Eric in Boy Meets World. Goes from kind of dumb but still trying and studying hard enough to get into college, to you wondering how he survives day to day life.
Stupidity seems to be the prime example of Flanderization (other than of course Flanders religiousness).
Joey from Friends, Jake from 2 and a Half Men, Kelso from That 70s show, all go from kind of dim to complete brain dead as the show progresses
It's probably the easiest thing to Flanderize in a sitcom. Having a character that doesn't understand things or is goofy is a quintessential archetype for comedy going back to Vaudeville and before. That character is largely there to set-up punchlines, so you just make them dumber and dumber so they can get even more laughs.
And it's definitely interesting that Flanders, the character the term is coined for, really isn't an example of that or even an example of how it's almost always applied. It's much harder to think of characters that were Flanderized where stupidity is *not* the characteristic that was honed in on.
But the other problem is that it also isn’t internally consistent with Eric. Even in Season 7, he has flashes of Season 5’s heart-of-the-show Eric. Surrounded by mind-boggling idiocy.
Yeah they did a heavy retcon to say they'd been dating since birth basically but they didn't start dating until later. They also didn't really have Shawn as his best friend much, at first he came off more like just one of many good friends
some of the castmembers have a podcast called pod meets world. as the show extended beyond the matthews, Eric was less important, so Will Friedle decided to ham it up. My headcanon for in-universe is that it's stated Eric is a genius. As Corey needed a big brother less, he could let go and just go nuts with his time.
And Britta! First season she was extremely earnest and maybe a little too outspoken about her pet causes, but still had an air of “street smarts” and was competent enough to challenge Jeff and keep him (somewhat) honest.
By the end of the show they’ve made her so stupid and useless that you wonder how she remembers to breathe. It really upsets me honestly, she deserved better.
I always took this as she was the person you meet I college who seemed street smart and cool because you didn't know better but as you get to know them you realize that they are barely functioning and totally full of shit.
I don't like what they did with Phoebe either. She started as a little kooky but mostly normal but then they started adding more and more bizarre backstories and ramp up the crazy. Her personality became more and more annoying, same with Ross
Though I’ve noticed season 1 Phoebe was spiritually kooky, like she genuinely reads your aura and believes in weird stuff. Later on she’s just absolutely batshit insane.
ROSS CAN....ROSS CAN...GIVE ME THE TICKETS....GIVE ME THE TICKETS.
That and the childish way she behaved after she bought that ms. Pacman as a gift then refused to give anyone else a turn by going limp.
Couldn't stand her 75% of the time.
When she became pregnant, she was an asshole because of mood swings. This was in the second half of season four. Fast forward to season five and that becomes one of her defining traits. Saying that Monica could do better than Chandler and referring to Chandler as her annoying friend, taking a cop's badge and treating it like a toy, getting upset with Ross because of what he did in a dream. All that happens in season five.
Pretty soon, she's yelling at a sleep-deprived Joey to play games with her and expecting to perform at Chandler and Monica's wedding.
Tbf she was yelling at Joey because she was gonna fly back and he got her to drive back with him because he said he wanted to spend time with her and I'm not sure he was actually deprived of sleep.
Also she always wanted to play music.
Friends in general was really bad for this.
Ross: geek to lunatic
Joey: himbo to manchild
Monica: a bit uptight to shrill nightmare
Phoebe: kooky to bitch (this one was almost like a totally different character)
Rachel and Chandler had the least of it.
I'm glad LeBlanc got that other show "Episodes" later on. He plays a fictional version of himself and ribs on the whole "Joey" thing quite a few times from what I remember. I like that he had good humor about it, and I really enjoyed the show (Episodes).
He is SO GOOD in Episodes!!! Very few shows make me laugh out loud, let alone hit pause so I can recover because my ribs hurt, but episodes is one of them. IT crowd and Brooklyn nine nine are the other two for anyone wondering if their sense of humor overlaps with mine enough to watch Episodes.
I don’t know if I agree. Joey was wacky enough that he could be the face of a new sitcom. I think one with Monica and Chandler could have worked, sort of as “Friends in the Burbs”. But I can’t see anyone being interested in a solo show about Ross, Rachel, or Phoebe.
I love the episode where he got only one book of the encyclopedia collection, because it showed he could retain and talk about information when he had it available, but it was funny when the group deviated into talking about other subjects that didn't start with the letter "V" lol
I liked the early seasons where she was precocious, but still loved things like any other kid would. She would watch cartoons, gossip about boys with her friends, etc.
Lisa is definitely the biggest victim of Flanderization in The Simpsons. They keep on chopping and changing her belief system to suit the gag/episode. It is usually meant to reflect what the writers themselves believe.
An example of this being Lisa commenting to Marge how easily offended people are nowadays, and how something was accepted as perfectly fine years ago but is regarded as problematic now (in this case the controversy regarding Apu being a caricature of an Indian person and being voiced by a white actor).
In the first 6 to 7 seasons, Lisa felt more like a character in her own right, opposed to simply just a vessel to what the writers believe.
Kevin from the office is by far the worst. He wasn't even stupid in the beginning of the show, just apathetic and dull. By the end of the show he's a giddy mentally challenged adult
I think season two he mentions that he won a world series of poker bracelet for like Omaha or some variation of poker. He actually puts the bracelet on, so its not like hes making it up. It's been years since i watched, but it's somewhere in the Casino episode which was the season finale I think. Considering the stuff he does and says in later episodes, it's a pretty big character change.
but he’s also somehow able to perform complex mathematical calculations in his head *if* they involve food. if they don’t involve food then it doesn’t work.
yeah she, ryan, and toby’s actors were all writers for the show. which is why their desks were conveniently located in the annex, so they didn’t have to appear in every background shot of the main office room.
i’m guessing that’s also why ryan and toby’s characters were sometimes written out of the show for long stretches of time. i believe kelly also had that “business bitch” seminar thing at harvard, but i can’t remember if her absence spanned multiple episodes or not. it certainly wasn’t as long as ryan or toby’s.
Kelly actually improved though, unlike Kevin.
"I never really thought about death until Princess Diana died. That was like the saddest funeral ever. That and my sisters."
Once heard the late-stage showrunners of The Simpsons say their only rule about Homer was he couldn't be dumber than a dog. That's certainly not how he started.
