10 actors who played one character on multiple TV shows
Wily attorney Saul Goodman comes back to the small screen Sunday with the premiere of Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul (AMC, 10 p.m. ET). While we're excited to learn about Saul's latest exploits, his return made us remember several other characters who had lives beyond the shows that made them famous.
10. Robin Williams as Mork from Ork
Happy Days introduced Williams' madcap alien during its 1978 season, and the character proved so popular that ABC gave the comedian his own series, Mork & Mindy, which ran for four seasons.
9. Chi McBride as Steven Farmer
Chi McBride originated the role of Winslow High School principal Steven Farmer for Fox's Boston Public in 2000, but he went on to appear in producer David E. Kelley's sister shows The Practice and Boston Legal, which were set in Boston and aired on ABC.
9. Linda Dano as Rae Cummings
7. Lisa Kudrow as Ursula Buffay
In Mad About You, Lisa Kudrow played flaky, forgetful waitress Ursula Buffay, appearing in 24 episodes of the NBC series. Friends' producers wanted Kudrow to play a similar character, so they eventually made Phoebe Buffay and Ursula twin sisters. On Friends, where she appeared in six episodes, Ursula had a successful career in porn. The 1999 Mad About You finale revealed that she later went on to become governor of New York. The casts of NBC's "Must See TV" shows of that era crossed paths so many times that viewers eventually learned Friends and Mad About You existed in the same fictional universe as Cheers, Frasier, Seinfeld, St. Elsewhere, Wings, Caroline in the City, The Single Guy and, believe it or not, The Dick Van Dyke Show.
6. Pretty much the entire cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show
When it comes to '70s sitcoms, All in the Family produced more spin-offs than The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but those series rarely brought characters from one show to another after the new franchise was established (though Sherman Hemsley's George Jefferson did pop up on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). Mary Tyler Moore's Mary Richards, on the other hand, made appearances on both Valerie Harper's Rhoda and Cloris Leachman's Phyllis. Richards probably wouldn't have fit into the hard-nosed news world of Ed Asner's Lou Grant, though, so she never visited her old boss in Los Angeles. Asner and Gavin MacLeod's Murray Slaughter both showed up for Rhoda's wedding, though, as did Leachman's Phyllis Lindstrom. And, as Love Boat's Captain Merrill Stubing, MacLeod showed up in a 1979 episode of Charlie's Angels. So, of all the core MTM cast, only Ted Knight's anchorman Ted Baxter didn't get on a second show. But nobody really liked Ted Baxter anyway.
5. George Burns as George Burns
We'll admit this one's a bit of a stretch, but stick with us. From 1950 until 1959, Burns starred in The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show and The George Burns Show, playing a fictionalized version of himself. Over the next several decades, he also made cameos on shows including The Jack Benny Program, The Lucy Show, Mister Ed, Alice and Fame — again, playing a fictionalized version of himself. If all those versions of George Burns were the same version — and why wouldn't they be? — it means that, in the world of Fame, horses could talk.
4. Frank Cady as Sam Drucker
You practically couldn't tune in to CBS during the late 1960s and early '70s without seeing Frank Cady's Sam Drucker. On Tuesdays, the general-store owner was on Petticoat Junction. On Wednesdays, he was on Green Acres. Sometimes, he was on The Beverly Hillbillies, too. Lots of the cast members of those three shows popped up from time to time in the others' storylines, but Drucker was the most frequent presence.
3. Andy Griffith as Sheriff Andy Taylor and as Ben Matlock
Andy Griffith gets a double double, which, you have to admit, is pretty impressive. Danny Thomas' Make Room for Daddy
, in 1960. In addition to starring in The Andy Griffith Show, Griffith appeared in episodes of spin-offs Gomer Pyle: U.S.M.C. and Mayberry R.F.D. During the '80s and '90s, Griffith played murder lawyer Ben Matlock on Matlock and also appeared on two episodes of Diagnosis Murder.
Come to think of it, Ron Howard may have done Griffith one better: Howard's Opie Taylor appeared in all the same Mayberry-related shows as Griffith. Later, as Richie Cunningham, he was on Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley and Love, American Style. And that's not even counting Howard's voice work as Richie on the short-lived Saturday-morning cartoon series The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.
2. Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane
Kelsey Grammer's psychologist, Dr. Frasier Crane, first sat at the bar in Cheers in 1984. In 1993, Frasier moved to Seattle, where he had his own talk-radio advice show for 11 seasons in Frasier. During those 20 years, Frasier also made cameos on Wings and The John Larroguette Show.
1. Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch
Richard Belzer is the King of the Crossovers. The former stand-up comic originated the Detective John Munch role in 1993 on NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street, which was set in Baltimore. In 1999, Homicide had a crossover with Law & Order, paying the way for Belzer to join the cast of Law & Order: Special Victims when it premiered in the fall of that year. Eventually, Belzer portrayed Munch on 10 different shows across five networks: Homicide (NBC), Law & Order (NBC), Law & Order: SVU (NBC), Law & Order: Trial by Jury (NBC), Arrested Development (Fox), The X-Files (Fox), The Beat (UPN), The Wire (HBO), 30 Rock (NBC) and Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC).