Most Irritating Characters in TV History

Doesn't Eddie Haskell win this contest?

Eddie Haskell is an excellent choice, but my vote goes to Robin Williams' Mork.

Sheldon Cooper on BBTheory is the current most annoying one trick pony on TV.

I never watched "Mork & Mindy," but Robin Williams' constant "lookatmelookatme" mugging on "The Crazy Ones" killed that show for me in two episodes. I would probably have continued watching were it not for him.

TGVN

I thought the whole show "One Day at a Time" was incredibly lame at the time (see also: "Eight is Enough").

I wasn't real fond of Mr. Roper on "Three's Company" (Mrs. Roper was a total HOOT).

Can't stand AbFab's Saffron at all, sorry. The elderly salesguy part on "Are You Being Served?" got progressively worse with each actor they tried out.

Cindy Brady qualifies as "annoying" fer sure.

I was never very fond of Mr. Hooper on "Sesame Street".

There are probably others, but I think that's a good sampling.

Model Trey Waldman was made, not born.

"Dyno.....Mite!!!"

Screetch

False? OP I had a work colleague/frenemy just like her. Even looked like her. And couldn't leave the turtlenecks alone.

Deidre on Coronation Street

Nathan and Haley's annoying son on One Tree Hill

Hawkeye Pierce in the last half of MASH's run should be the standard bearer for insufferable characters. As Alan Alda started writing and directing, the stories focused more and more on Hawkeye's "humanity." He became unbearably sanctimonious and screechy. And boring. I wanted him to die when he was housed by a Korean farm family when he was injured. Since they couldn't speak English, we got to see Alda in full blown ham mode, trying desperately to "communicate" through shouting, angsty looks and wails, and the most "look at me" performance I've ever witnessed on the small screen.

Grace Adler and Jack McFarland. Yes, the characters are supposed to be self-absorbed, but it's taken to such an extreme and annoying degree.

Don't forget the Alan Alda "laugh." That had to be included at any given time too.

It's right up there with the laughs of RuPaul and Desi Arnaz.

I think we need to differentiate between characters that are MEANT to be annoying (like Horschack) and those that annoy us when they're not supposed to (Ann Romano.)

Monk

Lana Lang- "Smallville"

Any part played by John Corbett, who has the most irritating voice in TV history.

Everyone on Grey's Anatomy.

Cameron Mathison on anything.

"Izzie" and "Denny" on Grey's Anatomy. I screech inside whenever I see either actor in something else.

SJP in the later seasons of SATC.

Everyone on "Grey's Anatomy." Every doctor on that show acts like an escapee from a mental institution.

when the women doctors on Grey's would sleep with George, they'd go crying to him the next week and say: 'sleeping with you was the biggest mistake of MY LIFE1 You are my BEST FRIEND!'

They never felt that way about McCreamy, et. al.

Billy on the MF street

How can you have forgotten me already?

Ally McBeal

Toby on "The West Wing"

Hannah "I want every day to be a roller-coaster of emotion!" Horvath on Girls

Deborah on "Everybody Loves Raymond"

Cora, Lady Grantham

Kimmy Gibbler

Six

[quote]when the women doctors on Grey's would sleep with George, they'd go crying to him the next week and say: 'sleeping with you was the biggest mistake of MY LIFE1 You are my BEST FRIEND!' They never felt that way about McCreamy, et. al.

That's the way pretty successful girls often are in real life, sadly.

I love it each and every time Meredith or Cristina refers to the other as her "person."

Kurt, "Glee"

Larry Tate, "Bewitched"

Every character played by Lucille Ball.

Diana Fairgate.

Frank Burns on MASH.

Loretta Swit's Hotlips character became insufferable after she became "Mrs. Donald Pinopscot"

Alvy Moore as Mr. Kimbel on Green Acres.

Meathead on All in the Family.

Will Farrell on anything he's ever done or will ever do.

David Spade (see Will Farrell).

Dr. Bellows on I Dream of Jeanie.

Kelso on that 70s show.

R15, it is a nice distinction, but if I am irritated it doesn't much matter if the person intended to irritate me or is cluelessly doing something that irritates me.

If I'm irritated, I don't like it.

Andy Kaufman's in-the-face characters and schtick may be exceptions - meaning performance art. Horshack was not performance art.

Well, maybe the cluelessness adds a certain pathetic quality to the enterprise - Bonnie Franklin and Lucille Ball certainly didn't think they were getting under people's skin when they were ascending the comedic heavens with their deluded master classes in humor. But, again, for me it's a fine distinction. I wanted them both dead. AND I did get my wish!

Sally Webster - Coronation St.

Eddie Haskell wasn't "irritating;" he was funny!

The actor John Spencer irritated me in every role he played. He was always EXACTLY THE SAME.

Eddie Haskell never irritated me - he was playing a character that always got its comeuppance and often showed humanity and decency despite himself. But Larry - ugh.

Barbara Billingsley in an interview said the actor who played Larry Mondello had a classic stage mother who made life miserable on the set, and he was encouraged to move on. The family and show always said the family had moved from the L.A. area for the father's job (Philadelphia comes to mind), but I was glad to hear he was as insufferable as he seemed, even if "by proxy."

And add the twat Captain Kathryn Janeway on that Star Trek spin-off. Kate Mulgrew made her something oppressively leaden and pompous. I hoped for a Space India to scalp her and remove that Gibson Girl mess on her head, until I just quit watching the shit.

R25 seems not to have bothered with the opening line of the thread! NO - no one has forgotten the cancer-riddled Hold Me Monster.

Nearly every character played by Jeffrey Tambor. It seems they alwsys used him when they needed someone to be obnoxious, pompous, or irritating.

[quote]Don't forget the Alan Alda "laugh." That had to be included at any given time too.

Yes! It was more like an extended cackle.

Lucy was NOT irritating as Lucy Ricardo. Just as Lucy Carmichael (in the color/post-Viv years), Lucy Carter and Lucy Barker.

That squeaky-voiced girl they added to Ellen halfway through the run. I wanted her to die.

Jeanie owns this thread. She called her boyfriend "master."

The blonde girl with glasses on Big Bang Theory. She's the only character on the show with a fake, obviously affected voice. I can't watch the show because of her.

Fonzie

R44 - Bernadette adds a lot to the show.

Conrad Bain on "Maude."

She adds plenty - so much that I can't watch.

How could I forget Kristina on Parenthood???

R48 - Yes, Kristina.

R21 agree - and to be sincere for just a split second, it's a shame, because I really thought she was a great character in the early years.

Sansa during the first season of "Game of Thrones" (before she almost pushed Joffrey off the wall in the last episode, and had to be blocked by the Hound--after which most people started to like her)

Another vote for the perpetually whining Lana Lang on "Smallville." One of my favorite of all strong women characters in the comic books turned into a miserable shrew.

The annoying daughter on "24."

Eddie Haskell was cute. I bet he and Wally had some hot times when Beaver wasn't around.

Olivia Pope owns this thread

Veronica Hastings on Pretty Little Liars

Kurt on Glee. I couldn't watch the show because of him.

The character that those fugly frog Olsen twins played on Full House. Actually the entire show was terrible.

Donald Faison in Scrubs.

I loved how June and Ward's whole demeanor would change when Eddie came around...

Olivia on The Cosby Show

Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch

Mr. Bentley on The Jeffersons

Jed on The Beverly Hillbillies

Gilligan

Wait, R59 just reminded me of Bill Cosby on the Cosby show, THE most annoying character in the history of TV EVER!!!

For me, the entire cast of Seinfeld....the most unlikable characters I have ever seen on a sitcom

The entire Barone Family

Carrie and Doug Heffernen and Arthur Spooner

Marie (Doris Roberts) on Everybody Loves Raymond. She was selfish, self-involved, but yet supposedly loving and maternal.

George costanza and Kramer

[quote]That squeaky-voiced girl they added to Ellen halfway through the run. I wanted her to die.

Audrey Penny! She cracked me up. I used to love it when she'd annoy the fuck out of Ellen. haha

Julia Sugarbaker. What a sanctimonious, prudish, self-righteous cunt! And her weekly diatribes were grating, too.

Manny on Modern Family

Steve/Jimmy on Shameless US

Brenda on Six Feet Under (I actually hated all of them & never got past S1, but she was the worst)

R67 - Brenda redeems herself.

I used to hate Brenda too r67, but after re-watching I realized I actually hate Nate. She got better.

[R56] [R60] [R61] are right.

I agree w/all of these except Maude and Lucy. While Maude was annoying, her character was neurotic and had many issues; plus Bea was so great in everything she did.

Full House/Raymond both horrible series...the supporting cast of Raymond was good, but the leads and the show itself were awful.

The chubby kid on Modern Family is a terrible actor/annoying character. That whole show is dumb.

Nate became insufferable. Almost everyone else got less so.

That biracial couple on "The Jeffersons."

Frank on Everyone Loves Raymond. He was so unlikable, I never got what was supposed to be funny about him.

Ted Baxter

Captain Stubing and he entire cast/crew of The Love Boat, particularly that annoying little girl.

All of the Golden Girls

I liked Nate, but I despised Brenda in season 2 along with the rest of her family. Then after, season 2, I just despised the rest of Brenda's family, not her.

The most annoying characters in tv history are the mom and the daughter in Gilmore Girls. That show was a piece of shit.

Jack and Karen

Kramer. Why did the audience clap every time he made his first appearance in an episode?

Ms. Fine (Fran Drescher) in The Nanny

Falzone on HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET.

Mary Richards

Georgette on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The baby voice, the irrational worship of her "Teddy Bear." Just yuck.

Richie Petre on the old Dick Va Dyke Show. What a relentless whiner.

Nancy Grace

Jane Valez-Mitchell

Chuy on Chelsea Lately. He does nothing but maybe deliver one badly-delivered line per show, but the audience carries on as if he's the greatest performer who ever lived.

That little ginger bastard SAM on Diff'rent Strokes!

Jonathan Harris as Dr. Zachary Smith ruined "Lost in Space," was a terrible character, and a ham actor.

Each and every Ferengi character in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." How in the hell did these short, hand-wringing beings with heads that resembled deformed buttocks, and drooling mouths with spiky teeth, and who were whiny, manipulative, and pathological liars ever become renown as these skilled, cunning traders?

While we're in ST:TNG it needs to be said: Ensign Wesley Crusher sucked the fun out of any episode he appeared in. The actor who played him--Will Wheaton--was unfairly treated by many fans, who years later realized that he was a very well-adjusted teen actor who had been treated like shit by the other actors, the writers, and even Roddenberry himself. As an adult, Will's observations on life are a hoot.

Eric Cartman

Scrappy Doo

Rayna James

But Cartman is hilariously irritating. I wouldn't have him any other way.

Here come the Judge Judy

God - Clair Huxtable. Words cannot express the revulsion her pride triggered every time her smug intolerant smile creaked its way across the screen.

going way back...for Baby Boomers (others won't know who he is)--I always thought Danny Thomas was such a pain in the ass, in everything he did.

I also never liked Johnny Carson, altho I realize he is not a character.

Did anyone else get sick of Tim Conway on Carol Burnet? Same schtick all the time, breaking the third wall, he thought he was so funny.

R41, you're right. I didn't mean Lucy Ricardo, at least before the move to Connecticut. I meant OLD LUCY. SO irritating.

Charlie on LOST

Charlie, Claire, and Desmond on Lost.

Jackie Harris

Chelsea in Chelsea Lately.

Monroe on Too Close for Comfort - he was supposed to provide comic relief but all he did was act retarded

The guy with the giant teeth on Bones - His giant teeth prevent his mouth from closing all the way or something and he always looks like a slack jawed vegetable.

Uncle Joey on Full House

Nobody is more irritating than Dawn Summers!

"GET OUT!! GET OUT!!! GET OUT!!!"

[quote]Monroe on Too Close for Comfort - he was supposed to provide comic relief but all he did was act retarded

Did anyone actually buy his character as being straight? I was a kid when the show was on tv and remember a lot of stupid storylines about him dating women (and the Very Special rape episode!), but you could see his flames from space.

He DATED WOMEN?????

[all posts by tedious troll removed.]

Any character on How I Met Your Mother or The Big Bang Theory.