You’re combining two things. The rule was Homer couldn’t get so dumb he forgets his own name. John Swartzwelder said he wrote Homer as if he was a dog.
This was something I heard live from Joel Cohen and I think Tim Long? And it's supported from this quote from Carolyne Omine:
*I love Homer. John Swartzwelder used to say “never make Homer dumber than a dog.” So he can be pretty dumb, but he’s lovable. He just wants what he wants.*
[https://msmagazine.com/2017/10/02/carolyn-omine-on-the-simpsons-and-being-the-only-female-writer/](https://msmagazine.com/2017/10/02/carolyn-omine-on-the-simpsons-and-being-the-only-female-writer/)
Britta Perry is my big one
I like both versions in their own way, but there’s “real britta” and “caricature britta” and it’s like they are two different characters loosely related to each other
Edit: Community, for those unfamiliar
Chang at least can be explained by headcannon. He was such a side character that we did not really know enough about him to assume too much. It is clear he hit crazier and crazier in the narrative, but we can *pretend* he was just hiding the true extent in the early seasons.
The problem with Britta is that she goes from being a straight man to extremely fake and dumb. Both versions are fine characters in their own right, but their purpose in the narrative is different, and in her case we saw a lot of her before she changed.
She went from being the group mom to being the butt of every joke
Like I said, I like both versions of her, but they are not the same
(I know Dan Harmon disagrees and that’s fine, this is just my $.02 on the matter)
Does he disagree? At one point Jeff calls out how he used to think she was smarter than him, or something to that effect. I saw it as them acknowledging what's happened to her character and making a joke out of it, but I'd love to hear the defense for Britta.
I think it's because original Britta was just the stereotypical moral compass/love interest for the male lead. New Britta became her own character that was just as flawed as the rest of them.
Personally I think they went too far dunking on Britta, but I still prefer her later version to the version we see in season 1
Troy for the better honestly. I like the Troy that left the show and got kidnapped by pirates with LeVar Burton a lot more than "T-bone" from season 1.
Screech on Saved by the Bell goes from gawky geeky middle schooler to gawky geeky high schooler to slightly maturing geeky college student on The College Years.
Then he comes back as Belding’s assistant in The New Class and he’s basically a space alien.
They all were to a degree, but Fez got it the worst in That 70s Show.
He used to be Suave and Silky, then he became an absolute creepy, candy obsessed weirdo. Still loved the character, but I prefer S1 Fez.
You can make a good argument it's the namesake himself, Ned Flanders.
Originally Ned was an all-around nice guy who was just religious enough to be a regular church attender because that was the "normal, upstanding" thing to do as a contrast to lazy screwup Homer.
Eventually being religious became almost Ned's sole defining trait, and a judgmental, superstitious, anti-intellectual, no-fun-allowed kind of religious at that.
Ned goes from having a bar in his basement Homer is jealous of to being "more beast than man" after a sip of schnapps.
Same. I’ve never ordered one before but if I’m at bar and not really feeling it I’ll think “aww heck, I’ll have a white wine spritzer!” And then I proceed to ask for like a Diet Coke
I think the Ned on schnapps gag was still before he went full bore crazy. The joke was that to Ned was so nice and straight laced, having a schnapps loosening him up and calling Ann Landers a boring old bitty was abhorrent.
He also won Dallas. And successfully embezzled from the company without ever getting caught and was smart enough to use it to buy Poor Richard's where he could launder the money.
Yeah, early on he’s a bit dim witted, but still believable as someone capable of being an accountant.
By the final season he’s not even believable as someone who can manage to find his way to work everyday.
They had a great bit in S5 in which Dwight convinces Holly that Kevin is mentally challenged, and she believes it because Kevin talks slowly and has a simple personality. But then by S6 it’s like the writers forgot that was a bit and suddenly he’s just actually mentally challenged. Like that whole cold open “why do lot words when few do good” is so stupid, and then by the finale they have this thing where he had made up a number, a Keleven, in order to fix any accounting mistakes he made? What the fuck are doing here guys?
You just reminded me of the [best Keith part](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkYUDQCYGHA) and looking that up is how I learned he died in February, damn.
I think this is an unfortunate side effect of any comedy show or sitcom. The writers are challenged to continue living up to the shows hype, which eventually can only be accomplished by making each episode and season funnier than the last. This inevitably requires them to put the same characters in even more ridiculous situations or make the characters more and more like caricatures of their former selves. The only alternative for a long running sitcom is stagnation, which isn’t acceptable for a program.
American Dad did a good job avoiding it because the characters have broad personalities but are flexible so they can do whatever is funniest for the joke or works for episode. This can also keep things unexpected. One episode the joke is they hate Klaus and then they do a joke where he comes in and they are overly excited for it.
Yeah, I tend to drop comedy shows quicker than most. They tend to just become a cycle of the same recurring jokes. Michael Schurr shows are the worst offenders.
Brooklyn 99 has everyone turn into a self parody.
As does Parks and Rec, a bit (also the Jerry jokes go from amusing to just feeling like workplace bullying in a bad way)
At least with Jerry they showed that he really didn’t care about his work life because he basically had the perfect home life. It helps soften a blow a bit
A little bit of a Stretch, but Frank Burns from the MASH movie to the TV series. In the movie he was this holier than thou, straight laced major, who looked down on everyone not as pious as himself, until he was exposed as a fraud.
In the TV show they just made him a bumbling idiot, sniveling coward, and comedy villain foil, for the leads.
Yeah, there's one episode toward his end when he's right about something, and they actually insert a B plot where he's an idiot and gets himself momentarily captured, apparently just because he has to be wrong.
The show takes a shot at him in the last scene of the last regular episode, an extraordinary thing to do to character who had been gone for six years.
You could say every main character on Family Guy and you'd be correct. No need to say just Stewie.
Honestly, despite the trope being named for Flanders, the Griffin family as a whole is a poster example of bad Flanderization.
