Brian Kinney (Gale Harold) from "Queer as Folk"
We could spend time debating whether the hottest man (gay or straight) in Pittsburgh was capable of loving anyone but himself, but really, his bitchiness was perfectly summed up in the season 1 episode in which friend Ted woke up from a coma to see Brian screwing a hospital worker in his room. Why had Ted chosen Brian as executor of his living will? ''My mother couldn't do it. Michael and Emmett couldn't do it. But you could...because you're a heartless s---. You could pull the plug and you wouldn't cry. And you'd know when it's time to go.''Marcy D'Arcy (Amanda Bearse) from "Married With Children"
Marcy epitomized that snooty, BMW-driving, yuppie banker everyone loathed back in the '80s. It didn't help that this nouveau riche she-beast was everything our blue-collar hero Al was not, or that she never let a chance pass to remind him of that grating fact. Perhaps Marcy's only redeeming quality was that, in a pinch, she'd sink as low as Al to get her way; this made her not only a snippy pain-in-the-ass and a chicken-legged hypocrite, but also a guilt-free object of ridicule.Nellie Oleson (Alison Arngrim) from "Little House on the Prairie"
Nellie, the Wicked Witch of the American West, was the original Mean Girl. She tormented poor Laura in that smug voice that you can still hear in your head even though you haven't watched an episode of Little House in decades. (''Where's your Pa, Laura? He smells like a horse. We could pretend and ride him.'') But her putdowns only made us love Laura more — particularly when Laura punched Nellie in the nose or started a mud fight.Jack McFarland and Karen Walker (Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally) from "Will & Grace"
The jauntiest sitcom sidekicks of their era, or the real stars of Will & Grace? No matter how you regard them, the much-employed Jack and the oft-married Karen were the perfect pair — narcissistic, promiscuous, hedonistic, and adorably brusque. Initially meeting through their mutual friends, Jack and Karen came to dominate the show with their saucy zingers, and practically redefined bitchery for the new millennium. For that, we salute them!
