[QUOTE=NDP]
Although I only watched the show sporadically, I don’t know if I’d call the characters evil. They were such pathetic losers that, even at their worst, I couldn’t really find them truly evil.
Now, if you want evil, check out Edmund Blackadder and his descendents. However, I don’t think they’d qualify because, despite their nastiness, they’re still funny.
QUOTE]
BlackAdder II may be the funniest season of any comedy I have ever seen. Long live Edmund in all of his vile, Balrdic-beating, Percy-punching, horribly selfish ways!
As far intolerably horrible characters, I’d vote for Ralph or Richie from the Sopranos. Was there anything remotely redeeming about them?
What’s the name for the SDMB Cafe Society equivalent of Godwin’s Law, where any thread of certain length will at one point turn into a debate about The Lord of the Rings movies? I’d be all excited at the prospect of Grundy’s Law, but I’m sure this has come up before…
I found Count Olaf from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events to be very unfunny and evil. I know he was a villain, but he was also supposed to be funny. The problem was that he was too good of a villain–he really angered me.
Those characters weren’t comic so they wouldn’t qualify here. Also, Ralph and Richie were supposed to be intolerably horrible. Even the other mobsters found them vile.
I’m a bit surprised at the dislike for Peter and Lois. After seeing about two episodes, I quickly concluded that their characterizations were so inconsistent they the weren’t meant to be taken as characters so much as “story elements” that do whatever was funny or necessary to move the plot along. I tend to come to grips with characters by identifying what they care about. Even the most loathesome or two-dimensional character becomes interesting when we find that they have a passion for something or someone. But if Peter or Lois show devotion to a person or a hobby or an ideal, in another episode they’ll display complete callous disregard for it, if that’s what it takes to get the laugh or drive the plot.
Meg and Chris are only slightly better defined. And then we have Stewie and Brian, who, according to all convention, should be shallow comedy relief, but who are actually the most complex and well-developed characters in the series. It’s a great way to draw attention to the shallowness of the typical structure of a family-oriented sitcom, with its loving and devoted and predictable mom and dad, rascally but sympathetic kids, and babies and pets played solely for cutness and laughs.