Mork - Mork and Mindy

Francine on Arthur. She was clearly gay and just needed to come out. She took all her aggression out on Arthur by making fun of him. Damn closet case.

Dodie from My Three Sons.

Whats the average age of DLoungers.

[quote]he was supposed to provide comic relief but all he did was act retarded

Just like Lucy.

Chrissy on THREE'S COMPANY. And that other old dark-haired slag. And the Ropers. And Jack. And all the replacement twats. And the set. And the costumes. And the lighting, scripts, and food service they had on set when you could see Don Knotts farting it when his pathetic character (and I loved Don Knotts in everything else) would toothpick its way across a scene.

Cousin Pam on The Cosby Show

[R110] whats it to you

Fuck you r112. People like you make this world a worse place.

R110, I would guess 50-plus, based on the pop culture that's popular here.

Michael in The Office -- sometimes, he would be so annoying, I had to leave the room.

The Jerry Van Dyke character in Coach.

R116, I think R110 asked because R108 mentioned a kiddie show aimed at pre-schoolers.

And then there's Maude.

Jenny Schecter - The L Word

Cleaver Greene - Rake (Oz)

E120, I don't recall a character named "Cleaver Greene" in OZ. I just double-checked to make sure.

Uncle Joe,"Movin' kinda slow" at the junction, Petticoat Junction.

a real argument for euthanasia. Irritating in the way that, perhaps your goofy uncle who thinks racist jokes are free speech is.

Even Bea Benadaret (the original, animated, and sublime Wilma) couldn't save that ridiculous nonsense.

There are more. "I Married Joan" is a vague but hideous remembrance, and yes, I'm older than fuck.

You all are doing a nice round-up, and that now brings to mind a variety of cowboys, both limping and mobile. A wide swath of the public is apparently enchanted with witless, personality-disordered monstrosities.

Did anyone here mention "Larry the Cable Guy"? Or was he just in "specials"?

R121

Rather late in your part of the planet? New specs required?

Cleaver Greene - RAKE (Oz = the Australian version)

Everybody from [italic]Friends, Full House[/italic] and [italic]Glee[/italic]. None of those shows have any artistic merit whatsoever and I will physically harm anyone who attempts to make me watch them.

Any character played by Tony Danza outside of [italic]Taxi[/italic].

Jonathan on [italic]Who's The Boss?[/italic]; they wrote him as a heterosexual dork, and Danny Pintauro was just not a good actor. At all. [italic]Cujo[/italic] is also one of the weaker Stephen King film adaptations, and my Mom watched [italic]As the World Turns[/italic] for decades and never thought much of him, either.

Screech owns this thread. Even as a child, I thought [italic]Saved by the Bell[/italic] sucked hardcore. It was produced by fundamentalist Christians, and Dustin Diamond is a major-league asshole in real life.

Wesley Crusher from [italic] rents this thread from Screech. Nobody likes a pedant. And if you want to know what kind of person Wil Wheaton really is, click the link below.

Oliver on [italic]Golden Palace[/italic] was the worst thing about that show; he was only shoehorned in because of Michael Eisner's obsession with [italic]Oliver Twist[/italic]. It actually got a little bit better after he was unceremoniously [and rather poorly] written out. The one Disney film Billy L. Sullivan was in, [italic]The Big Green[/italic], is atrocious and has a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

I actively despise Homer Simpson in any of the post-1990s [italic]Simpsons[/italic] episodes. He had temper problems before, but at least it seemed like he was genuinely trying to be a loving father. After a scene where he chased Bart with a mace, I knew the show was never going to be good again. A little bit of Lisa goes a long way, too; she gives political activism and feminism a bad name, thereby serving Fox's reactionary agenda. In fact, all the characters annoy me in their current incarnations.

I'd honestly put up with Ann Romano over any of these.

[quote]a real argument for euthanasia. Irritating in the way that, perhaps your goofy uncle who thinks racist jokes are free speech is.

They are when they're about honkies.

ANOTHER vote for LOST IN SPACE's resident perv imbecile Dr. Smith.

Hard to believe anyone, esp. back then, let that mincing old queen on.

And posters save your time, I know she was married...weren't all the girls, back then!

[italic]End Italics[/italic] now.

Agree with you, R102. Dawn Summers owns this thread.

[quote]Even Bea Benadaret (the original, animated, and sublime Wilma)

Bea was Betty, not Wilma.

reply 125

That reminds me George...Your mother!

reply 129

Of course! Thank you for the correction. Great-granpa needs some help with the stairs from time-to-time

Chaka from Land of the Lost. That little fucker repeated his "pakuni" language as if Marshall, Will, and Holly would understand. Enoch the sleestak was a dipshit hippy sellout jerk too.

Not a character, but place. The Regal Beagle, what a dump.

You got something against [italic]Italics[/italics], R124?

Close your damn tags. [/italic][/italic][/italic]

Oh, and the most irritating character in TV history is the character of "Laurel" on "Arrow" on the CW the last two years.

No redeeming value what so ever.

Never has an actress AND a character so irritated me. Every moment she's on screen, I'm wishing for her character's death.

[/italic]Michael Eisner when he hosted [italic]The Wonderful World of Disney[/italic]. He seemed like a smarmy asshole even then.

I always found Beaver's friend Gilbert a lot more annoying than Larry Mondello. I think you all hate Larry because he was fat.

James and Cassandra from the later years of "Little House on the Prairie."

I really, really think that many of you are confusing characters who were meant to be irritating with characters who were irritating unintentionally.

Jenna Elfman's "character" from Dharma & Greg.

[R139]

VICK-EE. I. LOVE. YOU!

Steve Brady (Sex and the City). All would be fine with the character if they had cast a different actor. Very irritating voice.

Bev Harris (Roseanne). So irritating. I hated when that show made the entire cast a caricature of its former self, but Bev was always a caricature.

Megan Draper (Mad Men). The voice and line delivery are just so irritating.

Heath Huxtable (Cosby). The mugging, looking into the camera, all the free time on his hands… too irritating to watch for very long.

Is R122 speaking English?

I'm a 35 year old gay American male and I have no idea what the fuck that person is talking about.

It's already been mentioned, but I'll elaborate that every character Tim Conway and Harvey Korman played on The Carol Burnett Show was irritating because the actors wouldn't keep a straight face. All of those scenes should have been edited, and the actors forced to be professional. The characters would have been very funny, and not at all irritating. Letting it all play out like that got old really fast.

I understood R122 without struggle.

[quote]Heath Huxtable (Cosby). The mugging, looking into the camera, all the free time on his hands… too irritating to watch for very long.

At least I'm off the hook.

I'm surprised Carrie from SATC hasn't been mentioned more.

I actually enjoyed that show when it was on, but what I didn't enjoy was the underlying implication that we were supposed to genuinely like these characters and root for them. If they had just been presented as comical assholes (like the cast of Seinfeld, for example), the show would have been much better. They were all unlikable, but I always thought Carrie was by far the worst of the bunch. I don't know if there's ever been a more self-centered character on television. She literally could not frame ANYTHING that happened in her life outside the context of herself. ANYTHING.

[quote]I don't know if there's ever been a more self-centered character on television

Ahem.

I agree, R94 and R144. I'm in the minority, but I always thought THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW took a drastic nosedive in quality when Conway was made part of the cast.

I clicked your link, R124, and I looked at several of the top results. I have yet to see what the hell it is that makes Wil Wheaton so terrible.

Then you need to learn to read between the lines, R150.

[quote]Screech owns this thread

He sold it to me for a song.

I got into watching Seinfeld near the end of its run. I haven't watched it since. Kramer annoyed me.

At some point every TV judge has annoyed me, none more than Judge Judy who is a know it all and thinks everyone else is dumb.

Alright, wise one at R124/R151 - Since I'm apparently so bad at reading between the lines, why don't you go into more detail about what was so awful about those links? The search phrase was "wil wheaton racist," but the only thing I saw relevant to that phrase was a message he wrote on his own tumblr saying that he didn't mean to come across as racist by posting a story about Native Americans that was written by a white author.

Amy from Everybody Loves Raymond. And I loved all the other regulars on the show.

Wil Wheaton is a racist and a sanctimonious douchebag:

Why Wil Wheaton is a racist:

Dear white dudes, especially famous white dudes in the public eye,

I’m so sorry that you’re no longer allowed to make hilarious jokes that shit on women, people of color, and anyone else who isn’t in the same position of power and privilege that you are still in.

I’m so sorry that every time you do and say unthinkingly stupid, racist shit in public, people have the nerve to tell you that you’re wrong and that you should feel bad for being so wrong because it’s not like there’s an ENTIRE HISTORY of violent, dehumanizing shit that happens to marginalized people whenever one of you privileged dickfucks whines on and on about how everything’s so “politically correct” and no one’s allowed to have a sense of humor anymore because well, you weren’t offended, so no one else is allowed to be.

And yes, fuckbucket saying that SJWs are racist, institutionalized racism and individual acts of violent racism perpetrated against people of color is exactly the same as white dudes being told that they can’t make jokes about twerking or whatever other racist bullshit you usually try to make jokes about because you don’t understand how racism actually works. How dare people ask to not have their culture and their bodies and their lives be treated as jokes or inspirational fodder for white people to steal for their own careers and cultures.

Nerdbro culture needs to grow the fuck up and stop act like screaming children every time a marginalized person asks to be treated with the respect and dignity that is not afforded to them by a racist, sexist, homophobic society. If you can’t do that with a modicum of grace, then you need to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up because NO ONE ASKED YOU FOR YOUR SHITTY FUCKING OPINION ON A MATTER THAT YOU KNOW ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING ABOUT.

Quite frankly, I am more than happy to write Wil Wheaton out of my life for proving to be yet another privileged white dick who couldn’t see past his own need to be right to see someone else’s point of view.

Here's what Wil said that had the SJWs up in arms:

Q: What do you call an African-American who opposes marriage equality?

A: N i g g e r

All of the characters on Seinfeld. Irritating, unfunny, pointless.

[quote]I really, really think that many of you are confusing characters who were meant to be irritating with characters who were irritating unintentionally.

Is it possible you're overthinking this? What difference does it make that the character is written to be irritating. All that matters is that he or she is.

Any June Lockhart character on any show.

Counsela on Marcus Welby MD

The Aunt who replaced Lillimae on Knots Landing - the Camp Crystal Lake killer Betsy Palmer. She should have used her axe on that cast.

House, sure he was brilliant doctor, but he was very cold, way too self absorbed and somewhat of a sociopath.

From the more current shows, most of the characters of "Community", I could never get into this show, I found most of the characters extremely grating, same with the American version of "The Office", it was as if they were simply way too over-the-top caricatures of the types of uber annoying people found working in offices.

Brick

Did the "Television Massacre" thread get closed? I'm not able to open it.

Same here, R165.

Tara on the Avengers, after Mrs Peel left.

That was the best they could do?

Speaking of Tara, I watched a few episodes of Sunday's "L&O" marathon on TNT, these were the episodes with Jerry Orbach.

Linda Thorsen played the owner of a small apartment building on Madison Avenue who also happened to be a fashion designer. I was shocked at how thin, haggard and old she looked. I remember her as being curvy and healthy looking.

Wasn't she married to that smarmy TV host Bill Boggs? btw, she's Canadian not British.

Can't believe nobody mentioned Skylar in Breaking Bad. If you don't believe me, try looking at all the comments on the Breaking Bad facebook page. A TON of comments say things like " Die Skylar, die". NONE of the other characters are as hated as she is, in fact, I've never heard of anyone saying they even disliked any of the other characters. Her and her self-righteousness! This is a case of a talented actress playing an irritating-as-hell character. Anna Gunn deserved that Emmy!

I found both main characters in TRUE DETECTIVE to be annoying enough that I stopped watching after four episodes.

Seinfeld's entire cast--could NOT act, were smarmy, snarky, stuck-up and the show now looks really really really dated. Some guys at work still quote from it and crack up, acting much like the cast themselves.

WHICH was the worst? Costanza? Elaine? Superior attitude Jerry? The cheap sets?

