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Kelsey Grammer was contracted for exactly six episodes of Cheers. Six. Then he never left — and years later, got his own spinoff that outran the original show.

That's just one of ten stories in this countdown of TV characters who were never part of the original plan. A bartender who exists because a beloved actor died mid-production. A network's emergency replacement after its lead actor got himself fired. A character invented to fill six episodes of screentime who ended up defining an entire show — twice.

These are the characters nobody wrote into the pitch, who ended up being the reason the show survived at all.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Cold Open
01:23 #10 Kimmy Gibbler (Full House)
02:29 #9 Chachi Arcola (Happy Days)
03:25 #8 Ralph Furley (Three's Company)
04:23 #7 Guinan (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
05:37 #6 Sue Ann Nivens (The Mary Tyler Moore Show)
06:30 #5 Jo Polniaczek (The Facts of Life)
07:52 #4 Woody Boyd (Cheers)
09:04 #3 Bobby Simone (NYPD Blue)
10:56 #2 Colonel Sherman Potter (MAS*H)
12:26 #1 Frasier Crane (Cheers)
14:06 Outro

I would add Steve Urkel (Family Matters), Topanga Lawrence (Boy Meets World), Jim Ignatowski (Taxi), and Louie Wilson (Chico and the Man) just to name a few.