Cocopugg

Has anyone ever noticed how many TV shows got bad when they decided to introduce certain annoying "cute" little characters? This is a Hollywood syndrome that seems to go back a long time. Characters I can name, that fall into this syndrome are:

I Love Lucy - Little Ricky: Cute looking kid, but he should've been seen and not heard. Poor kid obviously didn't take any acting lessons before he was hired.

The Dick Van Dyke Show - Ritchie: If I hear another "MOMMY DADDY WATER" out of him, I think I'll shoot myself!

The Brady Bunch - Cousin Oliver: The show went downhill as soon as the annoying Robbie Rist came onboard.

The Partridge Family - Ricky: introduced as the cute singing kid next door, I would cringe when we had to hear him "sing".

Married With Children - Seven: Ouch...Seven was hideous! Did this kid ever take an acting lesson? Thankfully his character was 86ed so fast that the show had time to recover, but the memories of his existence still aggravate us in reruns.

Cartoons were a BIG culprit when it came to the cute little mascot syndrome, who can forget the king of annoyance:

Scrappy Doo - Let me at im, let me at im!

Batmite - Next time we want Batman to work alone, let's tell Batmite to join Robin.

I can't even remember the name of that "cute" little alien in the Jetsons. Anyway, the episodes with him in it were surely not the best of the series.

Well you get the idea. The list goes on and on. If anyone remembers more of these annoying characters, please feel free to add to the list.

Legz_Akimbo

wasn't there a ginger kid in Diff'rent Strokes too?

LasVegasMichael

Growing Pains: Chrissy Seaver & Luke Bower in the last ywo seasons (the latter played by DiCaprio)

Family Ties: Andrew Keaton (for the last three seasons) as the new son.

PopcornTreeCt

Scrappy was the best part of Scooby Doo.

Abob Teff

Scrappy Doo got his come-uppance in the live action movie.

Don't recall Batmite!? WTF is this?

Do you mean "The Great Gazoo" on the Flintstones?

Not a "cute little character" but the introduction of Falzone on "Homicide" signaled the end of the best damn show on TV.

TomOpus

Before this gets mod-slapped to the TV Forum..


The Great Gazoo

Mr. Cinema

I hated Gazoo with a passion. That little red headed kid on Diff'rent Strokes?

DodgingCars

The character's name was Sam, the son of Mr. Drummond's new wife. He was introduced in Season 6. Played by Danny Cooksey.

I was bored.

Groucho

How about the baby on Family Ties. Went from being a tiny newborn to a three-year-old over the summer hiatus.

LasVegasMichael

Growing Pains took it a step further. Their new daughter went from infant to 7 year old from one season to the next as well.

the narrator

definately married with children and family ties


Malcolm in the Middle is another one that has recently done this

antennaball

The Cosby Show - Rudy was tolerable. Raven was obnoxious as all hell.

HistoryProf

and this is in DVDtalk because?

Judge Dredd

I was gonna say that, I HATE Raven, even today she's annoying and obnoxious as all hell!

Disney needs to stop making these dumb girls think their gonna be huge stars (i.e. Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff, Raven, etc.) yeah, they're famous now, but what about in six years?

MahatmaPetey

Seven from Married With Children was what immediately came to mind.

Michael Corvin

Mothers Always Bring Extra Love

aka. Mabel from Mad About You. Not a kid but a baby kills a show just as easily as a kid.

Michael Corvin

also this thread should be moved to tvTalk. Totally un-dvd related.

asianxcore

Seven and Married with Children
Three Jay on Family Matters

Abob Teff

(cough*playboy*cough)

NaturalMystic79

Family Matters - I absolutely loathed the Richie character. I think he was Rachel's illegitimate son. Anyways he was a horrible actor (worse than Worf's son on TNG), and was especially annoying when he would try to "mack" on young girls and the crowd would act like he was some sort of young playa or something.

Eplicon

Batmite was a character featured in the Filmmation (?) animated version of Batman, which also featured Adam West and Burt Ward reprising their roles in voice. His character was a tiny character, dressed in a Batman-esque outfit, sounded a lot like the Nestle Quik Rabbit (I guess it was the same actor), and provided solely comic relief. I think the character might have been used once in The Animated Series, in which some of the storylines were drawn in different styles.

I actually like that show, Batmite notwithstanding.

StrTrkker

Ritchie was on the Dick Van Dyke Show from the start so actually his character wasnt introduced as an annoying "cute" little character...

Max Bottomtime

http://www.jumptheshark.com/newkidintown.htm

MrX

same here

I don't know if she'd qualify as cute but Dawn started the beginning of the end for Buffy.

spainlinx0

I would disagree because she played heavily into season 5 which was one of my favorite seasons. I think the decline was due to other reasons.