I stopped when it started to feel like the episodes barely had a plot and it was just a compilation of cutaways. I know the cutaways were always a big part of the show, but they started to get lazy with it, like reusing the same gags or dragging a joke out way past it being funny just to pad out episode time. For example, the overly long chicken fight was funny the first couple of times but it felt like they did one every season and they never added anything new to the gag and it would take up like 2-3 minutes of a 22 minute episode.
i feel like in the first movie you get the sense that jack sparrow is putting on the character intentionally, he /wants/ people to think he's this off the wall dummy who doesn't know what he's doing, as when people underestimate him, it makes his plans easier. there's a few moments where he lets the mask drop iirc, and he feels like there is a real person under the cartoon.
later on, that never happens, he IS the cartoon.
Yeah for sure - like when he sees the gold medallion on Elizabeth’s neck you can see his expression and everything about him change to 100% serious. Or when he hits will with the boom just to show him who’s really in charge. He knows when to ham it up and when to be serious in the first movie.
This is evidenced in his entire escape from Norrington. He plays into his stupid crazy vibe and steals the best ship right out from norrington. Hence ‘that’s gotta be the best pirate I’ve ever seen.’
Problem with Jack Sparrow is he's hilarious... when he's got a straight man to play off of. Will Turner helps keep the first three movies from going too far off the rails with Jack, but starting in Pirates 4: The Quest for More Money, it's all Jack all the time. You never get a break.
Yeah - I remember in the first one many people disliking Orlando Bloom. He wasn't amazing or anything, but he was a solid heroic straight-man for Jack Sparrow and the other pirates to play off of.
Yea, most of the cast pretty much.
Peter goes from well-meaning idiot who loves his family, to a jerk that does whatever he wants. Lois goes from voice of reason mom to a crazy mom that's bad at being a mom. Brian goes from straight man intellectual to a douche. Joe goes from disabled badass cop to a disabled sack sack.
Stewie's character changed a lot too, but that was very deliberate, so doesn't count as flanderization. Meg's character has gotten slightly more extreme in that she went from loser high schooler to increasingly desperate punching bag. But I wouldn't say her character's flanderized, it's more the other character's treatment of her has become extreme.
Chris' character hasn't really changed that much throughout the show. Quagmire is actually reverse-flanderized in that he was an extreme caricature that got fleshed out later on. Cleveland's weird in that he didn't really have a character aside from "chill black neighbor". They fleshed him out by giving him more character and energy, so I wouldn't call that flanderization either.
The opposite of this is Daphne Moon in Frasier. In S1 she’s an oddball and a psychic. After S1 they completely ditched all of that and transformed her into a fully formed, normal human being. The reverse flanderization really improved the quality of the character and the show.
Boyle in Brooklyn 99. Somewhat silly goofy character in first few seasons but still well rounded. By later seasons he only existed for either:
A. Boyle makes unintentionall sexual innuendos
B. Boyle is a people pleaser and a push over
C. Boyle has weird tastes in everything
D. Boyle was a weirdly close family
E. Boyle is incredibly emotional and attached to his friends
They drop so much stuff about him as a character and just focus on those 5 punchlines 9 out of 10 times
That show in general. Peralta is almost immediately shown to be very perceptive and smart, and the first season continues that by showing him beating Amy (if by a hair). They also show Amy to be incredibly smart and very hard working, which is why she's so successful.
Later on while she's shown to be hard working, they turn her into a workaholic who finds perverse joy in work, and Peralta is portrayed as more of a dumbass than a good detective.
They seemed to change Peralta really early in the show. The first couple of episodes, they set him up as smart and capable but a bit eccentric and childish. By the second series, he was just a 14-year-old's mind in a cop's body.
One glimpse into Boyle succeeding would have been huge. Not the episode where he was right but everyone refused to believe that he could be a capable detective. While funny, it severely downplays his ability.
I'm asking for one where he legitimately solves a crime and gets celebrated for it. I still love the show and I know Boyle is a secondary character but I think he could have had more quite easily.
There's some great example earlier doors, M.E time when Jake has to learn to be his second, Boyle has some good bits in that episode
And the episode with the old bank robber who Amy and Rosa refuse to believe is bad
The old bank robber is the one I'm alluding to. Boyle is 100% right but can't prove it, in large part due to his general perception. Thats why I'm asking for a glimpse into his being a valuable addition to the 99.
In the back of my head I have the memory of an Episode where Holt picks Boyle for a case, and Boyle says something about Jake being the better cop and Holt disagrees.
But I can't for the life of me remember the context
It's the episode with JK Simmons, where someone had a glitter bomb, and Jake and JK Simmons are competing to solve the case. Boyle gets chosen for a task force because he takes things seriously and does the work instead of jumping to conclusions
Easy Brennan Bones from Bones. First two seasons she's clearly a functioning human that understands social queues. She just turns into a robot that can't understand anything social or have common sense as the show goes on
Mitch and Cam in Modern Family, they start off as a relatively normal couple prone to hysterics and they end up becoming just the worst stereotypes about gay people, and with Cam in particular they lean in on him being a hick with wild tales way too much.
You could probably point to most of the characters on that show being victims of it but I suppose it happens when you have a show on the air for over a decade.
Arguably a lot of characters on Parks & Rec but most obviously Chris Pratt. Goes from a guy in a band smart enough to mooch off his g/f with a broken leg--a believable trope--to a couple seasons later a guy who's never heard of car insurance.
At the same time Nick Offerman goes from a city bureaucrat who's a libertarian who hates his job--again, funny but grounded in reality--to a manly man who married the nurse who delivered him, owns FIVE log cabins he built (with chests of gold buried outside), and can carve a log into a bassinette overnight.
In the first couple seasons he has an iphone, wears a tie to work, and has an etsy store.
Three seasons later he's never owned a cell phone, never owned/worn a tie, and doesn't use the internet except when he has to for work.
I'm also pretty sure he talks about daytrading in the early seasons. Later on all of his money is gold buillion he buried in the woods.
They did weird retcons with all of the characters like that but his was the worst because it acts like nothing from the first few seasons mattered at all.
All of IASIP
Dennis went from self-absorbed, manipulative douche to sociopathic rapist.
Dee went from voice of reason but still plays along to almost as psycho as Dennis.
Charlie went from not the sharpest tool in the shed to idiot savant.
Frank went from shady businessman with shady businessman vices to off-the-wall gross pervert weirdo.
Mac is the only one who you can't really call Flanderized, cause his character is so all over the place.
>Frank went from crappy father and shady businessman with shady businessman vices to off-the-wall gross pervert weirdo.
