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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ome" data-source="post: 259873" data-attributes="member: 2"><h2>65. Leon Black (Curb Your Enthusiasm)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25508[/ATTACH]Played by J.B. SmooveLeon didn't show up on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David's semi-autobiographical follow-up to Seinfeld, until the show's sixth season in 2007. He arrived as a talkative houseguest, quickly distinguishing himself with lines like "cum is not cum, Larry," and never really left. Given how essential the character now feels to the foul-mouthed, free-wheeling improvisational sensibility of the show, the way he makes seemingly low-stakes bits of dialogue like "you can't pause toast" sing, it's hard to remember how exactly the show functioned without Smoove's outbursts and eye rolls. Has a better sidekick ever emerged on a sitcom so late in the game? There's an argument to be made that Larry himself is the best character -- after all, the entire show springs from his obsessions, grievances, and observations -- but, on a laugh-per-scene basis, Leon has his friend "Long Ball Larry" beat. -- DJ<h2>64. Shane McCutcheon (The L Word)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25509[/ATTACH]Played by Katherine Moennig"There was an L.A. club that screened new L Word episodes on Sundays and as the show became a phenomenon, everybody there had the Shane haircut, the fedora, the sleeveless vest. It was clear she was a style icon," L Word creator Ilene Chaiken recounted in Vogue's oral history about inventing the character that became Showtime's crust punk-y gay icon. "Straight women talked about Shane, fell in love with her, saw her as a 'gateway lesbian.'" Regardless of who you were, it was hard not to be infatuated by the mysterious allure of Shane McCutcheon, the show's resident "bad girl" with a legendary body count -- she's supposedly slept with 1,000+ women, which is a little embarrassing to gloat about in 2020, but when The L Word premiered in 2004, it was groundbreaking. Refreshingly androgynous, Shane was ahead of her time, swatting down biphobia and welcoming trans people in the LGTBQ community in less progressive times while dealing with her own addiction issues and troubled past. Whether you wanted to date her or be her, she was unforgettable. -- LB<h2>63. Angela Abar (Watchmen)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25510[/ATTACH]Played by Regina KingYou could say that Watchmen's big twist -- that the police force of an alternate universe Tulsa, Oklahoma had been infiltrated, for decades, by the KKK -- was oddly prophetic of a movement that ignited only months after its final episode aired, but the show, like the Alan Moore comic it's based on, merely acted as a genre-tinted indictment of the world we've been living in this whole time. Angela Abar, who works alongside the police force as a detective disguised as costumed hero Sister Night, sees her world turned inside out when she discovers that her law enforcement has been taken over by the white supremacist Seventh Kavalry, and finds out a world-shattering truth about her connections to the original masked hero team the Minutemen. Angela uses her strength and her secret identity to protect those she loves the most -- and, fortunately, one of those people turns out to be the most powerful person on Earth. In Angela, the show meticulously treads the web of contradictions around those who must hide their faces to fight injustice, and those who become powerful enough to face it head-on. -- ES<h2>62. Stefon (Saturday Night Live)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25511[/ATTACH]Played by Bill HaderSaturday Night Live's hottest character is Stefon. This NYC correspondent for Weekend Update has everything: the ugliest Ed Hardy tees, the asymmetrical bang-heavy haircut of an "I'd like to speak to the manager" suburban mom, and he lives "in a trash can outside the RadioShack at 23rd and 7th." Few SNL characters in recent memory are as beloved and utterly hysterical as this co-creation of former SNL writer John Mulaney and Hader, who brought the flamboyant unofficial promoter of the dingiest, edgiest clubs to life. Offering nightlife recommendations to then-Weekend Update host Seth Meyers of places that have anything from "screaming babies in Mozart wigs" to "coked-up frogs," he had the best one-liners of the broadcast, and Hader delivered them in a way that solidified his place as one of the all-time greats. What's maybe just as memorable as Stefon himself is the way that Hader couldn't even hold in his laughter. He broke during nearly every appearance because Mulaney would often change the script at the last minute. While he was giggling behind his hands, we were all at home cracking up at a rare, truly funny SNL skit. -- SB<h2>61. "Jack" (Samurai Jack)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25512[/ATTACH]Voiced by Phil LaMarr The nameless hero warrior known throughout Earth's dystopian future as, simply, "Jack," clad in samurai robes and carrying a magic sword, is so cool. That was the whole ethos through which he was conceived by creator Genndy Tartakovsky (who is also responsible for Dexter's Laboratory, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and, more recently, Primal), who wanted to make a show based around his childhood fascination with samurai and bushido code, his love for David Carradine's martial arts western show Kung Fu, and a recurring dream in which he wielded a sword through a post-apocalyptic future fighting off monsters alongside his crush. Jack, who was zapped from feudal Japan into the far future by the evil demon Aku just before he could land the finishing blow, spends hardly any time worrying about his predicament, and almost immediately starts working on a plan to get back to his home in the past and defeat Aku for good. To do that, he has to make his way through a colorful retrofuturistic dystopia populated by aliens, mythic beasts, and plenty of gangsters either doing Aku's dark bidding or simply spoiling for a fight -- and Jack is more than happy to give it to them. -- ES</blockquote>

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