The Ghost

""'I'll have my tailor shorten those legs for you,' he'd say, and carry them into the back room. 'Take about twelve inches off the legs, Pierre.' Whack! Whack! 'Ah, thank you, Pierre!' Pierre himself was never seen or heard, but for a Frenchman he was pretty handy with a machete.""

- Patrick McManus, The Grogan Look

A character who is often referred to, but never quite makes it onto the screen. Sometimes just casually mentioned, but eventually played for comic effect as the camera (or lead character) just fails to catch them.

Sometimes the character is never seen because the viewer is, in essence, this character (and thus share viewpoints). In this case the viewers are probably being used as The Watson.

If a disembodied voice -- "Yes Ma, I'm coming!" -- they're The Voice.

Not the Great Gazoo, but occurs in similar range of plot devices. See also He Who Must Not Be Seen and Nothing Is Scarier (for when a character remains unseen for the Rule of Scary). For a concept, item, or location, rather than a person, see Cryptic Background Reference.

For a character who is frequently mentioned but never seen because they died before the story began, see Posthumous Character. For a character who's existance can only be inferred see Unknown Character.

For actual ghosts and spirits, see Our Ghosts Are Different. Not to be confused with radio character known as the Ghost.

Advertising

 * Ernest P Worrell, an advertising icon who later starred in a television show called Hey Vern, It's Ernest! and a series of films, often addressed a friend, Vern, who was supposedly manning the camera and thus never spoke or was seen on screen. In fact, Ernest was famous for the Catch Phrase "Knowhutimean, Vern?" This would be one of the cases where The Watson is simultaneously invoked.

Anime and Manga

 * Naota's older brother on FLCL, only appearing as a silhouette in an episode 2 flashback and as a picture with his American girlfriend in a later episode, which is of course obscured by glare.
 * Maka's mother on Soul Eater.
 * Whoever the hell it was that in Bleach.
 * The Shinigami King on Death Note. At least untill the one shot sequel was released.
 * Kyo Kara Maoh: Shinou ('The Great One') up to the end of Season 2.
 * Lina's older sister Luna in Slayers. She's mentioned several times (especially in TRY), but we never do see her on screen, or in the novels that the anime was based on. Word of God says that she'll never appear in canon outside of the opening sequences, because she's so ridiculously powerful that she would unbalance the rest of the cast.
 * Mr. Ichinose started out like this in Maison Ikkoku, but he did eventually appear (in a story where his appearance was the main focus). Oddly enough, he recognized everyone from Maison Ikkoku on sight, and knew many things about them. However, none of the tenants recognized him. He continued to make appearances in expected places for the rest of the manga's run.
 * Toji's sister in Neon Genesis Evangelion started out as this. She finally appeared in Rebuild 2.0.

Comic Books

 * Lawrence and Mobile of Scott Pilgrim,
 * Knights of the Dinner Table has several:
 * Bob's sister (who is the mother of Croix and Hunter)
 * B.A.'s father
 * Crutch's 'old lady', Casey Mae
 * Crowbar, Switch's partner-in-crime
 * Little Ego's therapist.
 * Empowered's mother. (They sometimes talk on the telephone, but we never hear what she says.)
 * The Cartoon History of the Universe portrays Mohamed this way.
 * The "Enemy" in Sturmtruppen is never ever shown, except for one single strip (which is still pitch black).
 * The Joker is given this treatment in the DCnu reboot. He is apparently "retired", and the only thing left of him is his face after he had another psychotic criminal surgically remove it for some reason. He still manages to cause trouble for Gotham -- in the wake of his disappearance, he gets in-universe Draco in Leather Pants treatment from a bunch of idiots who dress up like him to form angry mobs that accuse Batman of murdering the Joker. His face (which is currently being held by Gotham police) is also being treated as an object of worship by the Joker's crazier fans. The few times Joker has appeared, it's either a flashback or an impostor.
 * Gaston Lagaffe's aunt Hortense.

Film

 * Star Wars: A New Hope had several Ghosts: Emperor Palpatine and Jabba the Hutt were both The Ghost. Jabba was originally supposed to appear in the film, but his scene was cut, and his character was reimagined as a giant slug alien. His scene was restored in the Special Edition with a CGI version of Jabba inserted over the original actor and his dialogue dubbed over with Huttese.
 * In the James Bond movies, most of the other 00 agents qualify, with one notable exception. Not counting Thunderball where they're all seen in the background, at best they're only seen when dead or 3 seconds from dying. 008 in particular is never seen onscreen, though M always threatens to replace Bond with him if he keeps disobeying orders.
 * In Waiting for Guffman, the characters spend the entire movie preparing for the arrival of Broadway talent scout Guffman. During their performance,.
 * Dagmar Geech in Art House.
 * General Kemidov and Floyd Thursby in The Maltese Falcon.
 * The titular character of Oscar appears only for a moment in the very last scene.
 * The title character in Edward, My Son is never seen or even pictured.
 * Lord and Lady Ferncliffe in the George Cukor classic Dinner At Eight.
 * Claude Daigle, the boy Rhoada murdered from The Bad Seed, is only referred to in past tense, though he may have been glimpsed at the school picnic.
 * Al Capone in Road to Perdition is referred to a number of times, but he never appears. A scene was shot with him, but it was cut out to make his presence more abstract and ominous.
 * Patton does this with General Eisenhower, both on purpose and by accident. They couldn't find an actor that looked enough like Eisenhower, so they decided to have Eisenhower be an unseen, ominous figure.
 * My Dinner With Andre is full of them. The cast literally conists of two guys, a waiter, and a few extras. Throughout the film, Wallace talks about his girlfriend Debbie, and Andre talks about quite a few people. The closest we ever get to seeing any of them is a single black and white photograph of a Polish woman Andre worked with one time.
 * The Big Lebowski: Walter's ex-wife, Cynthia. She is mentioned a few times, Walter even takes care of her dog, but she is never seen or heard.

