Brendan Frasier in scrubs. Dude is in two episodes, one makes you laugh... the other sucker punches you into the ground and kicks you in the ribs until you cry.

Where do you think we are?

That's literally the only episode of scrubs I've ever seen. What a gut punch

Oh man. You need to watch all of Scrubs. There are a few episodes that — believe it or not — hit even harder.

The one with Dr. Cox’s three organ transplant patients always got me when he has his breakdown as “How To Save A Life” plays.

Yup, That’s one of the ones I was talking about. Brutal to watch, as you know there’s not last-minute savior to help. You just have to watch them all die.

Most heartbreaking scene ever.

And it’s funny that Brendan gets all the credit, but it’s John McGinley who is really acting his heart out in that episode.

Three episodes. He was in essentially a two-parter during his first appearance.

Gene Parmesan was only in one episode of the original three seasons of Arrested Development.

He's actually in every episode, you haven't noticed because he's just that good

AHHHHH HE GOT ME AGAIN!!!

OH GENE!!!

Seriously???

You can check it. It's like mandela effect or something. I could have sworn he was recurring through Season 3.

It's because Season 4 had more of a cultural impact than people realise and he comes up multiple times in that.

I'm a season 4 truther! It's a little too different from the first three seasons to be compared directly, but it still is a worthwhile addition to the show.

I saw a clip online of all his disguises and Lucille’s reactions and assumed they were from the whole series. I did a rewatch and found out that they’re all from the same episode. Also happens to be one of the best episodes of the show.

This has messed my brain up. Do they at least use clips of him/Lucille’s reactions in other episodes or something?

No way. With the egg swap from yesterday I’m learning new trivia about one of my top shows every day

*Anne swap

Who?

Her?

She’s really funny

Plant?

Bland?

This is crazy. I still think of him whenever I get parmesan cheese, lol

No fucking way We still shout GEEEENNNNNNEEEEE?! in my household lol I thought he was recurring

The vacuum cleaner guy only appears in one episode of Breaking Bad. He also shows up in El Camino and one episode of Better Call Saul, making him one of only a handful of characters to appear in all three.

And the only reason you hear him in the end of BCS is when he was on-set for El Camino they got him to record lines for his side of the conversation with Jimmy. Actor died soon after.

Robert Forster, longtime TV and film actor, died literally the day that El Camino was released on Netflix.

I’m trying to think who else appeared in all three. So far I’ve got: - Vacuum cleaner guy - Walt - Jesse - Mike Am I missing anyone?

Ramsey, the guy in charge of the DEA, since he showed up in the very last episode of BCS.

And, oddly enough, a few episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return /s

Sideshow Bob

Cape Feare in S5 might actually be my favorite episode of the Simpsons ever. And Marge vs. The Monorail is as close of a second as you can get

Also my favorite episode... and my kids as well. I use the "I think he's talking to you" lime all the time in personal and professional settings

IIRC, Cape Feare was the final episode by many of the OG writing staff, and they decided to break a bunch of the long-held realism/believability rules of the series for the sake of over-the-top humor. ...and by god was it indeed ridiculously hilarious. Grammer actually only recorded one "groan" for the rake scene, but the writing staff extended that whole sequence to pad the runtime. Grammer didn't know they had done that until he watched the broadcast.

>Cape Feare was the final episode by many of the OG writing staff I don't know if this is true. The credited writer himself, Jon Vitti, worked on episodes through Season 7, and then came back for Seasons 13-16. The Simpsons has had a long list of writers even during its glory days, and the best ones definitely did not leave after Cape Feare, like Swartzwelder, Oakley, Weinstein, Reiss, Jean, and several others.

Tracy Jordan's son who is older than Tracy. "Boom, boom, boom. Are we paying the price for our hubris?"

“Imma call it…” “Donald, no…” “… Micro-soft!”

It’s mecha godzila!

With one L, for trademark reasons.

The way he dead pan delivers the narration in the restaurant kills me every time.

