Monkeypunch's Top 50 Favorite TV Characters

[Monkeypunch]

I love TV. I watch a lot of it. And when i saw AdamUpBXtch's list, I had to do one of my own. I'm going to keep at this all night til I finish it so I don't lose steam (as often happens to me). Let's do this thing!

50. Dick Solomon (3rd Rock from the Sun)
http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/5900000/Dick-Solomon-3rd-rock-from-the-sun-5909912-450-300.jpg
Dick Solomon is a brilliant comic creation, played by John Lithgow, on the comedy series 3rd Rock from the Sun. An alien sent to study life on earth, Dick is disguised as a middle aged Physics professor, but emotionally, he's an adolescent. He's loud, selfish, boorish, arrogant, and petty, but he's also hilarious. He becomes obsessed with every new experience he comes across and throws himself into them with total abandon. Dick is a really awful person, but you can't help but like him even a little bit.

[gbgoodies]

That was quick. I'm looking forward to your list. I don't think I could make a list that fast if I tried. :up:

[Monkeypunch]

49. Darlene Conner (Roseanne)
http://cdn.hellogiggles.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/11/tumblr_lvp2bpwNVO1qgqk2go1_1280.jpg

Played by Sarah Gilbert, Darlene was the youngest daughter on the classic comedy/drama Roseanne. Originally a basketball playing tomboy, Darlene's character deepened over the years, dealing with teenage depression, alienation, and rebellion, but in a realistic way that never seemed fake. Darlene wore her sarcasm and apathy like a suit of armor, and she tried to distance herself from her proudly blue collar parents, never realizing that she was very much their child. We're not going to talk about the last season of the show. It's a trainwreck.

[Monkeypunch]

That was quick. I'm looking forward to your list. I don't think I could make a list that fast if I tried. :up:

I got my top ten down, the rest I'm playing by ear.

[gbgoodies]

I got my top ten down, the rest I'm playing by ear.


Well so far, you have a pretty good ear. :up:

[Miss Vicky]

Love Darlene. Roseanne was a great show.

[Monkeypunch]

48. Sheldon Cooper (the Big Bang Theory)
http://s25.postimg.org/uwlc721bj/sheldon_cooper.jpg

A relatively newer character, Dr. Sheldon Cooper (played by Jim Parsons) seems like a series of annoying character tics written by sitcom hacks at first, but if you know anyone on the autism spectrum, then he starts seeming very familiar. Sheldon is a genius, but he's also unable to understand social cues, has difficulty relating to other people, has intimacy problems that frustrate his girlfriend Amy, and can be an arrogant *******, even to his closest friends. The show is at it's best when it acknowledges Sheldon's disabilities. In one episode he tells his roommate, Leonard, that to him, day to day life is as uncomfortable as wearing an itchy sweater all day, every day. Sheldon is a fascinating, if totally frustrating character, earning him a spot on my list.

[Monkeypunch]

Love Darlene. Roseanne was a great show.

One of my favorites. :)

[gbgoodies]

48. Sheldon Cooper (the Big Bang Theory)
http://s25.postimg.org/uwlc721bj/sheldon_cooper.jpg

A relatively newer character, Dr. Sheldon Cooper (played by Jim Parsons) seems like a series of annoying character tics written by sitcom hacks at first, but if you know anyone on the autism spectrum, then he starts seeming very familiar. Sheldon is a genius, but he's also unable to understand social cues, has difficulty relating to other people, has intimacy problems that frustrate his girlfriend Amy, and can be an arrogant *******, even to his closest friends. The show is at it's best when it acknowledges Sheldon's disabilities. In one episode he tells his roommate, Leonard, that to him, day to day life is as uncomfortable as wearing an itchy sweater all day, every day. Sheldon is a fascinating, if totally frustrating character, earning him a spot on my list.


Sheldon Cooper would easily be in my top five. I love all his little quirks. The things that most people find annoying about him, I find adorable. I even see a lot of his quirks in myself at times.

[Miss Vicky]

I quit watching The Big Bang Theory awhile ago because it had gotten stale, but Sheldon is still a great character.

[Monkeypunch]

47. Xander Harris (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/x/xander_harris.jpg

Played by Nicholas Brendan, Xander was the comic relief character on Joss Whedon's supernatural drama Buffy The Vampire Slayer, a totally average guy who did his best to keep up with the cast of warriors, vampires, and witches. Xander was the audience. He made snide remarks to hide his fear or pain, he didn't know how to relate to women other than in a sexual context, and he was sometimes the butt of the writer's jokes a bit too much. But Brendan brought a goofy charm, and later an exasperated dignity to Xander, and he was the first (possibly only) character on the show to learn how to be a functioning adult, holding down a steady job, having a healthy, stable relationship with his fiancee Anya (well, until season 6, but man, that season was bad for everyone), and was braver than anyone gave him credit for.

