My top ten great TV characters (Top Ten TV Characters)

Member Name: Nigel1

Product:	Top Ten TV Characters
Date:	19/02/09 (114 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: May cause hilarity

Disadvantages: May not cause hilarity

1.. Jim Royle (Ricky Tomlinson),,,The Royle Family.
This superb actor (he once turned down a five figure sum to pose nude for a British Magazine) is superbly cast in 'The Royle Family' as the lazy, money grabbing, slobbish layabout, Jim Royle. His family and life in this hilarious sitcom revolves around chaos, petty arguments, grub on the sofa, full ashtrays, foul language and people who 'break wind' at every given opportunity.
Yet, despite all this 'roughness', Jim, who seems to be welded to his armchair, with an array of not so willing 'servants' ready to give him the 'remote', (if it is ever out of his hand), with a raised eyebrow or a sideways glance , lets us know that deep down this is a man who adores his family, despite their ignorance and drabness. Get a grip Jim, my a**e!

2..Oz Osborne (Jimmy Nail)...Auf Wiedersehen Pet.
This 70's series revolved around seven brickies on a building site in Dusseldorf, and the hilarious antics that they got up to.
For me Oz is the best character in the show, being totally half-witted and devoid of anything other than a small Neanderthal brain, he often gets into fights and scrapes, due mostly to his loud mouth and his 'not caring' attitude. When cornered or dissatisfied with anything, Oz's stock in trade answer to everything is 'bollocks', which is pretty much the attitude he has to life in general. Wonderful!

3..Rigsby (Leonard Rossiter)... Rising Damp.
In this 70's sitcom, Rigsby is the seedy bedsit landlord. Boastful, vain and often cowardly, Rigsby lives in a little world of his own, often trying to demean his long suffering tenants, to their annoyance and frustration.
Scrooge-like and eccentric, Rigsby often says 'Myyyyyyyy God' when disillusioned by something, and comes out with the most funny of quotes such as- "The 'permissive society' doesn't exist. I know, I've looked for it!"
So have I Rigsby, so have I!!!

4..Arthur Daley (George Cole)...Minder.
Arthur Daley is a small-time conman, who hires Terry McCann (Dennis Waterman) to 'protect' him from other small time villains such as himself!
Arthur, is primarily concerned with making as much money (from as little effort) as is possible, and exploiting poor old Terry, by any means possible.
Now, virtually everything Arthur has got is 'dodgy' to say the least, (being a shady business man and equally shady used-car dealer) and often gets into scrapes whereby he fully expects Terry, his 'minder', to protect him and resolve the situation for him at the 'drop of a hat'.
The entire series is full of British humour and the 'suave' Arthur and hard done by Terry, only have to raise an eyebrow, or a cheeky little grin here and there, to give a great perspective to this wonderful series.

5..Albert Steptoe (Wilfrid Brambell)...Steptoe And Son.
This classic 1960's British comedy revolves around two central characters, Albert Steptoe and his long suffering son Harold Steptoe (Harry H. Corbett).
Now Albert and Harold run an unsuccessful 'rag and bone' business and Harold (Albert's son) wants to 'better' himself and get out of the 'rat race' all to the annoyance and displeasure of Albert.
They both live in utter poverty and Albert, it has to be said, has some rather disgusting and vile habits such as wiping a butter knife under his dirty, sweaty armpits and crimping the edge of a home-made pie with his false teeth, all to the utter embarrassment of his son!
Driven by his own selfishness and sense of insecurity, Albert is afraid that his son will 'leave the nest' and make a better life for himself, leaving Albert to fend for himself.To prevent this from happening, Albert has devised ways of stopping his son from leaving, expecting Harold to remain with him for life. Albert delights in 'getting one over' on his son, and never misses an opportunity to tell him so, and if Albert doesn't seem to be getting his own way with Harold then he will play his 'trump card' whereby he will inform Harold that he will "go down to the cemetery and sit with your Mother" which usually works and enables Albert to get whatever he needs or wants from Harold!

6..George Roper (Brian Murphy)...George And Mildred.
Unemployed George was totally useless around the house (and even more useless in the bedroom) if his wife, Mildred was to be believed. Totally ill-matched, George and his wife Mildred live together with snooty neighbours next door. Working class (if he ever got off his backside to work that is), George Roper is satisfied with his 'lot' whereas his wife is always on the look out to improve her life, all to the despair of George.
Often found eating pickled onions in bed (what else is there to do?), George who is a bit of a layabout, tries relentlessly to embarrass Mildred in every way possible, putting her down and belittling her. However, she often has her own back simply by mentioning George's 'inactivity' in the bedroom, which usually has the desired effect.

7..Basil Fawlty (John Cleese)...Fawlty Towers.
English hotel owner and manager, Basil isn't really cut out to run a job of this nature, with his bad manners, intolerance and rudeness.
Basil is convinced that he has matters under control, despite it being utterly evident that nothing is further from the truth, and things get a whole lot worse when his incompetent and non English speaking waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs) constantly annoys and irritates the manic Basil due to his misunderstanding of the English language.
Basil's wife Sybil (Prunella Scales) is often seen 'putting to rights' what the bungling Basil has messed up, much to Basil's frustration and annoyance.

8.. Richie (Rik Mayall)...Bottom.
Richie lives in squalor with his flatmate Eddie (Adrian Edmondson) in a flat in Hammersmith. Now Richie has never had sex (or a girlfriend) and has trouble accepting the fact that girls just don't want to sleep with him despite Richie having the most appalling and disgusting habits and, more importantly, smelly oversized underpants!
Richie and Eddie are often seen beating the living daylights out of each other, as, being unemployed, there seems little else to do.
The banter between Richie and Eddie is often hilarious such as-
Richie: You know mate, if we ever get through to the other side of this one, if we ever get back to Blighty, I'm really gonna change the way I live... find a piece of land, find a beautiful woman, hell, maybe even raise a few kids
Eddie: Aaaah quit dream'n skip, we're never going to pull through to the other side of this one
Richie: No you've got to dreeeeam Eddie. You've got to hold on to the dreeeeeam!
Eddie: Can I ask you a question?
Richie: Shoot from the hip Eddie, that's always been your style.
Eddie: WHY ARE WE TALKING SUCH COMPLETE AND UTTER BOLLOCKS?
[proceeds to beat Richie].

9..Captain George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe)...Dad's Army.
Captain Mainwaring is the irascible and portly Captain of The Home Guard, in charge of a platoon of miscreants you wouldn't trust to dig your garden, let alone protect you during war time.
He would often use the catch phrase "you stupid boy!" to certain members of his platoon, and then he would laughingly go and do something infinitely more stupid!
He is arrogant and overbearing, and is nowhere as clever as he thinks he is, despite him genuinely thinking that he is!
All this clever imaging of the character blends ingenuously with the rest of the cast to give the series an intense and authentic feel to it despite the 'cheap sets' and the obvious jokes.

10..Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson)...Mr Bean.
In this hilarious series, Mr Bean has a mundane life which he always seems to make more eventful for himself by some simple gesture or other. Often seen travelling around the country in his yellow mini, Mr Bean is constantly getting into scrapes of some kind, but fascinatingly, always seems to get himself out of them by some pure acts of ingenuity which we mere mortals would never think of.
Clutching his teddy bear, Mr Bean has a child-like nature. and seems almost incapable to doing even the easiest of tasks without making them far more complicated than they need be.
Rowan Atkinson ingeniously brings the verbally challenged character of Mr Bean to hilarious and bungling life!

Summary: Belly laughs aplenty!