What springs immediately to my mind is Rob Schneider’s role in “Judge Dredd.” Apparently desperate for comic relief, the producers had him mugging and making non-stop wisecracks through all of his (frankly terrifying) misadventures. Sadly, he didn’t even get the movie’s funniest line, which instead went to a robotic food dispenser:
Poochie the Dog is the classic satirical version, but almost any child under 13 is by default an annoying tack-on, with the single largest exception being Newt from Aliens.
Two words: Jar Jar.
Yeah. What, exactly, did he do in the 1st movie? As far as I can recall, he only had two uses: to lead the good guys to the Gungan city, and later to lead the good guys to the Gungan camp. In both instances he could easily have been replaced by a convenient signpost.
Signpost:
Gungan City: Thees-a Way
Scrappy Doo. 'Nuff said
Well, it’s now a battle for second place. Scrappy was very annoying, maybe he gets that spot.
Anything where kids, or a pet, or kids and a pet are in danger and they get rescued/survive in the nick of time. I’m sick of seeing this. When I make my film, kids and pets will not only die immediately, i’m bringing them back as Zombies so the heroes have to kill them again.
In fact with the OP, any role Rob Schneider plays is unnecessary, even when he’s the lead.
I’d say Italy in World War II, but I think you meant fiction.
What about the uber-gymnast black girl in Jurassic Park II? She was a Token So-Many-Things, it’s ridiculous…
I’m really sick of seeing audiences cheer this kind of manipulative crap.
“Okay, the hell with the story. Wallace Beery is a wrestler. I wanna know his hopes, his dreams. Naturally, he’ll have to get mixed up with a bad element. And a romantic interest. You know the drill. Romantic interest, or else a young kid. An orphan. What do you think, Lou? Wally a little too old for a romantic interest? Look at me, a writer in the room and I’m askin’ Lou what the goddamn story should be! … Well Bart, which is it? Orphan? Dame?”
— Jack Lipnik, Barton Fink
Watch Mimic. You may not like the rest of the movie but I’m sure you (like everyone else with more then half a brain) will cheer at one particular scene:
The precocious youths discover the giant insect egg sacks and run into the giant insects themselves… and get eaten.
I saw this old POS on AMC (Horror Week). It was all I could do to stop from laughing-every few minutes, you saw “Perry Mason” intoning a few solemn words, while the rubber-suited monster wrecks TOKYO!
How much was Burr paid for his acting role?
Andy Keaton on “Family Ties”. I say he’s “tacked on” because in one season he’s a newborn and the next he’s five years old. He doesn’t do much of anything except for jokes about Alex trying to convert the kid to be a Republican.
Wow, who knew there would be so many of them?
My first thought was the extra kids they brought in on “The Cosby Show,” Rudy’s friends. The only one I can think of by name was Buuuud.
Then, when all the regular kids grew up and weren’t cute anymore, they introduced Lisa Bonet’s kid, played by Raven Simone.
I was thumbing through the channels the other day and discovered Raven Simone has her own show now. I wonder if they had to introduce all-new even more cuddly-wuddly kids in order to make it work. It’s like the cycle of cuddly-wuddliness begins anew every 5 years or something.
It’s a wonder we haven’t all moved to a Logan’s Run-type society by now.
When DJ, Stephanie, and Michelle were “getting too old” on “Full House”, they brought in Joey and his wife’s twin boys, Nicky and Alex.
And Michelle usually had a group of friends come over constantly around this time, including that boy in “Pet Semetary”—Miko Hughes.
- Jar-Jar.
1a. The Ewoks.
Italy, schmitaly, what about Bulgaria? Or Brazil on the Allies side.
I really hated Will Ferrell’s role in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. I don’t know if it can be called tacked on because it was in the comics, but it was actually funny in the comics. Ferrell somehow managed to make it suck.
They’re like extras, whereas Italy actually had a few speaking lines.