History Flanderization / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/SesameStreet'': Elmo, after he was taken over by Kevin Clash, was originally a monster who helped out his friends with learning morals. By the mid-1990's, he would become hyperactive and ridiculously/unrealistically happy all the time. However, this is justified that Elmo is only a little kid though.

** Raj started off just as nerdy as the rest, his primary quirk being so shy he couldn't speak in front of women and a few jokes around him being a FunnyForeigner. His shyness and the HomoeroticSubtext in his relationships with the guys (since he rarely talks to women) eventually grew into him being AmbiguouslyGay with a lot of InnocentInnuendo and very rarely is there not a joke about him being the TokenMinority.
*** Raj's inability to speak to women except when drunk was initially just ultra-shyness, which the alcohol relieved. Later it evolved into an almost instantaneous effect - Raj would stop speaking at once (but would show no other signs of shyness), even ''mid-sentence'' , the second a woman entered the same room, but would instantly be able to speak perfectly normally on just a small amount of alcohol.
*** This is an example of TruthInTelevision. Raj had selective mutism but had learned that he could talk to women when he was drunk. Over time the alcohol became a placebo for him, and he only needed a tiny sip (or even a bite of rum-flavoured cake) to overcome his anxiety. Eventually he grew accustomed to speaking to women and overcame his selective mutism entirely.
*** Raj's romantic awkwardness and incompetence grew as a result of this. In the early series Raj, when drunk, was far more successful romantically than either Leonard or Howard. But as the other main characters gradually settled into long-term relationships, Raj was increasingly portrayed as incompetent around women.

** The local Comic Book Store owner, Stuart, was originally just a very normal guy who successfully asked Penny out. It was a key plot point that in terms of being a decent, normal guy he was virtually identical to Leonard, and the fact that he didn't conform to geek stereotypes was specifically brought up. While he remained a friendly guy he later gained some neurotic tics, low self-esteem and has a lot more trouble talking to women than before. In the last few seasons his pathetic traits started leading him to show some rather creepy behaviors (i.e. watching people sleep). The change can probably be explained that "nice, normal guy" doesn't leave things too open for comedy and they wanted him to stand apart from Leonard.

** Eric Matthews is such a huge example that this trope could be renamed for him. In the first two seasons of the show, he was a normal boy of average intelligence whose chief flaw was being too focused on girls for grades to matter much to him. By the end of the second season he was starting to be the guy handed the IdiotBall whenever they needed someone to say or do something dumb. Throughout Season Three he gets progressively dumber to the point of seeming to have some sort of serious mental illness. Season Four scaled this back to some degree, seeing as Eric was no longer in school, and fell into a kind of mentor role when Feeny wasn't around, with the Idiot Ball mostly passed to Shawn, but for the rest of the series he's a wild-eyed CloudCuckooLander who can barely put his shoes on the right feet. Then he became WesternAnimation/{{Batman|Beyond}}, so it's ok.

** Carla's sociopathy goes from a good woman who is bitter to a sociopath who plays potentially lethal pranks. She softens a little in the late seasons.

** Rebecca as well. At first seems to be a very respectable, and confident, business woman, who liked successful men like herself-finding Sam childish. Later when she first shows her vulnerable side with the situation with Drake, she starts to become more and more whiny about hating her life, and wanting to kill herself, acting bratty, as we hear in one episode her father still gives her an allowance, and a complete gold-digger with no self-esteem, and openly going after some guys just because they have money. The show's writers have commented that this was quite deliberate, as it was funnier, and Kirstie Alley was so good a playing a neurotic wreck.

