Harry Anderson, Night Court and Dave’s World
Maura Tierney, Newsradio and ER
Khandi Alexander, Newsradio and ER
Ed Asner also had another series which lasted about two seasons on NBC, The Bronx Zoo, and was a regular on Hearts Afire with Markie Post and John Ritter.
John Larroquette segued from Night Court to The John Larroquette Show and a multi-season special guest arc on The Practice.
Ed Begley Jr. was Dr. Victor Ehrlich on St. Elsewhere and is now the electric car driving chef-turned-hairstylist on Six Feet Under. Also on SFU is Peter Krause who came to fame as Casey McCall on {i]Sports Night*.
Andre Braugher, Det. Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street was Ben Gideon on the ill-fated Gideon’s Crossing. His former partner, Kyle Secor, is now on the new series Philly. Jon Seda has gone from H:LOTS to UC: Undercover. He apparently likes shows with colons in the title.
Dean Winters simultaneously played a cop on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and a convict on Oz, as did his co-star Chris Meloni, who also had a role on NYPD Blue, as did Sherry Stringfield, who then moved to ER to which she will return later this season. BD Wong, who plays the priest on Oz is now a part of the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. (Further investigation will find a great deal of overlap in the the casts of the various Law & Order franchises, Homicide: Life on the Street and NY Undercover, in a weird Michael Chernuchin/Rene Balcer/Dick Wolf actor swapping thing, but that’s a bit OT.) David Schwimmer had a short-lived role on NYPD Blue before moving to Friends and Lisa Kudrow gained her role on Friends because of her ditzy waitress schtick on Mad About You.
Also on ER (or formerly), Kellie Martin had been the star of Christy and part of the Life Goes On cast prior to portraying the ill-fated Lucy Knight. George Clooney was once a regular on The Facts of Life and the 80’s sitcom E/R. Ming-Na was a supporting cast member on The Single Guy, Michael Michele is another Homicide refugee and Yvette Freeman, who plays Nurse Haleh, was the snarky assistant on Working, which was Fred Savage’s follow-up to The Wonder Years.
Law & Order is nigh-infamous for “same actor, different character” situations. Not only did Jerry Orbach play a lawyer on the show before he was brought back (with a new name) as a cop, but S. Epatha Merkerson, who went on to play Lieutenant Van Buren, appeared on the show early on as a lower-income black mother of, as I recall, a murdered child. And then she became Orbach’s boss. What are the odds.
Though it wasn’t a “same actor, different character” thing, I did find it funny that James Earl Jones once appeared on L&O as an attorney named “Jack McCoy”, a name they later recycled for Sam Waterston’s Assistant DA character.
And, so this isn’t a total hijack:
A.J. Langer appeared on My So-Called Life as Rayanne, and currently appears on NBC’s Three Sisters.
Avery Brooks- A Man Called Hawk, DS9, Gargoyles(does that count?)
Patty Duke on The Patty Duke Show.
I would think he already qualifies, based on his recurring role as Ted Shively (Mary Jo’s ex) on Designing Women, and his role as Peter Hunt on Murphy Brown.
A few more words on the Lou Grant controversy: I watched every episode of both series, Lou Grant being a personal favorite, and I always felt that Asner was playing the same character he had played on MTM. I never got the impression that the Lou of MTM was an incompetent bumbler. He had to deal with incompetent bumblers (as he did on Lou Grant), but he himself was a skilled producer/editor, with a gruff exterior and a heart of mush. Those qualities carried through both series.
If we’re including soap performers, since 1984 David Canary has done a brilliant job of playing two very different characters on All My Children on a daily basis. And he was Candy on Bonanza.
adding a few more to names :
Heather Locklear : “The Fall Guy”
John Larroquette : “Black Sheep Squadron”
Peter Scolari : “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”
I think John Astin’s had a number of TV roles – the most famous being Gomez Addams of course (and I think he’s made appearances on the “New Addams Family” which may or may not be successful), but he was also a recurring character on “Night Court” named ‘Buddy’.
A horrible thought (horrible in that it might fit, and the fact that I remember it) just occurred to me :
Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen :
Full House
The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley
some sitcom which I think was re-tooled into their current show, “So Little Time”
All of these went on for at least two years, although I’m not sure if all can truly be labeled, “successful”.
Okay, you trumped my Ron Howard and Bill Bixby… but no-one has yet had the temerity to mention…
Richard Dean Anderson!
MacGyver, and Stargate SG-1, as well as General Hospital and the short-lived Seven Brides for Seven Brothers TV series.
Ha!
Practically any cartoon fits this query. The Simpsons has dozens of – maybe even a hundred – regular or recurring characters, but a regular cast of maybe five or six. And, of course, Mel Blanc is well known for portraying almost every single one of the original Warner Bros. characters. I believe the old granny who owns Tweety Bird was the only exception; she was voiced by June Foray of Rocky & Bullwinkle fame.
Jeffrey Combs had two recurring roles on DS9: sleazy Vorta diplomat Weyoun and sleazy Ferengi liquidator Brunt. (Oddly, the former was one of my favorite characters, the latter one of my least favorites…
Oh, and another case where the jury is still out is Kevin Sorbo, who played the title role on Hercules and now plays Captain Dylan Hunt on Andromeda. (Hey, both of those are already syndicated… ;))
That was Heather Thomas.
mmmm Heather Thomas…
Sorry but I mentioned him back on page 1.
Gaaah! Gaaah! Curse you, bafaa!
Okay… well… um…
Richard Dawson! Hogan’s Heroes, and, um… the host of Family Feud. Right? That was a character, right? Richard Dawson, what a character…
No? Okay, well…
Robert Hegyes! There! Ha! Epstein from Welcome Back Kotter, and he also played Detective Manny Esposito on Cagney & Lacey!
There! I got one! Nobody will ever have thought Epstein would go on to another role! (Maniacal laughter ensues.)
Oops, you’re right. I even checked on that, and a quick search mentioned that Heather Locklear had been on the Fall Guy, but now I’ve found out that it was just a guest appearance.
In complete agreement on the mmmm.
[sub]Why do I remember this stuff? The Olsen-twin sitcom was ‘Two Of a Kind’.[/sub]
He gave the casting director a note from his mother.
Harry Anderson also had a recurring role, as a con-man, on Cheers
You are right, of course. Mea culpa. (Latin for “I should have checked the IMDB BEFORE posting”). But Kate Jackson did play a policeman’s wife on another 1970’s cop show…The Rookies.
Not too surprising that I confused two such attractive ladies. Rrrowrr.
Lawrence Hilton-Thomas. Welcome Back Kotter and Alien Nation.
Actually there are a couple more exceptions, though less well known.
June Foray did most of the female character voices for the Looney Tunes set, obviously. However several high WB characters weren’t done by Blanc, most notiably was Elmer Fudd. Elmer Fudd was voiced by radio star Arthur Q. Bryan. In fact in a tribute to him, Bob Clampett redesigned Fudd in the early 40s to look more like Bryan. These were the “fat Fudd” cartoons (Wabbit Twouble among others). Another uncredited voice artist for WB was radio performer and comedian, Stan Freberg. He typically voices the dopey voiced characters like Pete Puma or Junyer Bear (the baby bear in ChucK Jones’s Three Bears series).