Dingbats and chuckleheads

[Jolly Jimmy Tinsel Todd]

I was watching All in the Family with a friend. He told me he could never stand this show because of Edith the "dingbat" character being too disturbing because she came off as mentall handicapped," although he used a less PC word.
I always thought that Edith, despite her "dingbatinesd" was often shown as the wisest character. However, there are a few scenes in which her lack of traditional intelligence is a bit much.
George had Gracie on "Burns and Allen " Three's Company had Chrissie, and The Golden Girls had Rose, the "chucklehead," to use one of the milder terms her rommates called her. I can't offhand think of any other shows with such characters, but it seemed as if there were quite a few.
What do you think? Do these characters get tiresome, overplayed and do they ever cross the line to being disturbing?

 

[DallasFanForever]

What do you think? Do these characters get tiresome, overplayed and do they ever cross the line to being disturbing?

Yeah, I guess those types of characters can get a little tiresome sometimes but looking back on some of them they fit the times of all those classic sitcoms.

Edith Bunker worked for me and I never felt she grew stale because she was so good at offsetting Archie. Edith could steal the show at anytime with her “dingbatness” as it would drive Archie mad, but there were also times she could be the smartest and most sensible one on the show and that’s what made it work.

Rose Nylund could get on my nerves quicker than Edith with her constant St. Olaf stories. They really could become quite eye rolling but now I notice I appreciate Rose a lot more than I did back then. The way the other characters play off of her stories and naïveté is what makes it work. They were all so great together and complemented each other so well, and some of the best one liners on that show were at Rose’s expense. She certainly served her purpose.

 

[Avery Merry Christmas]

On The Nanny, Fran often acknowledged that she kept her best friend, Val Toriello, around because she (Val) was so dimwitted that she made Fran feel smart(er). And yes, the "dimwitted best friend" is a sitcom staple for that very reason. In addition to Val, I can think of....

Skippy, Alex's best friend on Family Ties
Potsie, Richie's best friend on Happy Days
Crystal, Roseanne's best friend on Roseanne
Iola, Thelma's best friend on Mama's Family
Boner, Mike's best friend on Growing Pains
....and there are probably plenty more out there.....

 

[Treeviewer]

You might say that Get Smart made the "chucklehead" its central character.

 

[Crimson]

Do these characters get tiresome, overplayed and do they ever cross the line to being disturbing?

Most sitcom characters become increasingly associated with a single comedic trait ("Flanderization"). This is particularly noticeable with dumb characters because there' a fine line between cutely dumb and irritatingly stupid. Rose Nylund is probably the best example. She started out as a competent but naive woman who had lived a sheltered life in a small town. By the end, she was so dumb it bordered on brain damage; one has to wonder if she suffered head trauma in between seasons.

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

I was watching All in the Family with a friend. He told me he could never stand this show because of Edith the "dingbat" character being too disturbing because she came off as mentall handicapped," although he used a less PC word.
I always thought that Edith, despite her "dingbatinesd" was often shown as the wisest character. However, there are a few scenes in which her lack of traditional intelligence is a bit much.
George had Gracie on "Burns and Allen " Three's Company had Chrissie, and The Golden Girls had Rose, the "chucklehead," to use one of the milder terms her rommates called her. I can't offhand think of any other shows with such characters, but it seemed as if there were quite a few.
What do you think? Do these characters get tiresome, overplayed and do they ever cross the line to being disturbing?

Edith seemed to be a re-write of Gracie Allen, and I found her cluelessness to be annoying.
Personally, I prefer Gracie Allen.
I do think the Edith character was too over the top with that, but I liked "All In The Family" for its first 5 seasons.
After Mike and Gloria moved out and eventually left, it wasn't the same show, it was not as good.

I thought Ted Knight as Ted Baxter on the MTM show played that type of character superbly.
The Ted character was fully developed, and not over the top.
Chrissie/Suzanne Somers was well cast in a comedy that was over the top by its nature.
In that sense, the character fit well.
The show was never as good after Suzanne Somers departed.

 

[DallasFanForever]

Chrissie/Suzanne Somers was well cast in a comedy that was over the top by its nature.

I don’t think anyone pulled off that type of character any better than Suzanne did. She was so good at it.

 

[Avery Merry Christmas]

"Accept no substitutes!"

One of my favorites of this category was Bernice Clifton of Designing Women. Alice Ghostley seemed to excel at these types of wacky characters, so I often wonder how much of Bernice was invented by the writers as opposed to how much by Ghostley.

She was introduced as a friend of Julia and Suzanne's mother who had what they referred to as "an arterial flow problem" to her brain. She thus had the same lack of filter that Golden Girls' Sophia had, only more pronounced since Bernice was a featured player who entered and exited as needed for some outrageousness. As the show progressed and they were having more trouble, Bernice was featured more and more, with her cluelessness allowing them to say all sorts of mean-spirited things through her "condition", but Bernice could always be counted on to get laughs even at her own expense. Her crowning moment was probably when she showed up wearing a gift from Charlene--an oddly-fitting skirt covered in a holiday motif. Charlene gently broke it to Bernice that it was a Christmas tree skirt---it was meant to go around the bottom of a Christmas tree. "Well, thank goodness!" Bernice exclaimed. "I like to have never gotten this thing on."