I'm going to start this one with a disclaimer. I have not watched every TV show ever made, nor have I even watched more than the average person. I've probably watched less. But from my perspective, these are some of the best and worst TV characters of all time! I'll also note that by saying these characters are "best" or "worst" doesn't necessarily mean I like or dislike them. It means that they were great characters, well-written and believable in that roll, as you will see with number one! I'm going to alternate.
BEST: Eddie Haskell, Leave it to Beaver
Who can forget the Cleaver's annoying neighbor boy from the 1950's sitcom,
Leave it to Beaver? Dutiful parents Ward and June were always on edge when their sons' friend Eddie came over. Smiling sweetly as he entered their house, he would say, "Mrs. Cleaver, that's a very pretty dress you have on," to which she would sigh, "Thank you, Eddie." They all knew that the nice-act would go away as soon as the adults were out of sight. Upstairs in the boys' room, Eddie would start picking on little brother Beaver, and tempting big brother Wally into some scheme his parents wouldn't approve of. In the episode
Voodoo Magic, Eddie convinces the boys to attend a movie their parents told them not to attend by getting them on a technicality. He tells Wally, "Your mom told you not to take Beaver to see
Voodoo Curse, but she didn't say Beaver couldn't take you! Give him the money and let him pay!" Of course, this lands the boys in trouble. Wally laments, "Eddie is kind of a miserable guy. I wouldn't like him at all if he wasn't my best friend!" I would consider Eddie Haskell one of the best-written characters in TV history.
WORST: Brian Cooper, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
One of my very favorite TV shows during my teen years in the 90's was
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The premise of the show is that an attractive, single, female doctor in her 30's leaves her wealthy life in Boston to practice medicine on the western frontier in Colorado territory in the 1860's. Shortly after arriving, she unexpectedly becomes the guardian of three orphans. The youngest child, Brian, is obnoxious and acts too cutesy for his own good. He acts much younger than he is, and is always making a pest of himself. In a season 1 episode (he's about seven or eight), he climbs up in a tree and tries to fly by flapping his arms. The adult watching him, Sully (Dr. Quinn's love interest) tries to stop him, but he does it anyway, and ends up with a serious injury. Dr. Quinn blames Sully for it, and there's all this emotional drama, but it was really Brian's own dumb fault! Brian acts as an animal rights activist, and is always rescuing wild animals and trying to keep them as pets. This doesn't work well, of course. In one episode, he spies on his sister while she is getting dressed. His relationship with the grumpy store owner is similar to Dennis the Menace to Mr. Wilson (he annoys him, but they have a bond). Brian's biggest offense takes place in the season 4 episode
Brother's Keeper. In this episode, Brian is indirectly responsible for the death of his brother's fiancee, and he acts like a spoiled baby the whole time. Unlike
Dennis the Menace, Brian is not written to be amusingly pesky. He is supposed to be a sweet, cute child, but just ends up totally annoying. Not the best-written character. The whole show could have been better without him.
BEST: Nellie Oleson, Little House on the Prairie
As with Eddie Haskell, in no way do I mean to say I like Nellie's terrible treatment of others. I just think she was written and acted perfectly! She is the mean girl you can really hate. In fact, the actress who played her, Alison Arngrim, has had strangers come up to her in public and express rage at her (sometimes even as an adult)! She was that good at making people hate Nellie Oleson! One time, during the show's original run, a local school asked some of the actors to come in character to the school for an event. Alison Arngrim showed up as Nellie, and the kids in the school all beat her up and took her lunch! They didn't like Nellie! Arngrim also relayed the story that, as an adult, she and her husband were at the fair, just enjoying their day, when a woman spotted her, stared at her, started crying, and shouted, "I forgive you!" and ran away. She was that good at getting people to hate her character! Nellie perfectly epitomized the spoiled brat. Her father owned the local store, and she had access to all the candy. She would use this as leverage to manipulate other children. In early seasons, Nellie used her little brother Willie as her lackey, although both Nellie and Willie grew up to be nice adults on the show. Nellie is the nemesis to protagonist Laura Ingalls, though the two become friends when they get older, and the two young actresses were good friends in real life. I think one of the meanest, vintage-Nellie incidents was when Nellie tricks Laura into admitting she likes a certain boy while Willie is secretly recording her, and then she plays the recording for the whole school. A well-written and well-acted character can make you love to hate them if they play it right!