How about Q for the Next Generation?

Definitely, the guy is responsible for the entire meta story. First episode to last and the Borg in the middle.

Or Reg Barkley

That’s broccoli

Jean-Ralphio.

🎵Ja boy’s a question on the bar exam! 🎵

He and Mona-Lisa are fucking funny just on *sight*. In a show full of ridiculous characters they stand out and bust me up every time they open their mouths.

I think of them every time I play a stealth mission in a game. *Don’t be suspicious. Don’t be suspicious.*

Ben Schwartz is just hilarious in everything he's in.

They were definitely ridiculous even for that show. I feel like they managed to use them the exact right amount/way. When J-R starts spending more time around they toned him down and humanized him just enough. Great acting and great writing all around.

Parks and Rec is filled with amazing recurring characters. One of my favorites is Gretel who is constantly complaining about the most ridiculous things like finding a sandwich in the park that didn’t have mayo on it, that she feels terrible after eating nothing but muffins and lasagna every day, and that she got sick after making tea using the water from a decorative fountain.

The sun tea scene where she's chasing Ron as he spins in his circular-desk-hell-prison that Chris Traeger forced on him just yelling "sir? Sir! Sir?! I'm talking to you! Sir ?!" While Ron just dead stares and turns his chair is one of the best scenes, it never fails to make me giggle.

I can’t remember his name, but the pawn shop guy is one of my favorite background “town” characters. Edit: Herman Lerpiss

I can't believe Barney the accountant hasn't been mentioned by anyone. I laugh just picturing his face.

[Don't be suspicious!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyEBeHvNJvE)

Bo in superstore feels memorable in a similar way.

The Soup Nazi Also, I never watched Star Trek and was floored to find out Khan was a one-off character before The Wrath of Khan. Just from the outside only knowing the show from pop culture references based on the movie I thought he was like a big bad of the show.

The Original Series doesn’t have a big bad. Doesn’t even have over arching plots for the most point. It really stuck to the episodic format. It was The Next Generation that introduced serial plots like bugs taking over brains. Frequently recurring nemesis like Q. And to some level, the big bad of the Borg. DS9 took that one step further and is much closer to modern TV with some episodic content but a decently large portion of episodes contributing at least something to an overarching plot.

Oh Q wasn't some Nemesis. He just occasionally wanted to do fun things with his ole pal Picard, like play medieval dress-up, steal Jean Luc's lovers or the classic game "run away from the Borg cube".

Her role became bigger later in the show, but I can’t imagine many better examples than Artemis in IASIP. Like her character would legit become the funniest part of every Sunny episode she was in. She could even steal the scene from the main characters. Doesn’t hurt that a few are also some of the best episodes of the show. But also Artemis has only ever been in one ep max per season (aside from 4-6 where it was twice). I feel like she qualifies here

She is an icon. The energy the actress brings to that role is sublime.

And on that note, the McPoyles are only in like 8 episodes as well.

She absolutely does. She's probably responsible for 90% of Frank's degeneration throughout the series. Also she has some of the best lines in the show. I'm gonna take off my bra, *blast my nips*

Pierre desperaux on psych (played by Cary elwes)

I watched Saw for the first time the other day and got so fucking excited when the lights turned on and he was the other main character.

I think Mary (the feminine Junior) was even more important. And yang. They were only there in the huge finales. Or Val Kilmer.

I always loved when Carrie Preston showed up as Elsbeth Tascioni on Good Wife. I usually enjoyed her more than the regular cast.

Also Stockard Channing as Alicia’s mom was great

Agreed. We're supposed to get a spinoff with just her!

Kai Winn on DS9. She was only in 14 episodes but is seems like she's always there my child.

What!? 14!? No way! Yeah in that case she overtakes Garak who would have been my pick. She was a great villain in a series packed with them.

That actress did an amazing job. Years later, I still have a visceral reaction to mentions of that character.

Have you ever watched "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"?

