Breakout Characters
RickyBarby
Posts: 5,902 Forum Member
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A breakout character is a character in serial fiction who becomes the most prominent, popular, discussed, and/or imitated.
What characters do you think are breakout?
Alex P. Keaton (Michael J. Fox) in Family Ties
Leopold "Butters" Stotch in South Park
Dan Fielding (John Larroquette) in Night Court.
Fonzie (Henry Winkler) in Happy Days
Maw Maw (Cloris Leachman) in Raising Hope
Spike (James Masters) in Buffy
Tommy Oliver (Jason David Frank) in Power Rangers
Breakout list
what others do you think/say are breakouts.
What characters do you think are breakout?
Alex P. Keaton (Michael J. Fox) in Family Ties
Leopold "Butters" Stotch in South Park
Dan Fielding (John Larroquette) in Night Court.
Fonzie (Henry Winkler) in Happy Days
Maw Maw (Cloris Leachman) in Raising Hope
Spike (James Masters) in Buffy
Tommy Oliver (Jason David Frank) in Power Rangers
Breakout list
what others do you think/say are breakouts.
0
Comments
Handsome lead, turns out to be bland and boring. Instead nerdy not even proper side kick is the one everyone likes and wants more air time for.
Love that show hope Watch air season 2 soon,
Supposed to die early on...now, probably Breaking Bad's most popular character. Aaron Paul is fantastic in the role.
So much so that he appeared in one episode of Breakout Kings which was created by Nick Santora and Matt Olmstead who worked on PB
Is October 22nd soon enough??
http://www.tvwise.co.uk/2012/08/watch-sets-uk-premiere-date-for-grimm-season-2/
Would the character of Sam Axe from Burn Notice count as a breakout character?? After all he got to be the lead character in a spin-off prequel TV movie Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe
Yes that is good news , There's lots of good shows come up soon.
That's true enough
Continuum is starting on Syfy at the end of the month and Season 3 of The Walking Dead starts 3 days before Grimm
plus on syfy the river/haven the Almighty johnsons
and on 5* alphas
FX American horror story
+ all sky's shows be back soon.
This. I'd add Desmond too. Both were introduced in Season 2 for originally-short stints. They were both very popular and remained in the show until the end, becoming two of the most important characters.
And then there's a character like Faith, who only appeared in maybe a couple of dozen episodes across both shows and yet was one of the most popular and memorable characters. Indeed, weren't they even considering a Faith spin-off at one point?
Yes, in terms of career progression, that's hard to beat
I don't think Jed Bartlet (The West Wing) counts, because he was elevated due to the producers' response to Martin Sheen's performance rather than the audience response.
The Fonz (Happy Days) is the clearest example - was supposed to be a supporting character but became so popular that he became the main character.
Alex P. Keaton (Family Ties) wasn't supposed to be any more prominent than the rest of his family, but the show eventually became all about him.
Homer Simpson also counts, as Bart was supposed to be the main character in The Simpsons. J.R. was a breakout character, and so was Alexis Colby (Bobby and Krystle were supposed to be the main characters in Dallas and Dynasty respectively).
Zach Morris from Saved By The Bell was originally just the main student in Good Morning Ms. Bliss, the sitcom being based around the teacher, but he was popular enough that the re-named the show and made him the main character.
I think these are what I would call "true" breakout characters.
Dr Smith from Lost In Space would have to count as a major breakout character then
He and his sidekick the robot didn't even appear in the original pilot but he gradually became became the main character in the show, much to the distress of the actors who played Professor and Mrs Robinson and Major West.
Let's face it, even now if someone thinks of Lost In Space the first thing that springs to mind is Dr Zachary Smith
And Will Robinson
Danger Will Robinson!!! Danger!!!
FROM Dr Zachary Smith:eek:
from Simpsons
Smith then offered to meet up with Bart later in the food court to show him his résumé, and Robot B-9 warned Bart away by shouting out "Danger! Danger! Bart Simpson!" Bart heeded the robot's warning and quickly left.
What show was that??