Even though sitcoms are usually wholesome and relaxing comfort shows, a lot of these series love to include disturbing characters as recurrent jokes. While these characters are usually hilarious, there's no doubt they would be terrifying if they were real people.
Some of the most iconic characters from sitcoms are really creepy. They are usually a bit of comic relief, but it can become unsettling if viewers think about it for too long. For example, while fans love Gunther from Friends, it's safe to say that his attitude around Rachel would be unacceptable in real life.
10 Frank Marolla
Raising Hope
Frank is a weird and lazy employee at Howdy's Supermarket, where Jimmy also works in Raising Hope. Not only is he a terrible co-worker (completely indifferent to his job), but Frank lacks common sense. For example, he created an extremely odd commercial for the store, where he even recorded himself going to the bathroom (and not washing his hands after it).
There's nothing not creepy about this character. Most of Frank's jokes revolve around his gambling addiction, his lack of care in the store, and his strange and misogynist comments. He implies that he's been in the dark sections of the internet, which is incredibly disturbing, and he made a ring with his kidney stone that he plans to give to his future wife.
9 Star-Burns
Community
Community's Star-Burns is one of the many students at Glendale Community College, and he's nicknamed after his star-shaped sideburns (which are already very odd). While he's a hilarious character, there's no doubt that Star-Burns (or, as he prefers to be called, Alex) is also very shady.
Star-Burns makes his living as a drug dealer. He even had a meth lab in the trunk of his car, which exploded after a car accident. He faked his death throughout the explosion. What's more, he came back in the fifth season when Jeff and Annie found him hiding out in the school stables.
8 Paul Zeltzer
Scrubs
One of the many doctors at Sacred Heart Hospital, Dr. Paul Zeltzer is particularly known for constantly talking about his wild (and often illegal) sex life with his wife. For example, Zeltzer has webcams from which he sees his wife having sex with other people while he's at work.
What's more, one of the jokes that aged poorly in Scrubs is when Paul Zeltzer and his wife drugged Jordan and Dr. Cox, which deeply disturbed the viewers. It's safe to say that Zeltzer is one of those characters from the 2000s that wouldn't fly today.
7 Gunther
Friends
While Gunther is one of people's favorite characters from Friends, no one can deny that his attitude when it comes to Rachel is really creepy. He's constantly observing her and pining over her. What's more, his obsessive behavior lasted more than a decade.
What's especially creepy about Gunther is that he and Rachel are never even friends, so it's weird that he's so fixated on her. Furthermore, Gunther also irrationally hates Ross simply because he dates Rachel at one point. Gunther's borderline stalker behavior makes him an unsettling character for a lot of viewers.
6 Mlepnos
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
The first time Mlepnos appeared in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, his eccentric and paranoid personality grabbed the audience's curiosity. From then on, the show constantly added strange unexplained details about him, such as the odd spelling of his name, the fact that he refers to his violin as a guitar and that he worked as a horse blood dealer.
Mlepnos is always acting as if he has something to hide, and he often lies about his own life for no reason. The point of Mlepnos's joke is that he's so weird that not even the main characters know what to do about him. Jake and Amy are often as unsettled as the audience when they interact with him, which is hilarious.
5 Quagmire
Family Guy
Glenn Quagmire is one of Peter Griffin's best friends and his neighbor. He's mostly known for being a sexual predator. Throughout Family Guy, all jokes around him revolve around his numerous sexual fetishes, which go as dark as bestialism and necrophilia.
Family Guy is known for its controversial sense of humor, and problematic sexual jokes are some of its favorite ones. Quagmire's attitude toward women is usually brushed off, but it has only gotten more disgusting as the seasons go by.
4 Rose
Two and a Half Men
Charlie Harper's neighbor, Rose, was the comic relief on Two and a Half Men and eventually became one of the main characters of the show. She was Charlie's unapologetic stalker, and she would often break into his house to the point where Charlie even got a restraining order.
Rose got even creepier when Two and a Half Men included Ashton Kutcher in the show. Not only did she fake Charlie's death after he cheated on her, but she also kept him as a prisoner and fed him lies about his family. The funniest but most unsettling thing about Rose is that she's a psychologist, so she should be aware of her own issues.
3 Creed
The Office
Creed is one of the most absurd characters in The Office. He never does his job (he doesn't even know what his job is), and he's constantly making allusions to committing illegal activities. For example, at some point, Creed comments that he stole his current identity, so he's not even the real Creed Bratton.
Throughout The Office, Creed becomes creepier and creepier. It's apparent that he's part of several cults (as a follower and a leader), he has a fake ID business, and at one point, he even showed up at the office with his shirt splattered with blood (which went unnoticed because it was Halloween).
2 Joe Davola
Seinfeld
Joe Davola is a recurrent character in Seinfeld who becomes obsessed with Jerry. Joe blames all his problems on Jerry because he believes it's his fault that NBC didn't choose his script. He creepily stalks Jerry and even attempts to attack him on various occasions.
What's more, Elaine inadvertently starts dating Joe in "The Opera" episode without knowing his dark history with Jerry. She realizes Joe's issues when he finds that he's been taking photos of her from afar and escapes his apartment. Joe attacks them again in the same episode, creepily dressed as a clown. Few sitcom characters get as disturbing as Joe Davola.
1 Elias Greene
Superstore
One of the most notable jokes in Superstore was that the employees of Cloud 9 kept finding severed human feet around the store. No one knew who put them there nor who owned these body parts. However, in the series finale, it was finally revealed that Elias had been the one hiding these feet around the store.
This was a creepy storyline from beginning to end, and the show never explains Elias's motivations behind hiding the feet around the store. However, most people assume Elias was a serial killer who liked disturbing his co-workers with these body parts.