25 Casting Fails in TV That They Expected Us Not to Notice

Image via Complex Original

It took us a long time to realize that Mila Kunis wasn't the original voice of Meg Griffin. If only for the fact that, like the other characters on the show, we don't pay attention to Meg. God, shut up, Meg. When we finally did realize that there was a different voice before Kunis—Lacey Chabert—we desperately went searching for gossip. Did Chabert have a falling out? Was she a diva? Did Kunis swoop in and claim the spotlight?

No. It was a contractual thing. Creator Seth MacFarlane said there was a mistake on her contract and that she didn't intend to stay for the full run of the show. She wanted to go, and the team was cool about it. We guess it's only fitting that the gossip behind this story is so boring, just like Meg.

The older, wiser voice is a TV classic. We've seen it properly used in shows like The Wonder Years, where the squeaky voiced Kevin gets to become a man in the future. That's puberty. We get it. His childhood, while often rough, made him a stand up guy.

What we don't understand is why a grown man, like Josh Radnor, somehow turns into Bob Saget when he's older. Like, Mosby begins telling his kids this very, very long winded story, which includes all of his hook-ups (No thanks, Dad...), in the year 2030. As far as we know, there is no such thing as a second puberty, where your voice sounds like one thing when you're in your late twenties, but then becomes something like a man with a polite TV career but a really filthy stand-up set. God, if the second puberty does come, please don't let us sound like Rodney Dangerfield.

The running joke among Mad Men viewers is that Don Draper's son Bobby is a dope, and that it doesn't matter that four different have actors have played him in the history of the series. Bobby does things like burn himself on the stove (hilarious!) and stand around idly waiting to be instructed to do things (dull!). Meanwhile, his older sister, Sally, has become one of the most captivating characters on Matthew Weiner's masterpiece. She rebels and learns about her sexuality and wears awesome white leather boots and helps her terrible step-grandmother break her ankle and then assists her after the accident.

Your heart rises and falls with Sally's. But Bobby? He's barely there. If he were old enough, he'd probably be in Vietnam, gone from the world. —RS

Granted, as kids, we didn't notice much. All we cared about was making sure Cory and Topanga stayed together forever. Adults had little impact on that story. It wasn't until we were older, rewatching the best show ever, Boy Meets World, that we realized Topanga was either a foster kid or constantly being adopted by other people. We never knew she had such a hard, changing life. Kids need stability! Maybe they tried to offer that stability by taking the names of the original parents? Or, the plot thickens. Maybe Topanga was a part of a cult—it's all starting to add up now.

Peter Tork was replaced by Michael McKean, who was replaced by Mark Harelik as the father, Jedidiah Lawrence. Three different dads, Topanga? Damn. We can only guess that, since they were such minor characters, it didn't really matter. The actors were probably off trying to do other things in their career, like Peter Tork who was the Monkees bassist—he was probably busy.

Annette O'Toole was replaced by Marcia Cross as Rhiannon Lawrence, Topanga's mom, and we don't really know why. But Boy Meets World isn't highly regarded for its continuity. In fact, Topanga used to say her mom's name was "Chloe" in the early seasons, not Rhiannon. Do your research on your own show, writers.

Thanks to Happy Days, the pop culture lexicon now contains "Chuck Cunningham Syndrome," which refers to the mysterious and unexplained disappearance of a character from a TV series. After the first season of the sitcom, the eldest son of Howard and Marion Cunningham, and brother to Richie and Joanie, played by both Gavan O'Herlihy and Randolph Roberts, was first sent off to college, before being unacknowledged entirely. In subsequent seasons, the Cunninghams would only refer to their "two kids."

In creator Garry Marshall's autobiography, he writes that whenever anyone asked him about Chuck's disappearance, he would say the character got a 12-year basketball scholarship to the University of Outer Mongolia. Har har. Old people, right?

As Steve Urkel's scenes grew in importance on Family Matters, Judy Winslow's storyline started being swept under the rug. That, coupled with the fact that Jamie Foxxworth, the actress who played her, wanted a raise, made the producers axe her from the show entirely in season four. Later in the series, the Winslow parents referred to their two (as opposed to three) kids—yet another case of the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.

Much like Judy Winslow, Foxxworth's career seemed to be grounded for life and locked up in the attic like Cinderella. Except when she reemerged in public, she wasn't a princess—she was a porn star named Crave. 

Pam's mom made her first appearance when she visited her daughter at work but wasn't seen again until she underwent massive plastic surgery, lost a couple of inches in height, and went from looking like Cochran to Purl. And nobody said anything. If our mom showed up to our wedding as a completely different woman, we'd have some questions. One, where did you get the money for plastic surgery? And, two, who are you and what have you done with my mother, you monster?

Yeah, we get it. The first time we saw Pam's mom, Helene, was in season two, and it wasn't until season six that we saw her character again. We guess actors don't hang around for four years waiting to be called back on set.

