In December Bride, Pete Porter often mentioned his wife Gladys, but she never appeared in the show. When it ended, she did appear in the spinoff Pete and Gladys.
Fred Sanford in Sanford and Son would often refer to his dead wife, Elizabeth: “This is the big one, Elizabeth! I’m coming to join ya, honey,”
The show played coy with Robin. He was a real person, the characters in the show saw him, talked to him, plots revolved around him being a real person, etc, they just didn’t let we in the audience see him. Which was kind of stupid.
And this whole BULLSHIT about Higgins being Robin was just even stupider, especially with the season 7-8 subplot that Higgins was lying about his military career. To refute, take one episode: Mad Dogs And Englishmen. Higgins is recruited by MI6 to infiltrate a paramilitary organization. MI6 would not pull some fake butlercat out of Hawaii unless they knew he was good at his job.
As a kid, I used to think “the secretary” was the woman that answered the phone.“Good Afternoon, IMF, how may I direct your call?” “Does Jim Phelps work there?” “I do not know any Jim Phelps, he does not work here, and if he was involved in overthrowing a third world country he was doing that all on his own.”
But, the movies notwithstanding, “The secretary” refers IMO to the Sec Of State, since the IMF is (should be!) part of the CIA. And group of clandestine agents taking down despots would be an embarrassment to the US if “caught or killed”, so the government’s official position is, we don’t know who they are. Nothing about them can be traced to official government equipment.
No one that mattered would be fooled, but such is the spy game. We pretend we’re not spying, and they pretend to believe us.
Which also means when one of them got caught and imprisoned, no one was ever going to trade for them, or life a finger to get them out.
Another vote for Harvey. Still the most intelligently written funny movie ever, in my view.
Nearly every line of dialogue is gold. And as already noted he does not appear in the film.
“Well, there’s two schools of thought, Sir.”
Chuckles did actually appear in three different episodes, portrayed by three different actors.
No, the two actors used most frequently for the announcements were Sal Viscuso and Todd Susman. Both appeared on screen in MASH episodes, but it’s never stated that those characters did the announcements.
I’m so tempted to hand-letter “Guffman & Godot” on the frosted glass of a blank office door. Maybe followed by “Waiting Room”! Or…
.
Guƒƒman. & .Go∂ot
P L E A S E . W A I T . T O . B E . S E E N
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.
In Cruel Intentions, Court Reynolds only appears once, briefly in a flashback, and doesn’t have any speaking lines.
Speaking of MASH, did Sparky, the guy Radar was always calling on the phone ever show up in person?
Over here in the UK we have The Archers Radio programme - the world’s longest running soap opera.
There have been a great many unheard characters, but they were mostly short-lived. Trudy Porter was silent for 34 years until 4 April 2006, when a listener played her in a charity special after her husband paid £17,000 to the Children in Need charity.
Wilson, from the sitcom Home Improvement only shows his upper face, above the fence.
We hear a lot about Kramer’s friend Bob Sacamano on Seinfeld, but we never see him.
Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party, a classic British TV play from the 1970s, does not include Abigail. She is having a (presumably much better) party next door.
In Grounded for Life, the youngest kid, Henry, appears as normal through the first four seasons. Then the actor’s real-life family moved, and he became unavailable. In the fifth season, the show kept the character and worked around the actor’s absence by always having Henry just happen to be somewhere other than on camera.
I also thought of Opie Taylor’s friend Johnny Paul Jason, but I googled it, and he does indeed make a few appearances. It’s just that the way Opie talks about him so much, I remembered him as one of those never-seen characters.
Likewise Kramer’s friend Lomez.
IIRC, in the Cheers show, Norm’s wife, Vera, appears only once. And that’s at the end of the Thanksgiving dinner food fight, where she walks in the door just in time to receive a pie in the face.
Almost… In To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, Julie Newmar only shows up at the very end but is mentioned throughout the movie.
Sparky showed up at least once — the Tuttle episode. Shazam!
I’m sure there are a lot of religious movies where God isn’t seen.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but did they ever show the man that killed Bambi’s mother?
Never mind who was making the announcements at the 4077th, where was he? And why did none of the characters comment about him and not just his announcements?
I think once Radar was less than six feet away from the broadcast area while an announcement was being read over the air.
Ghosts. Has to be a ghost.