** Pierce Hawthorne, no less than twice.
*** He started out in the first season as a misanthropic, bigoted, but generally kind of harmless and pathetic GrumpyOldMan, even with occasional hints of a well-buried [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold heart of gold]]. By the second season he's evolved into an overtly evil ManipulativeBastard who plays cruel mind games on his only friends and shows very little regard for anything except himself.
*** {{Justified|Trope}} in the season 2 finale: Pierce admits that his cynicism drives him to habitually push his friends away to test their friendship. Since the study group wasn't abandoning him, he ratcheted up his harsher traits in an attempt to push them away. His overdosing on painkillers throughout the season also can't have helped.
*** While his JerkAss tendencies were dialed back in Season 3, Season 4 saw his RacistGrandpa side flanderised again to the point of extreme bigotry. The extent of the racism caused Creator/ChevyChase to blow up on the set and quit the show.

* ''Series/FCDeKampioenen'': This popular Flemish TV sitcom about an amateur soccer club started off with genuine believable characters who, as the seasons progressed turned more and more into caricatures of their personalities. After the fifth season it basically became a kids' show, with a lot of comedy aiming at the youngest members of the audience. It's no surprise that an equally successful comic strip spin-off was made.
** The best example is Markske, who was originally a medical student with a part-time job as a radio journalist. In the first seasons he was basically nothing more than a shy but smart geek, but as he became more popular he turned into a TooDumbToLive clumsy {{Slapstick}} buffoon, specifically intended as children's entertainment.

* This also applies to Dr. Frasier Crane's artsy, high society qualities, and his ignorant detachment from "the plebeians." For example, in his early seasons on ''Cheers'' he was shown watching football with his buddies. In a late episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' he didn't even know how football was played, though it seemed more like "I'm afraid of being wrong so I'll just say I know nothing".
** Frasier's flanderization on ''Cheers'' was definitely a positive example of this trope, though. When he was introduced, he was far more restrained, normal, and, well, boring than the character he became by the time ''Cheers'' ended. Since he was meant to be a one-season RomanticFalseLead, his stuffiness and intellectuality was mainly used to make him seem rather dull and not someone the audience would shed tears for when Diane inevitably dumped him. Due in part to Creator/KelseyGrammer's acting, though, he was well-liked enough to stay on past his arc with Diane, and his upper crust, pompous, snooty qualities were slowly enhanced to make him more interesting as well as making it seem that he was becoming more open and comfortable with his friends at the bar. This becomes evident in ''Series/{{Frasier}}'', when removed from the bar, he becomes more aristocratic (though he still is able to call people out on their crap when he gets annoyed), but when Sam or Woody visit Seattle, or when he visits the gang in Boston, he becomes a working class barfly again, which shocks Martin and Niles.
* One example for getting Flanderized between the pilot and the rest of the series is Carlton from ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir''. He starts out as a slightly silver-spoon-in-mouth guy, somewhat sceptical of Will and a little snobbish, but generally normal and relaxed, and definitely able to take care of himself. Come episode two, he's already a neurotic rich kid reliant on the family butler for most tasks and so detached from the rest of the world that he simply doesn't understand normal people problems.

* Katie Kanisky was always the designated blond beauty on ''Series/GimmeABreak'', but this became much more stereotypical in the later seasons. When the series began, Katie was a reasonably intelligent, fairly down-to-earth young woman. However, as actress Kari Michaelsen put it, over time Katie's hair got bigger and blonder, and she got a lot dumber. Compare a first-season episode to a fifth-season episode, and it will seem like Katie lost about eighty I.Q. points.

** It seems that Season 6's main purpose was to reverse as much of this damage as possible - and the characters in Season 7 seem much more in line with what they were in the first four seasons.

** Sam's tomboyish vibes from Season 1 evolved into various examples of extreme bullying, anti-social and sociopathic behaviour, like her running a child labour sweatshop in Season 4. After that season the writers knew they were going to have Sam continue in the ''Series/SamAndCat'' SpinOff, and attempted to de-flanderize her. YMMV on how much that worked, but they have definitely toned her down for the actual ''Series/SamAndCat'' show. Not much of an improvement if at all. Her apathetic and glutinous characteristics were then flanderized instead and she became more unlikable than ever.

