I was watching clips from “The Honeymooners” last night and it struck me that George Costanza (Jason Alexander’s character from “Seinfeld”) has some mannerisms borrowed from Ralph Kramden – mainly, he gets mad kind of like the way Ralph gets mad. So now I’m wondering about other examples of an actor in a sitcom borrowing bits from some other character. I think Alan Alda’s Hawkeye in “MAS*H” had some Groucho Marx in him… any other examples?
(Note: I would suggest that we avoid getting into animated characters. Og knows that five-eighths of Hanna-Barbera’s characters were based directly on live actors.)
Jason Alexander supposedly went for a straight up Woody Allen knock-off when auditioning for the part of George (granted Woody is a real person, but I’d argue he’s also a fictional movie character).
I remember reading an interview with Carroll O’Connor in which he said he had based a lot of his mannerisms on Jackie Gleason. This was many years ago, so I have no cite.
My dad always said that there were a lot of similarities in their facial expressions. But I didn’t watch the Honeymooners and to be honest, don’t really remember All In The Family that well, so I couldn’t say.
The Closer isn’t exactly a sitcom (though it certainly has its lighter moments), but it’s pretty rooted in Barney Miller. Lt. Provenza seems to channel Abe Vigoda/Fish in a lot of respects, like being the dead weight guy counting the days until retirement. I like how all the Closer actors are veterans of other cop shows. Also:
Wojo–Sanchez
Harris–Gabriel
Dietrich–Flynn
Yemena–Tao
I think this is an incredible stretch–two of those pairings have nothing in common except ethnicity, and Dietrich (geeky, by-the-book newbie) and Flynn (worldly, rule-breaking veteran) couldn’t be farther apart. Wojo and Sanchez are the closest in that they’re both quasi-lunkheads who act before they think, but Provenze isn’t a tenth of the sad sack Fish was.
Harris and Gabrial are both the flashy clothes horses of their respective shows. Yemena and Tao are both pretty low-key. I think they’re fair comparisons.
I’d love to see a remake of Barney Miller, maybe with Dennis Farina in the title role.
Not according to interviews and DVD extras. Barney’s character is based on someone that Carter Bays and Craig Thomas (the creators of the show) know. Harris might have made it his own after all this time, but not as originally conceived. Harris has even met the guy.