10 TV Characters Who Disappeared Without A Trace

3. Tina And Valerie Pinciotti - That 70s Show

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Donna who lived next door to a boy named Eric. Donna had a younger sister named Tina, and an older sister named Valerie, who was supposed to be away at college.

We met Tina early on in the show, when Donna threw a party and Tina flirted with Fez. She was supposed to be fourteen years old, so presumably too young to leave home, but after that first season episode, we never saw her again. The only other mention of her comes at the end of a second season episode, where the narrator dramatically wonders where she's gone off to. Valerie, it seems, was just an elaborate figment of the collective Pinciotti imagination, as she is neither seen nor heard.

It's entirely possible that these characters were invented and summarily destroyed as a nod to Happy Days, which That 70s Show frequently riffs on. Less clear is the loss of Eric's sister Laurie, who stopped appearing in episodes after being a supporting character for several years. This can be excused, though, because Laurie had a somewhat strained relationship with her family, and we can assume that she still exists somewhere out there, she just doesn't come home very often. Red and Kitty never go so far as to deny her existence (they refer to themselves as having "kids"), which is more than we can say for Bob, Midge, and Donna, who have wiped the memory of Tina and Valerie completely out of their minds.