Yesterday’s discussion of fictional characters who will always be teens sparked a different thought process in my head today: What about those characters who were technically never a teenager? ‘Wet Hot American Summer’, f’rinstance, featured a wide array of “teens” played by actors in their twenties and thirties, but somehow that fact actually made the parody of 70s teen flicks that much funnier. The quiet knowledge that the cast of ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ were full-grown adults playing fifteen-year-olds helped to take the edge off the violence, injury to the eye motifs and stabbery, leading to today’s twenty-something query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) reminds Faithful Spoilerites that Dawson, of the eponymous Creek, was nearly 21 when the show began, asking: What “teenager” characters could you not imagine being played by anyone other than the adult actors that played them?
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The first six Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I believe the only actual teenager of the group was JDF who was 18 when he first appeared as Tommy, the others being at least 20 (most being older than that) when they started.
For the record, I’m not counting the upcoming movie as they aren’t strictly playing the original Power Rangers, but new versions of the characters in a new continuity. Nor do I count the comics as they are a different medium entirely and are still based on the original actor’s appearances to some degree. But if they were to reboot the characters within the continuity of the TV franchise, I would be a little more iffy about the whole thing.
Dylan from Beverly Hills, 90210. Not because it was great or anything but because it was so funny how obviously older he was.
I love the jab at that from the episode about him in the second season of Family Guy, something along the lines of “You know what it’s like to be a teenager, you’ve been playing one for 30 years!”.
The Fonz.
There have been many “Cool” bikers, but Arthur Fonzirelli is one of a kind played by the one and only Henry Winkler.