Especially the episode where he’s trying to keep himself awake (hit his head I think) and he’s with a Korean family in their hut/house. He talks NON STOP through the whole episode. UGH!
He was in an automobile accident, I think. This is the episode that had the infamous capsule description in TV Guide: “Hawkeye crashes his jeep and wakes up to find himself in a Korean.”
And yeah, I can’t stand Alan Alda either. If I had to bunk with Hawkeye, I’d frag him by the end of the first week.
I always thought that Tim Taylor’s wife, Jill, on Home Improvement is the epitome of this. She’s meant to be the “One Sane Person” but she just comes across as a nagging, self centered shrew.
Carmella Soprano falls into this, as well. Even though she was written to be much more complex than Jill, she was a hell of a lot less sympathetic to me than I think she was meant to be.
Still are, and they all have the same dumb laugh track that they use indiscriminately. It’s like they brought in Data’s audience.
Hey, Hunnicutt was no paragon of virtue, either, with his practical jokes and his smarmy family man demeanor.
I usually enjoyed the show, but I didn’t like that they depicted Hawkeye that way. In his original form (the novel) he was married and fiercely loyal to his wife and family. Womanizing was a line he wouldn’t even approach, let alone cross.
Nobody in “The Sopranos” is supposed to be sympathetic. OK, maybe Dr. Melfi?
But all the mobsters and mob family people are monsters. David Chase never ever lost sight of that. Carmella doesn’t kill people directly, but she’s married to Tony, who is a murderous scumbag, and she knows exactly where the money for that fancy house comes from.
From the Vice Versa side, Arthur Fonzerelli was supposed to be the tough punk greaser biker guy who afforded Richie and friends a portal into the seedy side of Milwaukee. But instead turns out to be the ultimate Mr. Do Gooder in a leather jacket.
The show I am referring to is Happy Days for all you youngsters.
You left out his cheesy mustache. :mad:
^ Goes without saying.
I got the exact same vibe from Raymond’s wife Debra from Everyone loves Raymond. I get the sense I’m supposed to sympathize with her, and I really, really don’t.
I think he’s only lovable from the safe distance of an audience. If we were actually living in the BBT universe, our response to him might be Homicide.
This is the same comment I’ve made about a lot of fictional characters. Og forbid we lived in a universe where the Marx brothers characters actually existed.
From the TV vaults:
Taos NM Marshall Sam McCloud.
He’s supposed to be a wise hayseed. A country bumpkin that teaches those city slickers a thing or two. Plus, he’s the lead. I assume we were supposed to like him. And I did, when the show was new. As a country bumpkin myself, I identified.
But re watching them recently, I was stuck by what an asshole he was. He abused poor Broadhurst, connived and abused his friends. He’d tell you one thing, and turn around and do another. I can’t watch them any more. It’s not all Mystery Movies - McMillan and Banacek are still OK.
In the same vein, Thomas Magnum really didn’t treat his friends very well.
Ooh - Spongebob Squarepants. We viewers are expected to see Spongebob as good-natured and fun (albeit socially clueless) and Squidward as mean and grouchy, but I don’t think it speaks ill of me that if I lived in that world, I’d totally be on Squidward’s side. Spongebob steps well over the line more often than not, and the fact that he maintains a friendship with Patrick, who has shown absolutely no redeeming qualities over the course of the series and joins/encourages him in his antagonism of Squidward, only adds to the argument that he’s a genuine jerk rather than a well-meaning dunce.
Where are you watching Banacek these days? There are a few episodes I still haven’t seen.
I had a similar reaction to Twelfth Night. Toby and Andrew are drinking and carousing late into the night, so Malvolio tells them to be quiet, and they set out to fuck up his life in the most humiliating and degrading way possible, and Malvolio is the bad guy.
Clark Kent in Smallville definitely had his moments. Sure, most of the time he was being a good farmboy hero type, but then the lying started… He would lie to anybody at the drop of a hat, without even blinking an eye. For the other side of the coin, Lex Luthor called him on that once… caught him lying and said “How do you even do that? If I could lie like that, I’d be… well, rich, I guess…” Lex was portrayed as being the obvious, eventual bad guy because we all know he ends up being the bad guy, but for the first few seasons he didn’t step out of line once and went way out of his way to be nice to everybody, spending hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to improve the lives of people in Smallville.
Then, of course, he turned into the bad guy…
I got my DVDs when they came out originally, at normal “new release” prices. Wow! I see on Amazon that the prices have exploded into ridiculousville.
Good grief, $380 for just the first season? There’s a complete Perry Mason, 72 disks for only $112.
Wait, my mistake. That’s for both seasons, all 16 episodes. Still seems a bit pricey.
The Tenth Doctor treated Martha and Jack like crap. I like him a lot less than I did when I first watched his seasons. What I used to see as charm comes off as manipulative smarminess, once you start seeing it that way.