This show was SO overrated!

and another vote for Tim Conway, ugly little troll

Can future posters try not to simply repeat what has already been posted several (many) times? Please, no more forgotten shows from the 50s and 60s. Seinfeld characters, we get it, they are self absorbed. And will the unhinged freeper Anti-Wil Wheaton Troll please take her meds? Thanks in advance.

[quote]Can't believe nobody mentioned Skylar in Breaking Bad. If you don't believe me, try looking at all the comments on the Breaking Bad facebook page. A TON of comments say things like " Die Skylar, die". NONE of the other characters are as hated as she is, in fact, I've never heard of anyone saying they even disliked any of the other characters. Her and her self-righteousness! This is a case of a talented actress playing an irritating-as-hell character. Anna Gunn deserved that Emmy!

I liked Skylar a lot. I don't think any of her "crimes" were anywhere near the equivalent of the things Walter White did. Now if you want to talk about annoying harpy tv wives, there's plenty that I wouldn't argue with. The wife on True Detective is the most recent example that comes to mind.

R157 is a racist and should be F&Fd.

Never mind that no one here is talking about actors being assholes. It's about irritating characters.

,

175 replies and no one mentioned Paul Reiser on "Mad About You"?

"Is it possible you're overthinking this? What difference does it make that the character is written to be irritating. All that matters is that he or she is."

Is it possible you're under-thinking this? If you can't understand the huge difference between a character or performance that's intentionally irritating and one that's unintentionally irritating, and if you can't figure out why an intentionally irritating character would be included in a TV show (or a movie or a play), I guess you don't know much about writing, acting, or directing.

Another one who was both intentionally and unintentionally irritating: Steve Zahn in "Treme."

R177, we're not differentiating between writing and acting here.

The thread is titled, "Most Irritating Characters in TV History." OP never specified whether that means most irritating writing or acting in TV history.

Odd how long the thread happily bounched along before you got involved.

Jack in Will and Grace.

Maury Povich on Maury.

Connie Chung on 20/20.

Barbara Walters on 20/20.

The entire case of The View.

The Osbournes on The Osbournes.

The entire cast of Jersey Shore.

Urkel was supposed to be lovably irritating but he was merely irritating, especially as the actor aged and his trick voice sounded more forced.

Lisa Simpson. She was originally the likable, smart sister of Bart Simpson--not anymore. Especially after that episode where she converts to Buddhism, she has never ceased to be an annoying, self-righteous, know-it-all Debbie Downer. She is far more annoying than Marge, despite Marge being a nagger.

The entire cast of "Mad Men"? This season, at least.

Perhaps combinations of "intentional/unintentional, "irritating/not irritating/ and funny/not funny will help the people who seem determined to base a master's thesis on the rather simple theme of the thread?

R182 Homer is the one that really ruins The Simpsons from about season 8 or so onwards.

R185, I disagree, but I do think he's become a blubbering idiot. In the earlier seasons, he was dumb yet charming and sympathetic. Now that The Simpsons is an indestructible cash cow, he is irritating and a buffoon.

They made Homer mean.

As I said, from about season 8 or so. There's a good article on the decline of The Simpsons that rightly describes Homer as a "boorish, self-aggrandizing oaf".

It was written in about 2000.

R188, I remember in highs chool during a break period, we would watch Simpsons episodes and I would be one of the few people who wouldn't laugh at the newer episodes to the sheer idiocy and stupidity of the characters and plots. It's good there is more backlash against the newer simpsons episodes.

It's way past the point where the crap episodes (ie. anything from about 2000 onwards) outnumber the good ones.

Jessie Tyler Ferguson as whatshisname on Modern Family.

I don't have a problem with Cam, but his pale ginger husband is pissy prissy petty, without charm or humor. Ferguson has stated he is pretty much playing himself. YUK.

Anyway, how come Barney the Dinosaur hasn't been mentioned?

[R192]

Barney died in a terrible extinction. That's satisfaction enough.

R179, that's the point. Some characters were written to be irritating, some were not. And when a character that was not written to be irritating becomes irritating anyway -- for example, Ann Romano -- then it probably has a lot to do with the acting and the direction, as well as the writing.

I'm not "differentiating" between writing and acting (and direction), I'm just pointing out that all of those things are involved in whether or not a character is perceived as irritating.

Tegan, Adric and Mel (Bonnie Langford) from Doctor Who.

"Jan" about ten years ago on DOOL.

R171 I think the most irritating thing is how Jerry Seinfeld became a billionaire out of it, I've never quite understood how (something to wit syndication apparently) especially when it seems so cheaply made.

How has no one mentioned "Buffy, Jody and Cissy". You could drive a truck thru the pauses between their lines. Also the cast of "The Walton's". So fucking noble. But the old bags who were making moonshine were fun.

Speaking of "Buffy," R198, you remind me of the very irritating show built around the very irritating SMG. Not going to annoy myself by spelling it out. HATED HER. HATED IT.

Oh, lord, yes. FAMILY AFFAIR. Those two youngest things - hideous.

And I hope there is a special pit of agony for Melinda Gordon, THE GHOST WHISPERER. Jennifer Love Hugetits was hideous, with the kohl eyes and desperate chica vibe.

And for the present, I have to add that mincing overacting queen Klaus and his chubbo sister, Rebekah. The posturing, hambone bullshit and the phony, inept dialects these two things adopt make me want to drive a stake through them. Maybe a shish kebab and add their brother, Elijah, who is a fugly creep with the same lack of talent. Where the fuck did they dig this cast up, and how in the world did someone think the characters, so poorly written, could be served by them?

Milton Berle in anything.

It's a mystery to me how that unfunny creep got famous. Yes, I know he had a big dick, but that doesn't make a comedian successful.

I still don't know what the hell you're making such a big deal about, R151/R156/R157/R158 et. al. All he said in that meme was that it's ironic that a group of people who have been systematically discriminated against in the US for decades would find it okay to discriminate against gay people. Victims of discrimination coming from the same source should support each other instead of falling for the divide-and-conquer bullshit. Is it okay for people to be against gay rights as long as they're part of a demographic that's been through discrimination too? Seriously, what the fuck is your point?

Henry from Once Upon A Time - part of the new new generation of irritating characters

Every male character on Rhoda, except for her father and Joe.

And I detested that Myrna creature.

Susan Ruttan on LA LAW - fucking hated that bitch! Her efforts at publizing herself grated on my nerves.

How does one "publize" himself, R205?

[quote]The guy with the giant teeth on Bones - His giant teeth prevent his mouth from closing all the way or something and he always looks like a [bold]slack jawed vegetable[/bold].

LMAO!

Another vote for Tim Conway on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW. Every one of his skit characters were annoying but none more so than the shuffling little old man "Misses A-Wiggins?"

Also "Mammas Family" was nasty and shrill.

It must be said that THE CAROL BURNETT show had many more lousy skits than good ones. The ones that have stood the test of time are the movie parodies.

Rose Nylund

Peter Griffin

Lois Griffin

Kate Beckett

Daymond John

Donald Trump

Wendy Williams

Laurel Lance

R93 wins.

Emma Swan

Ashton Kutcher in That 70's Show

Who the fuck are Klaus, Rebekah, and Elijah?

ELAINE FROM SEINFELD! How I'd love to be walking down a NYC street and see her bloodied under a fallen air conditioner. I never understood the comic appeal this bitch.

To this day, I am amazed that "That 70s Show" took off the way it did. The name of the show itself just screams "No one should give a fuck about this show."

Has anyone mentioned Monroe in Too Close for Comfort?

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES R213.

R214 She was insufferable in The New Adventures of Old Christine. It's unfortunate that the technology does not yet exist to be able to reach through the tv and beat someone. Every time I see her, I hear the sound an aluminum baseball bat would sound when it hits her skull.

Pardon me, R213, you gentle-spoken sweetheart, you. If you don't know who the fuck they are, consider yourself lucky. But the show is THE ORIGINALS, the boring waste of time that is the spin-off of the vampire mess VAMPIRE DIARIES on CW. I am usually fighting a rising gorge when I think of the subject, and so left the name of the program out.

As R213 indicates, the irritating characters originated on the first show.

The deputy that replaced Barney Fife.

Warren somebody.

Robin Williams who has the most irritating persona. Robin Givens with her fake "I care about you" persona, Linda Lavin, Bea Arthur (what exactly was her beef, feud with Betty White on "Golden Girls") "Kramer" on Seinfeld with those annoying, irritating pratfalls.

Barbara Walters and the entire "The View" clucking hens

[quote]Bea Arthur (what exactly was her beef, feud with Betty White on "Golden Girls")

According to Betty, Bea didn't like her cheerful disposition and positive attitude.

YES [R214] and the other Seinfeld people

Tim Conway

The Huxtables

Dr. Smith

Everybody Loves Raymond cast

Ted Knight on MTM

Mr. Roper--UGH!

Modern Family fat kid

Cheers--all of them

Baba Wawa--the real one

NO, Ashton Kutcher in 2 1/2 men.

Come to think of it, Ashton Kutcher is terrible in EVERYTHING he does. How did he get the career that he has? Has there ever been a thread about him and the mystery of his success? If not there should be, someone must have some dirt on him.

get real re Ashton...could it be the CASTING COUCH since he has no talent (that we can see)

and isn't that Mila UGLY EWWW scary waitress in an all night dive

Diane Chambers and Rebecca Howe-Cheers

Missy Robertson

Phoebe on Friends.

Carol should have kept Lyle and never signed Tim Conway.

Howard Borden, the unrealistically dumb neighbor on The Bob Newhart Show. As a young child, I cringed when that character came to Bob and Emily's door. He wasn’t at all funny, but he was very irritating.

Billy Riggins on Friday Night Lights

Tanya Roberts as the nail in the coffin on Charlie's Angels

Dharma from Dharma & Greg

Marcel on Friends. He had no manners, and he got way too much air time.

R167, I used to vehemenly dislike Tara King when she replaced Emma Peel, but have since softened on her a bit. She was quite popular with French audiences from what I've read.

[quote]R237

Don't go by the French. They believe that Jerry Lewis is a deity.

I agree with so many of the posts.

Tim Conway on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW. Straining to be funny and he wasn't. With Harvey Korman barely able to contain himself over Conway's antics.

Jerry Van Dyke in anything. The epitome of why nepotism is a real crime.

Jimmy 'Dy-No-Mite' Walker on GOOD TIMES. As well as Janet Jackson as too cute for words 'Penny'. Eleven or twelve years old, and with a baby doll ? Painfully bad.

Everything about THREE'S COMPANY, TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT,

GREEN ACRES after about 3 episodes. Annoying characters who were a reminder about what can happen if you fuck a 2nd cousin.

GET SMART- one 30 minute episode was more than enough.

Esmerelda (Alice Ghostly) on Bewitched. Then again, after 4 seasons, they really should've pulled the gd plug.

JOANIE LOVES CHACHI- "Is there no end to your sacrilege ?" - Claude, fearer of the dreaded Sun God.

I think that we're all in agreement that Bonnie Franklin on ONE DAY AT A TIME was one of the worst. Best line of all time on there ? When Bonnie Franklin's character of Ann Romano is trying to convince her daughter Julie (MacKenzie 'Daddy Love' Phillps) who's upset that Chuck is interested in 'Trish the Dish' that she has nothing to worry about. "C'mon Julie, you know you're a knock-out !"

Alan Alda, what an insufferable boor on M*A*S*H !

SANFORD AND SON

Michael Learned, the mother on THE WALTONS. Christ, she was a cold fish. Shame that Pat Neal couldn't or wouldn't continue the character since she'd played her in the tv movie.

KELT thinks that Joan Crawford is a deity. Just as ridiculous. More queer.

Raul Esparza on Law & Order SVU. Terrible actor. He even makes Mariska look good by comparison.

Urkel

Mr. Haney on Green Acres

Mother Jefferson on The Jeffersons

Claudia Salinger on Party of Five (just her voice)

Vicki Stubing on The Love Boat

I think the One Day at a Time episode that epitomized why Ann Romano practically owns this thread was the one where it was her 35th birthday and she spent the entire episode talking to her reflection in the mirror, telling herself how great of a person she is.

[quote]R240

Wrong again.

Oh, yes, I know of the French admiration for Jerry Lewis, Kelt. There's no accounting for(execrable)taste.

