TV Themes Countdown

#22

The Twilight Zone

(The Original Series)

Great Television Characters

#3 Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman) NewsRadio

NewsRadio was a wonderful ensemble sit-com (even Andy Dick was bearable) but the show still belonged to one man: Bill McNeal- the egocentric co-news anchor for radio station WNYX. Clearly suffering from a bad childhood with a lot of sad and painful memories what he would describe as "good times, good times", he usually had an unorthodox relationship with other people and he did occasionly show traces of kindness. Phil Hartman's death in 1998 meant the proceeding fifth season was the last because it just didn't have the same magic without Hartman, despite being replaced by Jon Lovitz. Bill McNeal I salute you.

Great Television Characters

#3

George Costanzo

Played by Jason Alexander

in Seinfeld

Following on from last weeks Frank Burns is Seinfeld's George Costanza, another character lacking in nobility, Elaine (Julia Louis Dreyfuss) described him as a "short, stocky, slow-witted, bald man" and described as "Lord of the Idiots" by himself. He is very neurotic and self dominated.

Friends with Jerry Seinfeld (the character) since their middle school years. Episode plots frequently feature George manufacturing elaborate deceptions at work or in his relationships to gain or maintain some sort of small or imagined advantage. His relationships with women are always unsuccessful. His most disastrous was his engagement to Susan Ross, one of the few that ends "well" for George; he fears marriage and Susan's unexpected death saves him from the commitment and he was somewhat to blame for her by skimping on the cost of envelopes (watch the series if you don't know what I mean!)

Often desribed as dumb by his friends he is also considered an expert liar, and as often talked his way out of extraordinary situations (considered a useful skill by his friends).

George is primarily based upon co-creator Larry David and many of George's predicaments were based on the real life experiences of David. For example, when George quits his job in fury, he realizes his actions were a mistakes, he goes back to work the next day as if nothing happened, mirroring David's actions while working as a writer on Saturday Night Live.

George appeared in all but one of the Seinfeld episodes (season three's The Pen) and he goes down as one of the greatest television characters in history for his perfect self loathing and nuerosis.

Great Television Characters

#2

Frank Burns

played by Larry Linville

in M*A*S*H

What makes a great television character? nobility, sense of what is right, open minded and tolerant of others, well loved by the other characters on the show, maybe that does make a great character but Major Frank Burns posses none of these qualities.

The character of Frank Burns did originally appear in the novel written by Richard Hooker (where he was a Captain) where the character was borderline incompetent and egotistical. In the 1970 film version by Robert Altman he was promoted to Major and played by Robert Duvall and possessed many of the "qualities" of his book counterpart.

Larry Linville played the role in the M*A*S*H series from the beginning in 1972 until 1977, whilst the character Linville played was at times borderline incomptent, he could also be described as a pompous twit who was VERY obsessed with military order.

The character of Frank Burns was said to be the exact opposite of Linville in real life, who was considered friendly and courteous thought reportedly Linville could be high-strung, a similiar trait he shares with Frank. He was said to have based Frank on, "Every idiot I've ever known."

Frank was often at odds with Hawkeye (Alan Alda) and Trapper (Wayne Rogers) and later B.J (Mike Farrell) due to his belief in military disipline and unquestioning patriotism. In the early years of the show he and Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Loretta Swit) are a secret couple., their relationship often consisted of excessive sentimentality and sappy nicknames. Frank is married and a wife back in America when all this is happening.

Burns and Houlihan would later have a falling out and split up, she married Donald Penobscot, another career military office. Larry Linville's last appearance in the show was the final episode of the fifth season in which Margaret and Penobscot got married. The character was written out at his request, Linville had commented that there was actually a very dark aura hovering over Frank, that Frank was not all that stable, yet still operating on patients and felt the character of Frank Burns had gone as far as it possibly could. Linville and Frank Burns left the series off screen.

Linville still worked occasionaly but never matching the success of M*A*S*H. He died aged 60 in 2000 of lung cancer.

Great Television Characters

#1 Columbo Played by Peter Falk Columbo was an incredibly easy choice for the first in great television characters. I'll give you a little bit of history on the character to begin with, he was created by Richard Levinson and William Link and first appeared in an 1960 episode of the anthology series The Chevy Mystery Show in which he was played by Burt Freed and this same episode was adapated into a stage play in 1962. Peter Falk first played Dt. Columbo (there is a lot of argument over what is first name is) in 1968 in a television pilot in an episode called "Prescription for Murder" and a second pilot in 1971 called "Ransom for a Dead Man", the popularity of this pilot created a regular series on NBC that premiered in 1971 as part of the wheel series NBC Mystery Movie and was an immediate hit. The show stands out intially because of the way the clichés of the whodunit story are reversed: You see the killer commit the crime in the first act and how it's done (in a standard whodunnit it's usually not until the final act the killer is revealed). The "mystery" from the audiences point of view is spotting the little clues to how Columbo will solve the crime. What makes the character of Columbo so unique, he often appears scatterbrained and the killer often don't take him too seriously at first ---often he begins to annoy them---, Columbo rarely displays any anger (the murderers are often from privileged backgrounds), unlike most detectives he oesn't carry a gun and as never required physical force (there's never been a scene he's chased the killer). Columbo is one of the greatest creations in television history and Peter Falk as earned his place in television history with this one role.