20 Best TV Characters of the Past 20 Years (#4-#1)

Published at 7:00 AM on October 31, 2008

By Paste Staff

Page 1 of 4

20 Best TV Characters of the Past 20 Years

Today, we present the final four characters. Click here for #20-#17, here for #16-#13, here for #12-#9 and here for #8-#5.

4. Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards)
Seinfeld, NBC, 1989-1998

The quintessential wacky neighbor thrived so long on set-piece absurdism that he developed his own internal logic—after awhile his antics made a strange kind of sense, as though (to borrow a sentiment from Cher) the world was crazy and he was sane.

“After he heckled Toby, she got so upset she ran out of the building and a street sweeper ran over her foot and severed her pinkie toe. Yeah, then after the ambulance left I found the toe. So I put it in a Cracker Jack box, filled it with ice and took off for the hospital.”