Five Sitcom Actors Who Created Their Own Characters

5 Latka Gravas from ‘Taxi’

When Taxi debuted in 1978, one of its characters had already had a good deal of exposure to American audiences — both on television and in comedy clubs. Andy Kaufman began doing his “Foreign Man” character in nightclubs beginning in the early 1970s, though he never publicly gave the character a name other than “Andy Kaufman” (privately, he did name the character Baji Kimran in a personal journal in 1974, but that name was never used on-stage). 

As Kaufman’s fame grew, he began performing on Saturday Night Live as his Foreign Man character, and by the time James L. Brooks and company were creating Taxi, they thought this lovable character with an indeterminate accent could be the mechanic in their New York City taxi garage.

4 Linda Belcher from ‘Bob’s Burgers’

Roberts has previously explained to me how Linda was born out of an impression he did of his mother. He performed the character on-stage for years, before bringing her to YouTube where he eventually came to the attention of Bob’s Burgers creator Loren Bouchard, who decided to make the show’s mother into Roberts’ pre-existing character.

3 José Jiménez from ‘The Steve Allen Show’

In the first half of the 20th century, dialect comedy was still very popular in America, where comedians would affect a foreign accent and build a persona around that. Chico Marx from the Marx Brothers, for example, was an Italian character being played by a Jewish-American comedian. 

When television came around, dialect comedy stuck around for a bit longer. One of the best examples of it was the character of José Jiménez from The Steve Allen Show. Like Chico Marx, Bill Dana was a Jewish-American writer and comedian, and while writing on The Steve Allen Show in the 1950s, he created the dim-witted Bolivian character José Jiménez. José Jiménez became a big hit, and Dana subsequently played him on a number of variety shows and sitcoms. 

But in 1970, he declared the character “dead” as it became clear to him that such humor was offensive to Latinos. The National Hispanic Media Coalition would later laud him for terminating a still-popular character because it perpetuated negative stereotypes.

2 Lots of Characters from ‘Reno 911!’

Before Reno 911! began on Comedy Central, creators Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant and Kerri Kenney-Silver had a deal with Fox for a sketch show that Fox pulled the plug on after a single table read. With some money leftover from the would-be show, the trio hastily put together a parody of Cops with the cast they were already going to use. Everyone came up with their own character on the spot, and they would remain those same characters even after the show was picked up by Comedy Central.

As the show continued, the same would become true for many of its usual suspects. A number of these perpetrators were developed during an actor’s audition, while other times, guest stars had a pre-existing character that they incorporated into the show. 

1 Cliff Clavin from ‘Cheers’

When Cheers was first conceived, the main characters were going to be Sam, Diane, Carla, Coach and Norm. Norm was the role John Ratzenberger went in to audition for, but once his audition had concluded, he knew he wasn’t getting the part. But rather than just leave the room, he began telling the Cheers creators that their show needed one more character to authentically capture a neighborhood Boston bar.

Or as Ratzenberger has explained it, “I turned around and very sincerely said, ‘Do you have a bar know-it-all?’ Because, growing up in New England, I was privy to a lot of these characters, and every bar does have one and no bar has two because they cancel each other out. It’s like gunfighters. So, (co-creator) Glen Charles says, ‘What do you mean?’ and I improvised my version of that character.” 

From there, Cliff Clavin was added as a recurring character in Season One, then made a regular for the rest of the series’ 11-year run.