There were a slew of great sitcoms from the ‘80s and ‘90s that most of us grew up on and have fond memories of. But there were a handful of characters in these shows who always rubbed us the wrong way, and we couldn’t help but wonder whether they were off doing much more sinister things during the scenes they weren’t in. Here’s a look at the characters who were most likely leading second lives as serial killers without their sitcom families ever even knowing about it.
7. Wilson from Home Improvement
Source: Touchstone Television
I mean, there’s something that’s simply not right about this situation. Here’s a neighbor whose face nobody has ever really seen. This is more than cause for alarm. He’s always up to some kind of tomfoolery on his side of the fence, and it usually involves some contraption or foreign concept that nobody’s ever heard of. Can you say terrorist?
Wilson is one of those domestic terrorists who’s really good at laying low and holding down the home front. He takes care of business in his house all day – did anybody ever really figure out just what in the hell his job was? He was doing God knows what, and then at the end of the day he shared creepy little aphorisms and anecdotes with his neighbor.
Of course, we’re supposed to think he’s just sharing a bit of his worldly wisdom with a knuckledheaded neighbor, but on closer inspection it’s easy to see what Wilson was really doing. He was planting the seeds of the apocalypse, one brainwashed soldier at a time. Somebody check the freezer in this guy’s garage on the double – you’ll find all those missing persons real quick.
6. Dr. Jason Seaver from Growing Pains
Source: Warner Bros. Television
Loving father. Devoted husband. Loyal friend. In-house psychiatrist. Which one of those descriptions doesn’t fit with the rest of the group? Yeah, I’m talking about Dr. Jason Seaver, the quick-with-a-quip, insightful dad we all came to know and love in Growing Pains. Is it just me, or is there something really wrong about your dad seeing crazy people in his “office” all day long? It’s one thing for your dad to be a doctor, but you have to wonder what that leather couch was really all about.
And then there’s his face. Dark, menacing secrets lurk in shadows underneath that heavy brow, those tiny little eyes and those too-thick eyebrows. There’s more on Dr. Seaver’s mind than providing for his family. Is it any accident that a man with sick, perverse needs made his living prescribing drugs to “fix” people in his special little room? How many of Dr. Seaver’s patients actually improved? How many of them actually needed those drugs, and how many of them overdosed on painkillers and beta blockers?
We’ll probably never know just how many patients fell victim to Dr. Seaver, but it’s pretty clear this psychiatrist was in need of some mental health attention himself.
5. Mr. Lynn Aloysius Belvedere from Mr. Belvedere
Source: 20th Century Fox Television
Exactly which century is this? What middle class American family needs or can afford a full time, Oxford-educated British manservant? At what point did 1980s America become mid-nineteenth century Victorian Britain?
These are all questions that only the Owens family can answer. But they would do well to pay more attention to what Mr. Belvedere is up to during all those hours alone in his room. He claims to be making entries in his journal, but this seems an awful lot like keeping inventory of the cattle before they’re led to slaughter.
Did anyone in the Owens family ever bother looking into past families that Mr. Belevedere served? What happened to them? Why did they no longer require Mr. Belvedere’s service? Was it because they were all maimed and murdered by Hannibal Lecter’s mustachioed older brother?
