Ensemble Darkhorse/Playing With

Basic Trope: A minor character that the audience takes a shine to.
 * Straight: On Generic Workcom, Scott is a minor co-worker of the leads, a nerdy White Collar Worker with a love of science fiction books. The audience loves Scott, and is vocal about this. Most reviews of the show mention him, and fan mail is plentiful. The producer finally notices, and rewards Scott's actor with A Day in the Limelight episode in the third season, and more frequent lines, including his own Running Gag.
 * Exaggerated:
 * As The Hero and The Lancer walk down the castle hall arguing in Cast of Thousands: The Movie, they pass a guard with a craggy face and an unusually lop-sided ear. The guard is only on-screen for seconds, and has no lines or actions, but the viewers find themselves fascinated by "Lop-Ear". He undergoes Memetic Mutation, speculation on Lop-Ear's backstory is rife, and there are entire epic fanfics devoted to Lop-Ear as the main character. One of these is second in popularity only to the best fanfic slashing the hero and lancer. The director catches wind of Lop-Ear's popularity, and rehires the extra who played him for Cast of Thousands 2. Lop-Ear has evidently gotten a promotion, as he has a fancier guard uniform, and appears in more scenes. He still doesn't talk, though. The director says he's saving that for a possible Lop-Ear spinoff.
 * Memetic Bystander
 * Justified:
 * The audience likes who the audience likes. You can try to manipulate them to a certain extent, but the actual popularity of any character is unpredictable.
 * Scott, despite being minor, is very well written and memorable, appearing in one of the most highly rated episodes of "Generic Sitcom"
 * Inverted:
 * Creator's Pet.
 * Shoo Out the New Guy.
 * The Scrappy.
 * Subverted: The audience loves Scott in his brief normal appearances, but his fanboy persona wears thin quickly when he is on screen too long.
 * Double Subverted: The writers pay attention to feedback and make the necessary efforts to round the character out, restoring his popularity.
 * Parodied:
 * Generic Workcom is a Show Within the Show of Generic Sitcom. In one episode, Ted Baxter actress Alice, nominally the star of Generic Workcom, comes to learn how popular the Scott character is with the audience. More popular than her character! She launches a Zany Scheme to destroy that character's popularity and return the audience's attention to her.
 * "So, basically, the hero is this guy. I think it's time we faced that fact."
 * Deconstructed: It's revealed that Scott lives for the brief moments where he's acknowledged, and otherwise lives an unfulfilled, unexciting, lonely life, in constant envy of the protagonists and their far more interesting existence.
 * Reconstructed: ... then he gets A Day in the Limelight and decides that maybe that kind of life is just fine.
 * Zig Zagged: Scott's popularity varies from episode to episode, depending on the writer; sometimes he steals the entire forty minutes, but other times he's incredibly annoying and misplaced. The audience goes between loving and hating him as a result.
 * Averted: No characters stand out to the audience more than their roles would normally do.
 * Enforced:
 * It's kind of a rule that you can't enforce this trope. If you try, you get a Creator's Pet or worse.
 * For an alternative definition, Executive Meddling keeps the best character down, despite what the fans want.
 * Lampshaded: "I thought I'd brighten everyone's day by dropping in."
 * Invoked:
 * The writers take time to craft decent lines for even the most minor characters, in the hopes that one or more will be picked up as a favorite by the audience.
 * Be warned: it's an unwritten rule that you kind of can't invoke this trope. If you do, there's a large chance that the character will end up as a Creator's Pet.
 * Defied: "Eh, all the characters on that show are decent, but none of them really excites me."
 * Discussed: "Have you ever noticed there always seems to be applause when Scott enters the room?"
 * Conversed: "My favorite character on Generic Workcom? Definitely Scott. Yeah, he doesn't get a lot of lines, but the actor totally sells him."

Yes, Ms. Fanservice is indeed fine, but who's that fellow in the checked tie, the one who's sharpening a pencil? He looks interesting, let's follow him Back to Ensemble Darkhorse.