Sometimes you see a character on TV and stare at him or her. Not cause you think they are hot, but because you identify with them. That's what good shows revolve around. I mean hell, right now I am screaming at someone over a late pizza delievery.

"You have run out of time!!!"

Hey dude. 25 percent off if they are late on my pizza. Jack Bauer did that to me.

So anyways. TV characters.

They effect you. We know it. Be it Barney Rubble or Barney Miller. Tell us.

Who are your favorite TV characters?

turtle gets on the wagon

Oh, sure. You all think you know me. You say "Oh crap. Here he goes." But, I thought I might surprise you with my pick for tonight’s edition. Sometimes a character comes on TV that not only is able to have fun but entertain you. And at the same time you learn about interesting stuff. Things you never thought of before. Ways and means of getting out of situations that make you think that maybe you don't have to do this alone. Maybe you have to rely on your friends every once in awhile.

Maybe the Captain wasn't really the leader. Maybe he was just a part of the crew with a funny hat. Without him, the ship would continue, but it would sail a hell of a lot better if he took control. The plot lines vary so much. Like the color of your coffee in the morning, lines were blurred here.

Who was really running the ship here?

Charles Ingalls

Oh, don't act so fucking shocked. You knew this was going to happen sometime sooner then later. It's easier to get this out now. Yeah yeah yeah. I bullshitted up there earlier. I didn't lie to you. I bullshitted. Big difference there.

I can seriously say he was the greatest character ever on TV. Jim Rockford came in a close second cause hey, he lived on a beach. Plus he never answered his phone. He always let it hit his answering machine. Rockford was the pinnacle of "not caring anymore". But, since that is neither here nor there, let's talk about Charles.

Charles had the persona of some things that I really admire in people. When something goes wrong, who is there? Charles. Calmly thinking things thru. Figuring out what the next step is before moving on to the next. And when he hit a wall, someone stepped up and took the lead stride. Cause he did it for them. It was their turn to take the lead.

The guy had ability to look at all sides of a situation and try to think. Crying kids around him. Some fucking new situation. Ok. He can get thru this. He just needs five minutes to figure this whole thing out, and then he can move. Action not words. Just give him five fucking minutes and he will get you thru this. And if it's really bad, give him one, but don't expect him to be happy about it.

This is the funny thing about the character. Anytime on the show you see him smoking a pipe, he was content. You will notice that if you attend a "Little House" Convention at your local hotel. The "Charles Ingalls" walking around are smoking pipes. They are content. See dude, the subtleness in the character was amazing. When he was smoking his pipe, he didn't give a fuck. I call those "Smokin’ Time" episodes. Basically it means Charles, or Chucky as I like to call wouldn't have to deal with anything this week.

When he's not smoking, gah, a tree prolly fell on someone and he had to go get him.

Or another one of the kids went blind.

Or he adopted another kid.

That guy went thru more shit then a rat in New York City. I mean fuck. All he wanted to do was raise an army of blind children to take over a city by city while incorporating more into his "family" by adopting them or killing them by dropping trees on them. Make no mistake. You would be blind, in his family or crushed by a tree. Don Ingalls was back and he wanted it all. Notice how when new characters came on the show, he would ask them if they would "light his pipe?"

That was a code word. Like the red shirts on Star Trek, you would be dead in 48 minutes. Be blind or take a walk with him in the forest. Light his pipe and join him.

The only problem was the other family in town. The Olsen Family. Make no mistake. When Nels and Charles met, it was never nice. When they counted out grain, that was not grain that they were talking about. They were talking about splitting up the gambling and prostitution racket in the town. They both had to work there, so they might as well do it together. A family war was not needed at this time.

See Godfather Ingalls worked thru all these issues and somehow raised his "family" to new heights. Sure some things get lost, but cleaning out the bad blood in the family was needed. Acceptable loss. No one ever saw what happened to Nellie. She started selling drugs and that was against The Godfather's policy. Sure, killing her was the incident that started "The Walnut Grove War", but sometimes that needs to happen. Don Olsen was shot three times in his head by "Half Pint" while getting a shave one day. Many lives were lost in those years, but in the end, the Ingalls’ owned three towns and moved on to bigger things.

See Don Ingalls ruled with an iron fist. But, he had his place. A school filled with blind kids and a town of adopted kids.

All willing to die for The Godfather.