WORST: Michelle Tanner, Full House
Many in my generation grew up watching
Full House on TGIF every Friday night. This sitcom had funny, enduring characters. I have already written a longer post about that show, and you can go back and read that. But the one character who, in my opinion, brought no value to the show at all was little Michelle, played by twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson. Michelle's character was a baby in the first season, and was more of a prop than anything else at that time. As she learned to talk, she was given lines to say. The writers made her too much of a smart aleck for a child that age. As a three-year-old, her catchphrase was "You got it, dude!" No child would think to say that. Her character deeply offended a coworker of my father's at the time. This man was from Viet Nam, and he would talk about how respectful Vietnamese children were taught to be, and then compare that to Michelle Tanner's behavior. As Michelle got older, she got worse. She eventually graduated from "You got it, dude," to "Duh!" and all the adults on the show would laugh about how cute it supposedly was. Most parents I know would never condone that kind of disrespect. I knew families who didn't allow their children to watch
Full House because of how rude Michelle was. All the storylines that surround Michelle are really lame (such as Michelle being panicked about how big her feet are, and having a dream about them growing enormously large). Michelle was neither a sweet child nor a likable character. She brought no value to the show, nor did she contribute anything important to the overall plot.
BEST: Rosemary Leveaux Coulter, When Calls the Heart
Now I go into adult characters. Rosemary is the outspoken, dramatic, well-intentioned busybody from the Hallmark show
When Calls the Heart. She enters the show as the former fiancee of Canadian Mountie Jack Thornton (who is now the love interest of schoolteacher Elizabeth Thatcher). Rosemary was initially Elizabeth's nemesis, trying to win Jack back, but she eventually mellows out and finds love and marriage with mill owner Lee Coulter. Rosemary starts off as somewhat obnoxious (but hilariously-written and acted), but becomes very likable as her character develops. She continues to be boisterous and overstep her bounds regularly. In one episode, after she and Lee are married, Lee develops laryngitis, and Rosemary decides to go to work with him to "help" him, and ends up creating all these hilarious disasters. She is very external and transparent, which is part of the humor of her character. The development of Rosemary is really excellent. Even though Rosemary is a supporting character, I think she outshines the main protagonist Elizabeth (see my next one!).
WORST: Elizabeth Thatcher Thornton, When Calls the Heart
While she is very pretty, and is meant to be the protagonist of the show, Elizabeth's character seems wooden to me. Actress Erin Krakow seems to be lacking in motivation. I mean, I haven't seriously acted, and I couldn't do better than her, but then, I'm not the star of a hit TV show either. When Elizabeth is angry, she is
very angry. When she is scared, she is
very scared. She overdoes it, but otherwise kind of underacts. She doesn't strike me as realistic. Some of the things that make her angry are over-the-top, and she seems hurtful. She seems to take offense easily and hold grudges. The early seasons make too much out of her city girl on the frontier roll. Yes, we all see how incompetent she is, now can we move on, please? Her stubbornness is played as a virtue, but comes across more as bullheadedness than the determination they are going for. I'll also add that many viewers were not happy with her romantic decisions...
BEST: Alice, The Brady Bunch
On Monday, June 2, 2014, a coworker of mine came into work crying. "Are you okay?" I asked, concerned. She nodded, then croaked out, "Alice from
The Brady Bunch died yesterday." This alarmed me. Alice was a beloved character, and actress Ann B. Davis' death affected us. Alice was the friendly, kind, self-deprecating housekeeper for the Brady family in the sitcom of the late 60's/early 70's. Alice had the best one-liners in the show. In one episode, an important letter she received was misplaced, and she asks if anyone knows where it is. Little Cindy says, "Not exactly," and an exasperated Alice exclaims, "How about approximately!" In another episode, they are preparing for a birthday party, to which Alice asks Cindy if she can put the candles on the cake, to which Cindy replies, "I could even count high enough to put candles on a cake if it was for your birthday!" Alice responds, "That would violate the fire code!" She is a kind, listening confidant for the whole family, and has a good sense of humor. The children in that show appealed to the children who watched it. The parents appealed to parents and other married couples. Alice appealed to the single adult demographic. If she was real, I would totally want to be her friend!
WORST: Carrie Ingalls, Little House on the Prairie
I can't emphasize enough that I adore the show
Little House on the Prairie. I grew up watching it as reruns (I was born during the second-to-last season of the original run). My husband and I re-watched the whole series together a couple of years ago. However, I think the character of little Carrie was that of a prop. It's tricky, because the Ingalls family were real people, though the show was very loosely based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, which were fictionalized accounts of her family. This means the show was pretty much entirely fiction). Carrie Ingalls was a real person, and she was in the books. In the show, Carrie was portrayed by twins Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush. I don't know if they just weren't great actors or what, but Carrie hardly has any lines in the show. Often, the Ingalls family would sit at the table together talking about things, and Carrie would just sit there, not speaking. In real life, children join in, especially if, like Carrie, they have older siblings who are talking. When Carrie was tiny, this is understandable, but the show was on for years, and Carrie grew up, and yet she never really contributed anything important to the show. A few episodes centered on her (such as the one where she fell into a mine shaft, or the one where she dreams up a guardian angel that is really played by the other twin), but that was rare. I think they could have done more with her. The Ingalls family eventually has more children join them, and these children talk and do things, but Carrie doesn't. Very strange. She is adorable, but remained a one-dimensional character.