Literature

 * Galbatorix from the Inheritance Cycle. Somewhat unusual in that he is the Big Bad of the series, at least as of the third book. He finally appears in the last book, Inheritance.
 * Inversion in Thursday Next: First Among Sequels:
 * Older Than Steam example besides Shakespeare: In the novel Don Quixote, Dulcinea - or the peasant woman whom Quixote apparently renames "Dulcinea" - never appears.
 * Not really literature, but who exactly is Uncle John of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader? He's referenced countless times in the series. Its not the person on the back of the books either, they've pointed out multiple times his name is Larry Kelp and he's merely a technician for the Bathroom Readers Institute.
 * Uncle John just seems to be an alias for whatever persona happens to be convenient for the remarks prefacing an article--in the article on microwaves it makes comments about how he once swore he'd never have anything to do with the device, but now he thanks the appliance gods every time he pulls a pizza out of the freezer to keep the kids from killing each other.
 * Uncle John might be humorist John Javna, who was one of the co-creators of the series and who contributes to every book, but Javna nor the BRI have ever confirmed its supposed to be him
 * The Hittite king Suppiluliuma I is a constant presence throughout The Egyptian -- we hear of his plans, we see his armies and what he does, but he never appears on-stage himself.
 * Eloise Midgen of Harry Potter. We know that she has unfortunate acne, that Ron doesn't want to go with her to the Yule Ball, and that she's one of the first to go home in the sixth book during Voldemort's reign of terror, but we never see her. (She does appear in one of the films, however.)
 * Nicholas Flamel, from the first book. Very important to the plot, but never actually appeared in person.
 * Professor Aurora Sinistra, the Astronomy teacher, is mentioned but never shown, except for one brief mention as dancing with Moody at the Yule Ball.
 * In the same strain, aside from a tiny mention where she's almost concussed by Hagrid, Professor Vector, the Arithmancy Teacher is the same.
 * For a while, Ron's Great Auntie Muriel was this, until book 7.
 * The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy is brimming full of ghosts. There's ex-president of the galaxy Yooden Vranx, acclaimed writer Oolong Colluphid, the long-lost Guide editor Lig Lury Junior, and of course, Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon VI.
 * In The Ambassadors by Henry James, the mother of Chad Newsome, who guides much of the novel's action by sending her fiancee Strether to Europe, never appears in the book.
 * Margaret, the mother of Alison in Alan Garner's The Owl Service. Many of the events pan out as the characters try desperately to keep her happy, but she never appears in the book. Similarly occurs in the TV series, to the extent that you see parts of her clothing and even hear her play piano in the same room, but never actually hear or see her.
 * Arianllyn, Adaon's betrothed in The Black Cauldron. He references her repeatedly, but  the reader never gets to meet her.
 * The eponymous character of Daddy Long Legs, by Jean Webster. Since almost the entire Epistolary Novel consists of protagonist Judy's letters to her unknown benefactor, this makes sense. Subverted in the end, however, when
 * Augusta Elton, in Emma, is expecting a visit from her fashionable sister Selina and her husband, and she never hesitates to mention them, but they never arrive. Frank Churchill's aunt and uncle are also mentioned frequently but never seen. Frank himself had been The Ghost in Highbury for several years prior to the events of the novel.
 * In A Song of Ice and Fire, Howland Reed of Greywater Watch is a longtime friend of Eddard Stark, and is mentioned a number of times throughout the story, but he has yet to appear himself.
 * Stannis Baratheon in the first book.
 * Bergholt Stuttley "Bloody Stupid" Johnson, Discworld's most infamous inventor. His works are present throughout the series, but Johnson himself never makes an appearance. It's pretty strongly implied that he's been dead for decades.
 * It's mentioned that Sybil Ramkin's father shot the man when he started to work his particular landscaping genius on their estate, although whether this is what killed him is unclear.
 * Mrs Colon was The Ghost up to Snuff; often mentioned, but part of the joke was that she and Fred barely saw each other, and the two communicated almost exclusively through notes left about the house. Vimes at one point wondered how they managed to have kids, eventually chalking it up to some very persuasive notes.
 * The letters that Last Dragon consists of are addressed to Esumi, a character we never meet in the story and about whom we learn very little.
 * In The Catcher in The Rye, Jane Gallagher is one of the few people Holden respects and admires. Thinking she might have had sex with Holden's boorish roommate sparks the fight that sets the plot in motion. Holden considers or tries to call her at various points during the novel, but never reaches her.
 * The eponymous Sauron of The Lord of the Rings. Not so much in The Movie of the Book.
 * The "GA" (Great Aunt) of Nancy and Peggy in Swallows and Amazons.
 * Pop star Johnny Chess is frequently mentioned in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, but has never actually appeared in a story. Even when Ian and Barbara Chesterton reappear in a Past Doctor Adventures novel set in The Seventies, their son John is mentioned but not seen.
 * He does actually appear briefly in the novel The King of Terror.
 * The Raven King in Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell.
 * The Maltese Falcon: Floyd Thursby and General Kemidov, the real Magnificent Bastard of the story.
 * Professor Angus MacGuffin in Jasper Fforde's The Fourth Bear. He almost appears near the end, but has vanished when someone turns to introduce him - because, of course, he's just a a plot device and doesn't have to actually exist.
 * The Emperor Over The Sea in The Chronicles of Narnia