Light his pipe. - T

michele shakes it up

There were so many ways I could have went here. I mean, I’m a tv addict. I always have been. Things ran through my mind when we came up with this subject. George Costanza. Barney Miller. Homer Simpson. Les Nessman. The dummy from Soap. But in the end, I turned to the one character who has both infuriated and entertained me. The one dude who can make me laugh out loud while kind of cringing at his antics. The character whose sarcasm rivals my own, who has uttered lines like: Plaque is a figment of the liberal media and the dental industry to scare you into buying useless appliances and pastes.

Master Shake Zula

My name is…
Shake Zula. The mic-rula, The old schoola, Ya wanna trip? I’ll bring it to ya.

Oh yea. Master Shake of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The greatest character to grace a tv screen. A milkshake. A mean spirited, abusive, egotistical sadistic milkshake. Does it get any better than that?

Don’t answer. That was rhetorical.

Honestly, my favorite character on the show is Meatwad. But best and favorite are not always mutually exclusive. Or inclusive. Whatever. . Meatwad - a shape shifting ball of meat - has a bit of a droopy personality. While he’s adorable and all (it’s been said I have a crush on him), he’s not a great character. Master Shake, for all his flaws (including heaping abuse on Meatwad) has depth. He’s like an onion. A rotted, putrid, smelly, moldy onion. But if you peel back the mold, you will see there are so many layers to this...shake. He’s lazy. Violent. Passive aggressive. Impulsive. Mean. See? There’s so much to this...shake. You can’t even begin to understand what makes him tick until you’ve watched so many episodes of ATHF that you dream about floating dead in Carl’s pool.

Some people like characters because they identify with them. Like Turtle. I know damn well that right now he is busy writing about Charles Ingalls and how calm he is in certain situations. Like the turtle. Well, it’s kind of the same for me here. I identify with Master Shake. The way he has an answer for everything. The way he fucks up but never admits it. His way of using sarcasm as a defensive tool. The way he always has two straws sticking out of his body.

Wait. That’s not me. Those aren’t straws.

Anyhow, the great thing about Master Shake is his complete lack of ability to do anything right. He thinks he is the leader of the gang. But not only does he not have any real powers to speak of (think of him as the Aquaman of ATFH), but he fucks up everything he does. He comes up with all these amazing ideas (and by amazing, I mean illegal, immoral and destructive) but he rarely makes any of them work. Thing is, I don’t think he even cares. For Shake, the fun is probably in coming up with these diabolical plans at all. Even when things go all fucked up on them, Shake is kind of apathetic about it. This is not a shake that cares about consequences. Not someone who learns valuable lessons from his mistakes.

Wow. He is more like me than I thought. Damn. I am Master Shake. Minus the whole shake thing.

Plus, the dude dies or gets massively injured all the time. You would think a...shake would realize after a while that half the shit he attempts backfires, but no. Shake just keeps on keeping on. Goes back for more. He has bathed in toxic waste. He has lost use of his limbs. Had his brain taken over by some tentacle ting. Been blown up. Hit by a tractor trailer. Yet he keeps going back for more. Keeps thinking up schemes and doing impulsive shit without thinking of what’s going to happen to him, or without remembering what happened the last time. It’s like they took the brain of every single ADHD kid in the world and melded them together to make Master Shake. How stupid is he? He once killed himself just so he could haunt Meatwad’s Ouija board.

Wait, is that stupid or genius? It’s hard to tell sometimes. I mean, the...shake has hung out with Zakk Wylde and Ted Nugent. Been chased by Geddy Lee. My favorite Master Shake moment is this exchange with Danzig:

Danzig: Now look, listen to me as hard as you fucking can. The fucking robot came with the fucking house and now he's fucking gone. If you see that mother--
Master Shake: Yeah, uhh, yeah we'll tell him...
Danzig: You fucking better. If I find out he's over here I'm gonna be eatin' my cereal out of the bottom of your fucking skull. Verst lich?

Even when faced with Danzig wrath, he remains apathetic.

Looking at all this now, I can see why my brain immediately went to thoughts of Shake when we picked this theme. It was telling me something. I have a kindred spirit. Yea, he’s a milkshake. So what. I’ve figured this whole thing out now and I’m just gonna go with it.

My name is…
Shake Zula. -M

Those are our favorite characters, for better or worse. The ones we associate ourselves with. The ones who we think delivered the best lines or had the best scenes or just made us think a little bit. Who are yours?

Damn, I just realized I forgot all about Mr. Belvedere.