There is a huge number of “characters” on television who are household names but who never really existed in the sense that you never once saw them. Right off, some of my favourites are:
Maris Crane, wife of Niles Crane on Frasier
Phylis’ husband Lars on Mary Tyler Moore
Pete Porter’s wife Gladys on December Bride (if you remember that you are really dating yourself).
Norm’s wife Vera on Cheers
Anyone here have any other favourites?
Peg Bundy’s mother, from Married with Children
Bob Sacamano, Kramer’s friend - Seinfeld.
From the funny books - the Things’ ‘Sweet Aunt Petunia’ in the Fantastic Four (okay, so John Byrne ruined it by showing her during his run), and the Yancey Street Gang (who tormented the Thing, but always ‘off-panel’, so to speak.)
Charlie of Charlies Angels. His voice was in every episode, but he never made a physical appearance.
Al Borland’s mom from Home Improvement. That is, I never saw her appear in any episodes.
Carlton the Doorman from Rhoda.
I maintain that Carlton and Charlie did exist, as they could be heard.
And Art Vandelay, of Vandelay Industries.
Also, Mr. Dennehy, who Jackie Gleason always talked to in his bartender sketch, and Crazzy Guggenheim always said hello to.
Captain Tuttle from MASH.
Weren’t Art Vandelay and Captain Tuttle invented persons within the Seinfeld and MASH universes? George invented Vandelay for some reason, and Hawk and Trap invented Tuttle to bamboozle Henry (IIRC…been forever since I saw the episode).
That puts them in a completely different realm that Maris, Vera, Lars, or Mrs Wanker, all of whom ‘existed’ within their worlds, but never actually appeared on-screen,
(I’m actually 99% sure Peg’s mom is actually in the same group as Carlton or Charlie - heard but not seen. But I’ll keep her with the others, since I’m not 100%.)
Now that you mention this one… Peg & Erin Hunnicutt (wait, they were shown in a home movie, scratch that), Laverne Klinger, Mrs. Potter, Honoria Winchester, Mr, Pierce, Radar’s mom…
Columbo’s wife
Number One on Cool McCool.
Also, his friend Lomez.
And yes, Art Vandelay was just a pseudonym George made up because he thought it sounded cool - although, in the last episode, the judge’s last name was Vandeley (I don’t remember if it said his first name was “Art” or not).
Didn’t she appear in her own series at one stage?
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I just have to say: I love MASH.
That is all.
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Robin Masters on Magnum PI, unless you buy the Higgins as Masters theory…
She did, Kate Columbo- although her last name was later changed and the title changed to Kate Loves A Mystery to remove the link to Columbo.
We saw home movies of Peg and Erin and Mrs O’Reilly (as well as Henry’s wife), and Peg even sent a tape narrating her movie. Peg was a beautiful woman (as was Henry’s wife, when they showed a home movie of her), and Mrs O’Reilly looked a lot like Radar (Burghoff played her). I don’t think we ever saw or heard any of the others, aside from the picture of Mildred Col. Potter had on his desk.
I was going to mention Frank’s wife, but I remembered they showed a movie of his wedding at one point, too.
We do hear Honoria Winchester in one episode. Charles was inexplicably (to everyone else) defending a soldier who had a bad stutter, and later he is seen listening to a taped letter his sister sent, in which she demonstrates a pronounced stutter.
That episode had completely slipped my mind, until you mentioned it. It was a good one, too. I love the Humanizing Charles episodes.
I watched an episode of Becker today, and his nurse’s husband Lewis (Louis?) was always “in the next room drying his pants” throughout the episode, so I assume he’s one of the phantoms, too.