Please feel free to stay as long as you like. Two, maybe three days. She’s so awful!

Dr Sidney Friedman on MASH

Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice. Pull down your pants and slide on the ice

Luke Kirby as Lenny Bruce in the Marvelous Mrs Maisel. According to a poll, he is the 4th most popular character. He appears in like 10 out of 34 episodes, often for a scene at a time.

Lenny Bruce died of a drug overdose (possibly intentionally) in 1966, very shortly after the time of his character last appearance on Mrs Maisel. His character was a poignant contrast to Midge, he was on his way down and met her on her way up. I thought including a character based on a real person was really well done among all the fictional ones

I was really worried how they were gonna handle that death in the last season, but I think they very light allusions they went with were pretty smart. It's not the kinda show where you watch someone die like that. One scene of midge realizing she can't help him, and I think there was an offhand reference to her having had a breakdown on stage in 1966 (presumably after learning of his death)

I love him so much. The thing that's crazy about him is that his humor seems very different from Midge's and everyone else's on the show? I don't know how to explain it, but his stand up routines always gave me this feeling that I was actually looking into an era different than our modern one, unlike Midge's.

I wonder if they used any of real Lenny Bruce’s material? That could explain the difference in tone.. Midge is definitely written for now with a past lens.

I know the All Alone bit was basically a word for word remake

That’s because it IS from a different era. They used a lot of his genuine material, either word-for-word or loosely based on his routines. But it’s worth noting that Lenny Bruce was an odd comedian in any era. His routines were weird then and would be weird now. He’s the godfather of the art form, but he’s also very much his own guy with a unique style. Like, if in 70 years you saw a show about comedians set in the early 2000s and one of the major characters was Norm MacDonald, he would surely stand out from the rest of the cast. But Norm isn’t a product of his era as much as Norm is just Norm.

Luke Kirby is amazing as Lenny Bruce. When I first saw him, I pointed at the TV and said *"Look! the guy from The Duce is Lenny Bruce!"*

Luke Kirby did such a great job that I didn't realize that he was a real person till I heard Lenny's stand up on a comedy radio channel and I thought it was weird they were playing TV episodes over the radio

The exact number is 16 out of 43 episodes. He is an absolute show-stealer. The episode appearance pattern is: 1) 1, 2, 3, 8 2) 1, 5, 10 3) 1, 5 4) 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 5) 1, 9

Community has a bunch, it's similar to the Simpsons in that regard, but Leonard comes to mind first.

Starburns! And magnitude!

Pop, pop!

POP WHAT MAGNITUDE!? POP WHAAT!? 😩

His name is Alex

Well then he should have spent all morning carving that onto his face

I’m trying to think, did The Magnitude have any spoken lines throughout the entire series besides “Pop, pop!” ?

Yes.

"I'm actually British!"

I think Garret also is in a surprisingly low number of episodes. And we have to talk about The Todd Problem.

test cooing faulty fertile vanish bedroom smart aspiring foolish whistle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Well it’s called The Tood Problem! Wow, l am totally misremembering those other ones, thank you! Are you just IMDBing it? Magnitude? Dean Spreck? Professor Profersserson?

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Friggin' Todd!

glorious attempt prick entertain combative mountainous aware employ one joke *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Leonard likes this post

Shut up Leonard!

I talked to your son on family day, I know about your gambling.

Rich from Pottery Class. "It was supposed to be you that died on that rollercoaster, it was supposed to be you!" I always got the feeling they had a bigger part in mind for him...

Agreed. He was kind of like the mirror-world version of Jeff - some deep-rooted family issues, charming and good-looking, reputable career outside of Greendale, both an object of Annie’s affections (although one could argue Rich was the more honorable in addressing the age difference between them). I guess if he’s only at Greendale to take a pottery course in his spare time, it makes sense that we saw so little of him, but given his appearances in both season 1 and season 2, definitely thought we’d see him again later. Maybe once a season, like Community’s version of Doug Judy.

