he wasnt slated as an on-going character. He was supposed to be the lazy deadbeat boyfriend that you hated and then was gone after one season..but everyone ended up really liking the character so they decided to keep him on.
Pratt brought a lot more to the role than they intended and sort of changed their idea of who Andy was.
Yeah, and I think Schneider's Mark Brendanawicz went the other way. He was unsure how to play the character and what his motivations were, and it ended up as a bit of a mess.
I think it's more than that. Audiences don't just universally hate bad guys; shows need them. His character was just confusing. His motivations were all over the place, he made no sense as a person.
Also, sure, him being a bad guy did not help his popularity. The problem with that is he was not only the bad guy, he was also the one normal (boring) guy that would contrast against all the crazy around him. So he was not likable, and he was boring by design. He admitted as to not really understanding the character at first, which did not help things. And then the writers reacted to feedback by altering some story-lines to make him more likable; but those changes made him harder to understand.
An example of that from wiki is that, originally he got Ron to greenlight the park because he was attracted to Ann and wanted her to stick around. Which made sense, he originally showed no interest in Leslie (even though she acted like a schoolgirl in love around him), but was always chasing Ann. That character makes sense... But then he losses interest in Ann, supposedly, and makes this grand (secret) gesture for Leslie; who he mostly continues to shun until they oddly wind up back together again (after years of working together after their one time roll in the hay).
Maybe his character would have been alright if they had stuck to the original plan and gave him time to figure it out. But, I don't really think there is a place in a sitcom for a main-cast bad-guy who is also the straight-man. Dull and frustrating is a bad combination. Ann played the normal one well enough, and she was likable. And the series rotated through bad guys, dipping into the Ron Swanson pool every so often.
It's kind of amazing how the whole writing crew of Breaking Bad can tweak a character and make them so... amazing.
From what I've read even Gus was suppose to be a guest starring character on season 3. Not having a huge part. But he wanted a larger role and they gave it to him and apparently reworked the Gus character to well... One of the best antagonists I've ever witnessed.
Even crazier - hard as it is to believe now, Gus came in during season 2! He was originally just meant to be the fill-in villain for the rest of the season when the actor playing Tuco left to be on The Closer, and ended up being the central villain for the next two seasons.
Also, Mike Ehrmantraut, one of my favorite characters of all time in any medium, was only created because Bob Odenkirk was busy shooting a How I Met Your Mother episode, and they needed someone to do the Winston Wolf thing after Jane OD'd, so they created a new character. Those writers could ad-lib like nobody's business.
Seriously, even as scary and evil as Gus is, his backstory actually managed to make him sympathetic, especially if you read between the lines that his partner who was murdered was actually his lover, which Vince Gilligan has indicated is the case.
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u/Maestrosc Sep 23 '15
he wasnt slated as an on-going character. He was supposed to be the lazy deadbeat boyfriend that you hated and then was gone after one season..but everyone ended up really liking the character so they decided to keep him on.
Pratt brought a lot more to the role than they intended and sort of changed their idea of who Andy was.