R177.why is there always an asshole like you trolling every thread? Just let people enjoy themselves. Go read a book or jump off a building

Interestingly, to me, anyway, is that I now put Roseanne in this category. While I enjoyed her on her show early on, everything she's done since then has left her character irritating to me now if I catch episodes of the show.

I guess being irritating is more complicated than I thought.

Finding Tara King irritating seems like a rather objective, empirically based occurrence. Actually, my irritation is not mitigated by what French audiences are reputed to feel. In fact, knowing that makes her even more irritating.

The Joan Crawford comment - "more queer" - seems to suggest there's something wrong with being queer, doesn't it? And the Cam character is not only irritating. It's offensive. So make that two in that category.

Kenya Moore

Lana from Three's Company - Ann Wedgeworth just can't get Lahoma out of her system.

Jerry Van Dyke on the Judy Garland Show.

Norris Cole, Coronation Street

R238, I don't think any French under 30 has the slightest idea who Jerry Lewis is. I am 40 and keep him confused with Jerry Lee Lewis. But yeah, for some reason, he was very successful in France in the 60s or so I hear.

I fail to think of anyone in fictional TV that really ever grated my nerves: sure there was something about Carrie Bradshaw at the end of SATC's run that was off-putting but I always thought she had some redeeming qualities.

Maybe Clare Dunphy of Modern Family fame if I had to name one.

And Lucille Ball for the manipulativeness, the shallowness, the starstruckness (?) and above all the "shrill", and by that I mean more than just the voice.

Wasn't Charlotte the most annoying of all on sex and the city? That show is overrated anyways

Cybill.

I dunno, I think Ashton Kutcher is very talented and charming as a comedic actor. I'm sure it didn't hurt his career that he's hot, and of course I have no idea if he was ever on a casting couch, but I don't agree that he's untalented. Though I should say, I've never seen him in a serious role, so I can't judge him on that score.

[quote]Wasn't Charlotte the most annoying of all on sex and the city? That show is overrated anyways

She was for me. Carrie had her whiny moments, but generally seemed fun to be around. Charlotte was an uptight prissy WASP from hell.

Steve annoyed me too. Miranda always had the most hideous boyfriends.

R256, honestly, I'm not even trying to be offensive, but I thought Steve had autism or some kind of other developmental issues, just based on his speech patterns and how slow he would act.That show was such a piece of shit, I can't believe that women think the show is an accurate depiction of how straight men act and how they pursue sex (Pauline Kael called the show brilliant for that reason).

'Steve' is now a regular on "Chicago Fire", the fireman show on NBC. He's a very limited actor, same speech pattern and well, he's basically Steve in fireman gear.

Judge Judy is the epitome of a grating character, surely NO judge in NYC history could get get away with half the shit JJ does on a daily basis.

JJ's act is to appear superior and put down the unwashed masses. Her act does extend to real life. I've heard some stories, what a repulsive human being. It's no surprise she's close friends with Baba Walters. Two delusional old rich NYC broads who seem to need and crave the limelight.

Gladys Kravitz on Bewitched

Uh, R257, Pauline Kael was long dead by the time that show debuted.

R258: JJ must be doing something right. I recently read that she's the highest paid person on TV - raking in about $45 million annually.

[quote]'Steve' is now a regular on "Chicago Fire", the fireman show on NBC. He's a very limited actor, same speech pattern and well, he's basically Steve in fireman gear.

Did "Steve" have a Chicaaaago ayksunt on SATC? 'Cause that's what he's doing on CF.

R260, Kael died in 2001. SATC debuted in 1998.

Oh, I thought Kael died in '91.

R261, yes, it's common knowledge that she's been making over $40 million a year for the past few years. So what? Is she helping people, has she cured AIDS etc?

I've never used money and fame as a barometer re people having talent or of them having something important to say. Exactly who is watching her show? Hausfraus and people who don't work? Retirees?

Just look at all those reality show morons, they are wealthy, none possess any real talent.

JJ making that amount of money just proves how low the US has gone re intelligence and intellect. Sure I can enjoy trash culture as much as the next guy, but that doesn't mean society as a whole must reward such vile people as Judge Judy.

She's thoroughly unlikable, she's got a permanent scowl on her face and she seems to already have made her decision before the people are in place. How do I know, I watched the show on and off many years ago. JJ plays into the entire ReThug ideology about the poor and minorities.

Compare her with Judge Marilyn, Marilyn deals with some incredibly stupid individuals on her show, yet she never belittles them or calls them names. Marilyn is much more fair and has sense of humor, JJ comes across as a miserable old crone. If that's some people idea of entertainment, that's their business, the sad part is that JJ is so greatly rewarded for her negativity.

Lisa, Nate's wife on Six Feet Under comes to mind. Lisa, that miserable fucking scold with her boiled potato face and puffy cried-out eyes and dirty hippie chick hair and sad sack clothes and the light of a million tons of misery and gash-y hurt that she shined on everything and everyone in her path.

(I'm thinking of irritating characters on shows I actually liked; otherwise it's like shooting fish in a barrel.)

[quote]Did "Steve" have a Chicaaaago ayksunt on SATC? 'Cause that's what he's doing on CF.

I said, "Same speech pattern", it doesn't matter if he has a Chicago accent on "Chicago Fire", he basically has the same annoying odd sounding voice. Like I said, he's very limited.

R266, don't forget show she dumped on Nate for wanting to cheat on her with Brenda even though she was the one who cheater.

*cheated

Yes, R266, Lisa was one of the most annoying characters in TV history. I hated her so much, I can't look at anything else Lili Taylor has been in.

Yeah Charlotte in SATC was boring, uptight, childishly insecure and holier than thou.

However to that day I still love the episode where she gets so addicted to the "Rabbit" vibrator that she literally withdraws from social life and needs to be intervened on. Ha!

And yes, Carrie takes the slimy Rabbit in her hands without further ado.

I always found Walter Mathau very grating on the nerves. He always seemed to have that same New York Accent no matter what part he played. I never could see his appeal.

Jack Lemmon was as irritating, perhaps more, than Walter Mathau.

OOOOOOOOO ya dosent has to call me Johnson! My name is Raymond Jay Johnson Junior. You can call me ray, or you can call me jay, or you can call me Johnny, or you can call me Sonny. But ya dosn't has to call me Johnson....

On Melrose Place, Sydney was irritating on purpose, but her character was fun. Allison was the one I couldn't stand.

Everyone on Beverly Hills 90210 was irritating in their own special way.

Oh, R273! Why did you do have to awaken that long-forgotten memory?

Schneider on One Day at a Time. Annoying as hell.

Julie, the wife, on Welcome Back Kotter. Woman did not know how to act.

Becky on that Olsen twins show. Same as Julie.

Marie Schrader on "Breaking Bad". All the people that got killed, and she lives?

Forgive me if I have posted this elsewhere, but the later years of "A Different World" could be a master class of African American overacting.

Janice on Friends.

Which was too bad because that actress was really funny when she played Cynthia on Seinfeld.

Carlton the Doorman on Rhoda.

Sam on the Brady Bunch was annoying too.

Jimmy Fallon on SNL.

The first time he cracked up was kind of endearing.

After a while, his cracking up in every sketch got pathetic.

Has anyone mentioned Mr Huxtable ?

[quote]Jonathan Harris as Dr. Zachary Smith ruined "Lost in Space," was a terrible character, and a ham actor.

OMG, yes!! I tried sitting through a marathon of Lost in Space and didn't last more than three episode. So over the top campy. I just couldn't deal with him.

My picks:

Becky on Roseanne after Sarah Chalke took over. Was irritated every time she came on, and so was the audience (it actually let out an audible groan when she came back on the show after Lecy Goranson briefly returned in the last season).

I agree about Horshack on Welcome Back, Kotter, not because he was supposed to be annoying but because he and everyone else on the show were so affected with their corny and forced Borscht belt/Catskills shtick. The show was supposed to be taking place in the inner city but everyone was either aping the Marx Brothers or sounding like Henny Youngman. It was also so annoying hearing Juan Epstein gush over and over again about being a Puerto Rican Jew. Okay, we get it. You're Freddie Prinze.

I hated Goran Visnic on ER. They kept trying to make Dr. Kovac happen, and he was the most boring, useless character on the show.

Ally, Ally McBeal

I was annoyed when one character would be an asshole to another character for no reason...and it was supposed to be funny. For example, on Who's the Boss, Mona always treated her daughter Angela like crap, even though Angela let Mona live in her home.

Just remembered several more:

Tim Conway's character on McHale's Navy was so annoying. He wasn't stupid funny. He was just plain stupid and obnoxious.

Mr. Angelino and Felipe on Three's Company! I hate, hate, hated Angelino! So obnoxious, mean-spirited and uncompromising. I felt like punching him whenever he came onscreen. Felipe was irritating but at least had his funny moments.

Alice Kramden on The Honeymooners. I love the show but I did find Alice irritating at times, especially when she would do that thing of sitting arrogantly in the chair and giving Ralph the silent treatment. I understood that Ralph was an idiot and needed telling off but at times she came across as a condescending bitch who never, ever thought she could be wrong about anything and that Ralph was wrong no matter what he did.

Mr. Haney on Green Acres. OMG...so annoying. I just wanted to sock him in his lazy eye and yell, NO HE DOES NOT NEED YOUR STUPID CRAP! Leave him alone!

Okay, one more for the road: Nancy Olesen from Little House on the Prairie. "EVERYONE HATES ME! NOBODY LOVES ME!!! BOOHOOHOO!!!" Yeah, because you look like a troll and you're psycho who tried to kill a classmate by locking her in a freezer!

R283, is that Dr. Huxtable or Mr. Huxtable, his dad who looked more like his son?

R284, Goran was handsome, though!

His whiny girlfriend Abby was annoying!

R286, Mona was just plain creepy!

OMG, the woman who played the mom on Silver Spoons, Erin Grey?

She could not act if her life depended on it.

It's actually a sad thing when ex-models who can't act try to become actresses.

The female 'Friends'. Entitled, harpy, shrew, but always made out to be right in the end just because they're women.

Okay, remember "Hill Street Blues"?

That show had so many annoying characters; where do I even begin?

Frank Furillo, with his minimalist acting...he may as well have been asleep.

The annoying woman with buck teeth who played his wife...ugh! I could go on, but I shall stop right here...

R293, yes, but at least Courteney Cox had learned to act by the time she was on Friends.

You will recall that on Family Ties, when she played Alex Keaton's girlfriend Lauren, she could not act to save her life.

Similar phenomenon with Meredith Baxter Birney......she sucked big time on the show Family, but by the time she was on Family Ties, she had learned to act a little.

Any character whomis from Internal Affairs in any police procedural drama. They're always unpleasant and menacing.

R271, I feel that a lot of appealing actors/actresses were truly insufferable when they guest starred on SATC.

That show brought out the worst in people!

Dean on Supernatural.

He's a middle aged fat frau's idea of a macho man. He's sadistic, merciless, but also whiny, self-righteous and melodramatic. Even though he's impulsive and thoughtless, he never gets any comeuppance for his actions and the show always sees that he's vindicated in the end. All the major screw-ups instead get blamed on his brother and Castiel, which is odd considering they're portrayed as more cautious and planful.

Also hate that "mah family!!" attitude of his.

Eriq La Salle on E.R.

I just wanted to smack his bewildered doctor face.

Dodie from My Three Sons.

Glenn Scarpelli from One Day At A Time.

Tony Randall when he was a celeb on the 200,000 Dollar Pyramid.

Not as smart as he thought he was.

I hated the detective with the Chicago accent on NYPD Blue. Dennis Franz.

I just hate it when Chicago actors use their native accent to sound tough when they are supposed to be playing a New Yorker.

Joan Cusack did it in Working Girl, if I am not mistaken.

R299, you'd get Soul Glo all over your hands!

Leather Tuscadero.

Steve Fucking Allen and Audrey Fucking Meadows playing the characters known as themselves.

Throw Jack Paar in, too.

Fiction? Urkel (FAMILY MATTERS), JJ Evans (GOOD TIMES), Screech (SAVED BY THE BELL), Mrs. Naugatuck (MAUDE), Cliff and Clair Huxtable (I WAS A SERIAL RAPIST AND SHE WAS A SMUG BITCH).