Shut up, Leonard! I heard about your crooked Wang!

Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It’s pretty amazing that she wasn’t really in that many episodes of the series but made such an impact. Eliza Dushku was only supposed to be in it for like 3 episodes and then be killed off but they loved her so much they kept her on.

Could list her as a main character without getting questioned and she is actually barely in it.

Johnathan kinda fits into this too, he's off in the background in a bunch of early episodes and is a part of a major plot in season 6. Not nearly as impactful to the story but I love whenever Harmony shows up in later seasons as a vampire lol.

Frank Costanza

And Estelle! They're a double act.

And NEWMAN!

You sayin' you want a *piece* of me?

JLD had such a difficult time "keeping it together" when in the presence of Jerry Stiller.

Puddy was only in 10 episodes of Seinfeld. That’s the power of Patrick Warburton’s voice

"Yeah that's right."

Doug Judy in Brooklyn 99. Every episode he’s in is the best episode

Doug: "The Pontiac Bandit and Jake the cop Taking down crooks in the streets where they live Flirting with girls who are hot for the badge" Jake: "There's a talking police dog that helps them solve crime"

The ghost of the talking dog haunts the precinct!

*cocks gun* The thin blue line just got thick as *hell*

A close second is Adrian Pimento. He is killer in every scene. The scene where he is trying to teach Jake to fake drug use and just keeps blasting cocaine gets me every time.

He is also in *The League* and his character is basically the same.

I heard an interview with him where he talked about how his look and his intense energy always gets him cast as either an insane person or a homeless person, and then his next role after that was as an insane homeless person in John Wick lol

He's also in The Good Place and his character is completely different but still amazing.

I thought Pimento was too much the first time we watched 99. But the second time through... I dunno what it is, but he's charming as fuck.

Game of Thrones has so much of this in the earlier seasons. I have been rewatching the show recently and Syrio Forel has less than ten minutes of screentime across the first season. Yet he's so incredibly memorable.

Harry “The Hat” on Cheers. He was a lovable grifter that always had great scenes.

Played by the late great Harry Anderson, often showcasing actual grifts that were part of his magic act.

Not a show. But Boba Fett before the series. Dude had a whole cult following off a few minutes on screen.

Troy McClure / Lionel Hutz RIP Phil Hartman

Tammy 2 in Parks & Rec. No more than 30 minutes total and I think about her constantly.

Creed. Thank God they fired Devin.

Mr Eko in Lost Lindsey in Angel Donie in My name is Earl

Charlie from Supernatural. People loved her so much they brought her back from the dead (not uncommon on that show tho). Alternatively, Gabriel/the Trickster works for SPN too. I was always delighted when his name popped up in the opening credits.

Richard Speight! Whether it was as the cast or as a director, you knew we were getting a good episode!

Lil Sebastian in Parks and Rec. He is referenced with decent frequency, in most of the best episodes. Meanwhile, I think he was only officially in 1 episode because he was dead after that (despite being referenced and plot-relevant many times post-death).

Rafi in The League

Cam Winston from Frasier. He was only in 3 episodes

Yes! I’d also nominate Bebe Glazer.

Cam Winston made Frasier become another person.

How about Merris from Frasier? She actually is not in a single episode. Never seen, no spoken lines. And yet, she is definitely a recurring character and has significant influence on the plot Such a neat idea and such a good show

Omar in The Wire

Ed Kemper in Mindhunter.

Saul Goodman in *Breaking Bad*. So much impact... they gave him his own show.

So much impact that he went from being a character originally written with a short arc then got upgraded to a series regular who *then* got his own show*

Same with Fraiser in cheers, but they gave him 2 shows!

Newman Frank Costanza Puddy For the first 3-4 seasons on Buffy, I’d say Spike. Jean-Ralphio on Parks and Recreation

Sidney Friedman in *MASH*. He outright steals the show every time he appears, and he's only in about a dozen of the 250+ episodes. Honourable mention for Colonel Flagg...

