A Brief History Of Timothy Olyphant’s TV Guest Appearances

Seeing as how we like to think of ourselves as the unofficial home of all things Archer and Olyphant, here’s some news I don’t think enough people are aware of: tomorrow night’s Archer is the Tim Olyphant episode. That’s right. Get excited. You know it’s a highly anticipated guest spot when both the creator and the executive producer can’t hide their Olyphanaticism.

Our good friends at Floyd County and FX were nice enough to provide us with preview images of Olyphant’s character, a fellow spy who is also very, um, Archer-y, as you may have gathered. This is going to be a good episode. And in the spirit of that let’s review real life Raylan Givens’ underrated history of TV guest spots. In chronological order…

Timothy Olyphant showed up in the fourth episode ever,  “Valley of the Twenty-Something Guys,” and — as you’ve probably inferred — portrayed a twenty-something guy who SOMEHOW managed to seal the deal with Carrie Bradshaw, giving him “firsts” over approximately two thousand other actors.

In the Season 1 episode, Dad’s Car, Olyphant guest starred as Billy Reed, a car-loving redneck who Earl lost his dad’s Mustang to as a kid. Highlights include the above hair and makeup, early stage male pattern in a flashback scene, and El Camino drag-racing.More like Samantha WhoRemembersThisShow, amirite? Tim O. did a guest stint in the 2008 Christina Applegate sitcom that’s still on your mom’s DVR. Although Wikipedia claims his Winston Funk role was re-cast with Billy Zane, but I distinctly remember seeing a preview and thinking Hitman was a bad idea. Also, I would have totally made a “You should listen to your friend, Billy Zane. He’s a cool dude” joke had it not been Olyphant. I don’t know what to believe any more.

We all remember disappearing salesman Danny Cordray who didn’t call Pam back because he thought she was a dork. He showed up in Season 7 so of course he was completely underutilized and disappeared with no explanation. Olyphant apparently had a deleted Dundies scene later in the season that may have provided a little closure to the character. Unfortunately the Erin/Gabe/Andy love triangle was so compelling that no time could be spared.

Never forget:

Every caption-less Danny Cordray GIF you could possibly want here.

Olyphant as a white Japanese chef and the return of Rafi highlighted a top three episode from this past season of The League.

I’ll let the Foxy Grandpa comment thread from yesterday’s Olyphant on Conan post take it from here.

Introducing Lucas Troy. I won’t spoil anything, but he has something for that.

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