Usually when an actor plays one character on a TV Show, then people can’t really buy into them playing someone else. Michael Richards found this to be true. Inevitably, they’ll get a new show, but it will fold after a season (George Wendt).
Who has broken the jinx and successfully played 2 characters on long running television shows that at least made it into syndication? Spin-offs don’t count.
Some thoughts:
Michael J Fox on Family Ties and Spin City
Bob Newhart on Newhart and the Bob Newhart Show
Mary Tyler Moore on Dick Van Dyke and MTM
Lucy on I Love Lucy and Lucy
Bill Cosby has made a career playing himself.
Shows that people did (or will) have trouble getting out of.
Cheers
Seinfeld
Friends
Wings
Drew Carey
Paul Reiser was on something called “My Two Dads” before “Mad About You.”
Gerald McRaney was a Simon on “Simon & Simon” and was Major Dad on “Major Dad.”
James Garner’s Bret Maverick wasn’t exactly the same as his Jim Rockford.
William Shatner swapped his character’s first two initials and became “T. J. Hooker” after some small success as a character named James T. Kirk. I forget the name of the show, but it will come to me.
I’m often surprised that I don’t see the following actor mentioned in these kinds of lists, since the charcters that he played were so very different. I’m speaking, of course, of Carroll O’Connor, first as Archie Bunker in All in the Family and then as Bill Gillespie in {i]In the Heat of the Night*. To me, it showed the complete versatility of the actor.
[sub]Damn machine being slow on me… it was already said, but I’m saying it again, anyway![/sub]
Dennis Franz,Jimmy Smits and Rick Scroeder (and soon Mark Paul Gosselor) use NYPD Blue to rebirth their careers. Hill Street Blues, LA LAW, Silver Spoons, and Saved By the Bell.
The two Lou Grants were very different characters. They merely had the same profession, same name and face. It was just a ploy to get people to watch a newspaper drama to name it after the MTM character.
I heard rumors that Chris Rock was in discussion to do a remake of the Six Million Dollar Man. Because Six Million Dollars is SO MUCH less than it used to be, he has all kinds of junk. Nothing ever came of it.