"The foolish leader, the two normal people who realize how foolish the leader is but are inhibited from saying so, and the creepy suck-up."

A template for fictional characters proposed by my son John in an iChat discussion about "Flight of the Conchords":

When I first saw the show, I felt like, "well, I'm not that interested in the two main characters, so I probably won't like the show very much."... It's weird for those 2 characters to be so central, yet I see almost no differentiation between them. In any given episode, Brett might be acting differently from Jemaine. But it doesn't seem to be part of any larger character trait — "oh, that's so Brett!"

I said: "sometimes having a bland center works as a plot device. i learned that when I studied 'tom jones' in high school." John said:

[Brett and Jemaine are] kind of like Jim and Pam on The Office. And Michael Scott is like Murray. And Mel is a lot like Dwight. Those 4 fit the same basic template.

So there's the more general idea of the dull central character (or characters) and the more specific idea of 2 bland central characters with 2 livelier characters, one of whom is the foolish leader and the other who's some kind of weird suck-up. Examples?

Humanizing the IRS.

This latest effort at extending the outrage at the IRS scandal is — in my opinion — backfiring.

These nameless, faceless bureaucrats are subjected to inane activities that look like something from "The Office." It doesn't look like profligate spending. It looks like sad and misguided morale-boosting.

Don't make me empathize with the taxman, you hapless scandalmongers!

What am I doing?! Simultaneously empathizing with the taxman and the scandalmongers?

Finding everyone here far too human, I will return to the mountaintop retreat I call Cruel Neutrality.

"You didn’t hear words like cringe-worthy or cringe-inducing in a complimentary way before."

"Does that make the show a classic? I don’t know. But I do like the fact that the show made people appreciate the entertainment value of cringing."

I'm one of the people who simply cannot enjoy watching "The Office." I understand why it's good and why people find it funny, and why the "cringe-inducing" quality is considered a sophisticated element of comedy, but it makes me feel bad. Even thinking about watching the show makes me feel bad.

By the way, the word "cringe" literally means (according to the unlinkable OED): "To contract the muscles of the body, usually involuntarily; to shrink into a bent or crooked position; to cower." Basically, you curl up into the fetal position. Figuratively, it means: "To experience an involuntary inward shiver of embarrassment, awkwardness, disgust, etc.; to wince or shrink inwardly; (hence) to feel extremely embarrassed or uncomfortable." The first historical example of the figurative meaning is:

1868   Harper's Mag. May 793/1   ‘I should like a smoke,’ was her only comment. I may have cringed at the idea of putting my pipe between those broken teeth, but I of course made haste to do what was hospitable.

The most recent is:

1993   Time 25 Jan. 18   Privately, Clinton advisers cringed at the wreckage left behind by all the U-turns.

Somehow I'm thinking about cigars...