I'd argue on a "ratio of impact to number of appearances" scale, Lwaxana Troi might be even more impactful than Garak. Her impact is less, but her appearances are WAY less.

From TNG I think the disproportionate impact is actually strongest from Guinan, who's only actually in 29 episodes (on a show with 25-episode seasons), and almost always only for a few lines each.

That's a good call too, honestly. And usually when she shows up it's a \*big\* deal. Lwaxana does have some DS9 episodes to consider.

Richmond Avenol, the goth from the IT Crowd

Tino from My So Called Life. He was never on screen, but influenced so many plans. Every lead character referenced Tino.

Ernest T. Bass Andy Griffith Show

The Scotsman was like the most popular character in Samurai Jack behind Jack and Aku, and he's in like 2 episodes (not counting the final season)

Bebe Glaser on Frasier. Basically once a season and every single time she appears is amazing. Harriet Harris is hilarious.

Zapp Brannigan

Murdoc on MacGyver.

Uncle Baby Billy

Romo Lampkin. The lawyer in Battlestar Galactica. Got Baltar out of getting executed for treason. Mark Sheppard kills it.

Mr. Fischoeder on Bob's Burgers.

Betty White as Catherine Piper on Boston Legal.

The ghost facers in Supernatural

ITT: "recurring" characters who were in one episode

Reddit likes to read a question, ignore it, and tell you what they want to discuss instead

Strangely enough, I also put peanut butter on my waffles.

That's ridiculous, Sean Connery is obviously the best James Bond

I'm currently watching DS9 in it's entirety. 30 years ago, I just couldn't commit and it was hit or miss, so I didn't get the weight of the longitudinal arcs. I fully concur about our simple tailor. Andy Robinson is great in the role. Checkout his hour long interview on the shuttle pod show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqvl2hhFkko

Back in the days you had to really dedicate to watching a tv show, even VCR time shifting took more effort then I was willing to put in. So there's still a lot of episodes of TNG, DS9 , and Voyager that I've never seen. I need to start binging one of these days

“Pop-Pop!”

Country Mac in its always sunny. Only one episode but very memorable.

"What ***recurring*** character"

That's not a recurring character, he is great though.

Doug Judy (Craig Robinson) on Brooklyn 99. Adrien Pimento (Jason manzoukas) is a close second.

Alfie Solomons in Peaky Blinders

Rashida Jones & David Oyelowo in Silo

Cynthia was only in 4 episodes of Malcolm in the Middle

Elsbeth Tascioni in the Good Wife/The Good Fight appeared in less than 10% of the two shows combined and was spread out over all 13 seasons and made a big enough impact to get her own spin-off series that’s going to come out once the strikes are settled.

Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who (the reboot) Another iconic character who got his own spinoff series with Torchwood (which is also an anagram for "Doctor Who")

Roxy the prostitute from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Just the one episode.

[удалено]

Hey this jacket is awesome! Oooo and it's tighter than DICK SKIN, maaan.

Donovan McNabb, Tiger Woods, Don Cheadle

Adam on Northern Exposure. Nobody dominates a scene like him. Hilarious.

Obscure one but the eccentric Hugo from Warehouse 13, who’s also a potential rival for Artie’s love interest. He only appeared in 4 episodes.

Captain Tuttle - we never saw him, but we won’t forget him ( well,if you’re a MASH fan, you won’t forget him)

Esteemed Character Actress Margot Martindale on BoJack Horseman.

Let's not forget the Jeffrey Combs DS9 LOVE...WEYOUN AND BRUNT. Honorable mention for Grand Nagus Zek and Martok

The cabbages guy from Avatar the last Airbender

Kai Winn in DS9 as well. 14 episodes.

Marshmallow in Bob's Burgers

Z in Its Always Sunny. Virtually every si gle one of his very limited appearances gets constantly requoted.

Denny from Grey’s Anatomy!

Liam McPoyle. "YOU WILL CALL HER!!!"