[gbgoodies]

I stopped watching "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" when the spin-off series "Angel" started because I didn't have time to add another series to my schedule, so I dropped Buffy instead, but when I watched it, Xander was one of my favorite characters on the show.

[Monkeypunch]

46. Columbo
http://31.media.tumblr.com/ef7bd4c96914942c19f9b933a5d60119/tumblr_inline_nk3tfz4vei1siyyqt.jpg

Police Lt. Columbo (played by Peter Falk) is just a great character. All of the episodes followed the same formula, we see a crime being committed by some 1970's celebrity guest star, and then the fun is seeing how long it takes for Columbo to figure it out. What made this great TV was Columbo himself. He's a short, unassuming man, he looks like an unmade bed, and his rambling, friendly way of talking endears him to the suspects who don't even realize they're already caught until it's much much too late. Falk made Columbo into one of TV's best crime solvers because he was so darn likable, and had a fierce intelligence right under the surface.

[gbgoodies]

46. Columbo
http://31.media.tumblr.com/ef7bd4c96914942c19f9b933a5d60119/tumblr_inline_nk3tfz4vei1siyyqt.jpg

Police Lt. Columbo (played by Peter Falk) is just a great character. All of the episodes followed the same formula, we see a crime being committed by some 1970's celebrity guest star, and then the fun is seeing how long it takes for Columbo to figure it out. What made this great TV was Columbo himself. He's a short, unassuming man, he looks like an unmade bed, and his rambling, friendly way of talking endears him to the suspects who don't even realize they're already caught until it's much much too late. Falk made Columbo into one of TV's best crime solvers because he was so darn likable, and had a fierce intelligence right under the surface.


Columbo is another character who would be much higher on my list. He's definitely #1 on my list if it's a list of just police, detectives, and other crime solvers.

[Monkeypunch]

45. Agent Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks)
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/twinpeaks/images/9/9b/X_d0d8225c.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20111126082546

Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) isn't at all what he seems. An investigator for the FBI assigned to solve the murder of Laura Palmer in the small logging town of Twin Peaks, Agent Cooper seems like a no nonsense cop, but in reality he's a collection of personality quirks, obsessions (coffee, pie, trees), and questionable crime solving techniques. But then Twin Peaks is such a strange town, they actually work for him. Cooper is both the hero of the series and a really funny character, and if David Lynch had gotten his way, he never would have solved the murder. Cooper becomes more competent and less quirky as the show moved on without Lynch's input, but he was a great center to a show that eventually lost it's way.

[Monkeypunch]

Columbo is another character who would be much higher on my list. He's definitely #1 on my list if it's a list of just police, detectives, and other crime solvers.

I am a newer convert to the joys of Columbo, having been introduced to him about two weeks ago by a woman I've been dating. It's a testament to how much I liked the show that he made the list.

[Monkeypunch]

44. Gabe Kotter (Welcome Back, Kotter)
http://doyouremember.com/site-content/uploads/2015/03/kotter02.jpg

Gabe Kotter, the alter ego of comedian Gabe Kaplan, was a former teenage malcontent who returns to his old school in Brooklyn to be a history teacher to the same sort of teenage hoodlums he used to run with. He butts heads with the school's administrators, and uses humor to reach kids that the school has deemed unreachable. Kotter becomes a mentor and friend to a group of special needs students known as the "Sweathogs," who look to him for advice and leadership. Kotter is a cornball, tells jokes so old they were written on papyrus, and has a real rapport with his class. Sometimes characters don't need to be deep to be memorable.

[gbgoodies]

I never watched "Twin Peaks", but I've heard a lot about it, and it sounds like my kind of show, so I'll probably give it a try someday.


I am a newer convert to the joys of Columbo, having been introduced to him about two weeks ago by a woman I've been dating. It's a testament to how much I liked the show that he made the list.

I have all the seasons of "Columbo" on DVD, and I watch them a lot. I love watching the way he uses the suspects own words and actions against themselves to the point that the suspects actually help him solve the crimes.

BTW, I'm glad to hear that you've been dating someone. It sounds like it's just the beginning of the relationship, but I hope it goes well and that you're very happy together.