** Season 5 is horrible for this:
*** Sam's antagonism and fighting with Freddie was blown up in both ''iDate Sam & Freddie'' and ''iCan't Take It''. While she has screwed with Freddie in the past, in ''iCan't Take It'', she sabotages Freddie's science camp simply because he didn't know what time it was when she asked him.
** Her mistreatment towards Cat or any of the kids they watched in the spinoff was just as despicable.
*** Also Carly became dumber. While she was never [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Lisa Simpson]], she was a good student at the very least, She complained about not getting a well-deserved A in a class. As well as being generally pretty smart, she also worked hard on her schooling to get her first ever straight a's. She was also much more book smart than Sam to the point where she was accepted into a private school that even Freddie wasn't. But now she seems just barely smart enough to live. This didn't happen all at once, but gradually over time, coming to a head in season 5. Like in the space episode, she can't pronounce claustrophobic, even though she is claustrophobic. In ''iQ'' she has to fake/cheat being intelligent to try and impress a guy when the old Carly would've have been able to at least hold the conversation easily.

* ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'''s Yuki was initially a bubbly, hyper, yet smart and thoughtful girl whose grades were almost as good as [[TheSmartGuy Kengo]]'s and could impress Chairman Gamou (a former astronaut) with her knowledge of space. This is exaggerated through the series until she becomes an increasingly loud, screechy, childish nuisance who literally believes in imaginary "rocket gods". At peak Flanderization in the Aquarius two-parter, plenty of viewers had gotten so sick of Yuki that they wanted her kicked out of the Kamen Rider Club and replaced by the MonsterOfTheWeek, who likewise despises Yuki for treating space exploration like a joke. She gets a bit better in the Gemini two-parter, where [[spoiler:Yuki almost gets replaced by an EvilTwin, with even her own friends mistrusting her]], but for many fans the damage had already been done.
** It happens to Gentaro in the movies. During the show, his goal is to befriend everyone at school. This trait is exaggerated in the movies where he's befriended sentient space goo and ''a giant, sentient space station.''
*** Likewise, while Gentaro has a fair number of {{Catch Phrase}}s[[note]]"UCHUU KITAAAA~!", "Kamen Rider Fourze! Let's do this man-to-man!" and "I'm the man who will befriend everyone, Gentaro Kisaragi!"[[/note]], he was still a well-rounded character. But any time Fourze re-appears in crossover movies and such (especially after Souta Fukushi moved on to other projects), his dialog is 99% those three Catch Phrases repeated endlessly ([[MadLibsCatchphrase or variations thereof]]), and Toei seemingly casts {{Fake Shemp}}s based off their ability to shout "KITAAAA~!" as loudly as possible rather than actually sounding like Fukushi.

* Elliot Stabler of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' starts off as an outwardly calm and collected cop who admits to using violent fantasies as a coping mechanism, but he also admits that he knows it's problematic, and, more importantly, he absolutely ''does not'' let that translate into actual violence; he's actually quite good at keeping a cool head when dealing with suspects in person, even when he finds them and their crimes repulsive and horrifying. By the time the character left the series, he was practically defined by his explosive temper towards suspects and periodic use of the JackBauerInterrogationTechnique.

** Not to mention Kelly's promiscuity. In the first season, she was somewhat rebellious, her having a new boyfriend every week (and the delinquency of said boyfriends) just another way of showing how rebellious she was. By early second season, she was officially the school slut, and started dressing to match. By the third season her regular street clothes (and school clothes) were the epitome of {{Stripperiffic}}, and by the time the show was over, she was such a slut that she would cheat on a guy if he so much as left her alone for a few minutes, and so dumb that the only way she could get out of a frat house was by shouting, "I'm pregnant!"