Kimberly on Different Strokes.

Sorry you had to die young, Dana Plato.

The most irritating actor in tv history has got to be John Forsythe.

I mean, in every single show he has been in, he is annoying!

Dynasty, Charlie's Angels, To Rome With Love.......it all stinks! I haven't seen Bachelor Father, but I am sure he was annoying in that too.

I must be strange, since I actually like most of the characters everyone else seems to hate.

Jackee on 227 was vomit inducing!

Abby on Eight Is Enough.

The Most Irritating Teen award (by a mile) goes to Dana on "Homeland."

Everyone except Benson on Benson!

Why are people talking about actors when the thread is about characters?

[quote]The most irritating actor in tv history has got to be John Forsythe.

John Forsythe, the poor man's Glenn Ford...

[quote]Steve Fucking Allen and Audrey Fucking Meadows playing the characters known as themselves.

Oh, dear.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders on "White House Briefing."

One of my HUGE pet peeves is inveterate hair-flipping, shaking, or any permutation thereof. It's one reason I love actors from the 1930s-mid 60s, because even the ones with amazing hair (Carole Lombard, Gable, Hayworth, Hayward, Garfield, Rock Hudson, Dandridge) let the set hairdressers do their thing, and then, THEY LET THEIR FUCKING HAIR ALONE. They left the hair-toss for specific scenes, to delineate specific things about their character. Actors who can't seem to keep their hands out of their hair for ONE fucking hour or half-hour TV episode take me out of the moment. Every single time.

The all-time worst "My agent should get my hair its own contract" offenders:

Glenn Scarpelli, Mackenzie Phillips, and Bonnie Franklin, ODAAT

Robert Walden, Lou Grant

Tony Musante in 99% of his 70s TV shots

ALL the Facts of Life girls (and George Clooney)

Barrie Youngfellow, It's a Living

Nancy Dussault in most everything

Richard Cox in most everything until he got the fuck over himself in the mid-'90s

Dennis Fucking Boutsikaris in LITERALLY everything

George Clooney, ER and The Facts of Life

Peter Strauss in Rich Man, Poor Man: Book II

John Shea (see: Richard Cox)

Phyllicia Rashad as Claire Huxtable

Lisa Bonet in every role

Oddly enough, I always give Tony Danza a pass for inveterate hair-tossing, just because he's so darn cute, and the hair thing doesn't come off as vanity so much as insane, golden retriever energy.

John Boy and Grandma Walton

Murphy Brown on Murphy Brown.

OP thanks for mentioning Crazy Guggenheim. I still marvel at his presence on television or any public venue for that matter. Of course there were many one trick ponies in the olden days - Professor Irwin Corey , Senor Wences , Topo Gigio, Myron Cohen etc etc.

Any incarnation of the character Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory is vomit inducing. Hate the show of Sheldon as a kid also.

Ross from Friends. I hated him too.

Was Jerry Van Dyke ever amusing or entertaining ? I think not.

The worst was BJ Hunnicutt on MASH. I don't think that character ever got one genuine laugh out of me ever. The least-funny character in a comedy.

Another vote for Dr. Bellows (IDOJ), Serena (Bewitched), Emmett (Andy Griffith Show), Rebecca (Cheers) , Jay North (when he outgrew his Dennis the Menace role).

Split decision on Daphne from "Frasier". She was wonderful in the early years when she was sweet and goofy. After she married Niles, she became a bitchy shrew.

Murray Slaughter

And just to add to her hall of shame - I nominate whiny, entitled, fat and stupid Roseanne Connor.

This bitch right here. I hated his charter always whining.

Max on Hart to Hart

Cousin Geri The Facts of Life

The Ashby Twins on Y& R

Michelle Tanner and Joey Gladstone on Full House

Ross and Monica Gellar on Friends

Cousin Oliver on Brady Bunch

The little sister on the last years of Growing Pains

Someone mentioned Urkel. He was okay at first, but when he got older and they made him into "hot" Stefon Urquelle and Laura was lusting after him, that crap got old fast.

Anyone on General Hospital

John Black on DOOL

Mike Berry's character on "Are You Being Served?"

Does Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon count?

Screech

Kramer

Urkel

R330 ALL the replacement characters on Are You Being Served? were awful.

Danny Partridge. In fact, any of the Partridges.

R333 I agree about Are You Being Served. Mike Berry, Alfie Bass and Milo Sperber were awful. The only one I liked was James Hayter ( Mr. Tebbs) but he was in only a handful of episodes. Apparently he left to do a more lucrative potato chip (crisps) commercial.

R331, yes J. Fallon counts.

Man cannot conduct an interview to save his life.

R328, and while we are talking about the Facts of Life, let it be said that George Clooney was so bland and lacking in charisma on that show that one never would have predicted his current A-List status.

Pippa the Australian was pretty dang annoying on TFOL as well.

The unmarried daughter on Amen was bloody irritating too.

I totally get why people thought Steve from SATC was annoying. But I would have fucked the shit out of him. So he gets a pass from me.

Carrie Bradshaw wins this thread.

Latka Gravas on Taxi. I never got Andy Kaufman's appeal.

Luke Spencer post1995 on General Hospital. Once Tony Geary got enough control, he turned Luke from an interesting character into a disgusting deadbeat drunken loser. TG's godawful over the top acting didn't help much.

R320, agree about Murphy Brown.

But while we are at it, everyone on that show was mega-annoying from the Beauty Queen girl to the live-in painter guy.

The show sucked. Don't know how Candy Bergen won all of those Emmy awards.

Laurie from "Zoom" really irritated me.

She just seemed a little bit too into the whole Zoom shtick. Like she didn't realize how corny it was.

When the actor who played Mr. Grainger in Are You Being Served was replaced , James Hayter stepped in briefly as Mr. Tebbs. He contributed one of the great lines in the series: "I had looked forward to retiring. To Wales with my wife. To Bangor." Of course, pronunciation is essential in getting this joke.

YES! to Scarpelli in ODAAT and Janet on 3’s Co., And a big fat YES! to Eriq La Salle on E.R.

HATED Howard on Bob Newhart and Larry Tate on Bewitched - now I get a kick out of them.

Also:

Tracey Gold/Carole on Growing Pains

Grady on Sanford & Son

Ricky and his stupid fucking haircut on The Partridge Family

Skippy on Family Ties

Roy on Mickey Mouse Club (suck it, Rose!)

R347, Skippy was annoying, yes, but the producers knew not to use him too much! And Mallory was funny in her obliviousness to how much he liked her.

R340, oh Lord was Steve from SATC annoying.

What kind of accent was he going for? Yes, it made him seem like he needed Speech Therapy or a swift kick in the ass.

A great many people in "Scrubs", but especially Judy Reyes' character. You can tell from episode one that she was designed to be the shrieking voice of reason.

Gomer fucking Pyle and Barney motherfucking Fife.

BJ Hunnicut may have been annoying, but it is all Alan Alda's fault. Alda gave himself all of the good lines, so BJ seemed like a doofus.

Alda did the same thing to Wayne Rogers.

Tina Fey, Elizabeth Banks, and Tracy Morgan on 30 Rock.

I hated the red-headed kid on Different Strokes, good Lord was he awful.

"Mary Richards"

MARY!? Her spunk was taken for Grant-ed.

R318, Mackenzie's acne pocked face fascinated me.

R318, Lisa Bonet could not act to save her life! It was okay when she had the braces, but after that, no way!

Phylicia Rashad had the overacting, showing off bug. But what can you expect playing after William Cosby, Ed.D.

R318, The tv show "It's A Living" sucked beyond all suckage.

Every character was irritating.

That show only existed because some people did not yet have remotes and didn't bother to change the channel.

Garcia on Criminal Minds.

Abby on NCIS.

Mary Richards on MTM show. She was a weakling doormat who let everyone push her around including nitwit Ted Baxter. Also, Debra on Everybody Loves Raymond who treated her husband like shit and thought she was better than everyone else.

Megyn Kelly on "Megyn Kelly Today"

Barney Phyfe and Floyd the barber. Goober. And that horrible Howard character.

George Jefferson's mother always reminded me of Shari Lewis's Lamb Chop.

R167, Linda Thorson was cast in The Avengers because she was sleeping with one of the producers.

Watch it, R364, Mother Jefferson is a DL icon...actually she IS the proto-DLer.

The entire cast of Laverne and Shirley OWNS this thread.

[quote]I hated Goran Visnic on ER.

Theoretically, at least, he's not bad looking, but I can't stand his voice, and now that I've been DLing, I can't help but remember he has a headhider on his dong.

[quote]Steve from SATC annoying. What kind of accent was he going for?

David Eigenberg was born in Long Island, and his family moved to Chicaago when he was four. I don't remember "Steve from SATC," but his Chicaago eaksint on Chicaago Fire sounds passable to these ears, kind of like Bob's Wisgaansin eaksint on That '70s Show.

[quote]Special award (points for anyone remembering him) goes to the execrable Crazy Guggenheim (Frank Fontaine) turning up on Jackie Gleason. Now THAT was irritating.

My mother was crazy about Crazy, or at least about Frank Fontaine. Was "the Poor Soul" a separate character?

Little Earl on “What’s Happening!”

Vicky Stubing on “The Love Boat”

Stephanie on “All in the Family”

In fact, just about any child randomly added to a sitcom signals that the show has jumped the shark.

J.J. Evans on Good Times.

My God, where to begin. Ugly+ horrible personality + poor = chick magnet (?!?) Lazy, doesn't work, just dabbles with painting while his family is stuck in a slum. "Dy-no-MIIIIIITE!!" The hats. THE HATS! Turtleneck sweaters that emphasize his eating disordered physique. Answers the phone "Shall-ooooh?" Jealous of his gorgeous sister so constantly insults and shames her. JUST THE WORST.

When I was little I would become so stressed out by the egregious idiocy of Gilligan on [italic]Gilligan's Island[/italic] that I wondered why his fellow castaways did not execute him shortly after making landfall. I wanted him to die a painful death. Yes, I know that this would eliminate the whole premise of the show, but the situation seemed nightmarish to me instead of comical. At least Dr. Smith on [italic]Lost in Space[/italic] was funny even though he was a fuck-up.

Michael Scott on The Office.

Malcolm and his fellow Krelboynes of MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE.

That was the point of them, though.

R372, yes, JJ was ugly.

But I loved that show so much.

After watching it, I would really wish that I were Black.

Julie on Love Boat!! Ewwww!

R361, I hated the father on Everybody Loves Raymond.

No effin way was he Italian.

The sons and daughters on Grace and Frankie. I fast forward through their scenes.

Eddie Haskell was a brilliant character. I think this thread means UNINTENTIONALLY irritating.

Much as I love the show otherwise, I pretty much vote for Bubble on "AbFab:." She gives me a headache.

Tootie Ramsey from Facts of Life. It didn't help that Kim Fields' lower mandible was enlarged and off-center which caused a grating speech impediment making it difficult for her to enunciate words.

Chachi from Happy Days. That "wah-wah-wah" nonsense every time he got a hard-on made me want to throw a brick through the TV screen.

Little Andy on “Family Ties.”

Agnes Dipesto (from Moonlighting), Georgette (from The Mary Tyler Moore Show), Chrissy (from Three's Company), and Vera (from Alice). Not to mention four of TV dumbest.

R384, Chrissy was the original "jiggle" gal.

Three's Company has got to be one of the worst sitcoms ever.

It was positively creepy.

Tracy Morgan in 30 Rock. Kramer on Seinfeld.

I’m rewatching ABC’s ODD MAN OUT from 2000 (don’t ask) and the young actresses playing the ‘sister’ roles are all so grating. The eldest is meant to be a garden-variety cheersquad bitch but comes across as a sociopath, the middle one is a screeching bully who is also a closet-case (her great loves are turkey sandwiches, Sarah McLachlan and playing the oboe), and the baby one is just a smarmy little worm.

DGMW Erik Von Detten was no great shakes as an actor, but at least his one single note was appealing.

Matthew Perry on Friends.

Nah, Phoebe on Friends.

Her airhead, crappy guitar playing schtick got tired pretty quickly, especially as she got closer to 40.

Carla Tortelli OWNS this thread!

