The Five Best Off Screen TV Characters

These selections are based on my personal universe of television, being from the mid-seventies on. I know there were other off screen characters before these, but these are the best of what I've seen. So there.

1. Maris Crane - "Frasier"
Taking full advantage of the fact that the writers would never actually have to show her, Maris was described as everything from "reptile-like" to "being too light to activate a whoopee cushion."

2. Vera Peterson - "Cheers"
Heard but never seen, Vera was the wife of barfly Norm Peterson. She was almost shown in one episode but got a pie in the face at just the right moment. I always guessed she looked like Julie Kavner.

3. Charles "Charlie" Townsend - "Charlie's Angels"
Heard primarily through a speaker phone, Charlie managed a series of hot women who fought crime. Which is what most of us would be doing if we had made the right choices in life.

4. Stan Walker - "Will and Grace"
Stan is the husband of Karen Walker, Grace's shrill and drug-addled assistant. Stan is an enormous, sexually deviant man who seems to be wealthy beyond measure. Somehow he has an affair with Minnie Driver.

5. Orson - "Mork & Mindy"
Mork closed every show by reporting his findings about Earth back to Orson, his boss from Ork. "Mork calling Orson, come in Orson." That gave Robin Williams a chance to get all moral and maudlin so we'd be prepared for "Dead Poets Society."