BEST: Dennis Stanton, Murder, She Wrote
This one is probably the most underrated and least-remembered out of the "best" I have shown. Dennis Stanton was a character who appeared for a few seasons in the long-running 80's and 90's mystery show,
Murder, She Wrote. He was originally a jewel-thief and suspected murderer in a Season 5 episode. Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) solved the case, as always. In that instance, she exonerated Dennis. The viewer learns that Dennis is a good-hearted, charming man who loved his late wife very much, and has taken up being a jewel thief in order to get revenge on the insurance company he deems responsible for her death. He never steals anything of sentimental value, nor does he steal from anyone who can't afford it. He only steals jewels ensured by that company. After almost being convicted for murder, Dennis mends his ways. His character was a success, and he was later brought back as an insurance claims investigator. Several episodes in seasons 6 and 7 center on the cases Dennis and his cast of characters solve. Actor Keith Michell's delivery is priceless. Dennis's character is very pleasant and happy. He never loses his cool. No matter how weird, crazy, mean or nice people are to him, he just rolls with it and acts like it's all normal. In one episode, his boss shouts at him about how he deserves to be in jail, to which Dennis pleasantly replies, "And here I thought we were getting along so well." In another, a scene opens at the office in which his boss exclaims, "You hired twin midgets!" Dennis answers, "Yes, and weren't we lucky to find them. It's the cost of doing business." His boss replies, "To everyone else around here, the cost of doing business is phone charges, 30 cents a mile, toll road fees." Dennis calmly says a little more firmly, "I'm sorry. I thought you were looking for results!" His boss yells, "You're out to get me!" Dennis just chuckles and pleasantly gets back to work. You can't help but crack up at him. He is kind and charming to everyone, but his true love was his late wife, and there are some very moving scenes of him talking to her picture, crying. Dennis charisma and heart remind me very much of my husband Walter.
WORST: Henry and Alice Mitchell, Dennis the Menace
While I think Dennis the Menace is a cute, fun sitcom, I can't say much for Dennis' on-screen parents, Henry and Alice Mitchell. They are acted well, but not written particularly well. They are parents who are overwhelmed by their son, and try to sneak around him rather than laying down the law. Their lack of disciplining with Dennis has far-reaching (though humorous) consequences for their neighbor, Mr. Wilson. Henry and Alice are nice people, but not really up to the task of being good parents. They could have taken a cue from Ward and June Clever from Leave it to Beaver (which was made around the same time). While the Cleavers humorously navigate parenthood with love and maturity, the Mitchells just try to make it through the day without too many disasters from Dennis. The show is still hilarious, though, and I do recommend it for entertainment.
FINAL: BEST AND WORST: Steve Urkel, Family Matters
This final character I'm going to rate fits both categories. The character of Steve Urkel was on
Family Matters from 1989 to the show's conclusion in 1998. He was originally a one-time character, but he was so well-received that he was quickly made a recurring guest star, then a series regular, and then the star of the show. I grew up watching
Family Matters, and I remember everyone referred to the show as just
Urkel. Steve was the annoying next-door neighbor who would walk into the home of the Winslow family without knocking. His escapades often got the family into his crazy and funny disasters. I recently re-watched this series, and I cracked up. There was some very good writing, and this show overall portrayed Christian values and good lessons. Steve is supposed to be the school nerd, and he is hilarious in this roll...except he played it up too much, and as actor Jaleel White aged, they still wrote Steve as being this little wimpy kid, while the actor was a tall handsome young man. This made it more awkward later on. This is why I consider him a Best and a Worst category. He was a hilarious and well-written child character, but as a young man, they made him way over the top, and not really believable. Steve's good traits are that he is very loving and forgiving, and often self-sacrificing. He is willing to selflessly serve and love Laura Winslow without her returning his feelings (until much later, but that's getting ahead of things!). He genuinely likes himself, even though he is not popular. What I don't like about him (or the show) is the whole plot line they developed where Steve occasionally transforms himself into the character of Stefan, a more handsome, popular alter ego. I know they did this to showcase Jaleel White's good looks without getting rid of the Urkel persona, but the whole story arc of it is very superficial, and goes against the overall message the show is otherwise trying to portray about unconditional love and acceptance. So I don't like the episodes where he becomes Stafan. If he really wants to dress better, he can do it without changing his whole identity (he does grow up and dress better in the last season). Also, like many shows,
Family Matters was on way too long and outlived its prime, HOWEVER, I will add that if you haven't watched the last few episodes of the show, you really should, because it makes it totally worth it. It ends on a very sweet note for Steve.
These are just some of my favorite and least favorite television characters. Do you agree with me? Who are some of yours?
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