100 GREATEST TV CHARACTERS

1 – 25   26 – 50   51 – 75   76 – 100

76. Napoleon Solo (The Man from Uncle) (65-68) – Robert Vaughn
    "Open Channel D"
    
    Created by Ian Fleming after the success of James Bond, Napoleon Solo's "UNCLE" fought the forces of "THRUSH" from the unlikely setting of a New York dry cleaners.
77. Norman Stanley Fletcher (Porridge) (73-77) – Ronnie Barker
    "You are an habitual criminal who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard"
    
    Workshy, worldly inmate of Slade Prison plays the system and keeps an eye on naïve new boy Godber.
78. Oz (Auf Wiedersehn Pet) (83-86) – Jimmy Nail
    "We all agree……Oz is harder than Yosser."
    
    Ex-con and toon nightclub star, Jimmy Nail's uncannily accurate portrayal of a bigoted, macho, beer-swilling, Geordie slob.
79. Patsy Stone (Ab Fab) (92-present) – Joanna Lumley
    "Hello Sweetie"
    
    TV's definitive shallow, self obsessed, coke-snorting, foul mouthed old trollop.
80. Pete (Pete'n'Dud) (65-73) – Peter Cook
    Tap, tap at the bloody window pane. I looked out – you know who it was? Bloody Great Garbo."
    
    Cloth-capped men of Dagenham let their imaginations run away with them.
81. Peter Manson (Bouquet of Barbed Wire) (76-77) – Frank Finlay
    Suave silver-haired publisher leads doubled life of lust, infideltiy and incest in steamy suburban Surrey.
82. Philip Marlowe (Singing Detective) (86) – Michael Gambon
    "Think boring! Think boring!"
    
    Troubled writer with a skin disease at the hub of Dennis Potter's surreal, multi-layered, genre-bending TV masterpiece.
83. Quentin Crisp (The Naked Civil Servant ) (75) – John Hurt
    One man's fight over 50 years to live his life without harassment and humiliation.
84. Rab C. Nesbitt (86-99) – Gregor Fisher
    Street philospher in a string vest with a belly full of heavy.
85. Rick (The Young Ones) (82-84) – Rik Mayall
    "It's as if Cliff Richard never existed."
    
    If the Young Ones were a family, Mike was Dad, Neil was Mum consigned to a life of drudgery, Vivyan was the hyperactive son and Rik was little sister complete with pigtails and a crush on a teen idol (Sir Cliff).
86. Rigsby (74-78) – Leonard Rossiter
    "My-y-y-y-y God"
    
    The mean and mangy, cat-kicking landlord whose unrequited lust for Miss Jones and bitterness towards the younger generation were instrumental in creating in that rarest phenomenon - a classic ITV sit-com.
87. Sergeant Bilko (57-61) – Phil Silvers
    "Hello Miss. The Colonel didn't tell me his daughter was visiting....Why it's Mrs Hall!"
    
    The faster than life scam-merchant of the US army motor pool. His schemes were always brilliant but never actually worked.
88. Sid Abbott (Bless This House) (71-76) – Sid James
    Hurr hurr hurr hurr huurrrrr
    
    A man of his time, Sid listed his interests (alphabetically) as "Ale, Birds, Chelsea."
89. Simon Templar (The Saint) (62-69) – Roger Moore
    David Niven and Patrick McGoohan had been in the frame for the role of Leslie Charteris's suave hero, but it was Roger Moore who brought the required sleekness of coiffure and sleight of eyebrow for this archetypal 60s ladies' man and action hero.
90. Sir Humphrey Appleby (Yes, Minister) (80-88) – Nigel Hawthorne
    The programme's creators loosely based the central relationship between the slippery master of double talk, Sir Humphrey, and the inept idealistic Minister Jim Hacker, on Galton and Simpson's Steptoe and Son.
91. Stuart Jones (Queer as Folk) (98) – Aiden Gillen
    "The car's only six months and you've just buggered it."
    
    Successful PR executive on an uncompromising romp through Manchester's gay village.
92. Ted and Ralph (Fast Show) (94-2000) – Paul Whitehouse/Charlie Higson
    "I wouldn't know about that sir"
    
    Unrequited love in the lower field.
93. Terry Collier (The Likely Lads) (64-74) – James Bolam
    "Fancy a pint, Bob?"
    
    James Bolam's Terry was the cynical Lennon to the eager to please McCartney of Rodney Bewes's Bob. The duo's return in the 70s was a rare example of a sequel that stands comparison with the original series.
94. The Doctor (Dr Who) (63-89) – Too many to mention
    "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Have a jelly baby."
    
    900 years old, native of the planet Gallifrey, and variously a tramp, dandy, bohemian and cricketer. The Doctor was originally invented as the central character of an education programme designed to bring history to life.
95. The Fonz (75-85) – Henry Winkler
    "Heeeyyy!!"
    
    Where British sit-com leads are pompous, rude and accident-prone, the Americans prefer their comic heroes on the cool side. None came cooler than Arthur Fonzarelli, who stole the show in this 50s Nostalgia Fest.
96. The Prisoner (67-68) – Patrick McGoohan
    "I am not a number. I am a free man."
    
    Surreal mind-games in mid sixties North Wales. Writer, director and star Patrick McGoohan refutes the theory that the character of Number 2 was actually a new lease of life for his previous role, John Drake in Danger Man.
97. Tubbs (League of Gentlemen) (99-Current) – Steve Pemberton
    "Are you local?"
    
    Curiously endearing for a willing accomplice in mass murder, beneath the bestial depravity lie glimpses of real tragedy at the hands of Tubbs's control-freak husband Edward, who wants to keep her local perspective on life intact at all costs.
98. Victor Meldrew (90-2000) – Richard Wilson
    " I don't belieeeeeve it."
    
    He was bad-tempered, cursed with an extraordinary run of bad luck and strangely sexually attractive to chimps and donkeys. And yet flowers are still regularly found at the site of Victor's death at the hands of a hit and run driver.
99. Wolfie Smith (Citizen Smith) (77-80) – Robert Lindsay
    "Freedom for Tooting!"
    
    British History might have been very different if Parliament had not been in recess on that glorious day in 1980 when the Tooting Popular Front stormed the House of Commons in a stolen tank.
100. Yosser Hughes (82) – Bernard Hill
     "Gizza job. I can do that."
     
     With his bemused brood of kids never let out of his sight, Bernard Hill's powerful depiction of a man crumbling before your eyes brought him a mantlepiece full of awards but, as he later revealed, almost "drove him to the edge of insanity."