9. Barnabas Collins (Dark Shadows)
Dark Shadows, the REAL one, was a Gothic American soap opera that debuted on June 27, 1966. But while today most people remember it for campy anti-hero vampire Barnabas Collins, (or are desperately trying to forget thanks to Tim Burton), he wasn't even an original character. Like Spike above, he was introduced in the second season of the series, as an attempt to boost sagging ratings. Even then he was never intended to be more than a secondary character. Fans of the soap however liked him and wrote to ABC demanding more of him. By the third season the entire soap was about Barnabas and all storylines were built around him. Played with gusto by the charmingly dapper Jonathan Frid, Barnabas was a delightful fountain of supernatural cheese, subsisting on a steady diet of scenery. He was also arguably the first vampire in popular media who wasn't a villain. While the character was clearly not a clean cut Goody Two Shoes hero, he nonetheless was generally on the side of good, having been made a vampire against his will. The show continued to run until 1971, giving it a longer run than the original Star Trek, and like Trek, garnered itself a cult following that thrives to this day, with many A-List celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and They We Shall Not Name counting themselves as lifelong fans. Aside of the failed film last year, there was also an attempt in 1991 to recreate it as a Prime Time drama, which survived only a handful of episodes before cancellation.Neither the remake series nor the film succeeded in recreating Frid's unique magic with the character, a testament to the unique stamp the late actor put on the role.