The Weekly Screed (#752)

“Live long and prosper”
by David Benjamin

“To the moon, Alice!"
                             — Ralph Kramden

My wife, Hotlips, crack technology journalist, is in year-end listmaking mode. Everybody in the news biz does this. Among my favorite examples of this genre is the New York Times’ annual cavalcade of obituaries. The Times 2015 death march includes Leonard Nimoy, who — as Spock in Star Trek — portrayed one of the most memorable TV characters in history.

Spock got me wondering: Who might be the greatest television characters of all time, the Top Twenty in the TV Hall of Fame? I’ve been listmaking ever since.

My first chore was to decide my standards for eligibility. First rule: To make the list, a character had to originate on TV. This disqualifies both George Reeves’ and Dean Cain’s depictions of Superman, who started in DC Comics. It also eliminates literary lawyer Perry Mason, and classic antagonists Oscar Madison and Felix Unger. The Odd Couple was both a Broadway play and a movie before it hit TV.

As I plumbed my memory, I realized that the true test was whether I thought of the fictional character’s name before I could recall the name of the actor who played the part. For instance, who doesn’t struggle to recall the wonderful comic actress in I Love Lucy who played Ethel Mertz? (Vivian Vance.)

My list consists heavily of characters limned in the era of Big Three terrestrial broadcasting, before the explosion of cable, premium channels and online networks balkanized the viewing public into haves, have-nots and demographic silos. It’s hard to create a shared experience with a universal character when everyone has the power to customize his or her viewing tastes.

I also notice, with some chagrin, that my Top Twenty reflects the patriarchy of American showbiz, featuring more male than female icons. Since Hollywood has been building shows around male stars since Charlie Chaplin, this is an unavoidable imbalance. However, the No. 1 TV character of all time is, indisputably, the First Woman of television comedy, Lucy Ricardo. Lucille Ball’s bumbling, lovable Everywoman attained a timeless universality that can never be eclipsed.

So, here’s my Top Twenty TV Characters Ever, unranked, in alphabetical order. I do this with the humble awareness that I’m going to be told afterwards — by dozens of people — that I’ve left out somebody really important. Oh, well…

Sgt. Ernest G. Bilko, Phil Silvers, The Phil Silvers Show. America’s fascination with likeable rascals operating within the uptight military Establishment began here, with Silvers and the incorrigible Sgt. Bilko. His myriad successors include Bob Crane in Hogan’s Heroes, Ernest Borgnine in McHale’s Navy, Larry Storch in F Troop, Alan Alda in M*A*S*H, etc.

Marcia Brady, Maureen McCormick, The Brady Bunch. Marcia had forebears like Mary Stone (Shelley Fabares in The Donna Reed Show) and Patty Lane (The Patty Duke Show), but she was the quintessence for all time of the American bourgeois teenage princess. “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”

Archie Bunker, Carroll O’Connor, All in the Family. Just the name, “Archie Bunker,” evokes a host of political and social implications, a cascade of catchphrases, the face of Carroll O’Connor and the eternal ubiquity of family strife.

J.R. Ewing, Larry Hagman, Dallas. No primetime soap opera fascinated America like Dallas did, and this was mostly Hagman’s magic. He created a larger-than-life villain who was strangely attractive — possibly setting the stage for his clone, Donald Trump, to rule the nation as J.R. ruled TV in the 1980s.

Sgt. Joe Friday, Jack Webb, Dragnet. Jack Webb’s wonderfully caricatured deadpan detective established the template for every TV cop who followed in his footsteps. In 60 years, the character has barely changed. On Person of Interest, Jim Caviezel is doing Joe Friday (although with tongue-in-cheek) all over again.

Fred Flintstone, The Flintstones. With Allen Reed doing his voice, Fred Flintstone was the first animated character to crack primetime, opening the door for Homer Simpson and all the wisecracking ‘toons who now populate cable TV.

Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli, Henry Winkler, Happy Days. There has never been a comic outlaw more beloved than The Fonz. If Henry Winkler had not upstaged every other actor in Happy Days, the show would have died years earlier.
 
Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Mark Harmon, NCIS. Harmon — and the show’s creator, Donald Bellisario — accomplished the rare feat of devising a household name in the fragmented TV world of the 21st century. Of course, Gibbs’ similarities to Joe Friday are hardly coincidental.

Eddie Haskell, Adam Zolotin, Leave It To Beaver. Every other character on Beaver was a two-dimensional morality-play, whitebread cliché. Eddie Haskell, Wally’s smarmy, conniving sidekick, changed TV by introducing a touch of evil to the family sitcom.

Cliff Huxtable, Bill Cosby, The Cosby Show. Cosby’s Cliff was the synthesis of all the wise, middle-class TV dads who’d gone before, including Jim Anderson (Father Knows Best), Ward Cleaver, Danny Thomas, Andy Taylor, John Walton, Mike Brady, Steven Keaton (Family Ties), etc. But, by leveraging white-liberal guilt, Cosby built a me-too character into the last sacred sitcom father-figure.

Dr. Richard Kimball, David Janssen, The Fugitive. This landmark show was among the first continuous-plot TV dramas ever attempted. It altered America’s weekly schedule. The Fugitive succeeded partly because Janssen and Barry Morse (Lt. Girard) played off each other so well.

Alice Kramden, Audrey Meadows, The Honeymooners. I was going to give this spot to Jackie Gleason (Ralph Kramden), until I re-read a few scripts and realized that Alice — one of TV’s first, best, funniest standup strong-woman characters, got all the good lines. Gleason was Audrey Meadows’ straight man.

Kramer, Michael Richards, Seinfeld. The show was named after Jerry Seinfeld, but Kramer stole every scene he was in and starred in most of the show’s best bits.

Mr. Ed, with the voice of Allan Lane. A horse is a horse, of course, of course, but Mr. Ed, with Alan Young as his foil, Wilbur, transcended every other animal-based TV show ever made — including, yes, even Lassie (which reverted far to often to the Timmy-down-the abandoned-mineshaft plotline). Besides, Lassie started out as a movie, and the title bitch was played on TV by a male dog.

Paladin, Richard Boone, Have Gun, Will Travel. American TV has a great history of Wild West heroes, including Matt Dillon, Maverick, Gil Favor and Hoss Cartwright. But Richard Boone’s Paladin was both unique and the archetype.

Lucy Ricardo, Lucille Ball, I Love Lucy. If only for the chicken farming episode, Lucy’s adventures on the candy-factory assembly line, and her Vitameatavegamin commercial, Lucy Ricardo merits immortality.

Mary Richards, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Mary introduced the modern working girl to American television, without sacrificing femininity, vulnerability or Lucy-caliber laughs.

Jim Rockford, James Garner, The Rockford Files. Since Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, the down-at-the-heels, smartass private eye has been a staple of American culture. Rockford Files creator Stephen J. Cannell distilled this great cinematic and literary heritage into the classic L.A. PI. James Garner added just the right measures of wit, cunning, slapstick and panache.

Tony Soprano, James Gandolfini, The Sopranos. Tony Soprano was the first super-character of the premium-TV era. He added to the television landscape an unprecedented depth of moral ambiguity, opening the door for love him/hate her characters like Don Draper (Jon Hamm in Mad Men), Walter White (Brian Cranston in Breaking Bad) and Patty Hewes (Glenn Close in Damages).
  
And, last but almost most, Spock, Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek. The ears, the relentless attachment to “logic,” the flashes of human frailty, all those mind-melds. There will never be a TV extraterrestrial so familiar and beloved.

Among other characters I considered were Bullwinkle J. Moose, Ben Casey, Jed Clampett, Beaver Cleaver, Columbo, Matt Dillon, Dr. Johnny Fever, Barney Fife, Flipper, Lt. Al Giardello, Gilligan, Dobie Gillis, Lou Grant, Bob Hartley, Jeannie, Capt. Kirk, Omar Little, the Lone Ranger, Perry Mason, Maverick, Jack McCoy, Barney Miller, Ozzie Nelson, Ed Norton, Radar O’Reilly, Rob Petrie, Homer Simpson, Samantha Stephens, John Boy Walton, Arnold Ziffel, and on, and on, and on…