Dr. Natalie Manning on Chicago Med. Insufferable cunt.

Star Jones

Morven Christie in ANYTHING- Grantchester, The Replacement, The A-Word.

R391, I don't know, it's a toss up with Sarah Reese, the world's worst girlfriend, doctor, psychiatrist, daughter, human. Doesn't help that the actress playing her is so godawful.

I find Dr. Bekker the most annoying presence on Chicago Med. Does every operation have to be a death match between her and Dr. Rhodes? I think Natalie is crazy, putting Will off the way she does, but they keep them apart as long as they can. It's television 101. But keeping them apart has become as boring as letting couples get together too soon.

Yes! There are some annoying bitches on Chicago Med with the 3 biggest ones being Natalie, Sarah Reese and Bekker. The men on the other hand are portrayed as sympathetic and cool. The writers must hate women or something.

If Chicago Med made any sense at all, Will and Connor would be a couple.

R25, What?! Did you READ the OP??

Carol Burnett on Mama's Family. All she did was screech.

Buddy Hackett

Dorian on OLTL. Very hard to watch the scenes in which she wasn't encased in glass. Her scenes with Mel or David were especially awful.

[quote] Janice on Friends.

Just me, or was she intended to be rip-off/partially inspired by/making fun of Fran Drescher/Fran Fine? (who had appeared on tv landscape one year earlier). They sorta looked alike, sometimes dressed alike (animal prints)....and definitely SOUNDED alike, with the annoying laugh.

What would the point of a Fran Fine-ripoff been, r402? Jappy Janice was a New York archetype in her own right.

Urkel. Written to be annoying and succeeds beyond their fondest hopes.

R402, R403, either way, I loathed Fran Drescher on her show.

I cannot understand people who liked that show.

Okay, Mr. Sheffield was handsome. But that's it.

How about Cpl. Klinger on MASH?

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard on Dark Shadows!

She was always flubbing her lines!

R404, Dwayne Wayne on A Different World was almost as bad as Urkel.

Then in later seasons, he became Mr. Cool, Big Man On Campus, which must qualify as jumping the shark!

Chang on Community

Stanford on S&TC

The kid on The Dick Van Dyck Show from the 60s. I was watching it the other day on Netflix, and it's distracting. He shouted all his lines, and his voice is grating.

While we are on SATC, Charlotte became really annoying in later seasons.

Perhaps it wasn't the character, but rather that the actress playing her was limited in her acting skills.

R410, interesting point.

It appears, at times, that later tv shows did a better job of finding talented child actors!

A few people who were annoying in any role: Ted Knight, Jerry Van Dyke, Lucille Ball, Tim Conway.

One Day at a Time: Ann Romano, Schneider, Julie

Green Acres: Everyone but Mr. Haney and Arnold. The county agent - I would rather drive nails into my eyeballs than watch him.

Everyone on Everyone Loves Raymond. No they don't.

Steve Harvey, his talk show, hosting gigs; tolerable on Family Feud.

Kelly Ripa, Ryan Secrist, Andy Cohen hosting or appearing in anything.

Monroe on Too Close for Comfort.

Laverne and Shirley, plus Laverne's dad. Everyone else was tolerable, but the show has not held up well over time. No nostalgia there.

Everyone on Happy Days.

Ashton Kutcher on Two and a Half Men.

Everyone on Two Broke Girls. Awful show.

Victor Newman (TGVN), Young & the Restless

Wendy Williams

Aunt Fran on Mama's Family, plus Vinton's two kids from the first couple of seasons. Carol Burnett was annoying, but Eunice was supposed to be a pain in the ass (as was Mama - depending upon the episode).

Fran Fine, the Nanny. Awful.

Sofia Vergara, who must have graduated from the Charo School of Acting.

Gomer and Goober from Andy Griffith Show, plus other shows.

Entire cast of Three's Company, especially Mr. Roper, Chrissy, and Mr. Furley.

Entire cast of Roseanne, seasons where she owned the Lunch Box to the end. Mean is not funny.

SATC, Friends, The View, The Talk, The Real, everyone on Fox News.

Most irritating character in TV (or any) History - Donald Trump.

R413,

Two Broke Girls is vile.

[quote] I loathed Fran Drescher on her show. I cannot understand people who liked that show.

I liked it, but not enough to know if I've seen every episode. I can find that accent annoying, but Fran was always funny. I did not find Janice from Friends even a little bit funny.

R415, I know.

Janice on Friends was tiresome right away, and they kept bringing her back.

I thought Carol Burnett was brilliant as Eunice.

That sketch was ahead of its time! The word "dysfunctional" was not yet in everyone's vocab!!

[quote]The word "dysfunctional" was not yet in everyone's vocab!!

Now, those were the good old days.

R418, yup.

Sometimes ignorance IS bliss!

Lieutenant Horatio Caine in CSI Miami. Those fucking sunglasses on all the time and that languid tone and he's a fucking know all.

Screech

R420, and D. Caruso was exactly the same on NYPD Blue.

He lets the red hair do all of the acting.

drug dealer to the stars no-talent Tim Allen

Big Bang Theory's Raj.

Dodie on "My Three Sons"

R287 Unfortuately, Mr. Haney looks and sounds just like Ted Cruz. He probably isn't any smarter with his con shtick either.

R340 He was naked in "Take Me Out" on Broadway, and he was very hot indeed. He did yell a lot of his dialogue though in the same manner.

Larry Matthews was pretty bad on the "Dick van Dyke Show". However, I disagree with Larry Mondello's character on "Leave It to Beaver". He's supposed to be weird kid with a bizarre shrew of a mother in contrast to Beaver, and he comes off as a very natural, unshowy, uncute character.

Mr. Haney and Mr. Kimball from "Green Acres" are both annoying. Eb was supposed to be, but he was rather endearing, kind of like a less pretty Jethro.

Mrs. Drysdale on the "Beverly Hillbillies', but she is supposed to be irritating, and Harriet McGibbons plays her to the hilt. She's a DL icon who'd be right at home here as ... well, Granny (who I love).

R425, and there were entire episodes dedicated to Dodie!

Like, the rest of the cast took the week off and it was just 23 1/2 minutes of DODIE!

She frightened me.

Melane Hutsel was annoying on SNL.

She was the only cast member who flubbed her lines!

[quote]Veronica Hastings on Pretty Little Liars

In the early seasons of that show, I couldn't stand Pam Fields who was played by that cunt Nia Peeples. But, over time Veronica annoyed the most,

R430 I guess you haven't seen current cast member Leslie Jones performs. She flubs her in lines in most sketches.

[quote]I totally get why people thought Steve from SATC was annoying. But I would have fucked the shit out of him. So he gets a pass from me.

Steve's cutesy Betty Boop intonation when he spoke put me off my boner.

Billy on Six Feet Under

Every character in the Anerican QAF, but esp the two lesbians.

I wanted to kick Melanie in the cunt bone at least 3x per episode. Justin too.

R432, no I don't really watch the show any more.

I don't care for Leslie Jones.

I feel like the cast members on SNL are more talented than ever, but that the writing is often not up to par. I mean, in general.

Who was the most irritating character on Girls?

I mean, besides all of them?

Mary, Kate, and Ashley were really irritating on Full House! I know that there were only two of them, I'm just funnin' y'all.

But , really, those two kids were not terribly good actresses. The girl who played Stephanie (and later became a meth addict) was much better.

R438, here again.

The young lady who played Stephanie on Full House was Jodie Sweetin.

Didn't want you to think I was too lazy to Google her name.

Also, while we are bitching about SNL, Tina Fey deserves to be taken to task.

She was the first SNL Weekend Update newsreader who started laughing at her own jokes.

Now they all do it, and it sucks.

The straight face delivery of the originals, Chevy Chase, and Jane Curtin was far more humorous.

The main cast of Law and Order SVU. Benson, Carisi, Rollins, Barba. All annoying.

Joey on Friends really annoyed me at first.

Later, I realized that the actor had talent. It takes smarts to play stupid!

All I can say is, you people have wasted your life watching MOSTLY shitty television.

That sneering kid, Zach, from The Strain. I've never hated a child so much. He basically kills thousands of people, including people close to him and his family, because he's a pathetic momma's boy who can't get over the fact that his mom got turned into a vampire.

The two Gilmore girls, the talking never stops. It's like listening to someone in the midst of a manic episode.

Not just talking but endless quips. I was miserable after five minutes and never watched again.

I wanted to watch Gilmore Girls because of Elaine, but I just couldn't. Lauren Graham is especially awful.

And has a reputation for being a total bitch too. Hated her on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" too though she was still better than Elizabeth Perkins (can only play a cunt always) and Elizabeth Banks (not a funny bone in her body).

R443, indeed.

That's why I no longer watch TV.

Jane Krakowski's character Elaine on Ally McBeal. She was much better at this type of character in subsequent shows (30 Rock, Kimmy Schmidt).

Wesley and Troi from Star Trek The Next Generation.

Diane Chambers on "Cheers." Absolutely insufferable, she still wins the love of handsome, likable Sam Malone. They hate each other, but they love each other. Their union was one of the most annoying in tv history and was the prototype for the excruciating relationship between Brenda and Nate on "Six Feet Under." She's "smarter" than him and although their relationship is torturous they still can't stay away from each other. They were an X-rated Sam and Diane.

Aunt Bea and Barney Fife from "The Andy Griffith Show." Both were unbearable in their own ways and Andy was frequently doing things to see that their feelings didn't get hurt, which was very annoying.

ALL of the characters on every Shonda Rimes show ever created.

Kes from Star Trek Discovery.

R451, I have to disagree. I loved Diane Chambers.

She was beautiful, she was intellectual, she was a fool, and she knew it.

And each of the five years she was on the show, her dynamic with Sam was a little different.

R450, Ally McBeal started out okay. It was new and it was kind of clever.

But by the third year, it was impossible to watch. I didn't stick around for the RDJ days.

And I have never seen boobs bigger than those on the best friend Renee on Ally McBeal.

"She was beautiful, she was intellectual, she was a fool, and she knew it."

I never got the impression she "knew" she was a fool. She seemed to think highly of herself, certainly considered herself "better" than Sam. Actually, Sam was too good for her. She was a royal pain in the ass. She seemed much more suited to Frazier. The relationship with Sam was torturous. John Cleese had a memorable guest role on "Cheers" where he played an expert marriage counselor; after giving Sam and Diane and brief quiz he abruptly told them "not only should you too not get married you should probably never see each other again." He was right. That's the thing I could never stand about "Cheers", that horrid Sam and Diane couplings. They were lot more interesting when they WERE'NT "in love."

R456, hmm, okay, perhaps she didn't know she was a fool.

But she was aware that she was "underemployed" at Cheers, but she couldn't leave the place. She somehow felt comfortable there, even though she knew she was not quite one of them. In the 1980s, I could very much relate to that.

I mean, yeah, she was physically attracted to Sam. To Frazier, not so much.

To each his own, but I loved the Diane years. I have not watched the show lately, so I am not sure what my reaction would be today!

The John Cleese ep of Cheers was wonderful!

Marcella on Marcella.

[quote]She seemed much more suited to Frazier.

[quote]I mean, yeah, she was physically attracted to Sam. To Frazier, not so much.

Oh dear god. If you’re going to discuss me on your nugatory little board, at least get my name correct you imbeciles!

Thanks, Dr. Crane. Just learned a new word from you!

Come at me, but Willow Rosenberg. There isn't a real-world hacker-girl alive who comes over that way.

I'm a lesbian and I couldn't stand her. If Whedon wanted a lead heroine with stuttering, cute-appeal shtick he should have bumped Tara into the lieutenant spot next to Buffy. At least Amber Benson was believable, and the Tara character had a reason to be painfully shy and awkward (she had psychologically abusive parents).

Lucy's mother on I Love Lucy.

Another vote for Tootie.

The bitter Mr. Tanner on ALF.

The twins on the Hogan Family.

Alison and Jane on Melrose Place. Heroines shouldn't put me in a coma of irritation. At least one of them should have been killed off.

The fat dad on Just the Ten of Us. Those plain parents did not produce all those cute girls!

Sami on DOOL. Never should have been more than a supporting antagonist.

Most irritating in TV history, had I to choose from above:

Jane Mancini of Melrose Place.

