Beware the Nice Ones/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'': A real-life example of the nice-guy character [[Nice Character, Mean Actor|being nowhere near as genial in real life]], at least to creator Sherwood Schwartz and his son, Lloyd. Specifically speaking, Robert Reed, who played legendary model father Mike Brady. Mike Brady was a model father who was fair-minded and intensely loyal to his family, and out-of-character Reed was no different toward the child actors. While he was cordial with adult co-stars Florence Henderson and Ann B. Davis, Reed's working relationship was less than perfect. None of that compared to Reed's constant friction with the Schwartzes, a long line of directors and the writers, always over the scripts and the situations presented therein; the battles became a sense of he said-he said (Reed's claim the writers [[Did Not Do the Research|never had any realistic scripts]] and were more interested in inane slapstick, while the Schwartzes defended their work by saying their scripts were well-crafted and researched).

** While Davis was the sweetest woman to her castmates (even Reed for the most part), there were well-documented instances of what life was like for people who got on her wrong side:

*** In Reed's case (documented in Barry Williams' memoir ''Growing Up Brady: I Was A Teenage Greg''), it came during ''The Bradys'' era, after he had argued with the Schwartzes over a point in the script where Alice brings out a birthday cake with numerous lighted candles. Later in the scene, the script had Mike saying, "I don't know Alice, but we'll be in deep trouble ...," but Reed changed the line, switching the word "trouble" with "shit," causing Davis to snap back, "I don't know, Bob ... ''how deep IS your shit?!"

*** Davis reunited with the cast -- minus Eve Plumb, who was replaced with [[The Other Darrin|a "fake Jan"]] -- for ''The Brady Bunch Variety Hour'', and was asked to do a series of skits alongside Rip Taylor, who played a neighbor named Mr. Merrill. Davis was not a fan of Taylor, to say the least; Susan Olsen's memoir on the series claimed that Davis considered Taylor's comedy skits to be vulgar and unfit for human audiences, and Davis refused to interact with Taylor in any way other than what was absolutely necessary for the show. To this day, Taylor has hard feelings for Davis and has maintained he was confused as to her attitude toward him. Davis refuses to talk about her work with Taylor.

* ''[[Highway to Heaven]]'': A third season, titled "That's Our Dad," could well have been inspired by Robert Reed's off-screen self. Said episode features Ned Beatty as Bill Cassidy, who plays a model father on-screen but is an insufferable jerk off-camera. Two kids who live in a foster home are ardent fans of "That's Our Dad" and want to be adopted (for real) by the actor, unaware that Cassidy's "adoption of two kids" at the end of each episode is a promotional trick. After the two foster kids learn the cruel truth about Cassidy, Jonathan helps set Cassidy straight and tells him he needs to live to his expectations.

* ''[[Family Matters]]'': A pre-Urkel episode titled "False Arrest" features Ron Glass as Buddy Goodrich, the star of an eponymously titled show that [[Affectionate Parody|is an obvious parody of]] ''[[Diff'rent Strokes]]'' (with Goodrich playing a wealthy black banker who adopts two poor white boys). On-screen, Goodrich plays the wise, genial father; off the set, Goodrich has a huge ego and jerk toward his castmates and others he works with. When Carl goes to the studio to procure tickets to the show, he nicely informs Goodrich that he's parked in a fire zone and needs to move his car, but Goodrich, believing he can park anywhere he pleases because he's Buddy Goodrich, refuses, prompting an argument; when Goodrich's ego gets the best of him, he takes a swing at Carl, prompting his arrest. Goodrich tries to use his charms to rally the other Winslows to his side, but the truth comes out and it becomes obvious he's just a jerk unworthy of their respect.

*** In the hell dimension in which she was trapped for five years, the cave she hid out in had a handy nearby ravine that she used to dispose of bodies.

** Lorne, the one member of the team who so rarely does any fighting.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]''

** The Doctor is this trope breathing. The exact specifics vary a bit during the many incarnations of the character and series.

*** From "The Family of Blood"

{{quote|'''Son of Mine''': He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing - the fury of the Time Lord - and then we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden. He was being kind. He wrapped my father in unbreakable chains forged in the heart of a dwarf star. He tricked my mother into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy to be imprisoned there, forever. He still visits my sister, once a year, every year. I wonder if one day he might forgive her, but there she is. Can you see? He trapped her inside a mirror. Every mirror. If ever you look at your reflection and see something move behind you just for a second, that's her. That's always her. As for me, I was suspended in time and the Doctor put me to work standing over the fields of England, as their protector. We wanted to live forever. So the Doctor made sure we did.}}

{{quote|Good men don't need rules. '''Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.'''}}

{{quote|'''Amy''': You took my baby from me, and hurt her, and now she's all grown up and she's fine. I'll never see my baby again.

'''Kovarian''':But you'll still save me though. Because ''he'' would, and you'd never do anything to disappoint your precious Doctor.

