or Herb’s suggestions. Music, be it rock, Top 40, AC, country, or R&B, was steadily abandoning AM for FM, and stations like WKRP were already dying out.
He’s a bad secret agent, but a very good action hero. And has protagonist power ensuring that he actually survives what would normally be his incredibly risky behavior. So he accomplishes the tasks he’s sent to do despite being bad at the job as officially defined.
To be fair, how many police departments need to shine a light in the sky to call for help when a crook yet again announces helpful clues about the theme of his upcoming heist?
Bond’s main job is to draw the Bad Guy’s attention away from the actual secret agent doing the actual spying as well as taking the kill shot. He’s good enough at actual spycraft that even if the enemy knows he’s a diversion, they cannot safely ignore him. Bond’s presensc serves as a sign of just how pissed off His Majesty’s Government is at the baddie.
How much of this he actually knows is up for debate.
Sure, they were bad guys, but when you’re killing about 6 people every year at a job that lets you wear an aloha shirt, short shorts and no socks everyday, something isn’t adding up correctly.
Strangers on a Train. The main character is being tailed by the cops. He heads to the amusement park where his wife was murdered. He’s not trying to escape, yet one of the cops decides to take a shot at him anyway, across a crowded midway. He misses his target but kills an innocent carny just doing his job. That death causes the merry-go-round to accelerate to destruction, killing at least one. The main guy, Guy, proves his innocence to the satisfaction of the cops, who seem unconcerned about the mayhem in their wake. I hope they got defunded.
). And he got hit on his head a LOT less than Joe Mannix! He got paid more frequently than either Mannix or Jim Rockford, too.