R464, girl could not act.

Anything associated with KC Martel or Jimmy Baio

r459 What the hell is "Marcella?"

Mrs. Macgillicuddy on ILL

Alice's mother on The Honeymooners

Dee on What's Happening!

I watched a few episodes of Big Bang back to back and realized Sheldon's an asshole, he's not autistic or quirky or any of those other traits he's been described as.

Matt from "Nip/Tuck" -- a witless, surly, selfish, emotionally retarded, worthless human tumor who never made a decent decision and made the lives of everyone around him miserable. The series always had these adult vamps dropping their panties for him, which made me cringe.

THAT girl!

People hated on Fran Drescher/Fran Fine, and her mom Sylvia.....but Grandma Yetta was the shit!!

Lucy Ricardo and Ethel. I hated how you had to sit through almost 30 minutes of comedy, so at the end you could hear Ricky sing.

Michael Scott from The Office was supposed to be irritating, but I found Jim to be a sanctimonious git. I also thought the black guy who moved up from the loading dock should have been fired for the way he talked to Michael. Tobie the HR guy was more like the gentle, whipped guys who used to be "Personnel" and not like the modern HR sort (crazy Jan to a T) but the rest of The Office characters were funny except for Andy, who was over used, and I didn't care for any of the bosses after Michael, since they were realistic.

[quote]but I found Jim to be a sanctimonious git.

A what?

[quote]Tobie the HR guy was more like the gentle, whipped guys who used to be "Personnel" and not like the modern HR sort (crazy Jan to a T)

Even his name was wimpy: Toby Flenderson!

[quote]but the rest of The Office characters were funny [bold]except for Andy[/bold], who was over used, and I didn't care for any of the bosses after Michael, since they were realistic.

Completely agree.

Hated Andy on the Office and Ed Helms Frankensteined his way through the show.

I hated Willow Rosenberg, too. Not only was her voice and manner unbearably irritating, she was homely as a horse, too. And I never understood why she inexplicably turned gay. Was it being the girlfriend of a werewolf that made her change over to pussy? And despite her homely face and annoying personality she manages to attract lesbians lovers who are much more attractive than she is. Despite BTVS being filled with demons and vampires and assorted monsters of all kinds, I found the fact that Willow could be seen as sexually attractive was the most unbelievable aspect of the show.

[quote] I never understood why she inexplicably turned gay. Was it being the girlfriend of a werewolf that made her change over to pussy?

This annoyed me too R477. From my hazy recollection (having not watched 'Bad Moon Rising' and other relevant BtVS episodes for about 10 years) the explanation for Willow's change of heart was nothing to do with Oz and his lycanthropy problem; in her words she simply that in his absence she fell out of love with Oz and "grew up" into loving Tara instead, with the subtext that because she had found magick she had found her own 'inner power' and so didn't need to live that experience vicariously through Oz anymore. If memory serves Oz was as confused and upset by this weak, vague bullshit as this viewer. The resolution to that arc did a disservice to Oz's character in this way, sending him off with a dismissive wave like his emotional journey was totally meaningless compared to Willow's and that their whole relationship was pointless filler. What was worse, writers also did nothing to build Tara as a credible substitute for Oz thereafter and outright ignored her growth in later seasons which in turn discredited lesbian viewers of BtVS. Willow ate those characters whole and subsumed any and all interesting developments happening around her character.

Joss Whedon, for all his virtue-signalling, is fucking horrible when it comes to writing believably about female sexuality. He can't grasp its mutability nor its immense complexity, and in his scripts he usually boils the experience down to expedience (see Buffy's mind-numbing S7 arc with Spike, or Inara's paper-thin geisha role on FIREFLY). In retrospect it's blatantly obvious that Willow's turn to Tara for sex & love suited Whedon's fell purposes (sweeps? kudos? titillation?) more than it served Willow's character arc or the BtVS storyline. Whedon gets far too much undue praise for too little quality representation when it comes to women on tv.

And most galling of all is the insistence from almost all quarters that Willow was always a 'gay' or 'lesbian' character. Since when is a sometime-bisexual woman with internalised homophobia (see: Dark Willow) a 'proud lesbian icon'? Even if she weren't an infantilised and cartoonish Pixie Girl character with no redeeming qualities to speak of, this undeserved moniker would still be insulting. At best Willow was a halfway-interesting tortured-bisexual character who stood for the pains of a maturing little girl.

Looking back I preferred both Oz & Tara as BtVS characters, and would have preferred to see them in the place of Xander & Willow. Tara's sexuality notwithstanding (a trait I wouldn't necessarily change) these two would have made a good couple, too; moreso than Xander & Will. Benson & Green had better chemistry.

I always figured Tara put a love spell on Willow. It's the only explanation why a girl who was 100 percent straight suddenly turned 100 percent gay for such an unattractive, gratingly dull mouseburger.

Tessa Thompson on Westworld. One note character and that note is smug.

[quote] I always figured Tara put a love spell on Willow.

R479 if you watched 'Once More With Feeling' closely, it's clear from Tara's song 'Under Your Spell' that at some point Willow hexed Tara with a love/lust spell to stop her from restraining Willow's escalating abuse of magic. "You worked your charm so well...", "you make me believe".....urk.

Also, Amber Benson is beautiful and Tara was too. How anyone figures her less attractive than geeky mouthbreathing Willow is beyond me.

Bumping this thread.

Actresses who couldn't act early in their career, but improved:

Meredith Baxter Birney was awful on "Family" but quite good on "Family Ties."

Courteney Cox was awful on "Family Ties" but greatly improved and quite funny on "Friends."

Tracey Pollan was not very good on "Family Ties." Glad she got a marriage out of it.

That bearded guy on the new "A Million Little Things" looks like an early contender for Most Irritating.

The 2nd Gladys Kravitz. She was nosy, but also mean-spirited--and not that funny. The first, Alice Pearce, was just nosy, but hilarious.

Hey R423, don't talk about my dad like that.

R329 I didn't mind Michelle Tanner once she grew up from a drooling infant.

Personally I thought Stephanie was more of a pest, in the first seasons especially. DJ was the tolerable sister.

Robert California from the office. All the other characters were at least recognizable as people you might meet in a middle American suburban office. He was from a completely different comedic universe and it didn't work at all. His character might have worked in a more "surreal "comedy but it just bombed in the office. Though I will admit, I have never cared for James Spader.

The entire fucking cast of modern family. I have a special disgust and animus towards Ed o Neill. He reminds me of every embittered, rage filled suburban right wing man I have ever met. It really shines through in his characters. I don't like Claire either, too much of a cunty type A suburban Frau. The slutty ,snide Teen daughter is also off putting.

I couldn't stand Alice Kramden on The Honeymooners. She came across as a ball busting, sanctimonious bitch who never thought she was wrong about anything.

Latka Gravas and his annoying wife on Taxi. I know that's sacrilege (what with Andy Kaufman being a legend and all and Latka meant to be so cute and innocent), but I found him irritating.

And sorry, but I found Henry on Alice annoying for the same reason. He's another one of these overly cute and innocent character that we were all supposed to instantly love just for being cute.

Lastly, Levitt on Barney Miller, who added absolutely nothing to the cast whatsoever.

The too cutesy character of Cousin Balky on Perfect Strangers. I can’t believe he hasn’t been mentioned yet but DL probably gives Bronson Pinchot a pass because the eldergays here wanted to fuck him in the 80s.

Watching the original Dynasty for the first time and I hate Matthew and Claudia's daughter. Don't know her name but she is annoying.

Kelly Garrett. And Lilibet.

Richard Kind is always being foisted on us, as if there is some sort of deal that the shows he appears on would not be made unless he was included, although he adds nothing and wouldn't be missed if he suddenly disappeared.

Murphy Brown cannot believe it's back and hope it goes the way of hateful Roseanne who I used to love Chachi because that untalented stupid scott baio played him All of the characters on Seinfeld were insufferable and unrealistic to me Magnum PI Raymond of Everybody Loves Tim Allen a real tool

Deb, from the show "Dexter". I hated her and her potty mouth.

The kid with no neck and the screechy voice from [italic]The Middle.[/italic] I think his character name is Rock or Brick or something.

Chrissy Snpe from THREE'S COMPANY.

Pointless, useless character, just (probably fake) tits and ass basically and a bad blonde dye job

And that Suzanne Somers person was a terrible actress and her pussy stank!

R497, Three's Company was one of the most vile shows of the 1970s.

Really , after I watched it, I felt like I needed to take a shower.

One joke, that's it.

And John Ritter, normally an appealing actor, could not even rise above the show's horrible writing.

Suzanne whateverhername is is the original T and A actress.

Joyce Dewhatever - just blah.

NOBODY wanted to fuck Bronson Pinchot .Nobody. He was hilarious on several things,but I hated Perfect Strangers as much as Bosom Buddies.

Bosom Buddies with Tom Hanks? That was actually pretty funny, even though it did not deserve to be.

I was a teenager when Bosom Buddies and Perfect Strangers first aired in the 80s. I remember Bosom Buddies as being fairly well received. Perfect Strangers, on the other hand, was pure dreck.

I was a teenager when Perfect Strangers aired

I definitely think Charlotte was the annoying one on SATC, so prissy.

Also on six feet under I kind of felt like I should find Lisa annoying but I really didn't - I love Lili Taylor so maybe that helped. On the same show I found Brenda equal parts annoying and very very watchable - I think the actress somehow managed to make me like her despite some of her worst qualities. She seemed to look down on Nate for not being like her 'intellectual' family, which is one of the things I didn't like.

* The actress being Rachel Griffiths of course.

I very occasionally watch Hollyoaks and find Ste and Scott so very very annoying. Ste seems to have had one expression - gormless - for over ten years, which Scott also seems to have also picked up and very much made his own.

Sheldon and also Young Sheldon.

Cora on Downton Abbey.

Great thread - love the humor !!

Everyone on every Shonda Rimes show ever created

Everyone on "Sex and the City"

Ann Romano and her crazy daughter Julie on "One Day At A Time"

J. J.. Willona and Sweet Daddy on "Good Times."

Everyone but Sam Malone in "Cheers"

Alex P. Keaton and his dumb sister Mallory on "Family Ties"

Barney Fife and Aunt Bea on "The Andy Griffith Show"

Arnold in "Diff'rent Strokes"

Faye Furrillo, Joyce Davenport, and Grace Gardner on "Hill Street Blues"

Guinan on "Star Trek:The Next Generation:

Any character on "The Walking Dead" who stops the others from killing by saying, "That's not who we are", and then one of them dies because they didn't protect themselves. It's a trait the writers pass around to many of the characters, regardless of how the character has thought and behaved in the past: Morgan, Carol, Jesus, Tyreese, Carl, etc.

OMG - Captaiin Furillo on Hill Street Blues.

I hated Daniel Travanti's way of acting. It was like, " I will enunciate my lines in a hushed whisper, and you will consider it great acting."

Good Times was a great show.

I would watch it on Wed. nights and kind of wish I was Black.

R502, Kristin Davis AKA Charlotte from SATC cannot act. Plain and simple.

A whole bunch of the folks from Melrose Place can't act. So you need to watch out when they appear on other shows.

Heather Locklear was okay; she is the exception to the rule.

Haven't read this thread. Can someone tell me if this is a Bonnie Franklin thread or a TV general thread. Thanks.

Every thread on DL can easily turn into a Bonnie Franklin or Linda Lavin thread.

Carly Tenney

But has it, R514. I don't want to bother reading this if it's just a general TV thread, but I do if it's a Bonnie Franklin thread.

Castiel from Supernatural has ruined the show for me.

Sarah Bunting, Downton Abbey

Susan MacClare (Flintshire?), Downton Abbey

Edna Braithwaite, Downton Abbey

Vera Bates, Downton Abbey

Bonnie Franklin would have been especially irritating on Downton Abbey!

Dammit, Dowager, I thought I told you contribute to the war effort weeks ago.

Could they make her a lace cowl-neck sweater? Or would she just not wear a bra in a polyester but more period-appropriate in style high-necked number?

Rhoda.

“Alright, Dowager, luv...DON’T COME HOME.”

