Randy Disher also got Flanderized into a klutzy loon
Flanders started off with a pool table and beer on tap in his basement play room - and he makes a bet with Homer, resulting in Ned wearing a dress in public. That’s rather different from the straight-arrow Ned of the later years (and very different from the sanctimonious Ned after that).
I would have to have been better than Blackadder’s plan to pretend to be mad - who’d notice another madman?
Ross (and to a lesser extent, Monica) from Friends.
Kind of a steady, accelerating trend from “ha-ha, what a lovable schlimazel!” to “this man is obviously suffering from emotional and psychiatric problems, and he’s not getting the help he needs.”
The guys who run TV Tropes don’t base their name choices or descriptions on much in the way of popular understanding or reality. They are mostly just making crap up.
Which kind of ruined the finale, since it made no sense for the character who had grown the most - Rachel - to be at all interested in someone who had regressed. They would have split up in under two years after the show ended.
Didn’t he start out with a pet monkey?
IIRC, it started as a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fansite. I don’t think that back in 2004 they expected to become the site of record for documenting recurring themes in all media.
For Columbo, I always thought his whole schtick was purely an act designed completely to fool a suspect into not taking him seriously until it was too late.
The example I can think of is Mr. Drysdale, the banker on The Beverly Hillbillies, and to a lesser extent Miss Jane Hathaway. Both were often complete clowns, but other times they seemed rather normal and efficient at their jobs.
Sure. But to me it feels like the act gets amped up a bit. Or at least people react more strongly to it. Admittedly not to the degree of some of the others. But when you have people mistaking him for homeless and the like, it’s a bit much.
Speaking of Columbo, has everyone seen this Columbo/Frasier crossover cartoon
Frasier is just the kind of person that Columbo would drive up the wall.