Five Iconic Characters That Were Only Supposed to Be Bit Parts

[Ubiquitous]

By Joe Oliveto, Ryan Menezes

Every so often, television brings us such an iconic character that we
have to marvel at the genius of the writing staff. But these characters
don't always spring fully formed from the minds of producers as they
high-five each other. Occasionally it's just a happy accident, as is
dramatically proven by the fact that ...

#5. Cigarette Smoking Man from The X-Files Was Just an Extra

Fox

The X-Files was one of those shows where side characters came and went
whenever a good plot twist was needed. But fans knew that there would
always be one reliable constant -- Cigarette Smoking Man, the primary
villain and a character who in the course of the series was killed off
and resurrected more times than a comic book superhero.

The show was always vague about who he was -- his name may have been
Spender, he may have been Mulder's father, and he may have killed JFK,
but all we know for sure is that he was one evil dude. You can tell from
the cigarette.

Why We Almost Didn't Get Him:

It's true that he was there from the beginning -- the Smoking Man
appeared in the first scene of the pilot episode -- but he didn't appear
again until the last scene of the Season 1 finale. In neither scene does
he have a speaking role. That's some ominous-as-shit foreshadowing!

Except that it wasn't. The Smoking Man was an extra, known in the script
only as, you know, "the Smoking Man." His entire purpose was just to
stand around in the background whenever the writers wanted to remind the
audience that Mulder and Scully were being watched by somebody. If you
don't know what we mean, go look at the IMDb page of the actor, William
B. Davis. Before his 1993 casting in The X-Files, he was playing roles
that didn't even get actual names -- he played "Judge" in an episode of
MacGuyver, "Doctor" in one episode of Nightmare Cafe, and "Lawyer" in
the TV movie Omen IV: The Awakening. And who could forget his work as
"Inspector #2" in that one episode of Wiseguy?

So why would the producers of The X-Files declare this random background
actor to be the central villain of the show's overarching storyline
involving alien beings, government coverups, and unresolved subplots?
They even did an entire episode joking that Cigarette Smoking Man was
behind pretty much every terrible world event of the last 40 years. The
answer is that the writers never intended for that to happen at all.

As we've pointed out in the past, the central plot of the show was more
or less made up as it went along. It was only when Gillian Anderson got
pregnant and took a partial hiatus from the second season that the
writers needed to introduce new characters to make up for her absence.
Davis was given a speaking role for the first time, and that's when the
creators of the show suddenly realized, holy shit, he can actually act.
They had stumbled across an iconic Hollywood villain by getting lucky
with their extras casting.

Likewise ...
#4. Ben Linus from Lost Was Only Signed for Three Episodes

ABC

It could be argued that Ben Linus was the single reason Lost fans didn't
just throw up their hands and say "Fuck this show!" in Season 2. The
enigmatic Linus was the closest thing Lost had to a main villain (we
still can't agree on what the "Man in Black" was, and we're pretty sure
Damon Lindelof can't, either), and his creepy-ass work in the role got
him nominated for an Emmy pretty much every single year he played the
character (nominated four times, winning once). In a show that up to
then had been a series of seemingly pointless twists and turns, fans
finally had an antagonist to root against.

Why We Almost Didn't Get Him:

The character was introduced to the show in typical Lost fashion,
mysteriously appearing on the island out of nowhere halfway through
Season 2, telling a highly implausible story about how he had crashed
while on a round-the-world hot air balloon trip. By the end of his
three-episode story arc, everything he said was revealed to be a lie,
and he ended the season having taken three of the main characters
hostage. Come Season 3, he's the scheming villain the audience is tuning
in to see.

But those few episodes in Season 2 were supposed to be it -- that's all
the actor was signed up for. Like The X-Files, the twists in Lost were
pretty much invented as the writers went along, and at that stage the
producers just wanted a creepy-looking guy to show up on the island and
set up the cliffhanger for next year. They kept him around because they
liked how Michael Emerson played Ben, and Emerson originally agreed to
do it because, well, we'll just quote the DVD commentary:

Lost Writer Carlton Cuse: "I remember we got on the phone with Michael,
and it was funny, because it was ... a sort of slushy day in New York.
And he was walking along the street, and we were, like, 'Want to go to
Hawaii for a couple of episodes?'"

