No-Show Sitcom Characters Outdo Onscreen Actors

“Just Shoot Me,” the recipient of five Golden Globe nominations and steadily increasing ratings, clearly is hitting the target.

Clever writing and the skills of stars Laura San Giacomo, George Segal, Wendie Malick, David Spade and Enrico Colantoni give the NBC sitcom (9 p.m. Tuesday) a veteran’s polish in only its second full season.

The show, set in the offices of Cosmopolitan-like Blush magazine, also benefits from a nifty television gimmick: the spouse who is unseen but manages to be a great comic character, funnier in concept than would be possible in realization.

Wealthy publisher Jack Gallo’s (Segal) young trophy wife, Ally, is an integral part of “Just Shoot Me.” She is stepmother to Maya Gallo (San Giacomo) and is Maya’s former classmate.

We know what career-oriented Maya, who works at Blush, thinks about Ally (not much). We know that Jack spends time and cash coddling his high-maintenance wife.

We have a vivid picture of her in our minds even though we haven’t gotten a peek at her.

Overdressed, oversiliconed and underinformed. A stunner, but not too swift on the uptake.

And someone, if TV history holds true, whom we’re likely never to meet.

Vera was the wife of barfly Norm Peterson (George Wendt) throughout the 11 seasons of “Cheers.” She hectored him, held him on a tight leash, even tormented him with unfaithfulness.

She was so vivid in our minds that it seemed we’d met her. We never did.

That goes double with Maris, the wife-specter who haunts Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce) on “Frasier.” We know her habits and her neuroses as if she lived next door, and we also know we’d never want her to.

But as a TV character she is indelible and as full-bodied as if we’d seen her in the flesh. In a throwback to radio days, viewers get to use their imagination to fill in the physical blanks (our guess: hipbones poking through her size 2 Chanel suit and a tony nasal whine that would make dogs howl).

Former “Frasier” producer Steve Levitan, who created “Just Shoot Me” and is its executive producer, said there’s good reason Maris remains off screen.

“We realized there was no human being who could qualify for all these jokes we told,” he explained. In the case of Ally on “Just Shoot Me,” the invisibility simply evolved.

“When we started, it was never a planned thing that we would keep her from view, but the longer we’ve gone on, the more it makes sense to us,” Levitan said. “We talked about a story for her once, and she just didn’t seem to live up to what everybody had in their mind.”

And there’s this factor: “I’m not sure if the world wants to see George Segal with some 30-year-old blonde. It’s a funny idea in the abstract, but maybe people would find it too offensive.”

Television series are the natural homes for such offstage figures because they rely on continuing characters, Levitan noted. And the rewards are rich.

“It allows you to create characters that are so far beyond what you could ever do in reality,” he said.

That’s maybe not good news for the acting community, but pretty swell for viewers.