The 100 Greatest TV Characters

Bravo TV ^ | November 2004

[KillTime]

Who the heck is Carrie Bradshaw? WTG Capt Kirk!

[LRS]

Where's Larry, his brother Daryl, and his other brother Daryl?

[DaughterofEve]

You are right...Little Joe is a must.

[BibChr]

Ok, well: you're wrong about that. But oh well.

Dan
(c;

[PJ-Comix]

Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke. I never really got into Gunsmoke until recently but started watching it a lot the past couple of months. I still can't get over the fact that Miss Kitty was running a saloon and a bunch of ho's. Yeah, Miss Kitty was engaged in PROSTITUTION at the Long Branch Saloon so how did this "little" fact escape the TV censors of the time? Weirdest of all is how nobody on Gunsmoke seemed to think it was a big deal. There was upright Matt Dillon talking to Miss Kitty in the Long Branch (talk about double entendre) saloon and Hookers were plying their trade all around them. I just think the whole thing is bizarre.

[PJ-Comix]

James Arness in Gunsmoke should have been in the top ten.

Only because Matt Dillon never seemed to notice that Miss Kitty was operating a House of Prostitution.

[herkbird]

Arnold the pig was the star of Green Acre's. Don't believe me, just watch a rerun. ROFLMAO, what a great family show. We should be making captured terrorist watch Green Acre's, 24/7 to get informationn out of them.

[fuzzthatwuz]

"This is a sham! They missed Captain Kangaroo!!"

Where is Buffalo Bob, Howdy Doody and Clarabelle!

[Jackknife]

Barney Fife

[HitmanLV]

West's Batman of course is a top 10 choice, it's one of my fave tv shows of all-time.

Some others off the top of my head:

Phil Silvers - Sgt Bilko
Don Adams - Maxwell Smart
Mary Tyler More - Mary Richards
Ted Knight - Ted Baxter
Ross Martin - Artemus Gordon
Barbara Eden - Jeannie
Redd Foxx - Fred Sanford
William Shatner - Captain Kirk
Leonard Nimoy - Mr Spock
Elizabeth Montgomery - Samantha Stevens
Jim Backus - Thurston Howell III
Chloris Leachman - Phylis Lindstrom
Tony Randall - Felix Unger
Jack Klugman - Oscar Madison
Lynda Carter - Wonder Woman
Jason Alexander - George Costanza

[HitmanLV]

Ted Knight ruled on MTM - Ted Baxter had loads more entertainment value than Lou Grant (who was good too but not top 10 in my book).

[william clark]

How could they have forgotten Bob Einstein's Officer Judy?

[Jackknife]

"Arnold the pig was the star of Green Acre's.">

I think Mr. Kimball was....

[HitmanLV]

There are far better sitcoms than All in the Family - Sgt Bilko comes to mind immediately, for example. The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show are also standouts.

I consider the last truly 'great' sitcom to be 'The Odd Couple,' which had tons more depth and wit than All in the Family.

Modern sitcoms have devolved into rapid-fire put-downs and bathroom humor. Even Seinfeld, which I consider to be one of the more recent consistently very good tv sitcoms, lacked the wit of 'The Odd COuple' or the 'situation' aspect of 'sitcom' of the old sgt Bilko show.

Also, All in the Family's big mistake after a few seasons was the same mistake other programs made with 'mean' characters. People naturally enjoy the mean characters and over time, the producers soften them up so that they barely resemble the characters they started as. Norman Lear's folks did this with both Archie Bunker and George Jefferson, and the 'softening' hurt both shows.

Back to Seinfeld, they thankfully never softened any of their characters. I am cursed through life that most of my friends consider me to be a cross between George Costanza and Kramer, even though I have been that way for decades!

That being said, I enjoyed 'The Jeffersons' more than 'All in the Family' and always maintained that George Jefferson was the first successful relatively conservative black character on televison!

Of course it's all a matter of taste. I own bootleg DVD copies of every Odd Couple episode and I swear I wear those 14 discs out! So we all enjoy what we like, but comedy on tv for the last 2 or 3 decades has been awful.

[HitmanLV]

Any list without Ben & Hoss Cartwright is bogus. This list is bogus, I don;t agree with over 1/2 of their selections and I don't care for 'ganging' of entries like 'the cast of Friends' or 'the Barone family.'

[HitmanLV]

The whole 'the cast of' thing is bogus - individual characters, I say.

And Maxwell Smart is one of my fave characters in tv history - easily top 10.

Ernie Bilko is only top 40? Did these people even watch the show?

And in case anyone thinks I am am old-timer, I'm 36, and old enough to distinguish great tv shows from simply good ones. :-)

[Cinnamon Girl]

I don't know who half these names are. Wish the shows were listed, too, so I'd know. And where's Lenny & Squiggy??!?!!?!

[Tribune7]

I kind of actually agree with that list. Although Captain Picard & no Scotty?

[Tribune7]

And where is Niles Crane? At Number 70.

[JustaCowgirl]

Missed him. Oh, well.