Live Action TV
""Well Jerry, they ask why they've never met you.""
 * Ercole "Ecky" DiMeo, the boss of the crime family in The Sopranos, was sent to prison years before the events of the show. Though the crime family still bears his name, it's actually run by his underlings.
 * Heather Sinclair of Degrassi the Next Generation is a ghost. She's a running joke between the writers and is basically only brought up when there needs to be drama in an episode but it's not between the main characters.
 * Curiously enough, Heather's younger sister Holly J was brought onto the show in later seasons.
 * One of the earliest would be "'Er Indoors", Arthur's wife from Minder.
 * Captain Mainwaring's wife Elizabeth in Dads Army.
 * Vera was reincarnated in Niles' wife Maris in Frasier. She wasn't originally meant to be a ghost, but by the time they would otherwise have showed her the makers of the show realized that they'd built up such an inhuman woman with their imagery that no actress could play her. You do see a silhouette in one episode and (in a flashback) a bandage-covered woman in another.
 * Al's Mom from Home Improvement. Similarly, they built up Al's mother's weight so long that there was no way they'd actually get anybody to play her. There'd need to be unimaginable amounts of padding. After she dies, we see her casket at her funeral. It's the size of a station wagon.
 * Gary from Men Behaving Badly repeatedly mentions his friend Clive in conversation, but Clive is never seen. (This was a Hand Wave of sorts, to tell the audience the cast did have friends other than each other.)
 * Clive appears in the episode dealing with Gary's non-wedding, as the one to whom the task of filming the whole shebang falls. Needless to say, the only thing you see is his legs, although you do occasionally hear his leering comments.
 * Margaret's husband Lewis in Becker.
 * The Gooch on Diffrent Strokes
 * Both Allie, Jack Gallo's young wife and Binnie, Nina's best friend on Just Shoot Me
 * Both characters eventually appeared onscreen. Jack's wife Allie made her first appearance in the fourth season finale, a Cliff Hanger that ends with her  Binnie appeared both in a Halloween Episode and as a ghost in one of the final episodes; in both she was The Faceless (covered in bandages in the former, seen only from the back in the latter).
 * Donald Trump, Jack's friendly rival, also qualifies.
 * And in early episodes there are mentions of one Baxter from accounting.
 * The Powers That Be on Angel.
 * Although Jasmine, the Big Bad of Season 4 refers to herself as a "Power That Was" implying that she was one who had fallen from grace.
 * The Season 5 episode "The Girl in Question" revolves around an entity known only as "The Immortal", who only appears on camera once barely visible through the crowd on a dance floor, and Buffy herself, who fills a similar role throughout the season.
 * Rhoda's doorman Carlton.
 * A dubbed example is Klink's housekeeper/possible mistress in Hogan's Heroes. Never heard of the her? You weren't watching the dub, where dialogue relating to Hitler or other topics verboten on German television were replaced by more innocent dialogue about Klink's housekeeper. She was never seen because originally she never existed.
 * Stan on Will and Grace (occasionally The Faceless)
 * Jenny Piccolo for the first few seasons of Happy Days
 * Bob Saccamano & Lomez, Kramer's friends on Seinfeld