Michael Emerson: "Yes."

Carlton Cuse: "There wasn't even a pause. There wasn't even a
hesitation. It was like, 'Absolutely.'"

Michael Emerson: "Yeah, it was snowing in New York."

Damon Lindelof: "It was the easy sell."

So there you go: Ben Linus would never have become a Big Bad on the show
if he'd been played by somebody who didn't bring the "creepy genius"
vibe like Emerson, and Emerson may not have done it if it had been a
nicer day in New York.

And as with Cigarette Smoking Man, he took a pretty one-dimensional
stock villain and elevated him with a creepy "What is this fucker going
to do next?" energy that viewers couldn't stop watching. Without them,
both shows probably couldn't have stumbled ahead for so long after they
jumped the shark.

#3. Elmo from Sesame Street Was a Random Discarded Puppet

If we ask you to name some characters from Sesame Street, you're likely
to say Big Bird, Kermit, and Elmo. And of the three, Elmo is both the
newest character and the most popular. Since exploding onto the scene,
he has testified before Congress, and his Tickle Me Elmo doll was so
popular that adults paid thousands and gave each other concussions to
get their hands on it. In 1998, the show's producers finally surrendered
to him and cut 15 minutes from each episode to give Elmo his own closing
segment. They kept making the segment for more than a decade, until they
decided to phase it out ... in favor of an Elmo musical.

People can't get fucking enough of Elmo, is what we're saying.

Why We Almost Didn't Get Him:

Elmo didn't start out as a character at all. He was one of dozens of
random, nameless "monster" Muppets that Sesame Street kept lying around
in case they needed a crowd scene. Here he is in an early appearance,
with the voice he had before he gave up his three-pack-a-day smoking
habit.

He wasn't enough of a character back then to even have a name or a fixed
voice, but he was colloquially referred to as "Baby Monster." Later he
appeared with the voice of an aging female casting agent in a sketch
that we're sure is hilarious to 5-year-olds.

Even a career stuck in the background would have been fine compared to
what the next puppeteer, Richard Hunt, wanted for him. Hunt put his own
spin on the character -- this time, a gruff caveman voice -- but he
hated Elmo. He'd drag the Muppet around like a mop, and he'd literally
shout, "I hate this damn puppet! I'm suffering with it."

Then, one day, he physically threw the puppet into the lap of a random
junior performer -- Kevin Clash, who voiced such memorable characters
as, uh, Dr. Nobel Price and Ferlinghetti Donizetti. But when Clash stuck
his hand into Elmo, it was like Frodo putting on the One Ring. Avoiding
the various deep, throaty growls that people had been trying to force on
Elmo, Clash tried an ear-shattering falsetto and immediately struck
gold.

Unfortunately, in 2012, Clash wound up the subject of a Michael
Jackson-esque series of child sex allegations that, while thrown out of
court, led to Clash's resignation from the show. In seeking to replace
the puppeteer, Sesame Street wisely found someone who could replicate
the voice instead of taking the opportunity to reinvent Elmo as a
rapping pirate or something.

#2. President Bartlet from The West Wing Wasn't Supposed to Be on the
Show At All

We're currently in television's golden age of dramas starring white male
protagonists, and leading the charge, at the turn of the millennium, was
The West Wing, with Martin Sheen's President Josiah Bartlet. He wasn't a
tragic antihero of the kind that premium cable dishes out -- he was a
straight larger-than-life messiah.

The show won the Best Drama Emmy four years running (tied for the most
ever), presumably due to its central lead. The character arguably had a
good shot of winning the real-life 2008 elections, even though he was
fictional and constitutionally barred from a third term.

Why We Almost Didn't Get Him:

The drama set in the White House and covering the presidency originally
wasn't going to include the president at all.

The show was supposed to focus on the president's staff (and it largely
ended up doing so), covering the public relations side of the
presidency. Aaron Sorkin thought the presence of the executive himself
would ruin the show's status as an ensemble drama. So policy and
political machinations would be discussed and responded to by everyone
relevant -- other than the president himself.

Of course, they couldn't ignore the president entirely, that would just
be ridiculous. The initial plan was for the audience to catch occasional
glimpses of the president, just a bent-over ass or the back of his head.
But as this was the same gimmick they used on Home Improvement to hide
Wilson's face, it wasn't too difficult to figure out how silly that was
going to look.

So they grabbed Sheen. He was basically a stock presidential actor,
thanks to his various White House acting gigs, so they just brought him
in for the pilot and occasional appearances thereafter. You can watch
the pilot and see that he plays a pretty minor part for such a major
role. Soon after filming, everyone realized that the president popping
in once every month wasn't much better than not appearing at all. They
broke down and rewrote him as the lead.

Sheen was keen to take on the role, because whether or not TV can really
convince anyone of anything, it proved a great way for the social
activist to at least get people talking about his favorite issues. After
a couple years, NBC was actually afraid that his outside soapboxing
would hurt the show, but what could they do? Try to make the show
without him? That would be insane.

#1. Frasier Crane from Cheers and Frasier Was Kept Around to Annoy
Shelley Long

NBC

You may be thinking, "How were they going to write Frasier out of a show
called Frasier?" But people often forget that the star of that sitcom
about rich people originally began as a character on Cheers, that sitcom
about drunk people. Despite TV execs being generally starved for
originality, spinoffs are rare in TV land, and popular spinoffs
virtually unheard of (we're looking at you, Joey).

But Frasier was so popular that he not only got his own show for 11
seasons, but also showed up on another sitcom called Wings, because why
not?

Why We Almost Didn't Get Him:

Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) was never originally a core cast member
of Cheers. In fact, he was only supposed to show up for a few episodes
in the third season, long enough to have an affair with Diane (Shelley
Long) and create a little dramatic tension. Essentially, he was a device
to make Sam jealous.

Of course, Sam, Ted Danson's bartender character, was the guy we were
really supposed to like. He was the down-to-earth, friendly, relatable
lead. Frasier Crane was basically his opposite -- a stuffy, pompous rich
guy who didn't care much for the working class functional alcoholics who
hung around at Cheers. The plan was that he would stick around for a few
days until the others told him to piss off and Diane could come to her
senses.

And no one was more eager for this to happen than Long, who hated
Grammer and was constantly demanding he be written out of the show as
quickly as possible. But you know who hated Long in return? The writers,
who Grammer says kept the character around purely out of spite. If Long
had liked him, or even been less of a horrible person, maybe they'd have
just let Frasier drop off the map. Of course, that might be Grammer not
giving himself enough credit -- the producers say they just loved what
Grammer did with the character, which is what they would say since it
sounds better than "The entire show was just our experiment to see if we
could cause Shelley Long to have a nervous breakdown."

Regardless, between Cheers and its spinoffs, the one-time character that
nobody was supposed to like became the longest continuously running
television character of all time. And we are counting X-Men 3 as a
Cheers spinoff here, because the Beast was clearly Frasier Crane in a
blue furry costume.


--
Q: Why is ObamaCare like a turd?
A: You have to pass it to see what's in it.

[Wiseguy]

Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote in
news:l2cu9d$jlm$1...@dont-email.me:

> By Joe Oliveto, Ryan Menezes
>
> Every so often, television brings us such an iconic character that we
> have to marvel at the genius of the writing staff. But these
> characters don't always spring fully formed from the minds of
> producers as they high-five each other. Occasionally it's just a happy
> accident, as is dramatically proven by the fact that ...
>
>

Perhaps in a sitcom. James Arness was on 635 episodes of Gunsmoke over
the same time period (20 years, 1955-75) (with an additional 5 TV movies
during 1987-94). (There were 495 episodes of Cheers and Frasier during
1984-2004).

He was also on almost all if not all episodes of Gunsmoke (unlike early
Cheers episodes with Grammer) and also appeared not only in half-hour
episodes but mostly hour-long episodes as well.