I love watching TV. It is no big secret as I have talked about TV quite a bit on my blog. I sometimes notice when I am watching I get to see actors that I know from shows now, which is really cool. I have noticed some of the guest stars who are now well known actors have played different roles on the same show. I find it funny because you would think they would notice. I know it is just TV and not real but if someone who looked like my mom and was my mom showed up at the grocery store saying Winner Winner Chicken Dinner to a stranger I would notice. OK so my mom really did that. In her defense she thought I was behind her but had wandered off somewhere else. I would definitely notice if someone was trying to claim to be someone else, so why don’t the TV characters?
Dann Florek most known as Capitan Craggen from Law and Order guest stared on Roseanne as a couple different characters. First he was the principal at one of the kids schools and then he was Darlene’s Doctor when she was pregnant and went in to labor.
Speaking of Law and Order SVU Diane Neal who is best known for playing ADA Casey Novak was also a guest star as a stripper that was accused of raping a man.
Jeffery Tambor has had like ten different roles on Three’s Company. No one has ever noticed that he has been two different doctors, and a stuck up real estate agent, to name a few. IMDB doesn’t have all the roles he played on Three’s Company listed.
Then you have the actors that replace another actor’s characters, like Dick Sargent replaced Dick York as Darren on Bewitched. It also happened on Roseanne twice. Lecy Gorgson was the original Becky, then Sarah Chalke took over her role. Later Lecy came back as Becky and the show ended as Sarah Chalke as Becky. Of course they made fun of it on the show, by asking the original Becky where she has been, and spoofing The Patty Duke Show in the end credits. This would happen all the time on soaps. You miss a couple weeks of a soap and you have no idea who the new person is supposed to be. I remember on Passions sometimes they would say the character would be played by someone else. Why can’t they just send them out if they are on maternity leave or kill off the character when they leave the show? The weirdest thing was when I watched Passions there was a character named Timmy and he gave his heart for Charity and died on the show, the day the show aired the actor died. It was very sad.
What are some actors that play different roles in a show or an instance where they replace a character with another actor?