** Bud, Bud, Bud, Bud.. We could go on for hours how much his sister suffered from this, but he gets hit pretty hard with this as well. At the beginning of the show, he was the loser who could outwit (and outdo) his sister and wasn't as victimized by her and the rest of the family. Then around season four, his quirkiness that still attracted girls turned to outright nerdiness that they gradually rejected and it was portrayed that no matter how many times he had sex, no matter how attractive David Faustino became, [[StatusQuoIsGod he was still a virgin]]. Even worse, his reputation for being a pervert overtook his other qualities, that he was seen as someone who had to pleasure himself because he apparently was so lonely and repulsive to women (or at least according to [[BigSisterBully Kelly]]), from doing it in a public library to the one [[UnreliableNarrator apparent flashback]][[note]]Which is also the one where Kelly ''supposedly'' ended up stupid due to hitting her head in the car as a child[[/note]] where he was caught doing it as a ''[[{{Squick}} baby.]]''

** Dwight went from being an obnoxious, arrogant over-achiever with a rigid ethical code to a ruthless, back-stabbing corporate shark who cares only about self-advancement and the humiliation of his enemies, with a healthy dash of paranoid ManChild thrown in, to boot.
*** His professionalism and responsibility lowered as well. In the early seasons he was such a professional that he would calmly answer a work-related question even if the questioner had just played an elaborate prank on him, and customer satisfaction was his number one priority. The Dwight of those seasons would never have been thrown by Jim's "Bill Buttlicker" character, reduced to a shouting moron as he was in that episode. He was also very careful with gun safety, and the idea that he would even accidentally fire a gun in the office would have been an impossibility.

** Chris Traeger starts out as an [[ThePollyanna ultra-positive]] borderline [[TheAce Ace]] who has trouble dealing with negative situations. The latter part becomes more pronounced over time, making him into a BrokenAce StepfordSmiler who ineffectually hides his depression.
*** The implication seems to be that Chris had always had his mental issues and the development was simply the process of him acknowledging it and learning to cope more effectively. Some time therapy helps [[[[CharacterDevelopment get back his old outlook on life, while being much more capable of dealing with adversity]].

*** Initially, the fact that Ben liked calzones was just a part of his status as a FishOutOfWater from the "big city", as people in small town Pawnee like pizza and have an irrational aversion to calzones. Later on, the dish becomes something of a TrademarkFavoriteFood for Ben, and in one episode, a depressed and somewhat irrational Ben becomes obsessed with the idea of opening up a fast food calzone restaurant.
** Jerry's status as the department's ButtMonkey grows with each season.
*** In early series, the others get his name wrong simply through genuine belief that "Jerry" is his real name. By Season 6, they are openly and deliberately calling him by the wrong name.
*** For the first few season the other characters are on occasion shamed by Leslie and Ann into feeling guilty about how they treat Jerry. In later seasons they are mocking him with the rest of them (although Leslie still does nice things for him), and Ben tries to shame the others for how mean they are in Season 6, he is shouted down by everyone.

* ''Series/{{Psych}}''. Many characters suffer from this. Shawn went from being a happy-go-lucky average-intelligence charmer to a genuinely stupid, somehow universally attractive, lovable [[JerkAss asshole]], while poor Gus went from Shawn's slightly uptight but more traditionally competent and knowledgeable buddy to a total loser whose areas of expertise are mostly [[InformedAbility informed abilities]] and exists almost solely to finish Shawn's pop cultural references, and Lassiter went from being Shawn's {{Foil}} with a little bit of hidden bigotry to such a gigantic creep that it is honestly a wonder why anyone lets the man near them. The {{Flanderization}} of the characters is actually many fans' biggest complaint.
** It was implied in the Yin/Yang saga episodes that Shawn's "zaniness" is a way of coping with increasingly stressful situations. Lassiter's change from a more or less humorless InspectorLestrade to being a misanthropic creep (at least pre-Marlowe) is also explained by the stress following the dissolution of his marriage.

* In ''Series/RedDwarf'', the Cat started out as a strange, vain man who didn't particularly like his shipmates and was perhaps a little dim. By series 7, he was entirely TheDitz.

