The Most Lovable TV Alcoholics

original ranker AwesomeBalla 54,860 views 17 items 6 followers

"The problem with some people is that when they aren't drunk they're sober." --William Butler Yeats. These are some of our favorite, most lovable TV drunks. Cartoon characters, ad men, a shoe salesman, even a kindergarten teacher - they are all proof that it's OK to enjoy the results of a good fermentation process. This list includes some of the greatest TV characters of all time, because hey, boozehounds are people too.

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Homer Simpson

The Simpsons

“ "Beer: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." --Homer Simpson

Homer was the original cartoon drunk (well, the first one with his own show). He consumes so much beer that his bartender, Moe, is a regular character and his favorite brew, Duff's, is probably better known to some than his perpetual infantile daughter's name (seriously, people never remember it).

BEST OF HOMER BEER QUOTES
"I've figured out an alternative to giving up my beer. Basically, we become a family of traveling acrobats." When The Simpsons are low on money and have to cut back on things like beer.

"I like my beer cold... my TV loud... and my homosexuals flaming."

"Now son, you don't want to drink beer. That's for Daddies, and kids with fake IDs."

"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."

"DOE RE MI BEER
DOUGH... the stuff...that buys me beer...
RAY..... the guy that sells me beer...
ME...... the guy... who drinks the beer,
FAR..... the distance to my beer
SO...... I think I'll have a beer...
LA...... La la la la la la beer
TEA..... no thanks, I'm drinking beer...
That will bring us back to...(Looks into an empty glass)
D'OH!"
--Homer J. Simpson „
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Norm Peterson

Cheers

“ TV's most beer-crazed lovable teddy bear, Norm Peterson is a man of few words but with a strong appetite for the brew. This show takes place in a bar... AND HE IS ALWAYS THERE.

Watch the video to the left to see Norm and Cliff sing some sparkling renditions of "Lollipop."

BEST OF NORM QUOTES
SAM: What do you know there, Norm?
NORM: How to sit. How to drink. Want to quiz me?

SAM: What'd you like, Normie?
NORM: A reason to live. Give me another beer.

WOODY: How's it going, Mr. Peterson?
NORM: Poor.
WOODY: I'm sorry to hear that.
NORM: No, I mean pour.

WOODY: How would a beer feel, Mr. Peterson?
NORM: Pretty nervous if I was in the room.

SAM: What's new, Normie?
NORM: Terrorists, Sam. They've taken over my stomach and they're demanding beer.

WOODY: What's going on, Mr. Peterson?
NORM: The question is what's going in Mr. Peterson? A beer please, Woody.

WOODY: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what's up?
NORM: The warranty on my liver.

COACH: What would you say to a beer, Normie?
NORM: Daddy wuvs you. „
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Peter Griffin

Family Guy

“ Peter Griffin loves beer, just like Homer Simpson. He's fat with three kids, one of them a baby, and has a wife that is WAY too hot for him. Griffin, not unlike Simpson, also enjoys a good pint of beer at his local pub with his friends after work.

A lot.

He even built a lounge in his basement so that he'd never have to leave the house to drink and so that he and his friends could give a new meaning to the term 'regular' at their local bar. Like all great TV drunks, Peter's wife Lois tries to discourage his excessive beer consumption to no avail. In fact, Peter awakens one morning after a particularly grueling night to find himself asleep on his kitchen table with his family eating breakfast around him.

In one great episode, Peter (ala "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory") learns that his favorite brewery, Pawtucket Pat's, has hidden 'golden tickets' in five cases of their beer and the winners get to tour the factory and drink to their B.A.L.s reach previously unregistered heights. Peter drinks and drinks until he finds his golden ticket and soon gets to enter a mystical world of malty and hoppy deliciousness. „
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Al Bundy

Married... with Children
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Bender Bending Rodríguez

Futurama

“ Bender from 'F*turama' not only loves smoking, drinking, gambling and treating others like crap, but the circuits of his robot body are LITERALLY fueled by alcohol.

To add to the point, his name is BENDER. As in, going on a Bender. We actually just recently put that together.

Bender's pretty much miserable when he doesn't get to drink, a true sign of an alcoholic, and often says things like "What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker."

Much like the majority of the people on this list, he's mostly a piece of crap, but we love him because like most TV alcoholics, we don't have to be around him and he makes us laugh. „
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The crew from "How I Met Your Mother"

“ Ted's (and formerly Lily and Marshall's, presently Robin's) apartment sits a few floors above their favorite New York City bar, McClaren's Pub. A great majority of the crew's funniest moments and most soul-searching discussions happen in the same booth at McClaren's. The bar allows Barney to have a consistent base for picking up ladies, it was where Ted first laid eyes on Robin and it was the place that Marshall and Lily went to after first getting engaged in episode one.