 * Snake, Natalie's boyfriend in the later seasons of The Facts of Life. He does show up in the latter half of the final season, just in time for a Very Special Episode about Natalie being the first of the girls to "get her V-Card punched".
 * Mister Rogers on The Children's Corner (see the entry for The Unintelligible for more details on this show)
 * Marion And Geoff in the British Black Comedy named after them. Despite the title, the show is all about chauffeur Rob Brydon talking about them and other people. The events are entirely Second Hand Storytelling. They did eventually appear in the prequel, A Small Summer Party.
 * That Beryl Marston... is not actually in the ITV sitcom of that title (it's about a couple played by Julia McKenzie and Gareth Hunt, and the effect of Hunt's affair with Marston on their marriage)
 * Honorable mention: Bella's Gran, Tweenies. She did make one appearance though, in "Jake and the Beanstalk" (she's watching the Tweenies doing a Christmas pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk, starring Jake).
 * Mrs. Columbo in Columbo is a prime example of the phenomenon. Though she never appeared in the series, a Spin-Off which ran under several titles featured as its lead a character purported to be the detective's wife, in which Columbo himself was likewise a Ghost. "Kate Columbo" is generally considered by the makers of the Columbo series to not, in fact, be the same person, but either the wife of an entirely different detective of the same name, or (in a line cut from an actual Columbo episode) an imposter.
 * Diane, Cooper's secretary, in Twin Peaks.
 * Dan the Van from Chucklevision. Often mentioned by the Chuckle Brothers or spoken to on the phone. Appeared in one episode, covered entirely in bandages
 * In Touched By an Angel, and indeed in most non-comedy programs in which He is a character, God. He finally appears in the last episode as part of Monica's promotion test.
 * Enid, Dr. Kelso's wife in Scrubs. Also, his son Harrison.
 * Enid is seen at least once from behind (without her face showing) in a flashback. Harrison is also (just) seen in a photo that Kelso is holding.
 * Also, R.N. Laverne Roberts' husband and son.
 * Possible parody in most/all of the Janitor's anecdotes. He's constantly referencing Ghost characters who never appear, with the reality of those Ghosts being called into question constantly. Even once when his Father made an actual appearance, he later mentions his father having died years ago, when J.D. responds with the fact that he'd met the Janitor's father, the Janitor replies "You met a Man". This also builds up to a subversion of the trope. After an entire series of the Janitor making up people, he mentions a girlfriend named "Lady". You're led to believe she's another made up Ghost for a while until she actually appears and the two get married.
 * Tino in My So-Called Life. He got a Shout-Out in Juno.
 * Kimmy's parents in Full House.
 * In the first season of The Mighty Boosh, Vince and Howard mention their friend Leroy, who apparently has influence on the show. His face is actually seen in one scene, but only for a few seconds, and covered completely by KISS-style make-up.
 * Major Atumbe, Babylon 5's third-in-command. Mentioned several times, but never appears because, according to the creator, they didn't want yet another on-screen recurring character. Oddly, David Corwin who started off as a bit part would eventually assume the 3iC role.
 * Another important faceless is David Sheridan, son of John Sheridan and Delenn. In all flash-forwards, David is never seen, even when
 * This, interestingly, is because David is too important to the arc. They wanted to keep it open to eventually cast him, and there is a lot of stuff that happened with him. Revealed in the novels, of course.
 * Star Trek has quite a few examples:
 * The Chef on Star Trek Enterprise. May be a Shout-Out to an episode of the original Star Trek (where the Chef over the comm system was voiced by Gene Roddenberry), though in the series finale, it's Riker from TNG standing in for the Chef. He makes a Faceless appearance in a second season episode, where the lower half of his body can be seen as he passes food down.
 * Star Trek Deep Space Nine:
 * Throughout the series, there were many offscreen Star Trek the Original Series aliens constantly being mentioned, but never being shown. The Orions (yeah, them) were the villains of one episode... by way of non-Orion enforcers, with no actual Orions ever showing up. Star Trek Enterprise would return them to the television screen for the first time in 35-ish years... and also threw in the Tarkaleans, whose only presence at the time had been their getting mentioned (especially by way of "Tarkalean tea") but not seen in Deep Space Nine.
 * Lt. Vilix'Pran and his ever-growing brood of budlings were sometimes mentioned. Jake is even supposed to have baby-sat some, which involved keeping their wings untangled.
 * Jadzia also has an ex-boyfriend with a transparent skull who fits this trope nicely.
 * The Breen on Star Trek the Next Generation were something of a running in-joke. They were never shown on screen but were supposedly a dangerous empire and enemy of the Federation. Characters would often wrongly suspect their involvement in the conflict of the week but they were always red herrings. They were eventually revealed on Deep Space Nine, but it turned out Breen wear body suits at all times as they breathe differently, so their actual bodies are covered. The never-seen Tzenkethi filled a similar role thereafter.
 * Ugly Naked Guy in Friends. He is seen twice, though not completely: his rear end and his hand in "The One with the Giant Poking Device", and also from behind in the episode where Ross is trying to get his apartment.
 * The Minnesota Fats ex-wife's husband Richard in Dream On.
 * In the inspirational television series Life Is Worth Living, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen would refer to an Angel who erased a blackboard used on the program. The Angel is never seen, since the host would move away so the blackboard and whoever erased it was off-screen. When transcripts of the series were published, illustrations would show an angel along with recreated diagrams.
 * Jerry the cameraman from Drop the Dead Donkey. He is never seen as he is always behind the camera. Due to the situations that Damien places him in he is always the Fall Guy.
 * He does show up at least once, at a Christmas party covered head to toe in bandages.
 * Also Sir Royston Merchant, the media mogul who owns Globelink News (until a brief appearance in the final episode).
 * Hyacinth's sister Violet and son Sheridan in Keeping Up Appearances, though only in the first season. Violet does fully appear in the second while Sheridan makes one appearance as The Voiceless.
 * Liz's husband was mentioned from time to time, but his job required a lot of travel, so we never got to see him.
 * Linderman in Heroes was mentioned in just about every episode without being seen until he was finally revealed near the end of season 1.
 * "The Missus" Hunt in Life On Mars, who spends quite a bit of time out of town at her mother's; an inexplicably deleted line from the Ashes to Ashes pilot has her leaving Gene for another woman.
 * The priests on Father Ted would occasionally list another attribute of "Father Bigley", (he wears perfume, has lips like a fish) but the character never appeared on-screen.
 * Marcus, Dorian's husband from Birds of a Feather He eventually makes three appearances. (He also appears in a Christmas special, played by a different actor.)
 * Half the cast of The Red Green Show were ghosts, including Moose Thompson, Stinky Peterson, Buster Hadfield, Old Man Sedgwick, Junior Singleton, Harold's parents, and Red's wife Bernice.
 * Drake and Josh: Drake's unseen best friend, Trevor. He was seen in episode two, played by Jerry O'Connell look-alike Taran Killam.
 * Six's parents in Blossom.
 * Six's mother was seen in one episode.
 * Wanda's son, Tanner, in Corner Gas.
 * Lowell's cousin Beavo, on Wings.
 * Good Eats: Alton Brown uses the viewer as The Watson, much like Ernest P. Worrell example.
 * Chris's mother on Kenan and Kel.
 * William Bell in Fringe. In the Season 1 finale, he's finally seen,
 * Jacob in Lost, until near the end of Season 5.
 * Phyllis's husband, Lars, in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
 * Mr. Peterson's domineering wife, Doris, in The Bob Newhart Show. Unfortunately, she was shown once, which made all the jokes about her much less funny.
 * Mrs. Slocombe in Are You Being Served mentions her friend Mrs. Axelby several times, but Mrs. Axelby never makes any on-screen appearances.
 * The Steve Harvey Show makes many references to characters' family members that are never seen: Regina (has a brother who married a white woman and moved to Arizona), Steve (has a sister who is a dentist and whose dental school tuition was paid by Steve writing jingles, also has a brother who married a white woman), Ced (mother), Lovita (many, many family members named for products, but brother Duracell is most talked about along with her mother).
 * The Golden Girls also makes references to never seen relatives: Dorothy (brother Phil who liked to cross-dress), Sophia (at least 4 other siblings), Rose (Charlie), Blanche (3 sons and their wives, grandmother.)
 * If Charlie (who is actually dead) counts then Blanche's husband, George, Sophia's husband, Sal, and Blanche's father, known only as Big Daddy, also count.
 * One of Sophia's sisters appears a few times in later episodes. Sal, George, and Charlie are justified because they've all died by the time the series starts, although Sal is seen in a few flashbacks. George later appears and reveals that he faked his death  and Big Daddy does appear in a few episodes until he dies. Phil is the straightest example.
 * Amen: Thelma's mother is never seen as she died when Thelma was about 6 years old.
 * Sitcom The Parkers: Kim's friend Shaquan was frequently talked about throughout the series but was never seen until the final episode when it was revealed that Shaquan is Asian.
 * Audrey in Fawlty Towers. She did end up appearing in the episode "The Anniversary."
