December 5, 2016

When TV Regulars Don’t Receive Starring Credit

When I was a kid it always fascinated me when I’d see an re-run of an early episode of a well established series, and some actor who I was used to appearing in the opening credits was missing. Instead stuck in the closing credits under “co-starring” or “also starring”, or even “special guest star”. Why do TV shows do this with characters who are meant to stick around? Unless they dont want to pay the actor? And I always hated that term “co-star”, it felt like it was saying yeah they’re in this but they’re sure not the main star!


Some cases I can see, since maybe the creators didn’t realizes the character would last and/or become popular. It’s no shock Jaleel White isn’t in the credits of the first season of Family Matters, who knew that character would take off? Same goes for Henry Winkler on Happy Days who wasn’t in the credits at first and then just barely made it into the opening credits the next season. How about Christopher Lloyd in Taxi (and Carol Kane later)? Or Melissa Rauch and Mayim Bialik on Big Bang? Thy didn’t arrive until season 4. The Cosby Show added names but they all made sense, being added when their roles were expanded and/or introduced. It wasn’t well after the fact!


But others, what the heck? Why would you have a main character on the show and treat them like a guest star? Eventually someone usually wises up and they do become regular characters, but it really makes no sense that it took them as long as it did.


Here are some examples of what I mean:



Tim Conway on The Carol Burnett Show
After Carol Burnett herself, when people think the Carol Burnett Show one of the names that first comes to mind is Tim Conway. He was a genius and did some amazing work on that show. He appeared in almost all the episodes for several seasons. When he started out he was a recurring guest star. Want to know when he became a regular cast member? SEASON NINE!! No Kidding! I wonder if Tim finds the irony of that funny.






Meshach Taylor on Designing Women
This one makes no sense to me, Anthony serves a very important function on this show. Not only is he a male in an all female cast, but he often serves as a voice of reason so to speak. When one of the women go off he’s there to bring them back to Earth. Especially Suzanne. Did the creators really think this character was just going to be a recurring one? Well they must have because it took a couple seasons to finally graduate him to main cast member.





Danielle Fischel on Boy Meets World
I love this one, it’s a perfect example of now knowing exactly where a show is going when it starts out. If you watch the season one credits of this show, you will see Danielle Fischel not listed. In fact, she was hardly in that season (and her character was a bit different). Instead we get a credit for Lee Norris as Stuart Minkus. A character who disappears from the show after season one (except for a clever cameo in the graduation episode). Meanwhile Topanga would of course become the center of the whole show, with Cory of course.




Lori Loughlin and Andrea Barber on Full House
I guess they weren’t sure if Rebecca was going stick around on Full House because she got guest star credit her first season. Which makes me scratch my head, but maybe because of hindsight.  I guess they needed to make sure she’d work,  which she did since the show desperately needed a female role model. I get why Kimmy wasn’t listed in the first season, she was barely there and just gawked at D.J. when she was, but as the character expanded so she appeared in every episode it still took way to long for the creators to finally add her. In season 5!



John Ratzenbeger on Cheers
I think it’s clear that Cliff wasn’t in the original plan for Cheers. While Cliff was in every episode of that first season, he wasn’t billed in the opening once. And in an interview I saw once Ratzenberger indicated that the creators hadn’t considered the character of a bar know it all when they conceived the show. Of course when Frasier first appeared he was just a guest star, but I’m sure the creators never guessed how popular that character would get.


Tim Karn and Debbe Dunning on Home Improvement
Tim Karn gets no starring credit in season one of Home Improvement, but there is a reason for this. Al wasn’t supposed to exist. Another actor was supposed to play a different character, but that fell through and Al went from being a replacement to permanent. Which may explain his absence at the end of the pilot. The Tool Time girls were never given star credit, which made sense in Pamela Anderson’s case since she hardly did anything. But Heidi was a more fleshed out character and I was very happy when Dunning finally got in the opening credits.