(R518) I hate the way Julian Fellowes seemed to make every politically-inclined working-class character annoying and/or hypocritical. Sarah Bunting was absolutely right in what she said but she was written so you would hate her. The writing implies that he's a classist twat tbh.

The film he wrote before Downton - Gosford Park, is very very good though and there is an implicit critique of the class-based oppression inherent in the system. Unfortunately for Downton to work the aristos had be 'nice' and implausible beneficent to their staff, and someone of the 'lower orders' who made an effort to change the system itself (rather than just their place within it), which we were meant to, at least as the dominant response, sympathise with Lady Mary in wishing to preserve, was portrayed very badly.

Megan Parker, little sister of Nickelodeon's 'Drake & Josh'.

Her absurd impossible pranks & schemes were cruel more than funny, and never had any discernible point other than just to fuck with the titular boys for her own amusement. She also had no character arc, few traits besides sociopathy/evil genius and rarely had anything to add to dialogue beside complaints or obvious exposition. Miranda Cosgrove did well in the role and sold the character though, despite how limited and unnecessary Megan really was.

Also, she was always interrupting Drake & Josh in their room or on their nights alone together. Major cockblock.

Grandma Walton from The Waltons, always shouting at the kids and grumbling. Yes she was meant to be caring and matronly but she came across as a misery who could never be pleased or happy.

John-Boy - bossy, wanted to rule the other kids, know-it-all, smug, ass-licker

Miss Sada Thompson, matriarch of the old [italic]Family[/italic] TV series. I assume somehow she was supposed to be lovable and caring, but she always carried a sour facial expression as if she had a turd on her upper lip. She came off as a cuntessa supreme.

R504 for me watching Ste really put into perspective how great Craig Dean was.

I hated Craig to start with, both as a straight boy and a questioning teen. I thought he was so pesky and unlikeable through most of his main arc. Then he came back all cool and contrite and sexy for that return storyline in '08 and like everyone else I did a 180 on him. Looking back Guy Burnett did a fantastic job portraying Craig as a flawed man and evolving him at a realistic pace over the years, a growth that just never happened with Kieron/Ste.

Joffrey and Sansa

The whiny, pompous Ross Geller.

Oh god I was obsessed with JP and Craig (R528) - I thought the whole thing was really realistic and well-handled. In fact there are only two storylines that I think Hollyoaks have done very well over the years and that's Luke's rape story at the end of the 90s , which was really sensitive and nuanced and showed a complex and realistic character response and development over a long period, with him coming to terms with what had happened and giving evidence, and the Craig and JP affair, with the initial storyline going on for over a year IIRC and then craig's return later. It's like they took all the good writing and acting they could muster and threw it at those two storylines.

JP pushing Craig into having a baby with a surrogate a couple of years later was unfortunately terrible and completely unrealistic, like really bad fanfic, so they kind of let themselves down again there.

Alton Brown

Florence in "The Jefferson." Her voice was enough to make you want to kill her. She was the "sassy female negro" type, like Willona on "Good Times." I thought it was a racial stereotype but some people found it vastly mausing.

R530, I wanted to hate Ross Geller, but he was actually kind of funny.

His put downs of Chandler and Joey were amusing.

R533, Florence was funny! You are crazy.

(I mean that with love. Sort of.)

Oh, and, R533, what does "mausing"mean? Amusing? Nauseating?

"Florence was funny! You are crazy."

Not crazy. I just don't find the "Sassy Female Negro" stereotype funny.

R537, okay, I don't like offensive stereotypes either.

I just don't find that Florence or Willona necessarily fit that category.

I mean, The Jeffersons and Good Times were well-written shows with complex characters........

To each his own, though.

Brit comedy Peep Show. Sophie. The marriage disaster with Mark, the way she came between Mark and Dobby, "stealing" a baby off Mark.

"I mean, The Jeffersons and Good Times were well-written shows with complex characters........"

Who was "complex" on the Jeffersons? They all seemed very simplistic comedic types to me. I can't think of anyone "complex" on "Good Times", either. They were all broadly drawn characters. Comedy really doesn't lend itself very well to "complex" personalities.

R537, Really? Ain't nobody got time for that!

[quote]Another one who was both intentionally and unintentionally irritating: Steve Zahn in "Treme."

YES!!!! He was so out of place.

The entire cast of "Thirty Something" The entire cast of "Northern Exposure"

Dr. Oz.

Dr. Phil.

[quote]The entire cast of "Northern Exposure"

Especially Maggie. And Chris' voice.

[quote]Miss Sada Thompson, matriarch of the old Family TV series. I assume somehow she was supposed to be lovable and caring, but she always carried a sour facial expression as if she had a turd on her upper lip. She came off as a cuntessa supreme.

It was constipation.

Stuart on Eastenders.

Scott Bakula in any role.

What bullshit! Scott Bakula was great. And a hot daddy to die for.

R540, Okay. you are right I guess.

But I liked both of those shows and thought they were well-written. And Norman Lear is an uber-liberal, so I am pretty sure he did not mean to trade in negative African-American stereotypes.

Rhoda's gnome-like mother.

Everyone on "The Goldbergs" except George Segal, and especially the younger brother who has the most annoying voice since Lacey Chabert on "Party of Five." At least Lacey outgrew her annoying voice. That kid not so much.

Ricky Seagull

R531 yes, the JP/Craig love story was beautiful and melodramatic but grounded enough to make sense. Tbh watching it again 12 years on the insane angst about them being gay & bi respectively is completely off the scale, but back then it really did seem that scary to come out especially for young people in insular communities. While Craig wasn't really a "good" person or even a likeable one sometimes given his penchant for almost pathological lies and his outre selfish streak, he was very well-realised and emotionally easy to connect with (I even felt desperately sorry for him in certain episodes). I also think that pairing him with JP, a traditionally "good" character in soap terms (in spite of his many flaws), made for excellent storytelling and character development - JP forced Craig to grow up and develop empathy/honesty/selflessness, while Craig in his turn got JP to face the fact that he has a dark jealous manipulative side to him just like Craig. While both were frustrating people to watch in a lot of ways, neither were annoying like Brendan or Ste came to be.

I think they worked so well and got such great audience response in part because they were earmarked for each other from JP's introduction, but they had a subtle slow-burn build from friendship to romance. People liked their chemistry and interaction even when they were just mates, so it was a treat to see them fall in love. One of my favourite lines from their story is the very first words spoken between them, JP with his headphones still in chiding Craig "if you're looking for the way out [of class detention], this isn't it".

[quote] JP pushing Craig into having a baby with a surrogate a couple of years later was unfortunately terrible and completely unrealistic, like really bad fanfic, so they kind of let themselves down again there.

Word. It felt very rushed and gratuitous, especially as no other character ever mentioned the progression of their relationship to that level until JP came back. That being said, their son was very cute and I can see why someone like JP (from an enormous family, teacher by trade) would badly want a child with his partner. In the end I'm actually glad JP got on that plane to Singapore last year and got them back together as a family. I have nothing against fanservice done right so I'm thinking Christmas cameo from the family unit in 2020....?

[quote]I just don't find the "Sassy Female Negro" stereotype funny.I just don't find the "Sassy Female Negro" stereotype funny.

How on earth was she a stereotype? She was just a snarky maid cut from the same cloth as Hazel.

"She was just a snarky maid cut from the same cloth as Hazel."

Lazy, combative Florence was not one bit like Hazel.

Ann Marie.

As a little gayling, I always watched That Girl and liked her but now, in retrospect, she seems insufferable.

Skyler on "Breaking Bad".

The entire cast of scrubs. Most of cast of west wing. All of the cast of studio on the sunset strip.

Rosie on the american version of The Slap - she is beyond annoying - a whiny self-righteous snob with a victim complex and a really shit parent who blames everything on other people. It's so unrealistic that her friends (Aisha and Anouk) would bother with her at all. Honestly, she is the most annoying character ever.

General Hospital: Nelle, Oscar, Spencer.

SONNY KIRIAKIS on Days of Our Lives. Played by Freddie Smith. Bleh. Not a good actor and a worse character whose appeal to the beautiful Will Horton is a mystery to me.

Everyone in any Reality TV show.

R558, I enjoyed that show too back in the day.

And know what? Ann Marie and Don Hollinger never had sex!

I always felt Ted Baxter was the weakest link in the MTM "chain".

Danny was okay, but he got way too much air time on the Partridge Family.

Has this been said already?

You had to hate Abby (Betty Buckley) on Eight is Enough.

Others have commented on R. Williams' mugging on Mork and Mindy and his annoying persona on that show.

Rest in peace, Robin Williams, but that guy really had no business being in a sitcom. Did not know how to be an ensemble player.

I saw him when he guested on SNL in the 80s and he was hamming it up and trying to upstage all the cast!

It was both tiresome and pitiful.

DR. SMITH on the original Lost in Space owns this thread. Not only was he a simpering dreadful sissy gay stereotype, he couldn't act, and he ruined a wonderful high concept adventure series, the most expensive tv series ever produced up until that time. Think of the fantastic stories and many shots of handsome Don and John we could have had.

Btw Florence was great. The Jefferson's is the only Lear show that was any good.

The Bob Newhart Show - His sister Ellen, played by an actress who I believe was the producer's wife at the time. When they paired her up with Bill Daley, they became the "Ted and Georgette" of the show.

r571 No. Pat Finley was also the infamous Twinks Tvedt on MTM (also "Sparkle" in another episode.) She wasn't married to a producer.

r568 - Betty Buckley and Grant Goodeve were just about the only ones who were tolerable on that show.

R573, Grant Goodeve was too OLD to be on that show!

Some of you bitches shouldn't be allowed televisions, books or sharp objects at your group home.

[quote] Florence was funny

She was the best thing about the Jeffersons!

GEORGE: Florence! That's the door!

FLORENCE: (looks at door) It sho is. (Sits down on couch, picks up newspaper.)

Lady Edith on Downton Abbey.

Lady Edith was fine. The only dreadful character was schoolmarm Miss Bunting altho Daisy became very annoying.

Hawkeye Pierce has to be up there with Dr. Smith for irritating characters.

BJ Hunnicutt gets an honorable mention for carrying Hawkeye's Pierce's jockstrap for the duration of the series.

R579, MASH has a shitload of annoying characters:

Hawkeye, BJ, Radar, the cross dressing guy (sorry, he's too annoying for me to Google his name.)

Schneider on ODAAT.

[R580] I gave up on MASH during the fourth year. By then, Radar, Frank and Hot Lips joined the unwatchable list.

I like the Schneider on the new ODAAT. Much easier on the eyes and more than a one-note character.

R582, yep, not to mention Winchester.

r53 I'd eat that pussy.

"Star Trek" - Nurse Chapel.

Majel Barret, one of Gene Roddenberry's mistresses, enough said.

The "Sure, Jan" bitch.

Zooey Deschanel on new Girl, or in anything for that matter. James spader on the office as the character Robert California. What made the character so unpleasant and weird was that he seemed to be occupying a different universe than the other characters in the office. Jarring and uncomfortable but not funny.

R587, The two Brady Bunch movies were great fun, but only if you are old enough to remember the original TV show from the 1970s.

Chuck Todd

Michelle Tanner owns this thread

The Gilmore Girls: The Gilmore girls, Sookie and her husband. Luke's sister, and pretty much the rest of the cast minus Lorelei's parents and Luke.

Mona on Who's The Boss? was nauseating.

Horny, face-lifted grandmother?

Yuck.

That whole show was nauseating. I hope they never reboot it.

I couldn't stand the dad on "Everybody Loves Raymond." He didn't seem Italian!

Actually the whole show was a disappointment. I would always wait for it to get funny, and it didn't.

R594, I am not a fan of these reboots of 80s shows like M. Brown and the Roseanne Show!

The only thing Peter Boyle did on "Raymond" was popularize the word "crap" in everyday usage. Not that it was unheard of before, but it is a vulgarity that people seem to think is acceptable for any occasion now.

Fonzie

Joannie on Eight is Enough. Yee gads - a local actress whose flair for the dramatic was constant.

In the later reunions she had became an international movie star married to a hot French guy. Yeah, right.

r599, yes, that was laughable! The only thing more ridiculous than that was gathering for the dad's 50th birthday on one of those reunion shows, when Dick Van patten was well into his 60s!