Here's a clip of the crew at McClaren's about to meet Ted's current girlfriend for the first time. When Ted tells everyone that his new gf is hot, Barney launches into his theory of the "Hot/Crazy Scale." Ted quickly denies that she isn't crazy just plain hot, to which we later learn that Barney Stenson, is once again, always right.

What truly makes them drunk is that they not only live above this bar, but they go there pretty much every night. The sheer amount of money they spend on drinks there must be astronomical, and not one of them goes without a drink or a beer almost every single night. „
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Archie Bunker

Archie Bunker's Place, All in the Family

“ "You can never buy beer. You just rent it."

As soon as he would set foot into the house after a long work day, Archie would yell for his dingbat wife Edith to bring him a nice cold beer so that he could plop into his favorite chair, pull the tab and strike a match to light his cigar. Archie's hand was made to hold a can of beer. The man loved his ales and lagers so much that towards the end of the series, he opened his own bar, "Archie's Place," so that he and his drunken cohorts could fill their steins or jiggers with whatever their poison was.

Here's a clip of a supremely toasted Archie, frozen and locked in his basement, thinking that he hears the voice of the Almighty....God, not Bruce or Evan. „
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The gang from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"

“ "We aren't sending Frank to rehab for bad ideas."

They own a bar, the worst bar in Philadelphia, to be correct. The gang on 'It's Always Sunny" is probably some of the drunkest buncha drunks ever to grace the boob tube.

Their excessive drinking and minimal thinking has lead to some amazing ideas like the 'shot gun,' Paddy's dollars, kitten mittons and most wonderfully Green Man.

Frank Reynolds ('dad' to Sweet Dee, Dennis and maybe Charlie) in his nasty, genius little mind, decided to start drinking his boxed wine out of can, that way no one would know that he was drinking and could carry it around with him wherever and whenever he wanted. In this clip, Dennis and Dee are working on staging and intervention for Frank concerning his drink, while drinking and praising Frank for his brilliant wine in a can idea.

Also notice that a lot of episodes open with them drinking, but before that there are titles that state when the episode is taking place... and it's usually relatively early in the morning...on a weekday...in Philadelphia...and that's probably why. „
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Don Draper and the "Mad Men"

“ "We drink because it's what men do."

Never had the world of misogynistic, cocktail-infused 50's advertising been thought of as sexy until "Mad Men" and Don Draper came along. They smoke, pour liquor and hit on secretaries all before lunch, all while looking incredibly debonair in their perfectly tailored suits and with their slicked-back hair. One of Don's colleagues, Roger Sterling is the embodiment of a sauve, sophisticated alcoholic if there ever was one.

Everyone wants a job where they can just sit around, do nothing and drink all day. These characters make us believe this existed at some point, or, at the very least, that it's possible. This is why we love them. „
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Fun Bobby
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Barney Gumble
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Lucille Bluth

Arrested Development

“ Lucille Bluth is really never not drinking, and that's probably the reason why she is always so critical yet unaware of what is truly going on in her family's lives. Lucille's consumption of alcohol is essentially the only thing that keeps her alive. When out to lunch one day with her daughter Lindsay, Lindsay asks her mother if she drank her lunch fast enough.

In this clip, her granddaughter Maebe (a successful movie exec, even though she's still in high school) awakens in the middle of the night to get something to drink, only find the (recently chemically peeled) horrifying, face of Lucille in the kitchen, sloppily declaring that she was "thirsty" and slooshing a martini in her hand... which coincidentally is exactly what Maebe needed for the horror flick she was producing that was missing a dream-haunting, bed wetting monster.

Lucille's best moments come when she's drunk, and that is pretty much through the entire series.

It's been said a thousand times over, but the fact that this show was canceled is a crime. „
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Drunk Uncle

SNL

added by: zxray
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Karen Walker

Will & Grace

“ "Honey, I would suck the alcohol out of a deodorant stick!"

Besides an array of pharmaceuticals and her maid Rosario, Karen Walker is kept alive by one thing: alcohol. This woman would kick a nun in the shin to get to the front of the line at the bar. Thankfully for us, Karen's dependence on alcohol and scripts removes any form of a filter that she may have and lets her imagination and sophisticated potty mouth run wild. She's also pretty hot for her age.

"There's blood in my alcohol stream!" „
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Abby Lockhart

ER
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Leo McGarry

The West Wing
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Charlie Harper

Two and a Half Men
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