John Ratzenberger also appeared in a small role in the movie “Gandhi”. He’s a U.S. soldier driving Candace Bergen in a jeep to photograph him, and chats with her about Mahatma. The funny (in hindsight) thing is, although Ratzenberger’s lips are moving, it is most definitely NOT his voice. Someone else’s voice is dubbed in in place of “Cliff’s.”
Ratzenberger is also in the two Superman movies. In the first, he’s one of the Army guys tracking the off course missle. In the second, he’s one of the NASA mission control guys who gets into an argument about why the astronaut said he saw a girl shortly before the transmission cuts out. The Superman II bit is a lot of fun because he spouts a very Claven-like bit of obscure trivia to support his side of the argument.
[OT w.r.t. Cliffy] I guess if you want to be really technical, George started off as something of a preppy real estate agent or whatnot, and he was portrayed as a stronger character than Jerry in the pilot.
The trait of George’s that I liked was his self-consciousness (or perhaps, profound lack of self-esteem is a better way to put it). He still kept a little of that to the bitter end, which made his character still somewhat humorous in my eyes. (I did not buy into the total lunatic act as particularly humorous.) The other day the local FOX affiliate played the “Jerk Store” episode. George spends 21 1/2 minutes of the episode yelling incoherently, then at the very end, he recaptures his essence. It is when the guy zings him back, destroying his perfect line; for a moment George is completely frozen, with the abject look of defeat, then he recalls Kramer’s suggested comeback (“Oh yeah. Well I had sex with your wife!”), delivers it, and then smiles in victory. It is at this point that you recall George cannot be victorious, simply because he is George . . .
[/OT w.r.t. Cliffy]
I think watsonwil is on to something concerning Frasier’s impact on Cliffy, but I also think Cliffy’s character had to adapt to Norm’s character becoming more of a caricature too.