There are drinkers, and then there are drinkers. The ones that always seem to have a drink in their hand. It's a social thing, it's a private thing, but most of all, it's an everyday thing. Here are five TV characters who drank. A lot.
1. Larry Tate (Bewitched): Sure, it was the 60s and drinking was everyone and not frowned upon like it is in a lot of situations today, but mother of God Larry used to drink a lot. Every single time he came over to the Stephens' home he rushed over to their bar and made himself a drink, or Samantha gave him one. He seems like a prime candidate for alcoholism: a harried advertising guy, always on the go, and an ad exec who works for him that seems to vanish or have odd things happen to him all the time. That couldn't have been easy to deal with. This guy drinks a lot. In fact, if you play the Bewitched drinking game (take a drink every time Larry takes a drink), you probably won't make it past an episode.
2. Patsy and Edina (Absolutely Fabulous): I know, many of you might think this should be number one, but I think that these two women were more open, party drinkers. There was something more insidious about Larry Tate.
3. Otis Campbell (The Andy Griffith Show): Yeah, he was drunk 92% of the time, but you never saw him drinking on the show, just stumbling and slurring.
4. Norm Peterson (Cheers): Drank many beers in every episode. I mean, this guy was seated on that stool for every episode of the series, drinking beer after beer. It would have been sad if it wasn't so funny.
5. Sue Ellen Ewing (Dallas): She was such a drunk that she was arrested for shooting J.R. because she couldn't remember what she was doing when the shooting happened.
Honorable mention: Foster Brooks and Dean Martin. Brooks was acting, and to this day no one can say definitively whether or not Martin had booze in those glasses.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
1-24-2007 @ 11:04PM
Keith McDuffee said...
We can't forget Barney from The Simpsons!
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1-25-2007 @ 9:15AM
Finkenwalde said...
What about Rescue Me's Tommy Gavin?
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1-25-2007 @ 9:12AM
Scott said...
Can you leave out the casts of the last, say, 5 years of "The Real World"?
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1-25-2007 @ 9:26AM
Harry said...
What? How is Karen Walker not at the top of this list?
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1-25-2007 @ 9:34AM
KateG said...
Julian from Trailer Park Boys.
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1-26-2007 @ 6:26AM
Gayle said...
I was really worried about Jack McCoy on "Law & Order" for awhile there. He seemed to be taking a bottle and a glass out of his bottom desk drawer an awful lot. They don't show that as much anymore, however. Maybe he's gotten a handle on it!
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1-25-2007 @ 9:44AM
JTS said...
Although we only ever get a sense of it through dialogue, apparently Lenny Briscoe was also a huge lush back in the day. During a couple of the seasons, there wasn't an episode that went by that he didn't talk about boozing.
McNulty and Bunk from the Wire also need mention in this discussion. Does anyone remember when Bunk set his clothes on fire after cheating on his wife? Bet you never saw Karen Walker do that.
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1-25-2007 @ 9:52AM
Allen Mendelsohn said...
Hawkeye and Trapper drank all the time in the first few years of M*A*S*H*, even distiling their own stuff.
Though if you're in the middle of a war, I guess you have an excuse.
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1-25-2007 @ 9:53AM
KissTheRing said...
Also, what about Futurama's Bender? He needed to drink for fuel to live.
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1-25-2007 @ 10:02AM
gail said...
Long live Larry Tate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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1-25-2007 @ 10:10AM
jess said...
you guys kill me
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1-25-2007 @ 10:08AM
dd said...
@Gayle - You were "worried about Jack" ? You having a problem mixing up TV with reality? You know he's only acting don't you. Or are you worried too that Homer Simpson might have a fatal heart attack? I say fatal because he's already had so many :)
@JTS - gotta agree about McNulty and Bunk - they really knock it back bigtime.
Speaking of Sue Ellen, what about JR? There was rarely a scene that he wasn't pouring himself a scotch, although he didn't ever get drunk from it.
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1-25-2007 @ 10:30AM
Dave said...
Barney, for sure, and what about Lucille Bluth?
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1-25-2007 @ 10:47AM
George Myers said...
The Still on TV M*A*S*H 4077 was drinking.
"Star Trek" (TOS) had its share of odd shaped bottles, and Romulan ale was certainly a fulcrum of the plot of the "Undiscovered Country".
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1-25-2007 @ 10:57AM
Regina Corso said...
The greatest lush of all - Maryann from Cybill. Everything she did revolved around a martini in one hand!
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1-25-2007 @ 12:37PM
BradC2755 said...
Don't forget Meredith from "The Office".
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1-25-2007 @ 12:58PM
Bob Sassone said...
I think I didn't include Barney because I was thinking of live action shows. But Karen Walker should have been up there. Doh!
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1-25-2007 @ 2:44PM
ColdChilli said...
Col. Saul Tigh, even killed his wife on the sauce, but it was for the cause.
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1-25-2007 @ 4:16PM
Brent McKee said...
The thing about Foster Brooks is that he had been a heavy drinker, but when he was drinking he played sober roles - you can see him in some of the second series episodes of Dragnet (the 1968 one) - and he was essentially a bit player. When he stopped drinking he developed the drunk character that made him famous.
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1-25-2007 @ 7:31PM
Harold Love said...
How about Arthur Harmon, Maude's neighbor?
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