 * The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica Reimagined had a few. Starbuck's Mom was mentioned now and then throught the series and was finally seen in Season 3. Starbuck's Dad, who was also mentioned a few times, was seen . President Adar was mentioned throughout Season 1 and 2 and seen in flashbacks midway through Season 2. In addition, Admiral William Adama and his son Lee often talk about (Adama's father and Lee's grandfather) Joseph Adama and Lee uses his books during Baltar's trial. Joseph isn't seen in the show itself but is a protagonist in the series spinoff, Caprica.
 * An honorary mention goes to the Cylon Number 7, Daniel. He was mentioned only in one episode and never seen. Thanks to Epileptic Trees, however, speculation regarding his identity and nature of involvement has persisted through the ending of the series and turned him to a near-mythical figure. Ronald D. Moore actually referred to that portion of the fandom as the "Cult of Daniel".
 * "Daddy's Assistant", whom Amanda was constantly harassing on the phone in The Latest Buzz. He finally appears on screen in the Grand Finale. Also Rebecca's grandmother 'Baba', and DJ's mother.
 * In Kath and Kim, Kim constantly refers to Sharon as her second best friend. Her alleged best friend, Tina, has never appeared.
 * Hannah Montana's Uncle Earl and Aunt Pearl. Aunt Pearl continues to be The Ghost; Uncle Earl was until mid season two, when he was portrayed in all his larger-than-life glory by David Koechner.
 * A running gag in Outnumbered is that Sue's boss is never seen: Veronica in the first series, Tyson in the second.
 * Parodied in an episode of The Colbert Report, when Stephen Colbert says that an imaginary state district's residents include Vera from Cheers, Charlie Brown's teacher, and the smoke monster from Lost.
 * Cambot from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Which makes sense as he is the camera taping the show. However, you do see him in the opening credits, though his appearance changes between theme-song updates.
 * Spencer's friend Socko in I Carly. Sam's Mom until the episode iSam's Mom.
 * Allegedly, Lane Kim's dad in Gilmore Girls is this. It is a rather strange case because not only is he never seen onscreen, he also is never really referred to. Word of God has it he not only exists but also lives together with his wife, Mrs. Kim, who appears quite frequently.
 * Likewise, Al of Al's Pancake World is never seen onscreen even though the girls frequent the establishment often, almost as much as Luke's Diner.
 * The Nanny: Morty, Fran Fine's dad was pretty much this until he finally appeared for real in one of the last episodes. Up to that point he had only had a couple of appearances as The Faceless, even in an episode that was set almost entirely in Morty's and Sylvia's appartment.
 * Mareen, the barman's wife in one blackly comic sketch from The Fast Show. The barman would chat to his regulars about her, call up the stairs to her - usually "Mareen? It's getting busy down here!" - and when she didn't respond, he did whatever he'd asked her for himself. No-one reminds him that she died several years ago and he's in denial.
 * Rachel's gay dads on the show Glee, though they're seen with her in a photo booth picture strip in the pilot episode.
 * They've been introduced and had almost a whole episode dedicated to them as of season three.
 * In The Good Life, a number of Margo's acquaintances including Miss Mountshaft of the music society are talked about regularly but are never seen.
 * Family Matters: Steve Urkel's parents. In one episode, we see a baby picture of Steve with his mother holding him. The glare partially obscures her face, however.
 * Shawn and Marlon's mother on The Wayans Bros.
 * In Quantum Leap, Al is Sam's only contact with the future, so all the other members of the Quantum Leap Project are ghost characters. Programmer Gooshie shows up briefly in the pilot, and a few times in the fourth and fifth seasons, and Al's girlfriend Tina gets maybe a minute of screen time in the fourth-season premiere, but for the most part we only get Al's stories about them.
 * In the BBC serial adaptations of John Le Carre's George Smiley novels, Karla is almost entirely invisible. He appears once in flashback in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and once in Smiley's People for just ten seconds during his defection. He doesn't speak in either appearance. Despite this he drives the entire plot of both series.
 * In 30 Rock Cerie's fiancé Aeris never makes it onto the screen, even at their wedding.
 * Episode 38 of Tensou Sentai Goseiger builds up to a visit from Nozomu's mother, with the Goseigers fighting to save the train she is supposed to be on, only to find out at the end that she missed the train and will not be coming. Her voice is heard in a telephone conversation, and the Goseigers look at a photo of her (which the viewer doesn't see) but she never appears on screen.
 * The title character in The BBC Play For Today "Abigail's Party". The play is about a middle-class dinner party with two married couples and one divorced woman. Abigail is the divorcée's teenaged daughter, who is having her own party at the same time.
 * Big Shirley from Martin.
 * In one episode of That's So Raven, Chelsie and Eddie win a prize from a radio contest that is never actually seen but viewers are given clues as to what it is.
 * Danny, especially in the early seasons of The X-Files. Danny was another FBI agent whom primarily Mulder would occasionally call upon for information. One writer for the show joked that he was "a gnome that lives in Mulder's desk drawer." He was never seen or heard throughout the run of the show.
 * Scully's younger brother Charlie is often mentioned but never seen, except briefly in a flashback to Scully's childhood.
 * In the 1980s British sitcom Dear Ladies starring the female impersonators Hinge and Bracket many unseen characters were mentioned most notably Teddy and Peggy Tranter although Teddy and Dame Hilda would talk on the phone in most episodes.
 * Marlene Boyce for the first three seasons of Only Fools and Horses. She was frequently mentioned by the characters, usually to wind up her husband Boycie by implying she'd really got around, but made her first appearance in Season 4, episode 5. Luckily they hadn't quite built her up to the point where no-one could play her.
 * The Secret Life of the American Teenager has Mike, Leo's chauffeur. He's gotten several mentions and has driven several of the characters around (off-screen, of course), but he's never put in an appearance.
 * A man known only as Bucket is mentioned constantly in Sea Change, usually in humorous circumstances, but we never get to see him. (One time we see a boat he is driving, packed with fireworks, crash into the newly-repaired bridge.) If you piece together all the throwaway remarks people make about him in the show, he becomes a man of very strange appearance and habits: he apparently has no arms, legs or teeth, and he enjoys stealing people's ride-on lawnmowers and drinking out of his dog's bowl when he gets drunk.
 * The Mother, the woman who Ted will marry and have the children that he's telling How I Met Your Mother. She's a slight subversion though — the reason none of the characters in the present day ever talk about her is because they haven't met her yet, but since the show is told in a flashback, Future!Ted's narration refers to her many, many, many times, yet her face is never seen and her voice is never heard. Her ankle is briefly glimpsed in "Girls vs. Suits", and a dark figure carrying a yellow umbrella (which signifies the Mother, whose yellow umbrella connected her and Ted without either of them knowing it, and will somehow be a part of their first meeting) is seen in "Wait for It" and "No Tomorrow". Even in flash forwards to times after Ted met her, she is conveniently never seen. For example, in "How I Met Everyone Else", when Ted, Marshall, and Lilly are shown hiding in the hall and smoking confiscated weed during their college class reunion in the year 2020, the scene ends with Ted giggling "Dude, where's my wife?"
 * In According to Jim, Jim has a friend no one else ever meets or sees. His wife Cheryl suspects he made the friend up, since it always seems he's in town and they have to go out whenever Jim wants to get out of something. She's right, Jim made him up, and he then "kills off" this friend so Cheryl doesn't expose it.
 * Many Game Shows have offscreen judges who are sometimes heard, but never seen. Their job is to determine on the spot if an answer is acceptable (e.g., if the contestant gives an answer on the buzzer, or gives an alternate answer that isn't on the host's card).
 * The $25,000 Pyramid carried this a step further, as their judge liked to communicate with bells and buzzers for yes and no, respectively (e.g. "Did he get in before the buzzer?" [ding]). Other times, he would jump in with the bell or buzzer if Dick or one of the panelists said something funny.
 * Deal or No Deal has the Banker, who calls host Noel Edmonds on a large prop telephone to make deals with the contestants. Noel appears to talk to him, but nothing is heard in the studio. (Critic Charlie Brooker suggested he's just listening to voices in his head.)
 * Smithy's girlfriend Lucy in Gavin and Stacey.
 * On Mathnet there's George Frankly wife Martha who's never seen even when there's a party at her and George's house. She was behind the camera.
 * Mrs. Ventress in Heartbeat.
 * Shane's wife Anna in Raw. She appears in episode 5 and that's it.
 * In a What If episode of Party of Five where the parents had never died, the parents themselves are not seen in the episode apart from a blurry scene at the end and the mother's voice on the answering machine.
 * Holiday camp supremo Joe Maplin in Hi De Hi He was intended to be played by Bob Monkhouse, who in the end was unavailable for filming, so it was decided to make him a Ghost.
 * The boy who owns and plays the games in Pixelface. The characters inside the console just refer to him as 'the boy'.
 * In Game of Thrones, several characters are this- Stannis Baratheon in Season 1, and Mance Rayder and Roose Bolton's bastard in Season 2.

