Basic Trope: A minor character gets an important role in adaptations, expansion or sequel, or gets hired on as a full member after serving as a fill-in.
- Straight:
- In the original Alice and Bob, Charlie was a casual friend of the title characters. In an adaptation, he becomes their best friend and part of the core group of the main characters.
- In the first film Welcome to Tropeville, Alice, Bob, and Charlie are all random characters in a Four Lines, All Waiting plot. In the sequel, one of them becomes the main protagonist with a more straightforward plot.
- Exaggerated:
- In the original version, Charlie was only a casual acquaintance who received occasional mentions but was never seen. In the adaptation, he becomes one of the most important characters, possibly more important than Alice and Bob themselves.
- Charlie was just a background character that only appeared for one frame in the original version, but in the adaptation he becomes the main character.
- Downplayed: Charlie's scenes have somewhat more importance in the adaptation than the original.
- Justified:
- The adaptation is set three years after the original show. In that time, Alice and Bob have become closer to Charlie.
- Charlie's actor pulled a One-Scene Wonder, which stuck in the audience's head enough that the writers realized they had a great Ensemble Dark Horse on their hands.
- The band that Charlie joined has an official policy of never hiring anyone sight-unseen and taking them out on tour first to make sure that they can deliver every night, get along with everyone, and are musically compatible.
- Inverted: Diane is a major character in the original, but only a minor one in the adaptation.
- Subverted: Charlie looks like he'll have a bigger role in the adaptation, then he gets pushed back to his original role.
- Double Subverted: But he quickly gets it back.
- Parodied: In the adaptation of Alice and Bob, a random rock on the ground takes over as the protagonist.
- Zig-Zagged: There are several adaptations, in which the sizes of the characters' roles vary. Only Alice and Bob are major characters in all adaptations.
- Averted: All characters are just as important in the adaptation as in the original.
- Enforced:
- Charlie was quite popular with the fans.
- The adaptation is longer than the original so the creators expanded on his subplot to fill up time.
- The adaptation is shorter than the original, so Charlie's subplot takes up more time.
- Some of the Acceptable Breaks from Reality that the original enjoyed don't work in the adaptation's format and instead of creating a new character whole-cloth, the adapters gave the underutilized Charlie the character attributes needed to deal with the issue.
- Lampshaded: "The new Alice and Bob. Now with 30% more Charlie scenes!"
- Invoked: Alice and Bob decide to spend more time with Charlie.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Alice and Bob refuse to be friends with Charlie.
- Charlie moves away.
- Discussed: "Charlie is your best friend? I really didn't know he was that close."
- Conversed:"Who is this Charlie guy? Was he in the book?"
"Yeah, but he was not that big of a character?" - Played For Laughs: Charlie was somewhat of a Cloud Cuckoolander in the original show. In the adaptation, he is even more of one due to Flanderization. This, combined with his increased screen time, makes for a much more humorous adaptation.
- Played For Drama: Charlie dies in the final episode of the adaptation. Because he's a major character, his death is more dramatic than it would have been in the original.
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