What TV series have turned over their entire original casts during their run? You can ignore special guest appearances after an actor/actress has left the regular cast.
**Law & Order **is the classic example. The last original cast member, Steven Hill, vacated his position as D.A. Adam Schiff back in 2000, and it’s still on the air.
I believe ER also qualifies, but I may be wrong – it’s possible some of the nursing staff or admin staff survived the entire run.
Any others?
Dr. Who, obviously, but that’s kind of a special case I guess.
ER was the one I thought of right away as well. It started hemoraging cast members about halfway through its run.
It is an interesting question though. You’d have to find a long running ensemble show and there aren’t a whole lot that don’t retain at least one or two original cast member.
Saturday Night Live.
Power Rangers does it every season.
Andy Griffith almost did, but they had the decency to rename the show Mayberry RFD when he left. Aunt Bee left for the last season, so I don’t think there was anybody left on the last season of Mayberry RFD that was on the first season of Andy Griffith (even minor characters).
The Andy Griffith Show, starring Ken Berry just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Wait. I’m under the distinct impression that Sam Waterston still plays the same character on the show and is still on it, just in a different role. But appearing in every episode.
Sam Waterston didn’t join the show until the 2nd or 3rd season or so. He replaced Michael Moriarty. Edit: 5th season. I just checked on IMDB.
Many of the long-running daytime soaps probably qualify. Looking at Wikipedia, I see General Hospital’s longest-running cast member Rachel Ames retired in 2007, though she’s supposedly welcome back at any time. One Life to Live also appears to have a complete cast change, as the longest-running current cast member started on the show several years after its debut. Guiding Light has also had a complete cast change if you look at the complete run of the show (it debuted as a radio show in the 1930s and ran concurrently as a radio and TV show for several years in the 1950s).
Chris Noth was an original cast member and came back to play the same character on L&O Criminal Intent up until last season. He would be the longest running actor and character in the L&O Universe (although Jack McCoy took a phone call from Adam Schiff towards the end of the most recent season…he wasn’t seen or heard, but the message was relayed to the people in the room. Steven Hill didn’t actually appear, but the character still hangs on.)
Aussie soap opera Prisoner (Called *Prisoner: Cell Block H *elsewhere) came close.
Elspeth Ballantyne who played Meg was the only cast member to last from the beginning to the end.
According to Wikipedia, there are six cast members who appeared in every season (although not in every episode) of E.R. I couldn’t work out who they all were, but they mainly seem to be nurses, like the characters of Haleh, Lily, and Chuny.
Speaking of Aussie soaps, Neighbours must surely have turned its whole cast over by now?
Speaking of ER not many people know George Clooney was in another show called E/R. It only lasted 1 year.
Might be the only actor in 2 series with essentially the same name.
When Jim Mallon handed Gypsy over to Patrick Brantseg in the middle of the 8th season, Mystery Science Theater 3000 had turned over every member of the cast.
Andy Griffith was in The Andy Griffith Show and The New Andy Griffith Show.
A few actors have been in multiple shows named after themselves with only trivial variations, even when the character they played on the show had a different name completely. Bob Newhart had three, Bill Cosby arguably had five. Tim Conway had two.
Dann Florek was also an original L&O member and he continues in the SVU spinoff, so he beats Noth (and I guess everyone else) for longevity. Incidentally, Steven Hill wasn’t in the original pilot but Florek was.
Off topic, I know, but since the tangent isn’t likely to be able to hold a thread on its own…
Carrie-Ann Moss starred in the Matrix TV series and, of course, the unrelated but far more famous The Matrix movie series.
Earth: Final Conflict almost counts as it had a huge cast turnover; nearly every character was gone in a season or 2. The only one to last the whole series was Von Flores’s Agent Ronald Sandoval.