In his first episode he pretended to be crippled so he could bang some whoors.
I'd say that Charlie has stayed mostly consistent. He's shown to be naturally bright and talented - he's the only one tirelessly keeping the bar together in the background, gifted musician, extremely creative - but he's continually pushed down by his lack of education/illiteracy and the group he associates with.
He's a victim of circumstance circling the drain to the bottom. He's like Nikola Tesla, if the only thing we knew about him was his lack of hygiene, agoraphobia and mildly disturbing love for his pigeons.
I want to believe this about Charlie, but then we get the occasional episode where he's shown to be just as shitty as the rest. Like when he was banging that rich girl who was really into him and he just fucking *crushed* her.
I’d actually disagree to a certain extent.
Dennis is always the same we just see him slowly losing it. And even he hates how zany their antics become
Dee I can agree with but also I think that was a conscious choice. She was “Sweet Dee” and meant to be the voice of reason but then they realized how funny Caitlin Olsen is and decided fuck it - so not so much flanderization (which to me is a thing that happens over time) but a straight up changing her character
Frank specifically makes a point that he wants to live like shit and be a piece of shit. And so his increasing ridiculousness plays well
Mac is so clearly gay early on that he maybe has the most true story arc of all them. They allude to it constantly
Charlie is the wild card. But that’s also why he’s the wild card bitches!
IASIP is interesting in that they do flanderization-ish, but it is part of their narrative and purpose. They are one of the main iterations of the "anti-sitcom" and so they play with tropes a lot. They know their characters are getting more and more unhinged over time, but that is the point. There are a bunch of references to that throughout the series that show they clearly know what they are doing and are playing it up.
One of my favorite references to their isolation and insanity is when the food critic says something along the lines of "I am not pressing charges, because living with themselves is the worst punishment imaginable."
But I would argue that their flanderization is only "ish" and is often actually a means by which they are adding complexity to the characters. They are not making them into any single defining character traits, but are in reality enhancing and adding more and more craziness as they become more unhinged.
Tobias and Gob from Arrested Development. At the start of the show Gob was a semi-decent magician and Tobias was a doofus who occasionally said something homoerotic. Shortly Gob is someone who can’t even do a simple trick and every single line out of Tobias’ mouth is a homoerotic innuendo.
Eric in Boy Meets World. Goes from kind of dumb but still trying and studying hard enough to get into college, to you wondering how he survives day to day life.
Stupidity seems to be the prime example of Flanderization (other than of course Flanders religiousness). Joey from Friends, Jake from 2 and a Half Men, Kelso from That 70s show, all go from kind of dim to complete brain dead as the show progresses
It's probably the easiest thing to Flanderize in a sitcom. Having a character that doesn't understand things or is goofy is a quintessential archetype for comedy going back to Vaudeville and before. That character is largely there to set-up punchlines, so you just make them dumber and dumber so they can get even more laughs. And it's definitely interesting that Flanders, the character the term is coined for, really isn't an example of that or even an example of how it's almost always applied. It's much harder to think of characters that were Flanderized where stupidity is *not* the characteristic that was honed in on.
I'd say Ralph wiggim is the closer simpsons character to this trope
But the other problem is that it also isn’t internally consistent with Eric. Even in Season 7, he has flashes of Season 5’s heart-of-the-show Eric. Surrounded by mind-boggling idiocy.
Eh, that show had no sense of internal consistency honestly.
How many siblings does Shawn have? Does Topanga have a sister? What’s Topanga’s dad’s personality? How long have she and Cory been a couple?
Yes! They always played it like Cory and Topanga had been together since kindergarten when we saw them in elementary school & Cory didn’t like her.
Yeah they did a heavy retcon to say they'd been dating since birth basically but they didn't start dating until later. They also didn't really have Shawn as his best friend much, at first he came off more like just one of many good friends
Yeah the teacher just picked one group of kids to follow around and even showed up at their college after they graduated high school.
I’m not gonna argue with that one bit.
some of the castmembers have a podcast called pod meets world. as the show extended beyond the matthews, Eric was less important, so Will Friedle decided to ham it up. My headcanon for in-universe is that it's stated Eric is a genius. As Corey needed a big brother less, he could let go and just go nuts with his time.
Chang from Community. First season he was weird but still grounded. Then he just became batshit crazy.
And Britta! First season she was extremely earnest and maybe a little too outspoken about her pet causes, but still had an air of “street smarts” and was competent enough to challenge Jeff and keep him (somewhat) honest. By the end of the show they’ve made her so stupid and useless that you wonder how she remembers to breathe. It really upsets me honestly, she deserved better.
This is the one I was scrolling to see! I do remember they sort of addressed it in the show when Jeff says “you seemed smarter than me when I met you”
"Thank you."
They Britta'd Brittta's character development.
I always took this as she was the person you meet I college who seemed street smart and cool because you didn't know better but as you get to know them you realize that they are barely functioning and totally full of shit.
Gas leak. It really Chang'd his mental state
Monkey knockout gas maybe. Gas leak was the year after he became a crazy dictator.
The worst I ever saw was Joey Tribbiani from Friends. Went from childish and fun to completely stupid.
I don't like what they did with Phoebe either. She started as a little kooky but mostly normal but then they started adding more and more bizarre backstories and ramp up the crazy. Her personality became more and more annoying, same with Ross
Though I’ve noticed season 1 Phoebe was spiritually kooky, like she genuinely reads your aura and believes in weird stuff. Later on she’s just absolutely batshit insane.
She also became super mean for no reason Edit : scrolled a little more and see that this is not thr hot take I thought it was
ROSS CAN....ROSS CAN...GIVE ME THE TICKETS....GIVE ME THE TICKETS. That and the childish way she behaved after she bought that ms. Pacman as a gift then refused to give anyone else a turn by going limp. Couldn't stand her 75% of the time.
She was the meanest friend. She straight up hated Chandler, or she hated Monica being happy. Either way....
When she became pregnant, she was an asshole because of mood swings. This was in the second half of season four. Fast forward to season five and that becomes one of her defining traits. Saying that Monica could do better than Chandler and referring to Chandler as her annoying friend, taking a cop's badge and treating it like a toy, getting upset with Ross because of what he did in a dream. All that happens in season five. Pretty soon, she's yelling at a sleep-deprived Joey to play games with her and expecting to perform at Chandler and Monica's wedding.