** Jessie Spano and A.C. Slater have been Flanderized into a StrawFeminist and StrawMisogynist, respectively.

* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'':

** Jake starts off as a bit slow and naive, but still fairly normal kid. He even expressly says, "Dad, I'm a slacker, not stupid," and is shown to be capable of beating all of Charlie's friends at poker, composing songs for his favorite anime-characters, and other talents when he wants to. By the time he's a teenager several years on, he is almost too dumb to function in normal society-- with the series finale even saying to Arnold Schwarzenegger that "he didn't used to be stupid, but now he is, because it was funny." No.

** Anya started out a bit unskilled with human culture (and didn't even have that in her first two appearances) but got worse throughout the show.[[note]]In her very first appearance, she was a vengeance demon posing as an ordinary high school girl, talking and acting just like one. Somehow, being turned into a human made her completely forget how to pretend to be one.[[/note]]

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': Diggle is a ShipperOnDeck for Oliver/Felicity. Initially it wasn't too bad, but as the series went on it grew to become a defining character trait. To the extent that fans dubbed him "The Olicity Cheerleader".

** J.D. started as fairly emotionally needy due to him wanting a father figure to replace his own dysfunctional family. Fast forward to season five where J.D. is an appletini (light on the tini)-swilling "sensey" (that's "sensitive person") who can't hold on to his "man cards" (which would be taken away from him if he did something girly) for a full day. This is lampshaded by Zach Braff in the bloopers to Season 8.
--> "You haven't been here in a while, my character's ''really'' gay now."

** Jake starts off as a bit slow and naive, but still fairly normal kid. By the time he's a teenager several years on, he is almost too dumb to function in normal society.
** Alan is introduced as broke, unlucky and geekish yet still trying to retain his dignity and moral compass (and raise his son right) while feeling bad about sponging off his brother. He gradually turns into a shameless freeloader with no intention of moving out of Charlie's house or supporting himself, while his poverty and cheapness take center stage. His general clumsiness, bad luck, social ineptitude, poor judgment and CampStraight traits are also gradually dialed up. He does get less neurotically uptight and more adventurous in later seasons, as the implied result of giving in to his inner JerkAss - whereupon he also becomes, or reveals he's always been, almost as much of a shallow horndog as Charlie.

** Jake's childish naivete and gullibility have developed into adolescent stupidity. He seems to lose a few IQ points with every season.
** Formerly just broke, unlucky and geekish yet still trying to retain his dignity and moral compass (and raise his son right), Alan gradually becomes a shameless freeloader who has no intention of moving out of his brother's (later Walden's) house or supporting himself. His poverty and cheapness are constant joke fodder. His general clumsiness, bad luck, social ineptitude, poor judgment and CampStraight traits are also gradually dialed up. He does get less neurotically uptight and more adventurous in later seasons, as the implied result of giving in to his inner JerkAss - whereupon he also becomes, or reveals he's always been, almost as much of a shallow horndog as Charlie.
** Judith became a full-out she-devil who has absolutely no compassion for the ex-husband she is pressing for money, and who treats her second husband, Herb, like a subordinate.
** Charlie becomes more of a self-centered, amoral JerkAss every season, whose only concerns are drinking and getting laid. Whereas early in the show he still cared about Alan and Jake in his own way, he becomes uncaring and outright abusive later on.
** Walden starts off as somewhat naive in matters of love and dating, and depressed from his divorce, with a tendency to pile on the romance when in a new relationship. Two seasons later, he can't date any woman without thinking she is the love of his life, while his fortune and his programming prowess are rarely mentioned anymore.

