Magic Box People Wednesday, August 30, 2006 [ banter 1 ]

A large chunk of my personality is made up of Nerd DNA, liking lists and order and things laid out and labeled. Another chunk is made up of total TV Junkie. The two halves are now united/celebrated with this list of My 25 Favorite TV characters, my friends who live in that magic little box in my living room. How fun! Ok I stole this from Kyle, but I'm ignoring the rules (no puppets or cartoons, no mini-series, no reality show people, all characters must be regulars on the show) and posting whoever I want cuz you know, this is my blog. In no particular order...

The List
1. Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance, I Love Lucy)
- Even with the lesser-funny jokes, the awful scene partner (Fred), and contractually bound to stay heavier and less attractive than Lucy, Vivian Vance still made Ethel my favorite retro second banana. In those few moments where she got to steal the spotlight, when she'd get to sing or something --- people don't even remember that she was RIGHT THERE next to Lucy, stuffing chocolates off the conveyer belt and into her mouth. This bitch knew how to play funny naturally, without going slapstick or stealing focus from the shows star. She was a pro.

2. Angela Chase (Claire Danes, My So-Called Life)
- "People always say you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster, or something. Like you can know what it is, even. But every so often, I'll have like -- a moment, where being myself, and my life right where I am is, like, enough." How can you like, not love a girl who like, thinks profound stuff like that, or whatever? Plus, pulling your head under the neck of an oversized knit sweater and staring at the world through the webbing is like, my most favorite thing to do ever.

3. Max Evans (Jason Behr, Roswell)
- Jason Behr was strange-looking and perfect for this role; he knew how to just beam intensity with that soulful little expression (the one expression he could do). It worked for this character, and he also really ripped and sexy. Max was so in love with Liz and I never --- well, very rarely --- stopped noticing long enough to mock his funny ears.

4. Jen Lindley (Michelle Williams, Dawson's Creek)
- Bad teen slut from New York. This character could have easily become hateable, but Michelle Williams always made her a little deeper and complicated. She never got her props for what she did on this show. Damn that Katie Holmes.

5. Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
- College freshman, pre-lesbian Willow. The one with the short choppy haircut and short spiky werewolf boyfriend. Early wicca era, before her magic powers consumed her purpose on the show. This will always be my favorite Willow.

6. Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham, Gilmore Girls)
- I normally would hate this character. A tomboy woman zipping a million one-liners per minute banter and contrived zany behavior can get annoying, not to mention that disturbingly deep BFF thing with her daughter. But it's those moments when she suddenly stops talking, stops schticking, just stops moving and lets herself process something quietly --- that's when she blasts me with how layered and talented an actress she really is. The scenes with her tightass upper crust mother are perfect TV.

7. Sam (Eric Schaeffer, Starved)
- No one really watched "Starved" but I fucking loved it. Eric Schaeffer was perfect, he made Sam such a hateable superficial person but always threw in these random personal moments where you'd see how hard he was struggling with his eating disorder, how deep all the problems ran. Plus, his addiction to snack cakes hit a little close to home.

8. Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles, Northern Exposure)
- She rarely spoke, she mostly sat and just watched. I loved her.

9. Meghan Rotundi (Amanda Foreman, Felicity)
- In the beginning of the show Meghan was mostly just blunt and irritable, all we knew was that she liked shitty punk goth clothing and witchcraft. Somewhere between seasons 2 and 3 she morphed from the college roomate from Hell to being well, the best friend from Hell. The scenes where she bitched out Ben for being such a shitty boyfriend to Felicity were the best.

10. Seth Cohen (Adam Brody, The O.C.)
- It's been a long journey for me, and one with an resentful history behind it, but I do have big big love for the Seth Cohen.

11. Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon, Sex & the City)
- Probably one of the best characters on TV, certainly the only character on the show who didn't annoy the fuck out of me. Never the prettiest, trendiest, or luckiest of the women on the show, Miranda worked hard for the things in her life and something about that just makes me like her. I love the arc her storyline took, how she started out so gaurded and cynical and jaded, just like a New Yorker, and yet found herself happily married and with a baby... in Brooklyn. The fact that marriage and motherhood didn't change her completely really sealed the deal for me.

12. Mary Cherry (Leslie Grossman, Popular)
- Part drag queen, part slut, part God-fearing, Gwenyth-worshipping country hick. Mary Cherry is one of the funniest true characters in TV history, up there with Balki and Urkel. Even though the show was uneven and pretty terrible most of the time, Mary Cherry's heavy accent and social-climbing schemes always redeemed the hour for me. "Mr. Bennett? I'd just like to say on the record that I LOVE the gays."

13. Melissa Howard (The Real World New Orleans)
- OK so she's not a TV "character" (I actually know her in real life and she'll probably vomit when she reads her name on this list) but dammit if Melissa's damn fool antics, drama tantrums, and hilarious interviews didn't add all the funny spice in the 9th season of The Real World. I loved watching her on TV and she's even funnier in person (and in writing). Say it with me, "TIME OUT! TIME THE FUCK OUT!"