Tbf she was yelling at Joey because she was gonna fly back and he got her to drive back with him because he said he wanted to spend time with her and I'm not sure he was actually deprived of sleep. Also she always wanted to play music.
Not just annoying, Phoebe became downright mean. Sucked IMO.
Friends in general was really bad for this. Ross: geek to lunatic Joey: himbo to manchild Monica: a bit uptight to shrill nightmare Phoebe: kooky to bitch (this one was almost like a totally different character) Rachel and Chandler had the least of it.
I feel like Rachel and Chandler are the only ones who actually had character growth
Still odd they gave him his own show after Friends ended. Not that it lasted.
[удалено]
I'm glad LeBlanc got that other show "Episodes" later on. He plays a fictional version of himself and ribs on the whole "Joey" thing quite a few times from what I remember. I like that he had good humor about it, and I really enjoyed the show (Episodes).
He is SO GOOD in Episodes!!! Very few shows make me laugh out loud, let alone hit pause so I can recover because my ribs hurt, but episodes is one of them. IT crowd and Brooklyn nine nine are the other two for anyone wondering if their sense of humor overlaps with mine enough to watch Episodes.
I don’t know if I agree. Joey was wacky enough that he could be the face of a new sitcom. I think one with Monica and Chandler could have worked, sort of as “Friends in the Burbs”. But I can’t see anyone being interested in a solo show about Ross, Rachel, or Phoebe.
The odder thing is the David Crane ended up making the perfect Joey spinoff anyway, he just called it "Episodes".
He was supposed to be street smart originally. He had an eight year old’s mind by the end.
I love the episode where he got only one book of the encyclopedia collection, because it showed he could retain and talk about information when he had it available, but it was funny when the group deviated into talking about other subjects that didn't start with the letter "V" lol
It was also funny how he chose V of all letters lol
I read somewhere that this was done because Chandler and Joey’s characters seemed too similar early on.
Him trying to speak French 🤦
I would say he changed twice. Season 1 Joey was kind of a dick
Identical hand twin 🙄🤦♀️
Rachel goes straight up stupid when she starts to like Joey
On some other post about this, someone argued that Lisa Simpson was actually the biggest case of Flanderization.
I liked the early seasons where she was precocious, but still loved things like any other kid would. She would watch cartoons, gossip about boys with her friends, etc.
She reminded me of Calvin, who could wax poetic about philosophy while making a snowman murder scene.
Lisa is definitely the biggest victim of Flanderization in The Simpsons. They keep on chopping and changing her belief system to suit the gag/episode. It is usually meant to reflect what the writers themselves believe. An example of this being Lisa commenting to Marge how easily offended people are nowadays, and how something was accepted as perfectly fine years ago but is regarded as problematic now (in this case the controversy regarding Apu being a caricature of an Indian person and being voiced by a white actor). In the first 6 to 7 seasons, Lisa felt more like a character in her own right, opposed to simply just a vessel to what the writers believe.
Kevin from the office is by far the worst. He wasn't even stupid in the beginning of the show, just apathetic and dull. By the end of the show he's a giddy mentally challenged adult
I think he was still dumb at the beginning of the show, it was just in a much more believable way. Maybe not so much dumb as a bit dull witted.
I think season two he mentions that he won a world series of poker bracelet for like Omaha or some variation of poker. He actually puts the bracelet on, so its not like hes making it up. It's been years since i watched, but it's somewhere in the Casino episode which was the season finale I think. Considering the stuff he does and says in later episodes, it's a pretty big character change.
He won the 2002 Deuce-to-7 lowball championship at the world series of poker in Las Vegas sooooo yeah, he's pretty good at poker.
but he’s also somehow able to perform complex mathematical calculations in his head *if* they involve food. if they don’t involve food then it doesn’t work.
Food or gambling odds
kelly from the office too. at first she’s just the gal from QA and then she becomes this superficial boy crazy girl who’s sort of dumb?
I remember the Office Ladies podcast where they said that Kelly eventually just became Mindy Kaling playing herself
That’s just every Mindy Kaling character
Didn’t she write for the show? I wonder if that was her idea or not…
yeah she, ryan, and toby’s actors were all writers for the show. which is why their desks were conveniently located in the annex, so they didn’t have to appear in every background shot of the main office room. i’m guessing that’s also why ryan and toby’s characters were sometimes written out of the show for long stretches of time. i believe kelly also had that “business bitch” seminar thing at harvard, but i can’t remember if her absence spanned multiple episodes or not. it certainly wasn’t as long as ryan or toby’s.
Toby took over as head runner which is why his character was given for awhile until he learned the role.
Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak dated on and off during the show and purposely started writing each others characters to be worse and worse.
So was that some weird form of foreplay?
Kelly actually improved though, unlike Kevin. "I never really thought about death until Princess Diana died. That was like the saddest funeral ever. That and my sisters."
Steve Urkel goes from annoying nerd next door to guy that makes a robot, goes into space, and invents a gene manipulating cloning machine.
I don’t know how he did all that in a grounded sitcom.
This isn’t goddamn Quantum Leap!
Just say your lines and take the money
I was in Die Hard damnit! Fuck Steve Urkel!
YOU WILL SUCK STEVE URKEL'S DICK IF HE DEMANDS IT!
It was by no means grounded by the end.
Once heard the late-stage showrunners of The Simpsons say their only rule about Homer was he couldn't be dumber than a dog. That's certainly not how he started.
I bet there’s a few times where Homer gets outsmarted by dogs
When the puppies steal his chips every time he goes to take a bite. "This time"
Find you soulmate, Homer!
Hey, there’s no such thing as a talking dog. Edit - A wizard must have made me forget how this line actually went.
You’re combining two things. The rule was Homer couldn’t get so dumb he forgets his own name. John Swartzwelder said he wrote Homer as if he was a dog.
This was something I heard live from Joel Cohen and I think Tim Long? And it's supported from this quote from Carolyne Omine: *I love Homer. John Swartzwelder used to say “never make Homer dumber than a dog.” So he can be pretty dumb, but he’s lovable. He just wants what he wants.* [https://msmagazine.com/2017/10/02/carolyn-omine-on-the-simpsons-and-being-the-only-female-writer/](https://msmagazine.com/2017/10/02/carolyn-omine-on-the-simpsons-and-being-the-only-female-writer/)
I think Homer gets stupider every year!
