In the vast spectrum between bankable movie stars and extras scrambling for jobs, there are character actors. They are the backbone of TV and movie productions, actors who are good at what they do and will take roles that don't get top billing. You see them over and over, and you'll recognize them from some other production, but knowing all their names is beyond the average entertainment consumer. Yes, they deserve recognition, and they deserve a successful resolution to the current SAG-AFTRA strike. To help you sort out who's who, Screen Junkies has put together a musical guide to character actors sung in the style of of "Yakko's World" from the TV series Animaniacs. Sure, there are a lot of them, but you can pause the video anywhere and look up the lyrics at the YouTube page. Or you can just enjoy the song and the clips. I predict your response as some point will be, "Yeah, I know that guy, I liked him in that one movie, but I didn't know he was also in that other movie!" These are the kinds of discussions that will make you miss a plot point in whatever it is you're watching.
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I (63F) spend a silly amount of time looking up actors I see on the old TV shows and old movies on TCM. Sometimes I can come up with the name but need to remember where else I've seen them, and sometimes they're such an "insignificant" actor, at that time, they don't appear in the credits of the show. Then I have to click open every "uncredited" actor in the IMDb list to find who they are and where I've seen them before.
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"character actor" just seems like a dirty word, especially describing half of these actors, as they are often as-good or better than whoever is top billed
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I try to memorize the names of character actors from the 50s and 60s who I see on Perry Mason, Western TV shows and movies, etc. I'm hoping it forestalls dementia/Alzheimer's.
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Watching Heat the other night, just went through this with - William Fichtner. Learned he was a local boy too. Watching anything these days I always have IMDB at the ready. And for most series' there's usually a wiki by character name to help fill in other blanks. Sometimes turns into a big rabbit hole.
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