Sitcom characters who'd make great action heroes.

Cafe Society
#1

Recently I read a Modern Family fanfic. I won’t describe it because, frankly, it was disgusting, poorly written, and prurient even by fanfic standards, but one thing about it was plausible (again by fanfic standards). In the story most of the extended clan got killed; Claire and Gloria are the only survivors, and Claire then studies up on weapons and fighting and goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. Reading this, I thought, “Yeah, I can totally see that. Claire is wound up way too tight NOT to go on a revenge quest even for NORMAL things.”

Which brings me to the thread questions. What characters in half-hour sitcoms can you see morphing into action heroes, given the right stimulus?

#2

The Fonz from Happy Days
Barney Miller if he were meaner
The John Travolta character from Welcome Back, Kotter. After all, his older self has played several action heroes.
I would love to see Les Nessman from *WKRP in Cincinnati *be a spy.

#3

I was going to mention the Fonz but I see it came up immediately.

Tony Banta from Taxi was a Marine and a Boxer. Dumb but tough could work.

Troy and Abed from Community are both athletic geeks. In fact Troy got a chance to be an action hero in the Halloween Zombie episode. Abed showed some repelling skills in the episode where he dressed as batman to investigate the breaking of his batman disk.

ETA:
The Monkees. The were superheroes occasionally as the Monkeemen
The Tick and friends of course.
Maxwell Smart & Agent 99 but not Laramie!
In fact so many of the old supernatural sitcom characters in the 60s.

#4

Andy Richter would make a good supervillain.

He did briefly try to control the world, after all.

#5

Barney Stinson form How I Met Your Mother would make a great James Bond-like hero.

I think that Lenny and Squiggy (from Laverne and Shirley for you youngsters) could spend their nights keeping the mean streets of Milwaukee safe from crime.

Joe Garrelli (Joe Rogan’s character on News Radio) could go either way: action hero, or super villain.

#6

Red Foreman (That 70’s Show)

A.C. Slater (Saved by the Bell)

#7

Wojciehowicz, sure, but Barney?

#8

All the prisoners in Hogan’s Heroes, since they were already having WWII action hero adventures.

I could see the Professor from Gilligan’s Island working for a spy agency as a Barney Collier type.

#9

I see him as more of a villain, say, in a Robocop reboot…

Jayne Cobb was the hero in every episode he was in. At least, in his own mind, he was.

#10

His last name’s Garrelli? :wink:
I’m going to go with Schmidt from “New Girl”.

#11

Your OP was about Claire from Modern Family training to be an action hero, but it’s canon that Gloria is a sharpshooter, knows how to deal with household pests, and has also often been the one to come up with a way out of tricky situations. (Just yesterday I saw a rerun of the episode where she faked going into labor to get Claire out of trouble for accidentally shoplifting.) She’s also seen plenty of violence – her home village had the #1 murder rate in Colombia – and is intimately familiar with the world of drug cartels. So I’d say Gloria could transition into an action hero role with little, if any, need for additional training.

Thinking of other sitcoms, Dwight Schrute of The Office didn’t have a typical action hero personality, but he had deliberately acquired a lot of action hero skills.

#12

Holt, Crews, Peralta and Diaz from “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” would make a good “A-Team” style mercenary group. They could even bring along Boyle for comic relief.

#13

Al Bundy as Psycho Dad, anti-hero. He’s even got a theme song already!

#14

Homer Simpson. He was Max Power for a while and remember when he got ripped by utilizing the power of apples? He was also briefly the Pieman. Oh plus, he’s schooled in the operations of a new-clear power plant, so he’s got some technical prowess. And he was an astronaut. He was also the Beer Baron. And he can outrun Pop Rocks and Cola explosions. He was a bodyguard for the mayor and an amateur arm wrestler, he’s got Army and Navy training, and he’s organized a group of vigilantes. Plus he can survive getting hit in the stomach with a bowling ball.

#15

Cliff Clavin. Unassuming mailman by day…The Postman[sup]TM[/sup] by night. His weapon is his sack.

#16

Which sack?

#17

A specially-crafted mail sack. But let’s just say the porno version is already being story-boarded.

#18

From Hogan’s Heroes-Colonel Klink.
One of my favorite fanfics about that show was set right after the war, in which Hogan was called in to meet his immediate supervisor for the first time…Colonel Klink. He turns out to be very intelligent and witty, explaining to Hogan that without his “incompetence” any other person in charge would have found the operation out in a heartbeat. Great story.

#19

Blackadder would make a great, if somewhat reluctant, superhero.

#20

From Scrubs, Hooch and Janitor.