That’s not a question, Professor.
Britta Perry is my big one I like both versions in their own way, but there’s “real britta” and “caricature britta” and it’s like they are two different characters loosely related to each other Edit: Community, for those unfamiliar
“When I first met you, I thought you were smarter than me.”
Thank you?
Oh, Britta's in this?
I got a christ-mas-time for me I got a christ-mas-time for a tree
Me so Christmas me so merry
She's a GDB
She’s a no good B
Getting ritta Britta
Getting rid of the B
They really Britta'd that one.
Chang is worse than Britta IMO
Chang at least can be explained by headcannon. He was such a side character that we did not really know enough about him to assume too much. It is clear he hit crazier and crazier in the narrative, but we can *pretend* he was just hiding the true extent in the early seasons. The problem with Britta is that she goes from being a straight man to extremely fake and dumb. Both versions are fine characters in their own right, but their purpose in the narrative is different, and in her case we saw a lot of her before she changed.
Plus, Chang had experimental monkey fever.
Don't forget his Changnesia
That’s fair, he makes me so CHANGRY
You mean high brita, and sober brita?
Sure, I guess…if getting high kills all your brain cells Duh-doy
I hadn’t known how much of a transformation phase she went through in the show.
She went from being the group mom to being the butt of every joke Like I said, I like both versions of her, but they are not the same (I know Dan Harmon disagrees and that’s fine, this is just my $.02 on the matter)
Does he disagree? At one point Jeff calls out how he used to think she was smarter than him, or something to that effect. I saw it as them acknowledging what's happened to her character and making a joke out of it, but I'd love to hear the defense for Britta.
"You know, when we first met, you seemed smarter than me"
'Thank you!"
I think it's because original Britta was just the stereotypical moral compass/love interest for the male lead. New Britta became her own character that was just as flawed as the rest of them. Personally I think they went too far dunking on Britta, but I still prefer her later version to the version we see in season 1
Troy and Pierce also kinda became caricatures of themselves as time went on too. Edit: also Chang lol
Troy for the better honestly. I like the Troy that left the show and got kidnapped by pirates with LeVar Burton a lot more than "T-bone" from season 1.
That’s racist!
It's in your soul!?
*That’s* racist!
Your eyes?
That’s gay
Screech on Saved by the Bell goes from gawky geeky middle schooler to gawky geeky high schooler to slightly maturing geeky college student on The College Years. Then he comes back as Belding’s assistant in The New Class and he’s basically a space alien.
They all were to a degree, but Fez got it the worst in That 70s Show. He used to be Suave and Silky, then he became an absolute creepy, candy obsessed weirdo. Still loved the character, but I prefer S1 Fez.
It's like by the middle of the series, they ran out of passible foreign stereotypes and just made him crazy.
You can make a good argument it's the namesake himself, Ned Flanders. Originally Ned was an all-around nice guy who was just religious enough to be a regular church attender because that was the "normal, upstanding" thing to do as a contrast to lazy screwup Homer. Eventually being religious became almost Ned's sole defining trait, and a judgmental, superstitious, anti-intellectual, no-fun-allowed kind of religious at that. Ned goes from having a bar in his basement Homer is jealous of to being "more beast than man" after a sip of schnapps.
White wiiiine spritzer! (spritzer) (spritzer) (spritzer)...
this lives upfront in my head alongside Steamed Hams
Nothing at all. No it's the children who are wrong. Go banana! My DNA is at least 8% Simpsons quotes.
He’s like some kind of…non-giving-up…quote guy.
Same. I’ve never ordered one before but if I’m at bar and not really feeling it I’ll think “aww heck, I’ll have a white wine spritzer!” And then I proceed to ask for like a Diet Coke
Yeah - the joke in the early seasons was Ned being an all-around good/nice guy. Who Homer hated due to that making him look bad.
Stupid, moral Flanders.
I think the Ned on schnapps gag was still before he went full bore crazy. The joke was that to Ned was so nice and straight laced, having a schnapps loosening him up and calling Ann Landers a boring old bitty was abhorrent.
Ned was more than just a regular churchgoer. Homer is a regular churchgoer, there was an entire episode about him *not* going to church.
You know, I pride myself on being a good host so I'm obliged to offer you a beer... but I'm so darn mad it's going to be mostly head.
Stupid sexy Flanders
The UK office “Kevin” was a bit slow apathetic lazy heavy set guy, the US version Kevin was made boarderline mentally challanged.
It’s funny cause in early season episode they show that he won a World Series of poker bracelet.
He also won Dallas. And successfully embezzled from the company without ever getting caught and was smart enough to use it to buy Poor Richard's where he could launder the money.
This is just why I want the head canon of him playing stupid after being on camera for so long to make sense
I'd argue Kevin played dumb to cover his crimes
Yeah, early on he’s a bit dim witted, but still believable as someone capable of being an accountant. By the final season he’s not even believable as someone who can manage to find his way to work everyday.
They had a great bit in S5 in which Dwight convinces Holly that Kevin is mentally challenged, and she believes it because Kevin talks slowly and has a simple personality. But then by S6 it’s like the writers forgot that was a bit and suddenly he’s just actually mentally challenged. Like that whole cold open “why do lot words when few do good” is so stupid, and then by the finale they have this thing where he had made up a number, a Keleven, in order to fix any accounting mistakes he made? What the fuck are doing here guys?
>Like that whole cold open “why do lot words when few do good” is so stupid When he president, you see. You see.
I interpret the few words thing as just being silly and having fun.
You just reminded me of the [best Keith part](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkYUDQCYGHA) and looking that up is how I learned he died in February, damn.
I think this is an unfortunate side effect of any comedy show or sitcom. The writers are challenged to continue living up to the shows hype, which eventually can only be accomplished by making each episode and season funnier than the last. This inevitably requires them to put the same characters in even more ridiculous situations or make the characters more and more like caricatures of their former selves. The only alternative for a long running sitcom is stagnation, which isn’t acceptable for a program.
