TV’s Greatest Scene Stealers of All Time: Jimmie Walker, Betty White and More Sitcom Stars

Catherine O’Hara

With her fancy vocabulary, couture clothing and a wig for every occasion, Catherine O’Hara’s former soap actress, Moira Rose, brought a breezy quirkiness to Schitt’s Creek for six seasons.

“We’re all delusional, really,” Catherine told The Guardian. “And I love playing it.”

John Travolta

John Travolta’s dim bulb class cut-up Vinnie Barbarino was supposed to be just one of the boys on Welcome Back, Kotter, but his swagger and “Ba- Ba-Ba-Barbarino” dance made him an overnight sex symbol.

“I think people can see that I take joy in [dancing] and that’s contagious,” John told Parade.

Marla Gibbs

“I played the person who was a perennial employee,” Marla Gibbs tells Closer about her sassy but practical housekeeper Florence on The Jeffersons. “[The show] brought me a lot of love that I was missing in my life.”

Betty White

“She was so rotten,” Betty White said of Sue Ann Nivens, her snide, husband-stealing character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. “You can’t get much more rotten than the neighborhood nymphomaniac.”

Michael Richards

“I always feared being too cartoony,” Michael Richards confides to Closer about creating Seinfeld’s Cosmo Kramer. “He’s living entirely through his imagination. It means he can be anything the next week you see him. And yes, that makes him a little bit crazy.”

Jamie Farr

Jamie Farr’s Corporal Klinger, who wore zany outfits hoping to be discharged from the Army on M*A*S*H, was only expected to appear once, but ended up on the show for 11 years.

“I get a lot of fan mail that says I made people laugh,” Jamie told Closer, “but there were also serious moments that were very touching.”

Don Knotts

“I saw a guy at a luncheon giving a speech, and he was that nervous! I mean, he was spilling water all over himself,” said Don Knotts, who used the moment as inspiration for The Andy Griffith Show’s jittery deputy Barney Fife.

Jimmie Walker

Comedian Jimmie Walker butted heads with Good Times creator Norman Lear, who hated his character J.J. Evans Jr.’s popular catchphrase “Dyno- mite.”

“But the audience went crazy — they loved it,” Jimmie recalls to Closer. “We compromised and did it once a show.”

Henry Winkler

Henry’s Winkler’s Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli was planned as a recurring character on Happy Days, but by the second season he was the show’s breakout star.

“[Fonzie] was loyal; he was a rebel; he was secretly loving,” Henry recalls of creating the role. “What I was able to do was bring so many dimensions.”

Megan Mullally

Instead of playing Will & Grace’s wealthy Karen Walker straight, Megan Mullally decided to “make her weird,” she told EW.

“My natural speaking voice is very laconic, so I thought, ‘Well, I need to bring some energy to this character.’ And I thought that was a good way to do it.”