Now that I’m nearing the end of my MST3K tape-to-DVD transference, I noted that, by the time the show went off the air, none of the original cast members were there. Five members had come and gone:
Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Josh Weinstein, Frank Coniff, & Jim Mallon (who didn’t leave, but was replaced as the voice of Gypsy by crewmember Patrick Brantseg).
Besides show like SNL, MAD TV, etc, what other shows survived the loss of actors (either by replacement or death, etc)?
well…does Bewitched count? Or the show with John Ritter?
Are you talking about shows that lost characters and replaced them with different ones…or shows that lost actors and replaced the same character with different actors?
Could I make this any more confusing? talk about draining the fun out of life…jeesh.
sorry Blue…
‘Happy Days’ lost much of its cast in its long run.
Using the MST3K reference (chronological order):
Josh’s character was replaced by TV’s Frank and voicing of Tom Servo was replaced by Kevin Murphy
Joel’s character was replaced by Mike
When Frank left, Pearl became a regular character.
When the show went to the Sci-Fi Channel:
Trace was replaced by Bill Corbett as voice of Crow.
Professor Bobo & Observer were added as new characters.
Patrick Brantseg replaced Jim Mallon as voice of Gypsy.
Bewitched, for example, had replacement Darrins & Mrs. Kravitz’s.
Law and Order. I don’t think any of the original characters are still on the show.
Nope. Not even close.
The thing about L&O, though, is that the cast hasn’t really mattered for the most part, because the writing has been so good.
“Law and Order” has to be first, but “NYPD Blue” has had a hell of a lot of turnover, too.
Oh… and apart from Noah Wyle and Sherry Stringfield (who left the show for several years), I don’t think there are any original cast members left in “E.R.”
I’m sure there are long-running soap operas that would win this category. Surely somebody who watches one of the old ones will come along?
Doctor Who had one or two or thirty cast changes over the years…
NBC totally changed the concepts of shows like Bob, Caroline in the City and that thing with Brooke Shields (*Suddenly Susan[/] or whatever it was called). Basically, the star stayed and everyone else was shifted around.
Also noteworthy are shows where they fired the star and kept going without her: A Different World and Valerie come to mind.
There’s an interesting case from the early days of television - The Aldrich Family, which ran from 1949 to 1953:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0040996/
In four years there were five actors playing the main character, Henry Aldrich. a couple other characters had three actors. This was one of the shows that started on radio and moved to TV. They hadn’t figured out yet that you couldn’t change actors as easily as you could on radio, where people didn’t notice the change as much.
Although Night Court settled into a regular cast, in the first few years they went through 4 public defenders, 3 female baliffs (the first two died), and 2 court clerks.
MAS*H:
Henry was replaced by Potter
Trapper by BJ
Frank by Charles
Radar just plain left (Klinger took his “job”, though)
MAS*H didn’t replace the people. They had the characters leave and other new characters come in. Kind of like the army 
Soaps just use a new actor for the same character. On Days of Our Lives, they had seven Jack Devereaux in five years until Matthew Ashford made the role his own.