'''Amy''': The Doctor is very precious to me, you're right. But do you know what else he is, Madame Kovarian? Not here. *reattaches eyedrive* River Song didn't get all of it from you ''sweetie''. }}

* Captain Jack Harkness of ''Doctor Who'' and ''[[Torchwood]]''. Normally cheerful, flirty and friendly. Hurt his team and he will do something horrible to you. Such as shoot you repeatedly with pump action shot gun. In the knee caps.

* Rounding out the [[Whoniverse]] trifecta we have Sarah Jane of ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'': a kind, compassionate [[Technical Pacifist]] who will utterly ''destroy'' you if you try to invade her planet, hurt [[True Companions|her friends]] or [[Berserk Button|mess with her son]].

** In the South American Adventure Special, James points out: 1) He is afraid of heights, 2) He doesn't like it when the others deliberately rear-end him, 3) they will be driving along a very narrow road adjacent to a very long drop, and 4) he is carrying a 3' long machete, which adds up to 10) {{spoiler|if one of them rear-ends him on that road, he will castrate the offending party}}. Then Jeremy rear-ends him accidentally, the great oaf....

** Also Richard Hammond, just once, during the race to the North Pole, although whether he'd actually have gone through with it...

** Later, she finds out that the vampires have started to kill some people they were keeping as a herd; she shows up at their HQ in full on poltergeist mode, ripping doors out of their hinges and sending multiple vampires flying into walls hard enough to be knocked out. It was a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].

* In the British detective series ''[[New Tricks]]'', Jack Halford is a quiet, softly-spoken and wise old cop who acts as a mentor to the rest of the team... who possesses, if sufficiently roused, a fierce and at times even violent temper. [[Berserk Button|Do]] ''[[Berserk Button|not]]'' [[Berserk Button|taunt him about his dead wife, either.]]

* ''[[Supernatural]]'': Sam Winchester - he's always got a kind word for someone shell-shocked from a brush with the supernatural, prefers to do research rather than pick locks and break faces, and will most certainly fuck you up if you even think about hurting his older brother. Just ask Gordon Walker {{spoiler|(beheaded with barbed wire)}} or the Crossroads Demon {{spoiler|(shot in the head)}} .

** [[Our Angels Are Different|Castiel]] may seem [[Adorkable|amusingly out of touch]] much of the time, but you really don't want to make him angry. Hell, not even Castiel's [[True Companions]] are safe from this. At a perceived betrayal, Cas beats {{spoiler|Dean}} to within an inch of his life. Cas going off the rails is NOT a pretty sight.

*** Not to mention [[Psycho Serum|what]] [[Not Himself|he]] [[Ax Crazy|did]] [[All Webbed Up|in]] [[Mad Scientist|Volume]] [[The Dragon|3]]. Nathan comments, with delicious [[Dramatic Irony]], "Dr. Suresh? He's harmless." Oops. . .

* In ''[[Ideal]]'' Steve is part of a small gang and is the buttmonkey. At one point he snaps cuts off Cartoon Head's ear (he's got a mouse face glued on his head so think more plastic, less blood) and knocks out Psycho Paul and becomes the leader of the gang for a few episodes. It turns out he just can't keep up the tough guy facade and tries to get everybody back to normal by apologising and asking for Paul to become leader again. Paul accepts but not before removing one of his eyes. Did I mention the show is a comedy.

** And pretty much all of the next episode revolves around Bartlet's increasing desire for his military aides to devise a plan which will [[Disproportionate Retribution|literally wipe them off the face of the planet]], and his frustration when they tell him that this is neither practical nor politically desirable.

** Don't disrespect people in The White House. If you do, make sure you don't do it in front of Charlie, or he'll slam you into a wall and verbally take your head off.

{{quote|"Always remember; I am one of the few people on Earth who can kill you and leave no forensic evidence."}}

* Frank Black from ''[[Millennium (TV series)|Millennium]]'' is mild-mannered, law-abiding, honorable, and dearly loves his family. It's also heavily implied through the first season that the reason he is so gifted in understanding the minds of serial killers is that he has the traits of a killer himself ("I become the capability, I become the horror, what we know we can become in our heart of darkness") {{spoiler|culminating in him brutally butchering the man who kidnapped his wife.}}

** ''Voyager'' also gave us Kes. The nicest girl you'll ever meet, but don't get on her bad side. A body-surfing warlord who had lived for ''centuries'' found out the hard way that an angry Kes is not someone you want to mess with.

* ''[[The Middleman]]''. An old-fashioned, milk-drinking, seldom-swearing, well-dressed, earnest, polite, and naive gentleman who {{spoiler|tortured a mob leader for info in front of his own bar, while drinking a tall, frosty glass of milk.}}

* Vir Cotto from ''[[Babylon 5]]'' is usually a milquetoast... unless you're trying to recruit him to [[The Dark Side]]. When asked what he wants:

{{quote|"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I'd look up at your lifeless eyes and wave like this. Can you and your associates arrange it for me, Mr. Morden?"}}

**** Actually, in her graciousness she changed her mind almost right away about the whole destroying the human race thing. By that time all the other Minbari were too interested in the project to stop.