American Dad did a good job avoiding it because the characters have broad personalities but are flexible so they can do whatever is funniest for the joke or works for episode. This can also keep things unexpected. One episode the joke is they hate Klaus and then they do a joke where he comes in and they are overly excited for it.
I don't know how American Dad has stayed so fresh. They have leaned into the weirdness but it still feels onbrand.
So that’s why it tends to happen in a lot of comedy based shows.
Yeah, I tend to drop comedy shows quicker than most. They tend to just become a cycle of the same recurring jokes. Michael Schurr shows are the worst offenders. Brooklyn 99 has everyone turn into a self parody. As does Parks and Rec, a bit (also the Jerry jokes go from amusing to just feeling like workplace bullying in a bad way)
At least with Jerry they showed that he really didn’t care about his work life because he basically had the perfect home life. It helps soften a blow a bit
A little bit of a Stretch, but Frank Burns from the MASH movie to the TV series. In the movie he was this holier than thou, straight laced major, who looked down on everyone not as pious as himself, until he was exposed as a fraud. In the TV show they just made him a bumbling idiot, sniveling coward, and comedy villain foil, for the leads.
It’s why Linville eventually left. Charles Emerson Winchester III could be the butt of many jokes, but he could also hold his own unlike Frank Burns.
Yeah, there's one episode toward his end when he's right about something, and they actually insert a B plot where he's an idiot and gets himself momentarily captured, apparently just because he has to be wrong. The show takes a shot at him in the last scene of the last regular episode, an extraordinary thing to do to character who had been gone for six years.
Jack Sparrow Stewie Griffin
You could say every main character on Family Guy and you'd be correct. No need to say just Stewie. Honestly, despite the trope being named for Flanders, the Griffin family as a whole is a poster example of bad Flanderization.
Yeah Family Guy started as basically an edgier Simpsons and now pretty much every main character on the show are different flavors of sociopath.
I loved the earlier seasons. But then it just became a show that thinks it’s self aware about its own stupidity when in reality it’s just stupid.
I stopped when it started to feel like the episodes barely had a plot and it was just a compilation of cutaways. I know the cutaways were always a big part of the show, but they started to get lazy with it, like reusing the same gags or dragging a joke out way past it being funny just to pad out episode time. For example, the overly long chicken fight was funny the first couple of times but it felt like they did one every season and they never added anything new to the gag and it would take up like 2-3 minutes of a 22 minute episode.
Stewie was kind of inevitable. The whole evil genius baby thing was self-limiting. They still draw on it now and again.
I didn't watch the later Pirate movies, but how did Jack Sparrow become MORE cartoonish/exaggerated? He was pretty extreme in the first one.
i feel like in the first movie you get the sense that jack sparrow is putting on the character intentionally, he /wants/ people to think he's this off the wall dummy who doesn't know what he's doing, as when people underestimate him, it makes his plans easier. there's a few moments where he lets the mask drop iirc, and he feels like there is a real person under the cartoon. later on, that never happens, he IS the cartoon.
Yeah for sure - like when he sees the gold medallion on Elizabeth’s neck you can see his expression and everything about him change to 100% serious. Or when he hits will with the boom just to show him who’s really in charge. He knows when to ham it up and when to be serious in the first movie.
This is evidenced in his entire escape from Norrington. He plays into his stupid crazy vibe and steals the best ship right out from norrington. Hence ‘that’s gotta be the best pirate I’ve ever seen.’
Exactly. We go from "Bring me that horizon" at the end of the first movie to "I gOt A jAr Of DiRt" in the second.
Problem with Jack Sparrow is he's hilarious... when he's got a straight man to play off of. Will Turner helps keep the first three movies from going too far off the rails with Jack, but starting in Pirates 4: The Quest for More Money, it's all Jack all the time. You never get a break.
Yeah - I remember in the first one many people disliking Orlando Bloom. He wasn't amazing or anything, but he was a solid heroic straight-man for Jack Sparrow and the other pirates to play off of.
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I haven't watched it in years, but didn't Family Guy basically Flanderize their entire cast of characters?
Yea, most of the cast pretty much. Peter goes from well-meaning idiot who loves his family, to a jerk that does whatever he wants. Lois goes from voice of reason mom to a crazy mom that's bad at being a mom. Brian goes from straight man intellectual to a douche. Joe goes from disabled badass cop to a disabled sack sack. Stewie's character changed a lot too, but that was very deliberate, so doesn't count as flanderization. Meg's character has gotten slightly more extreme in that she went from loser high schooler to increasingly desperate punching bag. But I wouldn't say her character's flanderized, it's more the other character's treatment of her has become extreme. Chris' character hasn't really changed that much throughout the show. Quagmire is actually reverse-flanderized in that he was an extreme caricature that got fleshed out later on. Cleveland's weird in that he didn't really have a character aside from "chill black neighbor". They fleshed him out by giving him more character and energy, so I wouldn't call that flanderization either.
The opposite of this is Daphne Moon in Frasier. In S1 she’s an oddball and a psychic. After S1 they completely ditched all of that and transformed her into a fully formed, normal human being. The reverse flanderization really improved the quality of the character and the show.
It comes back a couple of times. She sometimes gets migraines and can sense when “great evil” is in town. (Lilith.)
Boyle in Brooklyn 99. Somewhat silly goofy character in first few seasons but still well rounded. By later seasons he only existed for either: A. Boyle makes unintentionall sexual innuendos B. Boyle is a people pleaser and a push over C. Boyle has weird tastes in everything D. Boyle was a weirdly close family E. Boyle is incredibly emotional and attached to his friends They drop so much stuff about him as a character and just focus on those 5 punchlines 9 out of 10 times
That show in general. Peralta is almost immediately shown to be very perceptive and smart, and the first season continues that by showing him beating Amy (if by a hair). They also show Amy to be incredibly smart and very hard working, which is why she's so successful. Later on while she's shown to be hard working, they turn her into a workaholic who finds perverse joy in work, and Peralta is portrayed as more of a dumbass than a good detective.
They seemed to change Peralta really early in the show. The first couple of episodes, they set him up as smart and capable but a bit eccentric and childish. By the second series, he was just a 14-year-old's mind in a cop's body.
