I'm going to get a lot of push back and grief but I'm going to say it anyway. I hated Elliot Carlin! Great actor but the character bugged the crap out of me. Watching the show in reruns I tend to groan every time he appears in his first scene. I love it when an episode is a Elliot Carlin free episode.
Nothing against the actor - just the character.
Even Elliot Carlin hated Elliot Carlin.
. Ephemeron.
On the contrary, I found his character livened things up.
It made for drama.
Much like "My brother Darryl, and my other brother Darryl..." on Newhart, Elliot Carlin served as a "heavy" or highly comic role.
Carlin's role was the comedy man compared to Newhart's straight man role.
Like Budd Abbott & Lou Costello, Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, et. al.
Compare Carlin to Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Frank Burns on MASH or Herb Tarlick on WKRP In Cincinnatti.
True and for whatever reason I hate Carlin while I like Ted Baxter, Herb Tarlick, and both Darryl's. Can't explain it.
shareI like Frank Burns ("Frank Burns eats worms") on MASH.
Of course, he was a preposterous figure (as Murray Slaughter once described Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show), but he sure livened things up in that show.
Can you imagine MASH without Frank Burns?
The show would've been more like its last 3 seasons where for the most part, the writers wrote "average" or "regular" plots.
Someone ought to post a thread listing the major "heavys" or "clown" characters, like Elliot Carlin, Frank Burns, Herb Tarlick, Ted Baxter, Eddie Haskell, etc.
Never was a fan of MASH so I have no MASH reference, but I know a lot of people were.
shareMr. Carlin is one of the best characters on the show.
shareI think the whole point of Elliot Carlin was to be unlikable. (Not saying that the character wanted to be unlikable -- though I suspect he did -- more that the writers wanted him to be unlikable.) So he was a successful character.
To me, though, he was funny-unlikable, while to you he was apparently annoying-unlikable.