Top Ten Sitcom Characters We Love to Hate and Hate to Love.
There’s an awful television word used by executives that has haunted television writers and producers: “Likable”. Likable seems mandatory to network execs because they think that the audience will only watch a sitcom with likable characters that they want to visit every week like dear friends. And that’s not entirely wrong, I mean, it’s true that we as an audience enjoy characters that are pleasant, sweet, cute even. But the networks seem to think that characters have to be perfect to be likable. “Likable” is being used in a very one note term. Characters that make us laugh or we can relate to their flaws, dark sides and neuroses can also be likable to us.
Honestly? Some of the most popular television (or movie) characters are usually the most flawed and usually the most realistic and in a comedy specifically that’s what makes them funny and weirdly endearing compared to the “perfect” characters that are like no one in life and secretly bore us to tears. If a character is funny or relatable THAT’S what makes them likable. So that said, the characters on this list are the vile, low life and hilariously funny characters that we love to hate and hate to love.
10. Newman: Seinfeld.
As Jerry once referred to him: “He’s a mystery wrapped in a Twinkie.” Wayne Knight’s incredibly verbose, diabolically vindictive and deliciously evil postman was Jerry Seinfeld’s arch nemesis and a fan favorite. Newman’s first “appearance” was actually unseen and voiced by Larry David but once they decided to actually cast the character and chose the great Wayne Knight, a chubby, eloquent villain was born. We love to hate Newman’s annoying, psychopathic pettiness towards Jerry and hate to love his gleeful villany.
9. Zack Morris: Saved By The Bell.
Smooth, good looking and charming in his own self absorbed, manipulative way Zack Morris was da man and was a companion of Mike Seaver of Growing Pains and an older version of Bart Simpson. We love to hate him because he was the type of arrogant, slick, smooth talking con man that would scam you out of your lunch money or your car for the weekend and then end up wrecking it :
But we hate to love him because underneath his devilish ways was a good hearted and genuinely charming guy who was a die hard loyal friend when it counted and despite seeming like a ladies man was actually quite the gentleman. Mark Paul Gosselar’s Zack was so cool he could stop time and break the fourth wall with ease:
8. Whitley Gilbert: A Different World.
Snooty, uppity, selfish, a princess, a debutante, a snob and an annoying, loud southern draw all defines Whitley Gilbert played to perfection by Jasmine Guy. Matter of fact, Guy was so far from Whitley in every way that she has said that she sometimes just couldn’t stand the character. But in spite of Whitley’s many shortcomings we loved to hate her whiny, snooty behavior because she made us laugh at her and we hated to love her because she could make us laugh with her and had a heart of gold underneath, especially when it came to her deep friendship with Kim and her strong romantic relationship with Dwayne Wayne who fell in love with Whitley in spite of her flaws, just like we the audience did:
7. Deacon Ernest J. Frye: Amen.
As if being the ultimate shyster lawyer isn’t enough to love to hate this guy, Amen’s Ernest J. Frye was just as shady, notoriously cheap and manipulative as a Church Deacon. But at the end of the day he was a devoted father to his one and only baby girl Thelma Frye and always meant well with her even when he constantly hampered her life with his meddling and co dependency. He was also just a good man at heart who could rise to the occasion… you know, when it suited him best. Sherman Hemsley could always make the unsavoriest of characters lovable and just like with George Jefferson, he made Ernest J. Frye a character we also hated to love and sometimes just plain ole’ love period. Not to mention the iconic opening where we follow Deacon Frye’s cool as silk walking to work:
R.I.P. Sherman, your gifts are still sorely missed.
6. Cotton Hill: King of The Hill.
You heard of the phrase “Father knows best”? Cotton Hill was a father who couldn’t care less. Verbally abusive, sadistic, loud, crude and rude, Cotton Hill was a shinless Satan who we hated for his despicable treatment of Hank as well as Hank’s mother and his current wife Dee Dee but couldn’t help but find him hilariously funny while being the absolute worst human being on the planet. We also loved Cotton because he might just be the coolest Grandpa ever and adored his grandson Bobby. The “good” son he never had. The best of Cotton Hill is too much to write about so I’ll just show you:
5. Alderman Fred C. Davis: Good Times.
If ever there was a parody of the sleazy, oily, backwards talking, smiling politician it was Alderman Fred C. Davis played by Albert Reed Jr on Good Times. Essentially the black Richard Nixon down to the hand gestures. Alderman Davis was as slick as they come and was a constant thorn on the Evans family’s side. We hated his slick, lying ways but at the same time because of those traits we found him ridiculously funny. It also helped that Willona Woods always took the time to put him in his place:
4. Marie Barone: Everybody Loves Raymond.
The mother in law from hell and the queen of shady comments, Marie Barone was the mother we all had or the one you certainly didn’t want. Doris Roberts was the only actress in the world that could’ve made her such a hilarious character that we hated to love and loved to hate. Marie was a narcissistic woman who was constantly conniving, meddling, smothering and just plain old nosy in her family’s life and was a constant thorn on long suffering daughter in law Debra Barone. But despite all of her shortcomings she was a very loving mother (to a fault) and only meddled out of love. Though you can’t get more meddling than interrupting your oldest son’s wedding just to air out her feelings:
Or the time she wrote a letter to the FBI about burning Robert’s lucky suit, poor Robert had to sit there humiliated at his job interview as the FBI agent read from Marie’s embarrassing letter, Robert was literally frozen:
3. Dan Fielding: Night Court.
There have been many womanizing, sex crazed and sleazy jackass characters on almost every television show, but no one did it better or with made you love to hate and hate to love him more than the iconic Dan Fielding of Night Court who was so perfectly played by John Larroquette that he won the Emmy for best supporting actor in a comedy series four years in a row and took himself out of the nominees the fifth year just so that the other nominees could get their fair chance at winning; Talk about a true class act. Dan Fielding was basically the father of Barney Stinson, Glen Quagmire, Tony Dinozzo etc. but like I said nobody made you love and laugh at the incredibly sleazy, perverted and narcissistic antics of Assistant DA Reinhold “Dan” Fielding who also on rare occasion showed a heart beneath the deliciously slimy shell. Just look at his best and funniest moments and you’ll fall just as much in love with this guy as everyone else who watched this classic show:
2. Angel Martin: The Rockford Files. (I know Rockford is not a sitcom, but it has a lot of humor, so I’m making an exception, ‘kay?)
It takes talent to make a character with unsavory tendencies likable and funny but it takes a truly brilliant and talented actor like Stuart Margolin to play an unsavory character with no redeeming qualities to speak of not only funny but even lovable in a sick, twisted way. Evelyn “Angel” Martin was Private Detective Jim Rockford’s old prison buddy and his eyes and ears in the criminal underworld who was as despicable, vile and low down a human being as ever dropped on this planet: Angel was a coward, Angel was a weasel, Angel was a jackass, Angel was a pathological liar and a thief, Angel would sell his friend Jim or anyone else down the river to save his own neck. And yet he’s also one of the funniest and oddly lovable sidekick characters in television history and I believe it’s only because he’s so funny and I guess If I had to reach I could maybe conjure up one single redeeming quality besides being so funny; He never murdered anyone…. though knowing Angel if the price was right, who knows?
Margolin won two Emmys for the role and you can see why when you watch the show:
- Archie Bunker: All in The Family.
And now we’ve hit the jack pot! Never has a character sparked more passion, hatred and debate than Archie Bunker. Never has a character inspired as many future television characters and to even go as far as to have inspired any opinionated character referred to as an “Archie Bunker Type” in most character breakdowns in television scripts. Archie Bunker was a character with everything flawed, horrible or just plain wrong: racist, sexist, homophobic, arrogant, pig headed, loud, irritable, obnoxious, rude and verbally assaulting often referring to his saintly wife Edith as “Ding Bat”. Though he was an equal opportunity bigot with an equal prejudice and bias towards every race, religion or nationality from Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Asians, Indians, Native Americans, The Irish, The Polish, Catholics, Buddhists, Episcopalians etc. you name it, Archie’s got a narrow minded opinion of it. And yet America loved and still loves this man and it’s because we all recognize Archie Bunker in relatives or people we know and even hidden parts of ourselves that when we watch him we find his antics distasteful because deep down we are ashamed of the fact that we may have had a similar thought no matter how brief. And although we hate Archie’s backwards view of life, we love that underneath it all is a guy whose mostly harmless. You never truly believed that Archie would ever hurt anybody and that’s why we can laugh at his antics. Archie had a soft side, especially when it came to his family and Carroll O’Connor’s Emmy winning performance proves that he was and is the only actor in the world who ever could’ve played Archie Bunker. No one else could pull off a character that difficult to make work, especially on network television. No matter how controversial the character is we love to hate and hate to love Archie because he’s Archie and we feel like we know the big lug.
Thanks for reading. ’Til next time, folks!