Erica Durance on Smallville
Drama’s aren’t innocent of this. When Durance first appeared as Lois Lane she was a guest star, and didn’t receive top billing until the next year. I guess you could argue that maybe the creators didn’t expect to keep her on after more than a few episodes. And if that’s true, it was a stupid thing to decide. Lois is kind of an important character!




Deforest Kelly in Star Trek
Star Trek was just plan awful with this! At first it was just William Shatner (in a version of the pilot that never aired). The version we know and love added Leonard Nimoy….and that was all! Yeah no other characters worth mentioning  in that show. When DeForest Kelley became popular for McCoy’s arguments with Spock he was finally given top billing, after a whole season! Course Star Trek is full of these. TNG had Diana Muldair listed as “Special Guest Star” even though she was in almost all those season’s episodes. Colm Meany was a guest star until he went over to DS9. And speaking of DS9, their guest star roster took forever to get all the names in. None of them were ever promoted to the opening titles.



Neil Flynn on Scrubs
Another one that’s baffling. In the very first episode we meet the janitor, who is immediately set up to the a nemesis for J.D.  And he is for the rest of the season. Why wasn’t he top billed exactly? It was clear he was meant to be around in every episode. This was remedied in the second season though you’d never know since they didn’t change the visuals from season 1 (except for one episode which I never understood).




And the Rest…
This may be the classic example of all. So we all know the Gilligan’s Island ballad, right? “Gilligan…The Skipper too….The Millionaire, and his wife….The Movie Star….”


Would you believe in the first season the end of that was “And the rest…are here on Gilligan’s Isle!”. The rest? There are two more! You can’t name the other two?? Well eventually someone realized how stupid that was (Bob Denver himself if Wikipedia is to be believed) and it was changed to “The Professor and Mary Anne…are here on Gillian’s Isle!” Seriously why wasn’t that done in the first place????? Poor Dawn Wells and Russell Johnson!



Actually there was just something about classic TV where many shows seemed afraid to list the names of the stars of the show. You’d get one or two! Andy Griffith and Green Acres had full casts, but you’d never guess that from the openings where no names are mentioned aside from the stars (or faces shown). Speaking of that why were the Brady Kids named at the end of The Brady Bunch, rather then the opening? What was that about?  Barney Miller left off half its cast, and MASH even left off a few names. Apparently no one was in The Bob Newhart Show except Suzanne Pleshette, going by the opening. Even as great as The Mary Tyler Moore Show opening was, ever notice no name appears aside for the star? Some versions show a clip of Mary hugging them but that’s about it.


This got better through the 80’s and 90’s and of course today  we can’t waste time with long opening themes so we get a quick title card and the stars names (not to mention most of the credits) run over the action of the episode. I hate this, would you like to know how long it took me to get the names of the cast of Big Bang Theory because I was paying more attention to the story than I was the credits? It’s something I never understood, an opening theme sequence might make people turn the channel but we can have four minutes of endless commercials? I guess things were different when I was a kid.


By the way this can go the other way, ever notice how Roseanne dropped Natalie West from the opening after a few seasons? Dan Butler was promoted to regular in Frasier..for a whole season or two before the entire character was scrapped. When Mad About You needed more supporting cast they promoted Paul’s parents and sister to regulars, which was a bad move at least in my opinion.

And some shows just refuse to add any characters to their openings. I have given Seinfeld credit for not bumping Newman to regular cast member, but that’s not the only show. How about The Nanny who added to its supporting cast with Fran’s mother and best friend, but none of them ever received top billing. And Roseanne was even worst, why was David and Mark still “guest stars” when they appeared more than Becky and Darlene? Even X-Files only listed Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny every year, no matter how evolved the cast got. It didn’t change until Duchovny finally left.



I guess in the end it doesn’t matter where there names appear in the title’s, since we still love the shows and characters. I guess it’s just nice to see that get acknowledged. There are plenty other examples I didn’t mention so if I missed your favorite comment and let me know.

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