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<blockquote data-quote="Daniel Avery" data-source="post: 333045" data-attributes="member: 27">My favorite has to be Niles the butler on The Nanny, played to the hilt by Daniel Davis.&nbsp; The withering put-downs, the perfect comic timing, and self-deprecating humor made him an all-around treat in every scene, a great complement to the more earthy humor Fran Drescher brought to the series.A close second is Benson the butler on Soap.&nbsp; Benson was not given a lot to do beyond act as the Greek Chorus for the show, observing the wacky behavior of the Tate family and rolling his eyes a lot.&nbsp; He obviously could have been doing much more with his life (he became Lieutenant Governor in his spin-off show), but I think he stuck around the Tates as long as he did because they were just so damn entertaining and he enjoyed making fun of them. I get a different sort of pleasure out of every scene Dark Shadows&#039;s Mrs. Johnson appeared in, mostly because the actress, Clarice Blackburn, recognized (even if it wasn&#039;t in the script) that Mrs. Johnson was the voice of the average audience member, the one who recognized the house and the people in it were cursed.&nbsp; The show used her sparingly despite the seemingly enormous size of Collinwood and the lack of (other) household staff.&nbsp; If someone were to repeat the whole &quot;the house is cursed!&quot; line too many times, the other characters might have to actually listen to her, so she wasn&#039;t around much---especially once the crazier plots took hold.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Daniel Avery, post: 333045, member: 27"] My favorite has to be Niles the butler on [I]The Nanny, [/I]played to the hilt by Daniel Davis. The withering put-downs, the perfect comic timing, and self-deprecating humor made him an all-around treat in every scene, a great complement to the more earthy humor Fran Drescher brought to the series. A close second is Benson the butler on [I]Soap. [/I]Benson was not given a lot to do beyond act as the Greek Chorus for the show, observing the wacky behavior of the Tate family and rolling his eyes a lot. He obviously could have been doing much more with his life (he became Lieutenant Governor in his spin-off show), but I think he stuck around the Tates as long as he did because they were just so damn entertaining and he enjoyed making fun of them. I get a different sort of pleasure out of every scene[I] Dark Shadows[/I]'s Mrs. Johnson appeared in, mostly because the actress, Clarice Blackburn, recognized (even if it wasn't in the script) that Mrs. Johnson was the voice of the average audience member, the one who recognized the house and the people in it were cursed. The show used her sparingly despite the seemingly enormous size of Collinwood and the lack of (other) household staff. If someone were to repeat the whole "the house is cursed!" line too many times, the other characters might have to actually listen to her, so she wasn't around much---especially once the crazier plots took hold. [/QUOTE]

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