{"id":1891,"date":"2025-02-21T18:36:55","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T18:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/?p=1891"},"modified":"2025-02-21T18:36:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T18:36:55","slug":"mark-harmons-gibbs-originally-had-a-totally-different-name-on-ncis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/?p=1891","title":{"rendered":"Mark Harmon\u2019s Gibbs Originally Had A Totally Different Name On NCIS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Every great fictional character has a great name. Duncan Idaho, Atticus Finch, Ebenezer Scrooge, Spike Spiegel; these are all names that immediately sound just too good to be picked at random and too evoking not to belong to a memorable character. These are the kind of names that make anyone go, \u201cWhoever that name belongs to is either a total badass or at the very least a very interesting person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such is the case with Leeroy Jethro Gibbs, the main character of the military police procedural \u201cNCIS\u201d that has run on CBS for 22 seasons as of this writing. After starring in an underrated TV movie adaptation of a classic \u201cTwilight Zone\u201d episode, Mark Harmon became a hugely recognizable face on television for nearly two decades as Gibbs, the head of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service that was actually first introduced in an episode of \u201cJAG\u201d before going on to star in \u201cNCIS.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s such a good name that it was a big part of what drew Harmon to the role in the first place. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight \u00a0about what initially interested him about the project, Harmon said he read the name Leroy Jethro Gibbs and thought \u201cI like that name.\u201d Unfortunately for him, \u201cFor a brief second when I decided that I liked the idea of the project, the name changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, we almost had \u201cNCIS,\u201d starring Mark Harmon as, according to the actor, it was almost \u201cBob Johnson or something like that\u201d a name that just screams, \u201cmeh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Special Agent Bob Johnson?<\/h2>\n

As Harmon tells it, it wasn\u2019t even the network that wanted the name changed, but rather \u201cNCIS\u201d creator Donald P. Bellisario who nearly changed his mind on Gibbs. He explained:<\/p>\n

\u201cI went, \u2018No, no, it\u2019s gotta be Leroy Jethro Gibbs,\u2019 Harmon continued. \u201cThe creator said, \u2018No, you can\u2019t play a guy named Leroy Jethro Gibbs,\u2019 and I said, \u2018Why not?’\u201d the actor and writer continued. \u201cAnd then it went back and I was happy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, though, the name stuck, and Harmon went on to play Gibbs for 19 seasons until he left \u201cNCIS.\u201d The character proved popular enough that even as it expanded, Harmon remained the poster child for the franchise and Gibbs even went on to get its own origin story via a prequel series.<\/p>\n

Even if Harmon was mired in behind-the-scenes drama during his time at \u201cNCIS that led to Pauley Perrette retiring from acting due to clashes with Harmon, there\u2019s no denying that at least Leroy Jethro Gibbs remains a badass fictional name.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every great fictional character has a great name. Duncan Idaho, Atticus Finch, Ebenezer Scrooge, Spike Spiegel; these are all names that immediately sound just too good to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1893,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891\/revisions\/1893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}