*** The Pakleds were introduced in the second season of The Next Generation (1988.) They were depicted as simpleminded yet devious scavengers of other races' technology in order to become more powerful due to lacking the technical proficiencies to create competitively technology themselves. After having been virtually ignored for over 30 years, save for occasional mentions and a handful of background extras, in the 2020 first season of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the Paklids were reintroduced as comically inept dimwits who think every starship is the Enterprise, use transporters that take about a full minute to cycle, and take pictures with spy cameras that are turned the wrong way. Yet they are now able to cobble together battleships made up of stolen parts from 2 dozen different cultures. Somehow, not only do all these mismatched components work together, but these incompetent people can use these ships to be an actual threat to Star Fleet!

** Bud, Bud, Bud, Bud.. We could go on for hours how much his sister suffered from this, but he gets hit pretty hard with this as well. At the beginning of the show, he was the CoolLoser who could outwit (and outdo) his sister and wasn't as victimized by her and the rest of the family. Then around season four, his quirkiness that still attracted girls turned to outright nerdiness that they gradually rejected and it was portrayed that no matter how many times he had sex, no matter how attractive David Faustino became, [[StatusQuoIsGod he was still a virgin]]. Even worse, his reputation for being a pervert overtook his other qualities, that he was seen as someone who had to pleasure himself because he apparently was so lonely and repulsive to women (or at least according to [[BigSisterBully Kelly]]), from doing it in a public library to the one [[UnreliableNarrator apparent flashback]][[note]]Which is also the one where Kelly ''supposedly'' ended up stupid due to hitting her head in the car as a child[[/note]] where he was caught doing it as a ''[[{{Squick}} baby.]]''

** Bud, Bud, Bud, Bud.. We could go on for hours how much his sister suffered from this, but he gets hit pretty hard with this as well. At the beginning of the show, he was the CoolLoser who could outwit (and outdo) his sister and wasn't as victimized by her and the rest of the family. Then around season four, his quirkiness that still attracted girls turned to outright nerdiness that they gradually rejected and it was portrayed that no matter how many times he had sex, no matter how [[{{bishonen}} attractive]] David Faustino became, [[StatusQuoIsGod he was still a virgin]]. Even worse, his reputation for being a pervert overtook his other qualities, that he was seen as someone who had to pleasure himself because he apparently was so lonely and repulsive to women (or at least according to [[BigSisterBully Kelly]]), from doing it in a public library to the one [[UnreliableNarrator apparent flashback]][[note]]Which is also the one where Kelly ''supposedly'' ended up stupid due to hitting her head in the car as a child[[/note]] where he was caught doing it as a ''[[{{Squick}} baby.]]''

** Barney's womanizing ways were always to the extreme, which varied from episode to episode depending on [[CasanovaWannabe the success rate]]. While it is hard to exaggerate an already wacky character, more episodes in the fifth season were dedicated to him looking to score, including putting up a big sign at the Superbowl that gives him hundreds of calls in "Rabbit or Duck," explaining his elaborate schemes in "The Playbook" and "The Perfect Week" where he goes 7 for 7.

** Steve Urkel went from a standard-issue nerd to a classic and very popular ExtravertedNerd. He also went from a really smart high school student (but still just on the high end of a high school student's scientific ability) to a turbogenius who can build robots in his basement and change someone's DNA.

* Chelsea on ''Series/ThatsSoRaven'' went from an occasional (but still likable) ditz to an even worse one who irritates even her best friends.

** Ron's flanderization really started to show in the last half of the series. In early seasons, Ron was a relatively normal person ([[{{Cloudcuckooland}} By Pawnee's standards at least]]), being a relatively stoic with a distaste for bureaucracy while valuing privacy and self-reliance, with the humor of his character coming from the contrast between his strong libertarian views and his job working for the goverment in the Parks Department. But his simple and straightforward tendencies have been reduced to writing once sentence [[spoiler: on his will]]; and now overreacts when he has to abide by anything "official" or when he gets asked anything about himself. He will go unnecessary lengths to maintain those views. His RatedMForManly characteristics were also exaggerated, with him being a master woodworker and obsessed with steak, whiskey and anything else to that effect. In the end these are become some of the most well-known and iconic part of his character.