TV used to like to do reunion mvoies.
Wild Wild West Revisited and More WWW aired 10 and 11 years after the show left the air, with both Robert Conrad and Ross Martin. Alas, Michael Dunn had died, so they got Paul Williams to play the angry son of Miguilito Loveless.
But the best was Still The Beaver, a reunion move 20 years after the end of LitB, with all the original cast except Hugh Beaumont. (which also sparked the new series “The New LitB” (Hollywood is never one for originality!))
Clever!
Doctor Who does this a lot. Elizabeth Sladen played companion Sarah Jane Smith from 1973 to 1976, and then again from 2006 to 2010. Nicholas Courtney played Brig Leftbridge Stewart in the 1970s and again in the 2000s.
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were the principles on the X-files from 1993 to 2002 and then again from 2016 to 2018.
The Arrowverse has done this quite well, not only casting actors from previous incarnations of the shows (both John Wesley Shipp and Amanda Pays from the 1990 The Flash were in the new series), but the big Crisis crossover event in 2019 brought in folks like Burt Ward from the 1960s Batman series and Ashley Scott from 2002’s Birds of Prey, both in character.
There’s also Shaft…Richard Roundtree played the same character in both the 2000 and 2019 sequels, and I believe they’re all part of the same continuity, so there’s 48 years between his first and last (so far) appearance in the role.
Barbera Bain played her Mission: Impossible character Cinnamon Carter on Diagnosis: Murder in 1997, 24 years after M:I ended.
Mike Connors played detective Joe Mannix on Diagnosis: Murder that same season, 22 years after Mannix came to a close. Mark Sloan helped him solve an open case.
The Jetsons originally ran 1962-1963. It was revived in 1985-1987 with the original voice cast
There was It’s Still A Good Life, a 2003 episode of the revival of The Twilight Zone, a sequel to the 1961 It’s A Good Life episode of the original The Twilight Zone and starring Billy Mumy and Cloris Leachman in the same roles (albeit older) with Billy Mumy’s real-life daughter playing his daughter in the episode.
Ricardo Montalban played Khan Noonien Singh in 1982’s Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan 15 years after last playing Khan in the TOS episode Space Seed.
ER was remarkably consistent with actors throughout its 15-year run. Specific characters were never replaced with a different actor. Nurses who were there the first season were still on the show during its last season played by the same actresses. There were even specialist doctors who only appeared in a few episodes but were always the same actor.
That has to be the record. Sure, there are character actors that play the same TYPE of roll over decades, but not the SAME character. Gary Oldman has been the consummate villain for a long time.
Shaft! That cat Shaft’s an old Mutha… (shut your mouth!) …But I’m talkin’ 'bout Shaft! Can you dig it?
One bad mutha…
Though it was really brief, the time I met Richard Roundtree was one of my favorite celebrity encounters. The dude just oozed casual easy charisma. We talked about the Larry Cohen movies he’d done. It was very cool.
Though the time period wasn’t terribly long, I always liked that Michael Papajohn played the same character in all three of Raimi’s Spider-Man movies (he’s the mugger who kills Ben Parker). It showed attention to detail and continuity on the director’s part. Not at all common in superhero movies, considering Kitty Pryde was played by three different actresses in the first three X-Men movies.
John Larroquette is going to reprise his role as Dan Fielding in the Night Court reboot that will air this fall, 38 years after he first played the role, and 30 after he last played it in the original series.
Funny, I thought of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Returns, which would be 54 years, but it turns out he plays Mr. Dawes Senior in the original, and Mr. Dawes Junior in the update.
The trend I am noticing is while bringing back actors to reprise their roles decades later is not a new technique, it’s been happening significantly more often in the last ten years or so.
If voice acting counts, there’s Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar in Return of the Caped Crusaders & Batman vs. Two-Face (2016 & 2017 animated movies, following the 1966-1968 series) and Ysanne Churchman reprising Alpha Centauri in “Empress of Mars” (2017, following the 1974 “The Monster of Peladon”).