Newspaper Comics

 * All adults in Peanuts, the cat next door who hates Snoopy ... and that little red-haired girl. The TV specials adapt the fact that adult dialogue is never presented as speech bubbles in the comic by making the adults The Unintelligible (Waa Waa wa Wa wa wa Waa).
 * Andy Capp's mother-in-law. Okay, maybe there are some small glimpses.
 * Roger, Juliette's loud, boorish brother in Nine Chickweed Lane. Mentioned infrequently at best. And it had been so long since anyone had mentioned him in the comic, that when Edna mentioned him at the end of the WWII flashback, many thought Brooke McEldowney had made him up on the spot. When he eventually appears in the flesh, he's mild-mannered and soft-spoken; pretty much the opposite of his passionate, outspoken sister and niece.
 * In Garfield, Ellen was a woman Jon regularly phoned to get a date, and always failed. We never heard her actual answers, only his reactions to them. She eventually appeared in a storyline where she has amnesia, and therefore agreed to a date with Jon. Also, Jon's neighbor Mrs. Feeny, often the target of Garfield's pranks, was never seen in the comic.

Radio

 * Duffy, the owner of the eponymous eatery in the the 1940s radio show Duffy's Tavern. Every episode opened with the manager Archie answering the phone with the words "Hello, Duffy's Tavern, where the elite meet to eat. Archie the manager speakin'. Duffy ain't here -- oh, hello, Duffy."
 * Samantha, the scorekeeper for the panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Since The Points Mean Nothing, the game doesn't need a scorekeeper; she only exists as the focus of elaborate double entendres.
 * Colin Sell, the pianist, has sometimes been assumed by listeners to be fictional too (if you decided they were just playing prerecorded piano music, then Colin would be in a similar position of only existing to be abused in elaborate wordplay). Humphrey Lyttelton once claimed that someone had come up to him to ask whether Samantha and Colin were real and he told them that Samantha was but Colin wasn't.
 * Sabrina Thwaite (and husband Richard) in The Archers are often "just missed" on-air, pulling out of Christmas pantos at the last moment and so forth, usually explained by tutting disapproval from the regular characters.
 * A long-standing trope in The Archers. Mr Pullen, whose troublesome prostate has been a Running Gag for many years, is never heard. Freda the Middle White sow used to be heard sometime but not Freda Fry, cook at The Bull and long-suffering wife of Bert Fry. Most notoriously, the late Pru Forrest went unheard for years only to be Lampshaded in a special anniversary episode by being voiced by Judi Dench.

Stand Up Comedy

 * A running joke for the surrealist comedy group Stella is for one member to refer to someone named "Marcus." Another member responds, "Who the fuck is Marcus?" The original member just shakes his head in equal bewilderment, saying, "I know, I know!"

Theater

 * Waiting for Godot; It's not a spoiler to say that he never shows up.
 * For The Glass Menagerie, Tom and Laura's father is frequently mentioned, but never seen. His absence, in fact, leaves a greater impact on all their lives than his presence likely would have.
 * Older Than Steam: William Shakespeare does these all the time.
 * In the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo spends his time indulging in Wangst over his former flame Rosaline. She never appears in the play, and Romeo quickly turns his sights on Juliet. Mercutio's brother Valentine is included with Mercutio in the invitation to the Capulet ball, but never appears or gets a second mention.
 * In The Tempest, the witch Sycorax is the island's original owner. She is referred to many times throughout the play, but has died before the play begins.
 * In Act I Scene III of Othello, two characters are mentioned as though significant, but never introduced or mentioned again (this has naturally baffled many scholars). The characters' names are "Signior Angelo" and "Marcus Luccios."
 * Princess Elizabeth of York in Richard III.
 * None of the husbands ever appear in Clare Boothe's play The Women or its black and white film adaptation (which had the Tagline "It's all about the men!").
 * Lisa in Wait Until Dark.
 * George Washington in 1776.
 * Matthew Shepard in The Laramie Project, as the play is all about the aftermath of his murder.
 * Mr. Stroheim in Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs.
 * Babe's husband Zachary in Crimes Of The Heart.
 * Mary and the late Old Man Meeks from The Foreigner both qualify.
 * The unseen Mrs. Grundy, in Thomas Morton's Speed the Plough (1798), in which Dame Ashfield continually worries, "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" of each development. Since then the term "Mrs. Grundy" has passed into everyday speech as the embodiment of prudery and censorship.
 * Arcadia has a bunch, the most prominent of which are Lord Byron and Mrs. Chater. There are several other characters who are mentioned repeatedly but never appear; this is somewhat inevitable given that the play takes place in a single room.
 * The title character of the opera The Consul, who appears only as a distant, inaudible shadow. As with Godot, the protagonist waits for him in vain.
 * God in Jesus Christ Superstar although he is addressed, indeed harangued, by Jesus in the scene at Gethsemane.
 * The person(s) operating the eponymous device and sending bizarre messages in Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter. It may be Wilson, the unseen superior of protagonists Gus and Ben, but this is never made clear.
 * This is the main joke of Tom Jacobsen's Bunbury: A Serious Play for Trivial People. It features-- you guessed it!-- Wilde's Bunbury and Shakespeare's Rosaline teaming up and roaming through the Western canon meeting or becoming other Ghosts or imagined characters and changing ends as they go. Romeo and Juliet gets a happy ending; we meet Blanche DuBois's dead husband, Martha's blond-eyed blue-haired son, and a whole slew of unseen characters from Three Sisters; and Bunbury himself becomes or is mistaken for Godot.
 * Cyrano De Bergerac: Act I Scene III: Cardenal Richelieu, the most powerful man in France arrives to the Burgundy Theater to a box with the bars in front… or at least the public (in the play) murmurs it so, because he is never shown. Anyway, the simple rumor of his presence is enough to command respect from the public, impose silence, and even makes the Pages behave. He will be mentioned again at Act IV, but never seen.
 * Ted, Joanne's husband in Vanities, whom she finds out has been cheating.
 * Father Reilly in The Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge. Characters worry about how he will react to events, and relay conversations they've had with him since they last appeared onstage, but he himself is never seen.