[gbgoodies]

44. Gabe Kotter (Welcome Back, Kotter)
http://doyouremember.com/site-content/uploads/2015/03/kotter02.jpg

Gabe Kotter, the alter ego of comedian Gabe Kaplan, was a former teenage malcontent who returns to his old school in Brooklyn to be a history teacher to the same sort of teenage hoodlums he used to run with. He butts heads with the school's administrators, and uses humor to reach kids that the school has deemed unreachable. Kotter becomes a mentor and friend to a group of special needs students known as the "Sweathogs," who look to him for advice and leadership. Kotter is a cornball, tells jokes so old they were written on papyrus, and has a real rapport with his class. Sometimes characters don't need to be deep to be memorable.


I haven't watched "Welcome Back, Kotter" in years, but Mr. Kotter is a great choice. I loved the little stories and jokes he would tell at the beginning and end of the episodes.

[Monkeypunch]

43. Samantha Stevens (Bewitched)
http://www.agardenforthehouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/bewitched-2.jpg

Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) is a very powerful witch who married a nebbishy mortal man against her family's wishes. Her husband wants her to keep her powers under wraps, her mother wants her to leave him, and chaos ensues. The interesting thing is that Samantha is more capable and smarter than both of these opposing forces, and is always in control of her own life (and the lives of others, really). She's funny and adorable and I have always loved Bewitched.

[Monkeypunch]

42. Al Bundy (Married...With Children)
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_KiUbFMMrH0/0.jpg

Poor Al Bundy (Ed O'Neil)...Former high school football star Al only wants the simple things in life: A cold beer, John Wayne movies, and a copy of Playboy. Instead, he's saddled with a lazy, materialistic wife, two ungrateful children, yuppie neighbors who hate him, and a low paying job selling women's shoes. Al can't win, he's not very smart, he lives on the fumes of his past glories, and suffers endless indignities while trying to provide for his family who resent the hell out of him. Ed O'Neil is hilarious as the sexist, ignorant, loud mouthed Bundy, he's the best thing about in this pitch black satire of 1980's sitcoms.

[honeykid]

You ran out after eight. :( Hoping you can finish this, MP. :up:

[Monkeypunch]

You ran out after eight. :( Hoping you can finish this, MP. :up:

it was 3am here. I fell asleep. Starting up again now!

[Monkeypunch]

41. The Smoking Man (The X-Files)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/The_Smoking_Man_%28X-Files%29.jpg

The Smoking Man, portrayed by William B Davis, started out as a background character on the X-Files, a guy who you wouldn't even notice, but as the series progressed he became a shadowy antagonist to Mulder and Scully, a man in black who buried everything they discovered in an attempt to hide a vast conspiracy. But what is so great about this character is that he believed that he was right, and in a way, maybe he was. The way he saw it, if people learned that aliens were coming to colonize the earth, it would all fall apart, the world would be plunged into chaos. By keeping it secret, he was trying to stall the inevitable, and he was working on ways to help humanity behind the backs of his superiors. Of course, he also assassinated JFK and Martin Luther King, so he's still a very bad man indeed. But that's what makes him so great.

[Monkeypunch]

40. George Costanza (Seinfeld)
https://comeoncostanza.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/you-are-a-young-george-costanza-1-30845-1366996589-9_big1.jpg

George Costanza (Jason Alexander) is a truly terrible human being. I can't think of a single redeeming quality that he had. He was petty, shallow, vindictive, amoral to a frightening degree, and quite possibly a budding sociopath. The real ending of Seinfeld should have been George just going Michael Douglas in Falling Down on Manhattan. It would have made perfect sense. You would never want to know such a man in real life, but on TV, you gotta love him. All the best bits on Seinfeld, for me, were about George. A poor sad sack who truly deserved all the bad luck he ever got, and one of the funniest characters ever on TV.

[gbgoodies]

41. The Smoking Man (The X-Files)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/The_Smoking_Man_%28X-Files%29.jpg

The Smoking Man, portrayed by William B Davis, started out as a background character on the X-Files, a guy who you wouldn't even notice, but as the series progressed he became a shadowy antagonist to Mulder and Scully, a man in black who buried everything they discovered in an attempt to hide a vast conspiracy. But what is so great about this character is that he believed that he was right, and in a way, maybe he was. The way he saw it, if people learned that aliens were coming to colonize the earth, it would all fall apart, the world would be plunged into chaos. By keeping it secret, he was trying to stall the inevitable, and he was working on ways to help humanity behind the backs of his superiors. Of course, he also assassinated JFK and Martin Luther King, so he's still a very bad man indeed. But that's what makes him so great.


