Doesn’t look like it - "Married... with Children" Pilot (TV Episode 1987) - Full Cast & Crew - IMDb
oops sorry, typing in a hurry. The show was Eight is enough, the actor was Mark Hamill.
What was he thinking? Giving up Eight is Enough for Star Wars?
WTF was he thinking?:dubious:
GAME SHOW BUZZER: NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! No, they weren’t:
I’ll take “Unaired TV Pilots” for $2000, Alex. And this time, let’s make it a true Daily Double! 
Not a first, but there’s the infamous brouhaha of Valerie Harper being fired from her own show Valerie following a contract dispute. They killed off her character and renamed it Valerie’s Family and then later The Hogan Family. That was the late 80s.
His is an interesting case because there was a flash forward earlier in the series to a time after the Jed Bartlet presidency where his character Leo is still alive–so his (and Leo’s) subsequent death while Bartlet was still in office created a continuity contradiction.
Probably Stefano DiMera on Days of Our Lives.
- BZZZZZZZT! *
I’m going to call foul. That was the unaired pilot. Producers almost always make changes to the cast of a show after viewing the pilot and before the first episode goes to air. If you’re going to cite that, I’m throwing in “All in the Family.” Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner weren’t the original daughter and son-in-law. In fact, the show was first called “Justice For All,” and then “Those Were the Days,” and Archie and Edith Bunker were originally called Archie and Edith Justice.
In the first pilot, Carrol O’Connor and Jean Stapleton played Archie and Edith, and Kelly Jean Peters and Tim McIntire played Gloria and Richard, as Michael was originally called.
In the second pilot, Candace Azzara played Gloria and Chip Oliver played Dickie, as Richard was renamed.
Heck, I’ll even throw in the Flintstones. The original pilot was called the Flagstones and instead of Allan Reed and Mel Blanc as Fred and Barney, Daws Butler played both parts. June Foray played Betty and Jean Vander Pyl played Wilma and went on to play Wilma in the series.
There are probably hundreds of examples of shows changing cast members between the pilot and airdate. I wouldn’t count any cast changes unless the pilot episode is also the first episode aired.
And I maintain “after one episode” is “after one episode.” Doesn’t matter if it was aired or not. Such changes are often (if not always) made after getting feedback from test audiences, so they don’t entirely result from the whim of the producer(s).
He did-in a quick sketch for someone (one of the prime time variety shows of the era), waving frantically from his liferaft…
If it’s not aired, it’s not an episode.
If it’s filmed/taped, it is. But you can believe whatever you want.
But it goes deeper: George Tobias played Mr. Kravitz opposite both Dick York and Dick Sargent. And he appeared in the 1941 film “Sergeant York.”
Sorry, still no point to this.
You mean they aren’t all living on a nice Actor’s Union farm in the country upstate with lots of room to run and play?!?
And Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha, was in the movie The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, which starred Gary Cooper, who played Sergeant York. Not to mention that Dick York injured his back while working on the movie They Came to Cordura, which also starred Gary Cooper.
Which all comes together to prove Nothing, really.
It was the 13th episode, “Transition” (December 1, 1957), per LASSIE Episode Guide and per IMDb. During the 19 years of the show, Lassie was the one being replaced without anything being said.
Thank you, Wayne Campbell.
I believe it was Dinah Shore. (Was before I was born, FWIW)
BTW, if it didn’t air, it doesn’t count as an episode.
I didn’t realize that so many episodes for that season were filmed before George Cleveland’s death since he died over the summer in July 1957. I was only a couple of months old so I don’t remember this, although I did see the episode in reruns.
IIRC, the old Dragnet series had to replace Joe Friday’s partner (Ben Smith, I think) because the actor Barton Yarborough died between seasons. The character was written as having died suddenly as well, and Friday is unusually emotional throughout the episode.
This was parodied somewhat in the Dragnet movie in which Harry Morgan tells Dan Aykroyd that “Frank isn’t coming in today.”
“Twenty-four-hour flu?”
“He’s not coming in tomorrow, either.”
“…Forty-eight-hour flu?”
In that case, the character just quit the force and bought a goat farm. :rolleyes: