How about Phil Hartman? He was certainly a regular on the Simpsons long enough, and he did three seasons on News Radio before he was killed. Does Saturday Night Live count as “prime time?”
did “The Magician” run for enough episodes to qualify Bill Bixby?
Vicki Lawrence:
“The Carol Burnett Show” - various characters
“Laverne and Shirley” - Sgt. Alvinia T. Plout
“Mama’s Family” - Thelma Harper
“Win, Lose or Draw” - host
“Vicki!” - Host
[Note to everybody: I have no idea why this topic has clicked with me and I feel compelled to check all of these out.]
Finola Hughes: General Hospital is her only qualifier. She hasn’t yet been on All My Children long enough to qualify and she was on Blossom for only one season.
Phil Hartman: Does qualify. NewsRadio made it to 97 episodes and I think Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons would count for him.
Raymond Burr: Does not qualify but is noteworthy. He was on TV every season between 1957 and 1977. First with Perry Mason (271 eps) and then with Ironsides (197 eps) for a total 468 hours of television.
Rene Auberjonois: Does qualify. As mentioned before, qualifies with Benson, The Smurfs, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Bill Bixby, redux: The Magician lasted only 22 episodes.
The current list is now
Rene Auberjonois
Barbara Babcock
Lucille Ball
Bea Benaderet
Bill Cosby
William Daniels
Shelley Fabares
Peter Graves
Phil Hartman
David Hasselhoff
Julie Kavner
Bernie Kopell
Don Knotts
Michael Landon
Heather Locklear
Lee Majors
Howie Mandel
Gavin McCloud
Alvin Melvin
Martin Milner
Harry Morgan
Tom Poston
Burt Reynolds
Betty White, Bill Bixby, and Dick Van Dyke are uncertain.
If Saturday Night Live qualifies Phil Hartman, then Jane Curtin should be on the list. She did Kate&Allie and Third Rock.
These may be stretching it a bit…
Dolph Sweet:
“Dark Shadows” - Ezra Hern
“The Edge of Night” - Harry Constable
“Another World” - Lt. Gil McGowan
“Gimme a Break!” - Chief Carl Kanisky
Suzanne Sommers:
“High Rollers” - assistant
“Three’s Company” - Chrissy Snow
“Step by Step” - Carol Lambert
Larry Hagman:
“The Edge of Night” - Ed Gibson
“I Dream of Jeannine” - Capt. Nelson
“Dallas” - J.R. Ewing
The easy ones have been exhausted. Now we start getting to the arguables. But with the wise judgment of the great and powerful Ob, I’m sure we can reach consensus.
I vote for John Forsythe. Dynasty and Bachelor Father ran long enough, and even though he wasn’t credited as the voice of Charlie Townsend in Charlie’s Angels, he was always acknowledged as doing it.
Reaching back into the dark mists of time we have June Lockhart, not even counting Petticoat Junction. In addition to her aluminum-foil wrapped beauty on Lost in Space and playing second-fiddle to a dog on Lassie, she is credited with being a panelist for 3 seasons on the ancient quiz show “Who Said That?”
Jane Curtin: Qualifies. I had already looked at her, but somehow she didn’t make it into my comments.
Dolph Sweet: Qualifies. Dark Shadows (210 eps), Another World, and Gimme a Break! (137 eps). He was on The Edge of the Night for only one season.
Suzanne Somers: Does not qualify. Step by Step (164! eps) and Three’s Company are clear. She’s the Sheriff was her next most successful sitcom and it made only 48 episodes. High Rollers clearly qualifies but I don’t that being one of three assistants on a game show that also has both a host and hostess counts as major role. Also, IMDb lists her as being on the show for four years from '74-'80. However, that would mean that at the height of her Three’s Company fame she was still working as a “stroker” on a game show. I doubt that data [Making bold use of the wisdom bestowed on me by kunilou.]
Larry Hagman: Does not qualify. I Dream of Jeannie had 139 episodes and Dallas had a bazillion. He was on The Edge of Night for only two seasons however. The Rogues and The Good Life only lasted a season each. Orleans barely made 8 episodes (but his eyebrows looked good).
John Forsythe: Qualifies. I feel Charlie’s Angels was a big enough role.
June Lockhart: Does not qualify. I’ve been ignoring game show panels (because I have no way of knowing how regular it was) and if I continue that, then Lockhart does not have a third. She was on Petticoat Junction for only two seasons.
