Sorry for the awkward thread title.
The friends thread 02/06/03 talking about Jon Lovitz got me thinking about actors who appear on the same show i.e. Friends and played different character. I believe there was a thread about this from way back but I couldn't bring the search up.
So

I'll start:

Jon Lovitz because he played three characters on NewsRadio.
The suicide jumper who got fired by Jimmy James Enterprise
The air traffic controller who befriends Bill in the mental hospital.
The character Max Power who was a friend of Bill's and took over his spot after he died.

In theory they all could be the same guy but all the people in NewsRadio did not seem to remember him each time.

In Friends:
Giovanni Ribisi played Phoebe's long-lost half-brother
and he played a kid who accidentally donates a condom into Phoebe's case in the episode where Chrissie Hynde guest
starred.

Again, it's possible, they are the same character but again, neither remembers the other character.

In Law and Order:
Jerry Orbach plays Dectective Lennie Briscoe but in a very early episode, he played a defense attorney


Please add your contribution -- no matter how obscure.
Thanks

Jeff Kober on Buffy played Rak and played a vamp in the episode where Buffy had her powers taken away by the council as a trial.

Gilmore Girls has a character named Kirk that shows up doing random jobs around the town. In one episode he was a DSL installer, in another, he worked at the grocery store, etc. None of the other characters ever think it'd odd that Kirk is around everywhere. It's quite entertaining to see where he'll show up in town next.

I suppose this doesn't really fit in with the "same actor/show, different character" theme, but it's similar.

Well, Doctor Who is rife with actors doubling up in diffrent rolls. The most obivous one was Colin Baker showing up as a guard on Gallifrey in Arc of Infinity and then getting cast as the Doctor when he regenerated next. (Heck, he even joked about it "I killed the Doctor so that I could have his job")

In addition to the early Orbach appearance, S. Epatha Merkeson played a defendant's mother before Anita Van Buren was brought onto the canvas, back when Kragen was their Lieutenant.

Dennis Franz and his turns as Sal Benedetti (I believe that was his name, it may have been 'Benedetto'...) and later Norm Buntz on Hill Street Blues.

Also, Charoltte Ross played a wrong cop's wife a couple of years before she joined the current NYPD Blue cast as Connie.

Law & Order is notorious for recycling guest stars to play different defendants, lawyers, cops, judges, witnesses, etc. The father from last week's new episode has been in at least 2 previous episodes as a defendant.

The campy old horror-soap opera Dark Shadows was pretty much built around this idea...

They had a regular cast of about 15 actors who played a variety of different roles as the story arcs shifted between present day and the 1700s, 1800s, early 1900s, parallel time, etc...

Harry Morgan played a crazy General on M*A*S*H before becoming a regular as Colonel Potter.

Perfect Strangers:
Sam Anderson played a bank manager in a season one episode, and ended up playing Mr Gorpley for 6 seasons

Belita Moreno played Edwina Twinkacetti for one or two seasons, and then played Lydia Markham for 6 seasons.

Nicholas Lea, who played Alex Krycek on the X-Files for a number of years also played a victim of the killer in the season 1 episode Genderbender.

There are lots of actors who have played various characters on the Star Trek shows.

One of thinking of is Robert Duncan McNeil. He played Tom Paris on Voyager but also played a nearly identical character with a different name on ST:TNG.

Brian Thompson is the most ubiquitous actor I can think of, played several characters in ST:TNG and DS9.
Played a Vampire and The Judge in Buffy, and the alien bounty hunter in X files.

Yep - that is one of my all-time favorite M*A*S*H episodes.

when i first got involved watching the series, I was over it. I know there are more from dr.who but I cannot recall any right now. can any other dr.who fans help out here. Here is one I know about James Bree was in "Full Circle" and then he reappeared as a different character in "The Trial of a Time Lord" as "keeper of the matrix".

This also happened a lot on The X-Files in seasons 1 through 5. They ran out of Vancover actors to use so they just re-used them!

Also on Friends, Lisa Kudrow plays Phoebe and her twin sister Ursula.

On The Cosby Show, Joseph C. Phillips played Denise's husband Martin Kendall. But he had appeared on the show previously back in the second season as a potential sutor for Cosby's older daughter Sondra.

He played Cadet Nick Locarno in The First Duty, where Wesley joins in the coverup of the training accident. The character was considered for the Tom Paris part, but was considered "unforgivable". An early indication of the mediocrity that would be Voyager as that would have made a painfully interesting 7 year character arc of him working for forgiveness, and probably not ever receiving it.

Elizabeth Montgomery was Samantha as well as her cousin Serena on "Bewitched."

Merrin Dungey as Francie and 'evil Francie double' on "Alias."

Quote:

Originally posted by pantala
Gilmore Girls has a character named Kirk that shows up doing random jobs around the town. In one episode he was a DSL installer, in another, he worked at the grocery store, etc. None of the other characters ever think it'd odd that Kirk is around everywhere. It's quite entertaining to see where he'll show up in town next.

I suppose this doesn't really fit in with the "same actor/show, different character" theme, but it's similar.

...Same goes with the pimply teenage kid with the puberty-stricken voice on 'The Simpson' who has every conceivable crap minimum-wage job in Springfield...

Lovitz on "NewsRadio" is the one I thought of right away.

Before Debbe Dunning became a full-time cast member as Heidi on "Home Improvement", she appeared in the episode as Kiki, the woman Tim is checking out when he goes to eat at a restaurant with Jill.

This one is a stretch, David Boreanaz played Angel and Angelus on both Buffy and now on Angel.

Johnny Galecki played David Healy on Roseanne. But when he was introduced his name was Kevin Healy.

Jeffrey Combs has played multiple characters on the last three versions of Trek, but none moreso than DS9: Weyoun (several versions of the same character even), Brunt, and I think at least one other--possibly two--single episode appearances.

Now he's Shran on Enterprise.

Lucy Lawless had a role as Lyla in an episode of Hercules before she got the Xena part. Also, Xena had many episodes which involved lookalikes, most noteably "Warrior... Princess" and "Warrior... Princess... Tramp". Plus they had shows set in modern times on both Herc and Xena in which all the cast members played different characters.

Also, I'm surprised that no one's mentioned Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer and Maddy Furguson in Twin Peaks.