HALL'S FALLEN - REMEMBERING... NORM!

THE HALL'S FALLEN

Earlier this year, I decided to start a new category for the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.  As much as I love, honor, and respect the writers for their contributions to the creation of the characters who are inducted into the Hall, it’s the actors who make them so memorable that their presence is sought to appear on other shows.  But unitl now, once they became TVXOHOF members, the characters were barely mentioned again, and the actors not at all.

It’s a conceit for this televisiologist that just because an actor passes away, that doesn’t necessarily mean the character dies as well.  Of course, that doesn’t apply to characters from the Past, like in Westerns or toga shows; even shows set in the fifties, it has to be assumed that all the adult characters and maybe even the kids are gone now in Toobworld.  And it wouldn’t be a factor for many of the shows set in the Future – most of those characters are probably not even born yet.

O’Bviously if the character’s death was written into the script, that rule of thumb doesn’t work.  Jean Stapleton lived long after Edith Bunker died.  Peter Horton still walks Earth Prime, but Gary Shepherd (‘THIRTYsomething’) and Jack Keyes (‘Gun’) have shuffled off the mortal coil.  (Ezekiel Stone of ‘Brimstone’ is a Limbo figure – died, but was brought back by Satan to fulfill his demands.  He may still be alive carrying out that mission.)

The only times I make an exception is when the character could not conceivably have been played by anybody else.  The first time I thought of that in a definitive sense was with the death of Carroll O’Connor.  Nobody else could play Archie Bunker.  (As for the police chief he played in “In The Heat Of The Night”, his character’s existence proved that it wasn’t unique.  Rod Steiger played the role first in the Cineverse.  So the chief exists in other fictional universes, and so might return one day in another TV dimension, in an alternate Toobworld.

The other time is when it’s implied that the character might not live for much longer beyond the cancellation of a show – President Jed Bartlet (‘The West Wing’), Tony Soprano (‘The Sopranos’), Dr. James Wilson (‘House M.D.).

Up to now, we had two reports for the “Hall’s Fallen” 2025 list -

1. With death of Leslie Charleson, it’s possible that Dr. Monica Quartermaine has died as well.  However, being a soap opera character, the writers might find a way to bring her back with a fresh face to at least visit General Hospital.  (It happened once already.)
   
   
2. And the one we can state with certainty is dead in the Toobworld timeline would be Tom Brewster, the legendary cowboy know as ‘Sugarfoot’.  

But now we have a new addition to the roster, one whom I know could never be a Recastaway

NORM PETERSON

"Who?  Me?"

Norm was inducted back in 2020 when I had started a weekly ceremony for “Friday Hall of Famers”.  It was June 11th, and being in the month for Gemini, he was inducted as part of a hardly dynamic duo along with Cliff Clavin, his stool-mate at the ’Cheers’ bar.

These are the reasons why Norm Peterson is in the TVXOHOF:

EARTH PRIME-TIME

CHEERS
269 episodes (1982-1993)

ST. ELSEWHERE
1 episode (1985)

THE TORTELLIS
1 episode (1987)

WINGS
1 episode (1990)

FRASIER
1 episode (2002)

THE TOONIVERSE

THE SIMPSONS
1 episode (1994)

FAMILY GUY
2 episodes (2007 & 2009)

BORDERLAND

MICKEY’S 60TH BIRTHDAY
special (1988)

DISNEYLAND’S 35TH ANNIVERSARY
special (1990)

THE EARTH DAY SPECIAL
special (1990)

One side benefit from this look back at his credits... I discovered that George Wendt is eligible for membership as a member of the League of Themselves.  Look for that face to show up again someday; the definite article you might say....

I hope you got your personal stool in Heaven, Norm….

Good night and may God bless, Mr. Wendt.