I almost bought the Funko Pop! of him a few days ago.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61TwrksPQhL._SX450_.jpg

[Monkeypunch]

39. Dobie Gillis (The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis)
http://www.collectomania.com/ebay/dobie_thinker.jpg

Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hickman) was a groundbreaking character, in a way. Without him, we wouldn't have had characters like Ferris Bueller. But unlike Bueller, Dobie wasn't cool or popular or even all that bright. Dobie was a lovesick teenager who forever pined for a girl he couldn't have, fought with his cooler, richer rivals, worked for his sarcastic father at a family owned grocery store, and got by with a little help from his misfit friends, beatnik Maynard G. Krebs and tomboyish Zelda Gilroy. Dobie was a cleverly written character, a likable everyman who just couldn't catch a break, and his show seems to have been mostly (and unfairly) forgotten.

[Monkeypunch]

I almost bought the Funko Pop! of him a few days ago.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61TwrksPQhL._SX450_.jpg

I had no idea this existed, and now I want it.

[gbgoodies]

I almost bought the Funko Pop! of him a few days ago.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61TwrksPQhL._SX450_.jpg

I had no idea this existed, and now I want it.


I saw it at a Barnes & Noble book store, but it's available on Amazon too.

I've recently started collecting these Pop! figures, and this one is definitely on my list. (I bought the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man instead.)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61kEJQxcmXL._SX450_.jpg

[Monkeypunch]

38. Pam Poovey (Archer)
http://33.media.tumblr.com/6299c6ec0944d7b5aab70d7e14436c8e/tumblr_miunloahmI1qa64bjo2_500.jpg

Pam started out as a mousy HR rep who talked to people using a dolphin puppet, and was the butt of a lot of jokes in season one of FX's spy spoof Archer, but as time went on her character deepened...and got weirder, and more awesome. Pam is a force of nature. She's hilarious and just a bit frightening, whether she's doing paperwork, sleeping with yakuzas, doing enough coke to kill a horse, or competing in underground MMA tournaments. She's strangely sexy, too. But then maybe that's just me. :D

[Monkeypunch]

37. Roger Sterling (Mad Men)
http://www.vh1.com/celebrity/bwe/images/2010/07/MAD-MEN-ROGER-STERLING-THANKSGIVING.jpg

Roger Sterling (John Slattery) is an alcoholic and a womanizer, and is more than a little attached to his mother. Despite all this, he is fascinating, funny, and one of my favorites on Mad Men. Roger continually seeks help with his problems, even going to see a therapist, but his I don't give a crap attitude sinks that more often than not. He can't stop making cheap jokes in a therapy session, for example. I do think that deep down, Roger tries hard to be a good person, like when he offers to support the child he had with Joan during an affair, and he does seem to really care for his daughter and possibly still loves his first wife, even though he knows that that ship has sailed. Like most Mad Men characters, he exists in a moral grey area, and the show doesn't pass judgement on him. He gets a lot of funny lines and some fascinating storylines, so along with two other Mad Men characters (who rate higher up on here), he gets on this list.

[Miss Vicky]

Love Pam.

[honeykid]

I love Roger. He's one of the best characters in Mad Men.

[Monkeypunch]

36. Earl Hickey (My Name is Earl)
https://mybrandnewlife.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/earl-mugshot.jpg

I suppose it's becoming a theme that I enjoy morally questionable characters, but Earl Hickey (Jason Lee) was a former petty criminal trying to make amends for his past life of (stupid) crime. Earl wasn't really bad as much as he was dumb, thoughtless, and looking for the easy path in life, but after being hit by a car directly after winning the lottery, Earl decided he would have to atone for his past sins by making a list of everyone he'd ever wronged. And a long list it was. Armed with a childlike (and not entirely correct) belief in Karma, Earl was a charming, low key guy who genuinely cared for his friends and family, and had a sort of Of Mice and Men thing going with his dim-witted brother, Randy. The show (mostly) stayed away from ridiculing him and instead created a memorable, sympathetic character who I enjoyed watching every week.

[Gideon58]

49. Darlene Conner (Roseanne)
http://cdn.hellogiggles.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/11/tumblr_lvp2bpwNVO1qgqk2go1_1280.jpg

Played by Sarah Gilbert, Darlene was the youngest daughter on the classic comedy/drama Roseanne. Originally a basketball playing tomboy, Darlene's character deepened over the years, dealing with teenage depression, alienation, and rebellion, but in a realistic way that never seemed fake. Darlene wore her sarcasm and apathy like a suit of armor, and she tried to distance herself from her proudly blue collar parents, never realizing that she was very much their child. We're not going to talk about the last season of the show. It's a trainwreck.
Loved Darlene and Roseanne and no argument regarding the final season, trainwreck is putting it nicely.