That may have been the reasoning but the reason was Alda gaining creative control of the show.

I liked the shift to an antiwar program...but Alda's massive ego made Maclean Stevenson and John McIntyre walk from the show since everyone became a sidekick to Hawkeye.

For the OPs question: All the cast of Third Rock from the Sun as they learn what its like to be human.

I was going to say Urkle on Family Matters as well.

As long as people are going with devolving characters too, I'd have to add Eric Matthews from Boy Meets World. He went from the older brother who teases with the occasional caring moment. He would also stand up for his brother in an instant. The he turned into an irrational idiot who would waltz into a scene for the same of setting up a slapstick joke.

The entire series started to grow after they got rid of Frank Burns. Best creative decision they could have made.

Megan Mullaly in Will & Grace, she went from sassy assistant to Grace to privileged rich lady so much to the point they added a maid to the cast to be her sidekick. After the third season the show should have just been called Jack & Karen.

That's the nuclear power working it's magic.

That's one of the rules of comedy series or comedy movie sequels, find what works and hammer it unmercifully into the ground until it becomes worthless.

Initially Fonz was really just a tertiary character behind Potsy and Ralph. But his coolness brought him to the forefront and eventually made him the lead after Ron Howard left. He said he owed it all to that move at the mirror. He asked himself what would Sly (stallone) do? Instead of combing his hair he threw his arms out in his famous "hey look at me" pose and the rest is history.

Yes, but both shows ran for a very long time side by side as staples of early Fox. I remember watching both, from their pilot episodes, and thinking about how much Al was turning into Homer, while at the same time Homer became more brain dead every season.

The first season of MWC was my favorite because Al was modeled more from Archie Bunker. The show did have a somewhat more serious tone though than everything that followed. As I believe someone else mentioned it eventually turned into self-parody.

Now now don't be dissing Larry. He got a LOT of mileage out of a singular, one-dimensional character. A lesser actor would have been repeating himself by season two. Larry kept that character hot right up until he left, when you saw he was truly in love with Houlihan.

Frasier didn't. They made one fatal mistake: putting Daphne and Niles together. Other than that, though, almost everyone stayed true to the character. The only one that grew was Roz and I think it was more because Peri wanted to be more than just Frasier's foil and an insult board for Niles for her promiscuity. But Frasier himself was pretty much the same man on the last episode as the first.

Chrissy Snow went from normal to full "mentally challenged" in Three's Company.

Yeah truthfully Married with Children is hard to even watch anymore to me. It seems like as it progressed each year just got more zany and over the top. The first two or three seasons I would say it was at it's best and that it started getting really bad to me when Steve left the series and Jefferson was brought in.

Doesn't that happen in dramas too? Look at House. Go back and watch a season 1 episode and you will find an eccentric, superficially mean and sarcastic character that was also brilliant and underneath the gruff exterior truly cared for his patients. Watch an episode from the last couple seasons and they have amplified the negative elements of his character so much that he is a batshit crazy narcissist that is truly mean spirited and dangerous.

Don't forget Radar's de-evolution into an innocent.

I agree. Ferret Face was the best part of MASH.

I haven't seen any of the current season yet but I was thinking Barney when I saw the thread title
going from totally single, getting a different chick every night, to happily monogamous and caring about the girl's feelings is a huge change

House started out as a brilliant but quirky doctor. By the end he was a psychotic genius with a host of hardcore addictions. They went way too far with House's problems and personality.

True. Jack Tripper also went from skirt-chasing student to a restaurant owning, one woman guy.


Absolutely agree!

And he turned straight.

Fortunately, Larry never grew.

Mike Sever - immature teen to very mature teen with adopted child

Homer Simpson on Police Cops

And while not a sitcom, how about the way Nellie Oleson changed on Little House on the Prairie? She was the total bitch until she got married. I always thought it was the producers' way of telling us that all she ever needed was to get laid.

Kramer started out as a lethargic layabout who never left the apartment building. He changed a lot.

I remember watching an interview with Andy Dick near the end of Newsradio's run where he said his character had slowly gotten dumber over the years to the point where he was bordering on mental retardation at the end.

Kevin on the U.S. version of The Office got a lot dumber as the show went on too. In the first season few seasons or so he was never the brightest bulb in the pack but he wasn't the idiot that he eventually became. It got to the point where I swear he was mentally challenged or something.

Based on the amount of drugs Andy Dick did maybe he really wasn't acting.