Stephen and I have, once or twice on our various podcasts, referred to the Scooby-Doo cartoons, and the fact that there is a point where you can safely stop watching them because they’re not good anymore. We argue about WHERE that point is, mind you, but we both agree that by the time Scrappy Doo is in the cast, you can walk away without fear. The idea of adding a new character to “freshen up” a show, specifically a young character, is as old as stories themselves (notably, Sir Lancelot was added to the stories of the round table by later authors who wanted to use the trope of the cuckolded lover, then in vogue.) Some are excellent ideas that stand the test of time, as with the late addition of Captain America to the founding Avengers, while other new kids end up being poor Jason Todd, beaten to death then blown to smithereens because the callow youths of 1988 voted him out (itszelf a frighteningly accurate premonition of the internet.) While your humble MS-QOTD tries to remain positive in our daily ruminations, sometimes you have to address the Cousin Olivers in the room, which leads us to our query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) always enjoyed the character of Triathlon in the Avengers comics, but was also a fan of the 3-D Man from which he originated, asking: Who’s the most odious added cast member of all time?
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Riley, on Buffy. He’s just awful, and drags down virtually every episode he appears in.
I was going to say there’s a reason it’s called the Scrappy, but Bruce is right. Riley was terrible.
I was only a casual Buffy fan, but even I could tell he was a bad idea and his inclusion is what made me drop the show.
Ugh, Riley started terrible and somehow got progressively worse.
This is why in the old Buffy RP I ran on a forum, I not only killed Riley off, but I had a group of Riley clones to kill off. I hated him that much that I wanted to see him suffer over and over again.
Zach
Aww, so mean!
:) Just kidding! It wouldn’t be the same without Zach!
I think I still hate Scrappy more than either Damian Wayne but it was close.
That’s a hard question. There are too many smart-mouth kids that joined a show after it jumped the shark.
Of all these type of characters, I carry an eternal hatred for Godzookie.
Do the Kromaggs on “Sliders” count? It wasn’t so much a cast member addition as adding an entire race, or rather bringing back an entire race from a previous episode and building the remainder of the series around them invading all realities. Even the addition of Quinn’s little brother wasn’t nearly as bad as the whole “Kromaggs invaded almost every reality” storyline that ran through to the end of the series.
I’m also not very fond of the Jonas Quinn episodes of “Stargate SG-1”.
Lucky from King of the Hill, the show did such a good job of avoiding white trash as main characters, then he showed up, and just wouldn’t leave.
Oddly enough, I actually liked Lucky more than most of the regular cast, although Dale will always be my favorite.
When the Great Gazoo showed up on the Flintstones, you knew its days were numbered. Gazoo was compounded by the addition of Pebbles and Bam Bam. With Battlestar Galactica, it was the arrival of the idiotic Robot dog, and similarly, Buck Rogers went down the toilet when the moronic robot who said “Beedee beedee beedee” became a regular character. The sad thing was that the Dagget and the robot weren’t later additions, but when those characters appeared, it was obvious that the producers were either idiots or had no respect for their viewer or both. With Disney’s Winnie the Pooh movies, it was the addition of the character of Tigger, which Disney added because they couldn’t merchandise the characters created by A. A. Milne, crass marketing at its worst.
Something just as bad as adding a useless character to buck up a flagging show is those cynical instances where the producers entirely replace the cast of a show. I can think of two instances of this happening: Alias Smith and Jones retired the stars of the show when they asked for a piece of the action, and, more famously, the Dukes of Hazard did the same thing for the same reason. Werewolf, an 80s horror show, cast Chuck Connors as the villain, and then both due to his high appearance fees and his failing health, replaced him with a double they only showed from the back, and then did away with his character all together.
It was the death of actor, Pete Duel that forced the cast change for Alias Smith and Jones.
Can I just go with any of the Avengers added in the last two years?