Video Games

 * Ellis' good buddy Keith of Left 4 Dead 2, who must look like a pile of ground hamburger given the outrageous stories he shares at inopportune times.
 * Oddly, characters like Keith have small, but dedicated fan-followings and Rule 34 dedicated to them, based entirely on Fanon speculations of Backstory and appearance, none of which is backed up in-game.
 * The Batarians in Mass Effect are referenced numerous times in text and dialog, but, are never actually seen in the game. A DLC module, Bring Down the Sky later adds them to a single mission. In Mass Effect 2 they appear as often as the other major races.
 * The Shadow Broker was the Ghost for some time, until the aptly named DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker.
 * The Shadow Broker is also a Ghost in universe, as nobody has ever seen him or talked to him in person.
 * Many of the characters and races from the Cerberus Daily News "reports" are considered to be ghosts. The only one who ever showed up on screen was Tela Vasir, while two turians from a long-running storyline were briefly mentioned -but not seen- in the aforementioned DLC.
 * The Sign Painter of World of Goo is only known to exist based on his or her messages left on various... signs.
 * Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army has Takeshi Daidouji, the ill and bedridden father of the game's Distressed Damsel. He is only mentioned by his brother and butler, and never seen.
 * The "Rat Man" from Portal, of whom you find only stashes, hidden cubby-holes, and scrawled graffiti that either gives you hints, slightly illuminates the plot, gives you an insight into their increasing insanity, or all of the above.
 * Until the Lab Rat digital comic, that is, which completely centers around him and gives more insight into his Backstory. His name is Doug Rattmann, and his schizophrenia actually helped him escape G La DOS - he always suspected she'd try to kill them, so when she did, he was prepared. His scrawlings serve as art therapy, and his only companion seems to be the spirit of his "dead" Weighted Companion Cube.
 * Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land features 'The Great Warrior Otto' who leaves many rather helpful messages throughout the dungeon in poor handwriting, but you never actually meet him.
 * The Quest for Glory games had the Night Gaunts, who were never seen but supposedly might kill you. Oh, they will kill you, but you still won't see them. Don't sleep in the forest!
 * King Minos is the villain of The Labyrinth of Time, but the most you actually hear about him comes from a computer message left by a future librarian.
 * According to the Backstory of Castlevania Judgment, the entity responsible for sending the Time Reaper back in time to change history is Galamoth, better known as the main villain of Kid Dracula and That One Boss in Symphony of the Night. He never appears in the game, and aside from one of the Time Reaper's death screams, his identity is never revealed.
 * Phoenix Wright is this in Ace Attorney Investigations Miles Edgeworth, or almost - He can be seen rowing just off the bridge in the third case, along with Maya and Pearl.
 * In the Nancy Drew game series, a minor character named Sonny Joon is used as The Unseen in a Running Gag, as Nancy keeps finding out he'd just been working, living, or visiting whichever place she's solving a mystery today. Sonny has never been seen or even heard on the telephone, but his habit of leaving notes and doodles everywhere means that a fair bit is known about him.
 * Vercci from the Soul Series - he's involved in both the stories of Voldo and Cervantes and by accounts is pretty important in the story. He may have been intended to be a guest character in Soul Blade, but he never made it.
 * Touhou has several of these, such as Youmu's former instructor Youki, Byakuren's Dead Little Brother Myouren, Marisa's unnamed father, and the Dragon (not to be confused with The Dragon), the single most powerful being in Gensoukyou.
 * Woodruff and The Schnibble of Azimuth has the eponymous Schnibble, the savior of the city, who everybody the player meets says is just around the corner. Near the end, it's revealed that
 * Kingdom Hearts plays with this trope in regard to its Big Bad, Xehanort:
 * The apprentice of Ansem the Wise, Xehanort, is responsible for the creation of The Heartless and almost everything bad that happens to the protagonists across the franchise, but only appears in the flesh in a few brief cutscenes and a single portrait. Instead, his heartless, nobody and original self play the role of Big Bad in the games themselves.
 * In the original Kingdom Hearts, the heroes are searching for Ansem(retconned into Xehanort calling himself Ansem), who created the heartless. He remains The Ghost until the end of the game when
 * In Dark Souls, the Furtive Pygmy and Gwyn's Four Great Knights besides Ornstein.
 * Tachibana Muneshige from Sengoku Basara has a frightening and bad-tempered wife (for some reason he loves her dearly) who is constantly mentioned during his Inner Monologue and the subject of all his letters, but never anywhere else. The reason she's absent is because she grew tired of their lord's religious fanaticism and took off. Historically her name was Ginchiyo, but Muneshige always calls her "the wife".
 * Ulysses acts as this in Fallout: New Vegas. When you first hear about him, you never even learn his name, he just sounds like some guy that used to know the Courier somehow. Throughout the game and the various DLC's we slowly hear more and more about him but never see or hear him while everything is built up about how the final battle between him and the Courier will essentially change the fates of everyone. He's finally revealed in the Lonesome Road DLC which is all about the final confrontation between him and the Courier.

Visual Novels

 * There are multiple cases in Shikkoku no Sharnoth. The most obvious being that Watson, Mycroft Holmes, Queen Victoria and Moriarty.
 * Kako in A Profile never makes it onscreen, though she does have a line or two. Maybe. She sounds exactly the same as her sister, you see. Apparently, by the end, even Masayuki has never met her.

