TV characters who later appeared on a different show

Cafe Society
#1

What TV characters can you think of that have been resurrected on another show, after their original series had gone off the air? (But not spun off onto their own show)

Crossover appearances don’t count if the character’s main show was still running, such as Andy Griffith’s Sheriff Taylor appearing on Gomer Pyle, USMC. Spinoffs do count, as long as the character in question is not the focus of the spinoff. For instance, I believe Sam, Norm, Cliff, and Lilith from Cheers have all appeared on Frasier, but I’m not counting Frasier himself.

So, whattaya got?

#2

John Constantine seems to be showing up on Legends of Tomorrow.

#3

Richard Belzer played John Munch on Homicide and then Law and Order SVU . First show was set in Baltimore and SVU was in NYC

#4

John Munch also made an appearance in an episode of The Wire.

#5

Ursula Buffay, the airheaded waitress on Mad About You, appeared on Friends on several occasions. Of course, the entire reason for that was that one of the main characters on Friends was Ursula’s identical (and equally spacy, but far less evil) twin, Phoebe.

#6

Arthur Fonzarelli appeared on the pilot to Mork and Mindy (1978) one year after he jumped the shark (1977), so that kind of counts…

#7

How about Suzanne Pleshette on Newhart?

#8

I’m pretty sure that Munch is responsible for the majority of the Tommy Westphall universe.

#9

McCoy, Scotty and Spock all appeared on episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Technically, all of TOS crew appeared on an episode of DS:9, when Cisco et al. went back in time to The Trouble With Tribbles, but I don’t think that should count. Technically, they appeared on the other guy’s show. I hate temporal mechanics…

#10

Bones, Spock and Scotty all appeared in one-shot episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation a good 2 decades after the original series left the air.

Worf became a regular cast member on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine after* Next Generation* ended. O’Brian moved when DS9 and Next Generation were running concurrently, so I’m not sure he counts.

Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex, who were originated on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, later became major characters in the second season of Star Wars: Rebels.

[ETA: Ninja’d - or maybe not - maybe I was first but a temporal anomaly makes it seem like I was ninja’d]

#11

McCoy, Spock, and Scotty have all appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The cast of Next Generation showed up at the start of Deep Space 9, and the cast of DS9 showed up in the first episode of Voyager. In both of those cases, the shows overlapped, so they wouldn’t fit your criteria… but Chief O’Brien would have then been in the first episode of Voyager after having been on TNG, and those shows didn’t overlap.

Q also (I’m pretty sure) showed up in all three of those Star Treks.

If you count a ship as a character, then Firefly had a cameo in Battlestar Galactica.

And Stephen Hawking has appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Big Bang Theory.

#12

unless of course Newhart was just Bob’s dream on The Bob Newhart Show

#13

Norm, Cliff, Lilith and Frasier all appeared on Wings.

#14

I recall that, but if I’m not mistaken, it happened during Cheers’ run, which doesn’t fit my parameters. What I’m looking for - don’t ask me why; I have no real reason for this thread other than I find it interesting - is when an actor puts away a character at the end of a series, only to briefly bring it back out elsewhere.

#15

He was also mentioned on Luther.

#16

He was even in an X-files episode in 1997. He exists in the X-files universe.

#17

The Seinfeld characters on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

#18

Carl Reiner as Alan Brady showed up on an episode of Mad about You.

That was 30 years after the Dick Van Dyke Show went off the air.

#19

John Constantine, of the short-lived series Constantine, made a couple of guest appearances on Arrow, then became a recurring character on Legends of Tomorrow, and as of Season 4, is now a series regular. He even jumped networks to do it.

Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer was literally resurrected as a series regular in the final season of Angel.

#20

Requires a hefty dose of fanwank speculation, but Adam Baldwin played NSA agent Col. John Casey on Chuck, then played a very similar character on an episode of Leverage, NSA agent Col. Michael Vance (since we know that “John Casey” was just a code name, he could have been the same character under a new code name…)