He doesn’t mention that here https://www.goliath.com/tv/william-shatner-reveals-star-trek-cast-never-received-residuals-from-original-tv-series/ - just talks about the lack of residuals. Shatner was dead broke in the early 1970s - the residuals would have been helpful to him - if he got them
Both versions are possible. Star Trek TOS was notorious for costing Desilu/Paramount way more than it took in, and the show originally didn’t get very much play in syndication (during the early 70s it mostly played on independent, low-powered UHF stations.) That was the period Gene Roddenberry was selling individual frames from outtakes and copies of scripts. Shatner’s little slice of ownership wouldn’t amount to much back then.
Five nights a week on WPIX, New York! (not a UHF station - but I do know what you mean).
Agreed.
At that time, when I was growing up in Green Bay, it ran on what was then the CBS affiliate, but on weekday afternoons (clearly targeted as after-school watching for kids). As such, I imagine it wasn’t bringing in much for Paramount, or for Shatner.
Jason Bateman was on Little House on the Prairie, Silver Spoons, Valerie/The Hogan Family, Arrested Development and now Ozark. The first two have been syndication staples for decades. I don’t know if Valerie was ever syndicated. Arrested Development is streaming…is that typically more or less than broadcast syndication?
Dawn Wells did. Seems she was married to an agent who specifically had that put in her contract. But she was the only one.
Dawn Wells says not
Q: How much money did you make for Gilligan’s Island?
A: Nothing. I don’t know, maybe I made $700 a week. I understand (the producer) Mr. Schwartz made $90 million on the reruns alone. I think we got paid … maybe we made $50,000, I don’t know.
More than that! The character of Munch has appeared in a total of ten series on five networks since the character’s debut in 1993.
Apparently, The Hof and Caruso are still pulling in over $100k/yr each for their roles on Baywatch and NYPD Blue/CSI: Miami
vh1 did a behind the music ep on weird al and one of the highlights was Phillips showing a check for 85 cents in the UHF segment
Sure, but Thelma seems to only want regular characters so the vast majority of those appearances don’t count.
“The gift that keeps on giving!”
I’ve heard Audrey Meadows was a notable exception. When she was negotiating her contract for The Honeymooners, she had her brothers negotiate for her. Her brothers were lawyers but they had never worked in the entertainment business. So in their ignorance of how television worked in the fifties, they asked for something that any entertainment lawyer would have known was virtually worthless; perpetual residuals.
The result was that Meadows kept getting payments from the studio every time an episode of the show was broadcast; decades after Jackie Gleason and the other people involved in making the series had stopped receiving any money.
yeah, i remember the original voice actress for Wilma flintstone saying at the end of the original show they bought out all the voice talent for 10 k a piece only to go on to make millions in reruns and she always felt she was ripped off … So when they wanted her back for the later cartoons she had an agent and made a lot more off the reruns of those
I wonder how many people cursed lucy and desi for making reruns popular…
Surely the main Simpsons voice actors must qualify. I think all of the main six have had other endeavors before and after they have all got to be getting paid.
Fair enough point. But as an aside, I continue to be astonished at how durable and ubiquitous that particular character is.
They were all actors (of varying levels of experience and fame) before The Simpsons; of the six, Hank Azaria probably has had the biggest career outside of that show, particularly in movies.
He was also in the brilliant Brockmire, which finished its run way too early IMO.
I was going to rebut that Azaria has had more high-profile roles, but Harry Shearer has almost certainly had more credited roles (which he does – 195 credits on IMDB versus 99 for Azaria). But Dan Castellaneta has them both beat with an impressive 232 acting credits.