Webcomics

 * Abe Kroenen has this happen a lot, often with female characters like Ilsa or Liz (until recently). This is not so much because of gender bias in the comic as it is the fact that it's a Toy Comic and the Hellboy merchandising brigade is less than helpful.
 * Bert in Rhapsodies
 * All of the characters from Dinosaur Comics that aren't the main characters, bar maybe the flea that lives on the end of T-Rex's nose, but he's so small you can't see him.
 * Frank's sister in Full Frontal Nerdity.
 * Old Cobbley from A Game of Fools.
 * Skibble in The Mansion of E.
 * Lord English in Homestuck.
 * Carlyle in Sam and Fuzzy.
 * The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob has Bob's neighbors Ray and Mr. Fluffinougat; the Spitoonellis, named Harold and Maude; and Voluptua's dad the Nemesite Emperor.

Web Original

 * Edward James Olmos in the Loading Ready Run videos, who is mentioned all the time but is never seen. Possibly because it's a small production in Victoria, BC, and he's Edward James Olmos.
 * OpAphid, Tachyon and Brother in Lonely Girl 15 are implied to be present in several scenes, but never shown. OpAphid and Tachyon do appear onscreen in their own series, however. Additionally, a character named Cassie is mentioned in several episodes, but never appears. She did spawn a series of Epileptic Trees theories, however.
 * The Spoony Experiment: Dr. Insano's nurse is often referred to (and even threatened to be killed) but is never actually seen or heard from by the audience.
 * Dr. Kyle from Darwins Soldiers has been mentioned in every RP but has never been seen.
 * Tobuscus: Toby Turner's possibly fictional partner Steven.
 * In Homestar Runner, Strong Badman is created when Strong Bad gets an e-mail from one "Stiny". Within the email, and in several future Strong Badman appearances, Strong Bad imagines Stiny being Strong Badman's sidekick, who he constantly shouts orders or insults toward, but he never appears.
 * In the Downfall Parodies on YouTube, there are a few characters who serve this role (mainly ones who were mentioned in Downfall but never seen). The most frequently mentioned character is Steiner, who is often responsible for providing Hitler's generals with bad news (resulting in a lengthy rant from Hitler) and is often involved with his latest plan in some manner. Also Wenck to a lesser extent, although his name is frequently mistranslated as "fine".
 * Fegelin serves as this to a lesser degree. There are some videos where he appears, but most just use him as an unseen nemesis for Hitler.
 * Stan, the camera man from Crash Course. John assures us that he really does exist.

Western Animation

 * The Trap Door has 'Im Upstairs who is the patron saint of this trope. Spoken about often, shouts from upstairs... Until he appears in one episode as an Eldritch Abomination.
 * The Users Re Boot, as only their characters are seen in games, and never the Users themselves, though the User's (slow) keystrokes are heard during . Mouse was also a Ghost for a few episodes after first being mentioned.
 * Chloe Montez, The Weekenders.
 * The parents, Eddy's brother, and Rolf's Nana on Ed, Edd n Eddy. In fact, everyone outside of the core characters.
 * finally showed up in The Movie.
 * Doug: Principal Buttsavage, Doug never met the principal in the original series, and spent most of the series finale trying to find out what he looked like. (The Disney version had ex-Mayor White serve as principal, and he appeared on camera frequently.)
 * Skunky Beaumont. Often spoken about, never seen, he eventually had one line in one episode. Doug walks by the guidance office and says hi to him, and he replies "Hey Doug".
 * In the Disney series, he made his first on-screen appearance in an early episode and remained a recurring character throughout.
 * Randy Beaman on Animaniacs, who is always being talked about by his friend (listed in the credits as Randy Beaman's Friend) as the "Friend of a Friend" in some bizarre urban legend (one example being the infamous Pop Rocks/Soda one). May also be an example of Second Hand Storytelling.
 * Darkwing Duck had Dr. Slug, who is reputed as being Darkwing's archenemy as well as the #1 most wanted criminal in St. Canard. Despite this, we never actually see him (with one exception, see below,) or know anything about him; the only times he is mentioned is when other villains bring him up, usually to admire his (always unspecified) villainous deeds, sadly wish they could be more like him, or (in Negaduck's case) grouse about being bumped down to #2 criminal. Eventually this was lampshaded by having Dr. Slug actually show up at the start of an episode, only to have Darkwing pause the action two seconds in, and then inform the viewer that they weren't going to show that story and proceed to tell an entirely unrelated one.
 * Colonel K's secretary, Miss Boathook, in Danger Mouse.
 * Von Goosewing's assistant, Heinrich, in Count Duckula. It is entirely possible that Heinrich has, in fact, quit and that Von Goosewing has just failed to notice his absence.
 * The oft-randomly-mentioned Muffy Jenkins of Codename Kids Next Door.
 * In "Operation: MESSAGE" we actually do see Muffy at the end of the episode, receiving a message Numbuh 2 spent the whole episode trying to deliver to her at lunch. The note mentions the Splinter Cell, the main focus of season six...which Muffy had nothing to do with.
 * Mateo, the bus driver, from Ellen's Acres. Ellen waves goodbye to him at the start of every episode, but we never actually see him.
 * Moltar's beloved wife Linda on Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
 * Gazpacho's mother in Chowder.
 * Trudy Beekman, Mallory Archer's nemesis on Archer.
 * "MEH MEH MEH, I'm Trudy Beekman. I'm on the co-op board and I'm going on a blimp! MEHHH!"
 * Beavis and Butthead's moms, they are implied to live with them and they sometimes talk about them or call out to them but they are never seen.
 * Lampshaded with boarder Mr. Smith on Hey Arnold. An entire episode was dedicated to Arnold and Gerald trying to track him down to deliver a package (apparently they had never seen him either). Of course, they were unsuccessful in their attempts.
 * Sandy Plankton in Finding Nemo is considered among his classmates to be the purveyor of great knowledge. His fun facts are almost right. He and the information he shares are only mentioned; he is never shown.
 * Spinelli's older brothers, Joey and Vito, from Recess. T.J.'s older sister, Becky, started out as one of these, but then made her physical appearance in Recess Schools Out