Trend Isn’t Very Character-Building

Remember the episode of “Leave It to Beaver” where the Beave is being bullied out of his lunch money? When the casting folks needed someone to play the bully, did they recruit Bud from “Father Knows Best”?

Of course not.

And when Marcia was vying for that crucial cheerleading slot on “The Brady Bunch,” did they ask Laurie from “The Partridge Family” to make a guest appearance as her junior high school rival?

F-F-F-O-R G-G-G-E-T it.

No TV viewer back in the days when these shows were first broadcast would have expected to see Billy Gray as anybody but Bud Anderson, or Susan Dey as anybody but Laurie Partridge. They were their characters, at least for the run of the show.

Things are not so simple these days. Last week, for instance, saw Jennifer Aniston of NBC’s “Friends” briefly ditch her Rachel persona (and boyfriend Ross) to step out as Jon Cryer’s girlfriend on an episode of Fox’s “Partners.” Then Harry Anderson (no relation to Bud), star of “Dave’s World” on CBS, appeared on NBC’s “The John Larroquette Show” as a character who was neither Dave nor a recreation of Anderson’s former “Night Court” role opposite Larroquette.

And Tuesday on “Larroquette,” Joe Lando makes a guest appearance, shedding the fringed-leather wardrobe requirements of his character on the CBS western “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

But to really get an idea just how much things have changed since the Beave’s heyday, let’s examine a recent Thursday night on NBC.

The talk of the evening--or at least of that network’s 11 o’clock news--was the big “lesbian wedding” of Carol (Jane Sibbett) and Susan (Jessica Hecht) on “Friends.” But more shocking than a guest appearance by Newt Gingrich’s sister Candace as the minister was Susan’s appearance in bed with Matt (a man) mere minutes after she’d left the altar with Carol. That’s because Hecht is also seen as Janeane, wife of Matt, on “The Single Guy,” which immediately follows “Friends.”

Hang on, it gets better.

Back on “Friends,” David Schwimmer plays Ross, who escorted his ex-wife, Carol, down the aisle at the aforementioned lesbian wedding. But Schwimmer has also been seen on “The Single Guy” playing his same “Friends” paleontologist character, whom Jonathan Silverman’s character suspects is gay and is trying to put the moves on him.

Meanwhile, another character on “The Single Guy” is Trudy (Ming-Na Wen). Trudy has no known medical training. Yet, just an hour after “The Single Guy” ended, she was assisting in an emergency room. That’s because Wen also played a medical student during the first season of “ER,” and since that show has the annoying habit of airing its reruns out of context on a near-regular basis, Trudy--er, Wen--frequently is seen in two time slots on the same evening, fortunately only one of which has so far required her to stitch open wounds.

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If all of this is making your head spin, that’s exactly the problem. These days, you not only have to suspend disbelief long enough to accept that a coffee shop waitress and an infrequently employed chef can afford a fabulous New York City apartment on “Friends,” you also have to buy their characters interacting with recognizable faces--both in and out of character--from other shows. Among them, George Clooney, Noah Wyle, Lea Thompson and Helen Hunt.

But characters occasionally hopping from sitcom to sitcom is nothing new, particularly between spinoff shows and their parents. Remember when the “Happy Days” and “Laverne & Shirley” casts used to visit each other’s shows? Or when “All in the Family” begat “Maude” and “The Jeffersons,” giving everybody a little extra work? Well, now the characters merely need to be on the same network, as NBC proved when the casts of “Law & Order” and “Homicide: Life on the Street” visited each other earlier this month.

Such crossovers were and are sometimes annoying, though not nearly as disconcerting as the rather recent trend of actors doubling up and overlapping on TV roles that have nothing to do with one another, with no apparent regard to how viewers are left to perceive either character.

When “Blossom” was still in production, for instance, Mayim Bialik also appeared on “The John Larroquette Show” as John’s daughter. Blossom’s brother Joey wasn’t the only one who was subsequently confused. And how can we be expected to unconditionally accept Sandra Bernhard as Sheila, the new house counsel on “Chicago Hope,” when she continues to pop up as Nancy on “Roseanne”? Presumably the same way we’ll get used to seeing Laura Innes as both Sandy on “The Louie Show” and Dr. Kerry Weaver on overlapping episodes of “ER.”

Similarly offensive examples are endless. Not since Judy the Time-Life operator has there been less TV character credibility to hang onto.

Which brings us to a recent Saturday episode of “Hope & Gloria,” which featured Lisa Kudrow in a familiar New York setting. Kudrow supposedly appeared as her “Friends” character Phoebe. But who knows? Since Kudrow also plays Ursula, the ditsy waitress--and Phoebe’s twin--on “Mad About You,” maybe Hope and Gloria were really meeting Ursula, but they thought she was Phoebe.

Oy. “The Patty Duke Show” was never this complicated.