*** "Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else."

* Stan from ''[[In Plain Sight]]'':

{{quote|'''Malone''': So, Stan McQueen. "Little Jack," I used to call him.

*** Yet another example is his very first appearance as an apparently quite amiable sheriff, willing to listen to a horse thief, who shot Bullock, in his attempt to bribe Bullock into releasing him. When a lynch mob turn up to get the guy, Bullock fends them off without raising his gun and offers mercy to the man by...hanging him a few hours early, having to jerk the man off a stool so his neck breaks -- but his death is legal.

**** Then there's the fact {{spoiler|he might be a quicker draw than Wild Bill -- in the pilot a shifty cowpoke tells the story of a family massacred out on the road. Bullock, Bill and a few others, ride out and end up rescuing a small girl. When they return, the cowpoke is now even shiftier (it later turns out he and his brother were behind the massacre) and Bullock and Wild Bill see fit to shoot him down. Bill has to ask if Bullock shot first even though they seemed to draw at the same time. While Bullock declares it was Bill who shot first, it's strongly implied Bullock is the quicker draw (though to be fair, by this point, Bill is older and drunker than he was in his heyday}}).

** More consistent, yet less extreme, is Father Mulcahey. As expected of a sincere man of God, he strives to be compassionate, patient, and forgiving. Sometimes though, the right thing has to be done whether you like it or not, and if he can't convince you with wise words, a fist in your mouth makes an acceptable substitute.

*** And lets not forget the fact that before he was a priest, he was a boxer.

** Let's not forget about Hawkeye, normally a nice guy with a penchant for pulling pranks. However, if he finds out you are causing harm to children, he doesn't care if you are in the army as well -- you are going to get it.

** Arguably, Kate is an even bigger example: Her sweet girl-next-door demeanor is genuine, but so are her more violent and manipulative aspects.

** Charlie counts as well. He and Hurley tie for Friendliest Survivor, but if you do ''anything'' to hurt Claire, Charlie will cut you down in cold blood.

** And while we're on the subject, Hurley himself. Generally treated as [[Big Fun|a big cuddly teddy bear]] at best or [[The Load]] at worst by the other castaways, he has shown himself capable of delivering a [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]] to Sawyer (while screaming every unkind nickname Sawyer ever threw at him) and mowing down a bunch of Dharma thugs with his Winnebago van.

* Blair Sandburg in ''[[The Sentinel (TV series)|The Sentinel]].'' Anthropology grad student, raised by a mother who could be described as "the last flower child not gone to seed" -- but threaten (or even worse, ''hurt'') Jim and you'll wish you had left matters well enough alone.

* Doctor Parker, from ''[[Flanders Company]]'', is a very nice fellow, always calm and collected, happy to help his company and others in general... {{spoiler|Until his [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] takes control. Expect a lot of slaughters and massive quantity of blood.}}

* Eric Gotts from ''[[Wonderfalls]]'' was by far the nicest, least obnoxious and least ridiculous of the main characters, but when his cheating ex-wife turned up, he was downright vicious to her, including throwing a glass across the room, narrowly missing her head.

* Most, if not all, ''[[Power Rangers]]'' fit into this trope, with a special emphasis on the female rangers, but the best example would have to be Kimberly. A tiny wisp of a creature who doesn't appear to weigh 100 pounds, she acts like a 80s [[Valley Girl]] more times than not, but when threatened she becomes one of the toughest rangers ever. Made even more obvious with her weapon, The Power Bow. Her arrows have been shown to be able to turn corners and navigate through trees, meaning she has what amounts to a portable rocket launcher at her disposal.

* Rommie in ''[[Andromeda]]''. A nice polite and considerate young woman who just happens to be able to blow up a planet.

* Betty White's character Rose of ''[[The Golden Girls]]'' fame, is the sweetest, most bubbly member of the foursome, if also the dimmest. But there is a very, ''very'' good reason why the others take great pains not to get on her bad side...

* Russell Glasser of ''[[The Atheist Experience]]'' is often seen by theist callers as the safest one to talk too. This is a misconception as his comments cut deeper and deeper as he slowly loses his patience with you.

** And in similar fashion, across the pond, we have [[Law and Order UK|DS Matt Devlin]], who's also basically a very [[Nice Guy]], and even manages to remain so while chasing and interrogating suspects. But push one of ''his'' buttons (child abuse, Alesha Phillips, Ronnie Brooks), and it'll take every ounce of his self-control to not wring your neck.

{{quote|(as he and Ronnie arrest Dr. Merrick, Alesha's rapist)

'''John''': ''I had bad days!!'' }}

** It's also a pretty bad idea to insult Sherlock in front of John. Just ask {{spoiler|the Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard.}}

* The main cast of ''[[Leverage]]'' is more or less this ''all the time'': if you're their client, they'll move heaven and earth to help you; if you're their mark ... And heaven help you [[Fate Worse Than Death|if you make them mad]].