The current list is now
Rene Auberjonois Barbara Babcock Lucille Ball
Bea Benaderet Bill Cosby Jane Curtin
William Daniels Shelley Fabares John Forsythe
Peter Graves Phil Hartman David Hasselhoff
Julie Kavner Bernie Kopell Don Knotts
Michael Landon Heather Locklear Lee Majors
Howie Mandel Gavin McCloud Alvin Melvin
Martin Milner Harry Morgan Tom Poston
Burt Reynolds Dolph Sweet
Betty White, Bill Bixby, and Dick Van Dyke are uncertain.
Darn… I figured Ted McGinley for sure!
How about General Hospital? That’s certainly a successful show, and IMDb says she was on for several seasons.
Obfusciatrist, maybe you can help us with the rest:[ul][li]How about Mollie Sudgen, who played Mrs. Slocombe for so many years (seven or eight?) on the Britcom Are You Being Served? She also spent several years on That’s My Boy (I hate that show!), The Liver Birds, and Just Jimmy, amongst others.[/li][li]Do we know yet about Larry Hagman? We all know about Dallas and I Dream of Jeannie, but was he on The Edge of Night long enough to qualify?[/li][li]Were there enough episodes of Father Dowling Mysteries to qualify Tom Bosley along with Happy Days and Murder, She Wrote?[/li][li]Wendie Malick, while best known as Judith Stone on Dream On and Nina Van Horn on Just Shoot Me, was also on Baywatch. Does she qualify?[/li][li]Richard Dean Anderson is most famous for MacGyver, but he was also on General Hospital and the awful Stargate: SG-1. Do you suppose there have been enough episodes of SG-1 to qualify him? One episode was too many for me…[/li][/ul]—
Pete
Long time RGWMer and ardent AOLer
*Tom Bosley
Happy Days
Murder, She Wrote (4 years)
That’s Hollywood (6 years)
and possibly Port Charles (only 1 year, but it was a daily soap).
Tim Conway
The Steve Allen Show
McHale’s Navy
The Carol Burnett Show
Two of these were variety shows, but if you’re counting SNL, they should count for him.
**Oops! Didn’t pay enough attention to the OP which said “on U.S. primetime network television”. Rather than recalculate, I’ll just expand to “U.S. television”.
June Lockhart, redux: Qualifies. Good catch and she has Lassie, Lost in Space (83 eps), and General Hospital
Mollie Sugden: Does not qualify. We imperialist Americans have excluded foreign TV.
Tom Bosley: Does not qualify. The Father Dowling Mysteries only made it to 45 episodes.
Wendie Malick: Does qualify. Her Baywatch stint was 5 seasons.
Richard Dean Anderson: Does qualify. Stargate SG-1 broadcast its 84th episode last Friday.**
The current list is now
Richard Dean Anderson Rene Auberjonois Barbara Babcock
Lucille Ball Bea Benaderet Bill Cosby
Jane Curtin William Daniels Shelley Fabares
John Forsythe Peter Graves Phil Hartman
David Hasselhoff Julie Kavner Bernie Kopell
Don Knotts Michael Landon Heather Locklear
Lee Majors Wendie Malick Howie Mandel
Gavin McCloud Alvin Melvin Martin Milner
Harry Morgan Tom Poston Burt Reynolds
Dolph Sweet
Betty White, Bill Bixby, and Dick Van Dyke are uncertain.
Damn you, bibliophage and obfusciatrist!
I’ve spent all together too much time paddling through the IMDB because of this thread, certain I remembered any number of actors to have starred in 3 or more series–only to discover that either they didn’t, or they didn’t for long enough. Still, I think I’ve discovered one (I think):
Bruce Boxleigtner:
Babylon Five
Scarecrow & Mrs. King
How the West Was Won (also The Macahans, but as a different character)
This last, of course, is the one I’m not sure of.
Amazing how fast time goes by when you’ve got your teeth sunk in to a toughie.
Bruce Boxleitner: Does not qualify. Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Babylon 5 are good enough, but How the West was Won fails on several counts. First, the show was only a series for one year, 1979. In '77 and '78, it was technically running as a mini-series. Six hours in '77 and twenty in '78. All told, including The Macahans, a TV movie, there were only 51 hours of this show, spread over four years.
Tom Bosley, redux: I had been ignoring voicework on non-fiction shows. But if you include That’s Hollywood, Bosley would qualify. I’ll list him under questionable.
