Monkeypunch's Top 50 Favorite TV Characters

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)

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.

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

49. Darlene Conner (Roseanne)


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.

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

Well so far, you have a pretty good ear.

Love Darlene. Roseanne was a great show.

48. Sheldon Cooper (the Big Bang Theory)


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.

One of my favorites.

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.

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

47. Xander Harris (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)


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.

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.

46. Columbo


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.

45. Agent Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks)


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.

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.

44. Gabe Kotter (Welcome Back, Kotter)


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 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 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.

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.

43. Samantha Stevens (Bewitched)


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.