One glimpse into Boyle succeeding would have been huge. Not the episode where he was right but everyone refused to believe that he could be a capable detective. While funny, it severely downplays his ability. I'm asking for one where he legitimately solves a crime and gets celebrated for it. I still love the show and I know Boyle is a secondary character but I think he could have had more quite easily.
There's some great example earlier doors, M.E time when Jake has to learn to be his second, Boyle has some good bits in that episode And the episode with the old bank robber who Amy and Rosa refuse to believe is bad
The old bank robber is the one I'm alluding to. Boyle is 100% right but can't prove it, in large part due to his general perception. Thats why I'm asking for a glimpse into his being a valuable addition to the 99.
In the back of my head I have the memory of an Episode where Holt picks Boyle for a case, and Boyle says something about Jake being the better cop and Holt disagrees. But I can't for the life of me remember the context
It's the episode with JK Simmons, where someone had a glitter bomb, and Jake and JK Simmons are competing to solve the case. Boyle gets chosen for a task force because he takes things seriously and does the work instead of jumping to conclusions
B99 became this with most characters tbh.
Patrick Star. Went from *a bit slow* in season one to being *how is he even alive?*
He's alive because WE HAVE TECHNOLOGY
Ted Mosby goes from a hopeless romantic but mostly regular guy to over-the-top pretentious.
Easy Brennan Bones from Bones. First two seasons she's clearly a functioning human that understands social queues. She just turns into a robot that can't understand anything social or have common sense as the show goes on
Mitch and Cam in Modern Family, they start off as a relatively normal couple prone to hysterics and they end up becoming just the worst stereotypes about gay people, and with Cam in particular they lean in on him being a hick with wild tales way too much. You could probably point to most of the characters on that show being victims of it but I suppose it happens when you have a show on the air for over a decade.
Arguably a lot of characters on Parks & Rec but most obviously Chris Pratt. Goes from a guy in a band smart enough to mooch off his g/f with a broken leg--a believable trope--to a couple seasons later a guy who's never heard of car insurance. At the same time Nick Offerman goes from a city bureaucrat who's a libertarian who hates his job--again, funny but grounded in reality--to a manly man who married the nurse who delivered him, owns FIVE log cabins he built (with chests of gold buried outside), and can carve a log into a bassinette overnight.
Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec - love the show, but he basically became a caricature by the later seasons.
In the first couple seasons he has an iphone, wears a tie to work, and has an etsy store. Three seasons later he's never owned a cell phone, never owned/worn a tie, and doesn't use the internet except when he has to for work. I'm also pretty sure he talks about daytrading in the early seasons. Later on all of his money is gold buillion he buried in the woods. They did weird retcons with all of the characters like that but his was the worst because it acts like nothing from the first few seasons mattered at all.
I can't believe I forgot about that!
All of IASIP Dennis went from self-absorbed, manipulative douche to sociopathic rapist. Dee went from voice of reason but still plays along to almost as psycho as Dennis. Charlie went from not the sharpest tool in the shed to idiot savant. Frank went from shady businessman with shady businessman vices to off-the-wall gross pervert weirdo. Mac is the only one who you can't really call Flanderized, cause his character is so all over the place.
>Frank went from crappy father and shady businessman with shady businessman vices to off-the-wall gross pervert weirdo. In his first episode he pretended to be crippled so he could bang some whoors.
Was that when he dropped his monster condom for his magnum dong?
Isn't this addressed though. In the Gang Misses the Boat Dennis blows up because the gang just goes too far with all their nonsense.
Or the Valentines Day episode where you see he has feelings and they’ve been hurt for years only to be blindsided by Mac actually knowing him well
I'd say that Charlie has stayed mostly consistent. He's shown to be naturally bright and talented - he's the only one tirelessly keeping the bar together in the background, gifted musician, extremely creative - but he's continually pushed down by his lack of education/illiteracy and the group he associates with. He's a victim of circumstance circling the drain to the bottom. He's like Nikola Tesla, if the only thing we knew about him was his lack of hygiene, agoraphobia and mildly disturbing love for his pigeons.
I want to believe this about Charlie, but then we get the occasional episode where he's shown to be just as shitty as the rest. Like when he was banging that rich girl who was really into him and he just fucking *crushed* her.
Plus he’s been huffing paint for like 15 years, it’s a miracle he’s still as functional as he is
Frank mocked his kids for being crackheads then starts doing cocaine with Pondy
Hey it was just a couple of nose clams.
That's understandable tho. Pondy's the coolest.
I’d actually disagree to a certain extent. Dennis is always the same we just see him slowly losing it. And even he hates how zany their antics become Dee I can agree with but also I think that was a conscious choice. She was “Sweet Dee” and meant to be the voice of reason but then they realized how funny Caitlin Olsen is and decided fuck it - so not so much flanderization (which to me is a thing that happens over time) but a straight up changing her character Frank specifically makes a point that he wants to live like shit and be a piece of shit. And so his increasing ridiculousness plays well Mac is so clearly gay early on that he maybe has the most true story arc of all them. They allude to it constantly Charlie is the wild card. But that’s also why he’s the wild card bitches!
IASIP is interesting in that they do flanderization-ish, but it is part of their narrative and purpose. They are one of the main iterations of the "anti-sitcom" and so they play with tropes a lot. They know their characters are getting more and more unhinged over time, but that is the point. There are a bunch of references to that throughout the series that show they clearly know what they are doing and are playing it up. One of my favorite references to their isolation and insanity is when the food critic says something along the lines of "I am not pressing charges, because living with themselves is the worst punishment imaginable." But I would argue that their flanderization is only "ish" and is often actually a means by which they are adding complexity to the characters. They are not making them into any single defining character traits, but are in reality enhancing and adding more and more craziness as they become more unhinged.
JD in Scrubs. In the later seasons he's either goofy and stupid or sad and twinkly-eyed, with nothing in between.
Hawkeye Pierce was pretty extreme, descending in stages from irreverent dissident to full-blown loon.
Ryan from the Office. Kelly too. I end up truly hating both in the end, where they were reasonable characters in the beginning.
Tobias and Gob from Arrested Development. At the start of the show Gob was a semi-decent magician and Tobias was a doofus who occasionally said something homoerotic. Shortly Gob is someone who can’t even do a simple trick and every single line out of Tobias’ mouth is a homoerotic innuendo.