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7 Most Unfairly Hated Sitcom Characters, Ranked
Sitcom fans love a good punching bag. It’s almost part of the genre’s DNA at this point to have a character the audience just flat out despises and ends up channeling all of their frustration toward. Yet some of the most widely loathed sitcom characters may be worthy of reevaluation. Were they actually hateable, poorly written, and annoying, or were we just not giving them a fair shake?
Name a sitcom, and you’ll find at least one character like this. They are rarely the actual antagonists, and occasionally they’re even the series lead. Most of them weren’t designed to be disliked, so the reason for their bad reputation needs to be unpacked. From Friends to Full House to The Office, from regulars to recurring guest stars, there are the top seven unfairly hated sitcom characters.
7) Eric Forman: That ‘70s Show
Many believe Eric Forman (Topher Grace) suffered a bad case of “flanderization,” especially in Seasons 6 and 7 of That ’70s Show. The prevailing theory is that at some point, the writers ran out of ideas for him and leaned too hard into his loserdom, and this may be true. He’s suddenly super immature, fumbles Donna (who has her own haters) for no reason, and seems void of his usual charm and goofy confidence.
Yet when you think about it, his regression does track with what it’s like to be a teen coming of age. His long-term girlfriend’s career suddenly takes off while he’s still prying himself away from his Star Wars toys. Losing confidence is also understandable when your dad constantly calls you “dumbass.” It might not have been fun to watch, but who hasn’t encountered someone in their life who uses bad coping mechanisms because they haven’t learned how to communicate properly? Eric’s bad decisions and crisis of confidence are something most people can probably relate to.
6) Carrie Bradshaw: Sex and the City
Carrie Bradshaw is the most polarizing character on HBO’s Sex and the City, and much of the hate boils down to her being selfish, materialistic, and a bad friend. There’s definitely a lot of truth to those assessments, but it was actually Carrie’s struggles (and Sarah Jessica Parker’s screen presence) that made her so relatable. The entire premise of the series was that these women were flawed and figuring things out in real time.
Carrie was also very self-aware, even chronicling her own overspending and relationship mistakes in a column for all to read and learn from. She messed up with Aidan and Big, but understanding her is not an excuse for her actions; it’s simply a way to appreciate her recognizing her mistake and attempting to move past it. Carrie’s friendships were also deeper than many give them credit for. She showed up for Miranda’s surprise pregnancy, Charlotte’s infertility struggles, and Samantha’s cancer diagnosis. Not perfectly, but she showed up nonetheless. In fact, none of the NYC ladies were perfect, yet Carrie gets the brunt of the hate.
5) Ross Geller: Friends
Beloved at the time, David Schwimmer’s Ross Geller has a reputation today that boils down to toxic, jealous, and psychotic. The Friends star certainly earned his stint in anger management, and in fairness, Rachel did bail on her Paris dream job because of him. While he never really learns a lesson about his possessiveness toward Rachel, he has many other great qualities that balance out the red flags.
Throughout Friends, he’s consistently depicted as a good brother, loyal friend, and, often, a tender romantic partner. He also had a point in the “we were on a break” debacle. Ross was the main issue, but he and Rachel both contributed to the unhealthy dynamic, so it’s not exactly fair to place all the blame on him. Yes, Ross was toxic. Yes, Rachel probably should have taken that job in Paris. But ultimately, it’s hard to truly hate Ross for his flaws, especially when you consider the show was written to air once a week, meaning Ross in small doses rather than seeing all his mistakes stacked on top of each other.
4) Jerry/Garry/Larry/Terry Gergich: Parks and Recreation
Unlike the others on this list, Jerry isn’t so much hated by the fans, but he’s worth mentioning because of how much flak he catches from the other characters on the show (including lion-hearted Leslie) for absolutely no reason. In Parks and Rec, Jerry is despised by nearly everyone in the department, despite being a kind, gentle family man with the most functional home life on the show. He’s married to Christie Brinkley, has three perfect daughters, and is beloved by pretty much everyone else in his community.
That’s obviously the great irony of his character. It makes for some hilarious jokes, but it’s also hard not to feel bad for the poor guy. The bit is that the hate never accurately reflects his behavior, filling the same role as Toby from The Office, who could just as easily be on this list. Still, in this iteration, it also never really reflects anyone else’s flaws in a particularly interesting way. Everyone is mean and dismissive to him in basically the same fashion. True of real office dynamics or not, the Jerry hate can be hard to watch. Even Chris Pratt thought the Jerry jokes sometimes went too far.
3) Kimmy Gibbler: Full House
Kimmy Gibbler is the original “annoying best friend” for most ’90s kids. She was loud and quirky and wore blinding eye-sore outfits. She also had a habit of walking into the house uninvited, which is pretty wild. But she was also loyal, funny, and supportive of DJ through every difficult milestone in middle and high school. For all her eccentricities, Kimmy always showed up.
To get even deeper, many of Kimmy’s “annoying” traits feel like coping mechanisms for a kid who wasn’t treated very kindly by many adults around her. Stephanie insulted her constantly, Danny barely tolerated her, and Jesse once threw her out of the house over a prank. Still, Kimmy endured. In hindsight, it’s hard to see her as anything but a misunderstood, socially clumsy teen who was on TV long before there was any major discourse on mental health or neurodivergence.
2) Karen Filippelli: The Office
Many fans of The Office loathed Karen Filippelli (Rashida Jones) because she committed the cardinal sin of interfering with the will-they-won’t-they romance. Not to mention, in one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. The moment she started dating Jim, fans were outraged. Taken on her own terms, however, Karen was smart, ambitious, funny, socially competent, and honestly better suited to Jim’s lifestyle than Pam was at that point in the story.
She wasn’t necessarily written as an antagonist, but was just the wrong person at the wrong time, since everyone was shipping Jim and Pam. Karen was always reasonable and cordial, and her exit made the hate feel even more undeserved. She uprooted her life for Jim, moved to Scranton, made friends there, and was blindsided when he emotionally checked out without telling her. She handled the breakup with dignity before moving on to bigger and better things in Utica. She often felt like a breath of fresh air and deserved way more empathy than the fandom gave her.
1) Ted Mosby: How I Met Your Mother
There’s an urban legend that 68% of the people who’ve seen How I Met Your Mother hate Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor). He’s been called things like pretentious, obsessive, clingy, overly romantic, judgmental, hypocritical, and even “the worst protagonist in TV history.” While you could make an argument for many of these things, the biggest problem with this take is that while people hate Ted, they love Barney. When you compare the two, Barney is far more manipulative, misogynistic, and all-around awful. Barney gets a pass, though, because he’s the satirical side character, while Ted is supposed to be the one we relate to, but that means Ted is judged on a harsher rubric.
It’s fair to love Barney as comic relief, but people loved Barney so much that they were actively rooting for Robin to end up with him. Ted’s cringey sappiness and issues with Robin aside, he was a mostly well-meaning dude just trying to find love in the big city. Meanwhile, Barney is a recovering womanizer. Also, if Ted were a great guy all the time, HIMYM would be extremely boring, and the same goes for the other shows on this list. A clueless, hopeless romantic isn’t exactly the culture’s favorite archetype at the moment, but Ted provides a good anchor for the rest of the cast. Aside from a terrible final season, Mosby manages to make How I Met Your Mother a pretty engaging show.
Who is the most unfairly hated sitcom character, in your opinion? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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