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The Best Show on WFMU => Show Discussion => Topic started by: JonFromMaplewood on November 18, 2015, 09:30:16 AM

Title: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: JonFromMaplewood on November 18, 2015, 09:30:16 AM
Twice on the show, there have been mentions of a possible future topic: The most depressing characters of all time. It may or may not happen, but I think it's worth discussing.

Two submissions:


1. The kid from Billy Joel's "Captain Jack."
2. The persona Billy Joel tries to achieve on Glass Houses. He's a "lunatic" because he drives his motorcycle in the rain and tells dirty jokes. G.G. Allin's ghost is trembling.
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: AllSussedOut on November 18, 2015, 09:55:33 AM
Neal Schweiber
Martha Dumptruck
Charlie Brown (possible #1 seed?)
virtually everyone in "Synecdoche, NY"
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: JonFromMaplewood on November 18, 2015, 10:10:47 AM
Wow. I don't find Neal Schweiber depressing at all! He's the leader of the geeks and seems relatively happy with his lot in life.
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: Omar on November 18, 2015, 10:41:36 AM
Wow. I don't find Neal Schweiber depressing at all! He's the leader of the geeks and seems relatively happy with his lot in life.

Well said.
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: Mike Desert on November 18, 2015, 05:13:40 PM
I find Dave Foley depressing so pretty much anything he plays... Joe Matt, Art Spiegelman's dad in Maus...I guess those are real...

Garfield's owner, eeyore, every rabbit that leaves the warren in watership down, Spaulding Grey in "Drunks", Kunta Kinte, the mom in Requiem for a Dream, Ali from Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, the Elephant Man, the kid in Grave of the Fireflies, chance the Gardener, Mr. Joyboy from the Loved One...

my #1 pick though is the donkey Balthazar from Au Hasard Balthazar
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: fonpr on November 18, 2015, 07:22:23 PM
What about Flipper?
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: Mike Desert on November 19, 2015, 01:12:02 PM
What about Flipper?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJmElfqhv28#]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJmElfqhv28#]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJmElfqhv28# (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJmElfqhv28#)
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: AllSussedOut on November 19, 2015, 01:37:38 PM
Wow. I don't find Neal Schweiber depressing at all! He's the leader of the geeks and seems relatively happy with his lot in life.

Well said.

I don't remember him that way at all.  I remember him more for his false bravado, his hopefulness that he's something / someone that he's not, and the utter bleakness of the episode(s) in which he discovered the truth about his dad.

That, and with all due respect to a certain Mr. Wackiman... the puppetry.
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: JonFromMaplewood on November 19, 2015, 04:18:04 PM
Wow. I don't find Neal Schweiber depressing at all! He's the leader of the geeks and seems relatively happy with his lot in life.

Well said.

I don't remember him that way at all.  I remember him more for his false bravado, his hopefulness that he's something / someone that he's not, and the utter bleakness of the episode(s) in which he discovered the truth about his dad.

That, and with all due respect to a certain Mr. Wackiman... the puppetry.

Good points! I need to revisit Neal.
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: erg79 on November 19, 2015, 05:02:05 PM
Eleanor Rigby & Father McKenzie

The stripper that Ralphie kills in the Sopranos
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: peter falk on November 20, 2015, 09:49:25 AM
David Scatino - the store owner who ended up in hock to Tony and the gang in the Sopranos, played by Robert Patrick.  That guy's arc on the show was a total bummer.
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: Mike Desert on November 20, 2015, 12:56:15 PM
Old John Robertson and Richard Cory
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: erg79 on November 20, 2015, 05:49:34 PM
David Scatino - the store owner who ended up in hock to Tony and the gang in the Sopranos, played by Robert Patrick.  That guy's arc on the show was a total bummer.

Oh god, yes.

"This is Eric's Jeep..."
"Yeah, but it's yours now."
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: TrapNeuterReturn on November 20, 2015, 08:24:14 PM
Bartleby the Scrivener
Raven from ECW
Philly Boy Roy when I found out he can barely read
Relic from Beachcombers
Sgt. Getraer from CHIPS
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: buffcoat on November 21, 2015, 12:43:08 AM
Bartleby the Scrivener



I would prefer that he not be on this list... he belongs on it, though.

P.S. from "So Much Unfairness of Things"
Both kids in A Separate Peace
Both kids in Bridge to Terebithia
The Giving Tree
Captain Ahab
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: Shaggy 2 Grote on November 21, 2015, 07:32:43 PM
How is Bartleby depressing? He's one of my heroes!
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: forshame on November 21, 2015, 10:04:49 PM
Gonna go with Jimmy Corrigan, of Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan,  the Smartest Kid on Earth.
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: Krokodil_Gena on November 22, 2015, 12:36:16 AM
Billy Pilgrim through most of Slaughterhouse Five.

Doc Daneeka in Catch-22, especially later in the novel.

Private Leonard Lawrence aka "Gomer Pyle" both in Gustav Hasford's novel The Short-Timers and Stanley Kubrick's film Full Metal Jacket.

Seaman Larry Meadows in The Last Detail, aka the movie where Jack Nicholson slams a .45 pistol on the bar and screams "We ARE the Shore Patrol!" at an addled barkeep.
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: buffcoat on November 22, 2015, 09:07:34 AM
Larry Alder in "Hello, Larry."
Carl Kanisky on "Gimme a Break."
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: TrapNeuterReturn on November 22, 2015, 10:33:36 PM
How is Bartleby depressing? He's one of my heroes!

I ain't no hater, I strive to be more like Bartleby every day, but he has a serious case of the do nuthin' blues.
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: JonFromMaplewood on November 23, 2015, 07:38:06 AM
Larry Alder in "Hello, Larry."

His kids walked all over him. They didn't care that he had given his life in the Korean War.
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: buffcoat on November 23, 2015, 10:17:14 AM
"I have a message. Lieutenant Colonel ... Larry Adler's plane ... was shot down ... over the Sea of Japan. It spun in ... there were no survivors."
Title: Re: Most depressing characters of all time
Post by: AllSussedOut on November 23, 2015, 12:33:29 PM
Gonna go with Jimmy Corrigan, of Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan,  the Smartest Kid on Earth.

Oh, wow.  Yes.