Tim Conway: Qualifies. As said, the three are The Steve Allen Show, McHale’s Navy, and The Carol Burnett Show.
The current list is now
Richard Dean Anderson Rene Auberjonois Barbara Babcock
Lucille Ball Bea Benaderet Tim Conway
Bill Cosby Jane Curtin William Daniels
Shelley Fabares John Forsythe Peter Graves
Phil Hartman David Hasselhoff Julie Kavner
Bernie Kopell Don Knotts Michael Landon
Heather Locklear Lee Majors Wendie Malick
Howie Mandel Gavin McCloud Alvin Melvin
Martin Milner Harry Morgan Tom Poston
Burt Reynolds Dolph Sweet
Bill Bixby, Tom Bosley, Dick Van Dyke, and Betty White are questionable.
Abby Dalton:
Hennessey
The Joey Bishop Show
Falcon Crest
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by obfusciatrist *
**Oops! Didn’t pay enough attention to the OP which said “on U.S. primetime network television”. Rather than recalculate, I’ll just expand to “U.S. television”.
Let the floodgates open!
Under those rules Dick Van Dyke qualifies for his time spent as host of The Morning Show on CBS.
I’m not much for soaps, but aren’t there a number of actors like Judith Light who did a lot of soap work and hit it big with a prime time show?
And, in the realm of prime time, what about Robert Wagner for Switch, It Takes a Thief and Hart to Hart?
I apologize for the tremendously bad job of cutting and pasting I did on that post. Ob’s quote is only my first paragraph. The rest of it is my own. I’m not trying to put words in anyone’s mouth.
I found two, but one was on a soap so I don’t know if that qualifies or not. it’s gonna be close on both though
Gerald McRaney
Major Dad 89-93
Simon & Simon 81-88
Promised Land 96-99 (aka Home of the Brave 96)
Jon Cypher
“Hill Street Blues” (1981) TV Series … Chief Fletcher Daniels
Major Dad
“As the World Turns” (1956) TV Series … Dr. Alex Keith (1977-1979) though only two years how many episodes do they do?
Jay Thomas:
Mork and Mindy
Cheers
Murphy Brown
Dick Van Dyke, redux: Was on The Morning Show for less than one year.
Judith Light: Does not qualify. She has no third show to go with One Life to Live and Who’s the Boss. She has only two other TV series and Phenom, the more successful of the two, only had 22 episodes.
Robert Wagner: Does not qualify. Hart to Hart had 111 episodes, but of his four other series, Switch did the best with only 70 episodes.
Gerald McRaney: Does not qualify. Promised Land only made it to 69 episodes and can’t join Simon & Simon (156 episodes) and Major Dad.
Jon Cypher: Does not qualify. The OP specified three season. For shows that aired year-round (talk shows, soaps, etc.) I have been requiring 3 years.
Jay Thomas: Does not qualify. He did not fulfill the three season rull on either Mork & Mindy or Cheers. That is irrelevant, however, as Love and War only had 64 episodes.
Abby Dalton: Qualifies. As mentioned, Hennessey, The Joey Bishop Show, and Falcon’s Crest.
David Coulier: Qualifies. Pains me, but he has four. Muppet Babies, The Real Ghostbusters, Full House, and America’s Funniest People.
Vivian Vance: Qualifies. Missed this way back in the thread, but if I Love Lucy, The Lucille Ball Show, and Here’s Lucy count for Lucy, they count for Vivian.
Julie Kavner: Moved to questinable. It occurred to me that her work on the The Simpsons is just a continuation of a character from The Tracy Ullmann Show. I know she played other characters for Ullmann as well. Opinions (if anybody cares).
The current list is now:
[Note: Starred names indicate they fulfilled the strict "U.S. primetime network television rule" set forth in the OP]
Richard Dean Anderson Rene Auberjonois *Barbara Babcock
*Lucille Ball *Bea Benaderet *Tim Conway
*Bill Cosby David Coulier Jane Curtin
*Abby Dalton *William Daniels *Shelley Fabares
*John Forsythe Peter Graves Phil Hartman
David Hasselhoff *Bernie Kopell *Don Knotts
*Michael Landon *Heather Locklear *Lee Majors
Wendie Malick Howie Mandel *Gavin McCloud
*Alvin Melvin *Martin Milner *Harry Morgan
*Tom Poston Burt Reynolds Dolph Sweet
*Vivian Vance
Bill Bixby, Tom Bosley, Julie Kavner, Dick Van Dyke, and Betty White are questionable.