14. Delores Herbig (Christine Willes, Dead Like Me)
- "Hi, I'm Deloris Herbig, as in her-big-brown-eyes? Come right this way." That's how she greeted everyone who came to apply at the temp agency @ Happy Time, where she was the office manager. Ex-addict ("the blow") and overacheiving multitasker. Awesome.

15. .Ruth Fischer (Frances Conroy, Six Feet Under)
- I love this woman for her random exasperated outbursts, when she'd just SNAP out of nowhere and heap all her emotions out on one of her awful kids (those Fischer kids were awful). Her "Fuck my legless grandmother!" monologue from The Cult episode was priceless.

16. Iola Boylen (Beverly Archer, Mama's Family)
- I can't hear the phrase "Knock-knock" w/o thinking of her and all her weird handicrafts. Her random psychotic outbursts directed at her controlling obese mother still crack me up when I watch the reruns.

17. Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly, Dark Angel)
- Even in dorky glasses, punching anxiously on his computer, and sitting in a wheelchair he was smoldering hot. Those eyes, those lips, that hair. Heatwave all over me.

18. Nicole Jullian (Tammy Lynn Michaels, Popular)
- The biggest teen bitch in TV history. She was the ultimate villian and had the best hair, the best lines, and (after dissappearing from a lot of Season 2) got the best comeback episode ever. She was such a scheming snake, stabbing everyone in the back and just doing whatever she had to do to claw her way to became the most powerful girl in high school. The fact that the last image of the sries was her wicked smile and she runs Brooke over with her car? totally fitting.

19. Anya Jenkins (Emma Caulfield, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
- I was very anti-Anya in the beginning, just b/c she was new to the Scooby Gang and I don't like change --- plus I found her to be a weak substitute for Cordelia. Over time and through reruns, I've grown to really love her story. The confusing and funny experiences of this 1000yr old ex-Vengeance Demon stuck in the mortal world trying to fight evil and help save a world of humans that she just can't make sense of.

20. Rickie Vasquez (Wilson Cruz, My So-Called Life)
- Oh my god. Do I even need to explain? I love you, Rickie, with your bad hair, your bellboy jacket, and all that eyeliner. If they'd allowed flamboyant girlyboys who liked hanging in the girls bathroom into my private Christian high school, I totally would have wanted him to be Rickie. And no, bitches, I wasn't the flamboyant girlyboy.

21. Daria Morgendorffer (Daria)
- The cartoon Janeane Garofalo, wry sarcasm in motion. I really loved how she thought she was so beyond the teenage bullshit, always calling it out and making fun of her peers, but would sometimes fall right into it herself. Her deadpan disdain hate for her superficial brat sister was always fun but her friendship with lowkey Jane Lane was really cute. I miss this show, the theme song intro was the best. You're standing on my neck.

22. Paris Geller (Liza Weil, Gilmore Girls)
- The angriest, most confrontational teenager on TV. Season 5 Paris, the newly enlightened, Life Coach-toting, craftwork-making Paris is my favorite.

23. T.J. Jones (Rain Pryor, Head of the Class)
- I loved how realistically ghetto this character was. Rain Pryor actually brought a sense of diversity to the all-white Park Avenue class of preppy outcasts on the show, even her hair was wild and untamed. She was in the class because her poetry was incredible and I just loved how she planned to use that as her ticket out of Harlem. The episode where she calls Robin Givens out on "whitewashing" herself was awesome

24. Christian Troy (Julian McMahon, Nip/Tuck)
- I just like that on this show where they dissect beauty and people searching for what they really want, there's this giant manslut having sex all the time and not apologizing for it. They give him as many layers as possible but at the end of the day he's just a fucking asshole to people, and he's fine with that. I'm still reeling they allowed him to say "Thank my 10 inch dick" on TV.

25. Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris, Strangers With Candy)
- A 50-something bisexual ex-junkie whore who always learns the wrong lessons is my idea of a good time. I just love that she keeps 2 journals: one fake one with fur lining and a lock, full of sweet poetry and glittery prayers, and one real one where she writes racist things like "Dear dirty jew diary..."

So much TV, so little time. Thank Jesus for my DVR.

I watched all 10 episodes of Kyle XY today. What a waste of my time, serves me right for tuning in just b/c the naked ads were inticing. I'm actually supposed to be cramming Seasons 1 and 2 of Battlestar Galactica, which I've never watched before. My friend Jess (and pretty much everyone else in the world) has been raving about this show for so damn long, and we're supposed to have a Labor Day weekend marathon, so I bought the DVDs so I can see what all the fuss is about.

« Pomp & Circumstance | Main | "Can We Go Somewhere?" »