Amy, the wife of Raymond's brother on the show, has a weird family, we can all agree with that. Originally, her brother was introduced as Russell, and played by Pee-Wee Herman himself, Paul Reubens. But then, unexpectedly, a new brother named Peter, played by Chris Elliott, took his spot. It wasn't explained where Russell went; we were just supposed to accept that it has been Peter all along.

So why was Reubens so easily cast aside? Shortly after his episode aired as the loving brother, he was arrested on child pornography charges and Ray Romano didn't want that associated with his family friendly show. Yeah, good call.

The '70s were a really tough time. Free love, cults, drugs. In case you don't remember, Tina Pinciotti was Donna's little sister, who appeared in only one episode. What ever happened to baby Tina? That '70s Show was a comedy, and they didn't want to walk on the dark side. Tina joined a gang and was involved in a series of bank robberies and terrorist plots. She's still in jail. In later episodes, it's insinuated that Donna is an only child. What dark family secret are the Pinciotti's hiding?

Just kidding. We don't know what happened to Donna's sister, nor did the writers even care to address it.

Benny Ciaramello's character, Santiago's character arc was cut short in Friday Night Lights because of the Writer's Strike. A sad way to go: At the end of the second season, after appearing in 11 episodes, writers chose not to wrap up the current storylines and just start fresh. We guess that because it was a high school football team they wanted us to just imagine his parents got a new job out of state. The writers could have at least mentioned it. We're worried about the young convict.

There's a special place where characters go when they fail to show up for the next season without a peep from the other characters. Their souls are in limbo. We pray that they find their way to the otherside but, more often than not, it does not happen. Shows end without discussing the character again. They walk the plane between life and death.

This land is called Mandyville, made popular when Mandy Hampton (Moira Kelly) disappeared without a trace after being a main character on the first season of The West Wing.

Arrested Development only ran for three seasons, so a casting change seems kind of quick. The story didn't have time to develop, and actors didn't really have the chance to move on to other projects. That's what makes this replacement so off-putting. Not only was Marta replaced in the short-lived show, but it happened in one season. Leonor Varela represented the gorgeous Columbian soap actress for two episodes while Patricia Velasquez took on the character for five episodes.

Owen had originated the role of the normal Munster, Marilyn, for the first 13 episodes. And she was miserable. She was very depressed and often seen crying on set. The story is, she was trapped by her contract to the studio and never wanted to be a part of the now-classic show. It meant that she had to be away from New York, and from her soon-to-be husband.

Owen was released from the contract, moved home, got married and had two kids. So, Pat Priest seamlessly took over the role. It helped that Priest looked so similar to Owen that plenty of viewers didn't even notice the change.

We'll blame it on the beer, but it seems like every time we catch a Bar Wars episode of Cheers, Gary, the owner of Gary's Old Towne Tavern, looked a little different. The truth is, the enemy on Cheers was always different. Polis and Desiderio switched off on the character throughout the show's run. When they first shot a Bar Wars episode, Polis wasn't available. It was towards the end of the season and the show had no other scripts ready to go, so they just recast. When Bar Wars II came along, they went back to Polis. Throughout the years, they'd continue to alternate, so you'd never know which Gary you'd get. 

After just one episode as Ross' lesbian ex-wife, Anita Barone called it quits on Friends. She originally auditioned for one of the three female leads, but was offered the reoccurring role as Carol instead. Her reason for leaving? She wanted to pursue a more full-time acting gig.

Enter Jane Sibbett, the woman we now remember as Carol. If only ex wives were always so easy to replace! Hey-o! Amiright?! Guys? Hello?

Kelly's comedic timing was much more respected by That '70s Show fans, but there is a general consensus that Moore is the more attractive one—the world's words, not ours. Now that the shallowness of that statement is out of the way, why did they replace Eric's promiscuous sister?

Rumor has it that Kelly had a drug problem and after five years it was agreed to let her go. Kelly herself has admitted that she had a drinking problem while on the show, and in 2010 was arrested for a DUI. Sadly, when we tried a google image search of her name, we don't see the gorgeous sister, but a really bad mug shot.

There's no clear answer why Maggie Lauten, the military brat, vanished from A Different World. Some say Marisa Tomei left the show on her own, some rumors circulate that she wanted to do a storyline where her black boyfriend brought her home to shock his parents and NBC said no, and some say there just wasn't any room on the Cosby Show spinoff for her character. Whatever the reason, Marisa Tomei's career hasn't been negatively effected by leaving the show after the first season.

There's a rumor that Bewitched was cursed. A lot of cast replacments happened after illness or death, but come on, guys, who would curse an innocent sitcom? Oh, no—we just realized, witches would probably be really insulted that their lives were being mocked.

Dick York suffered from a bad back condition, afer an accident on his film They Came to Cordura, and in the third season his condition caused a number of shooting delays and rewrites. York left the show after collapsing on set and had to be rushed to the hospital, with the rumor he was addicted to painkillers and would regulary black out. Sargent, who played Darren for the next three seasons, was cast the same month. In fact, Bewitched helped coin the popular term "The Other Darrin," which is when a regular cast member is replaced without an explanation to the audience.

In the pilot episode of The O.C., audiences were introduced to Bradley Stryker as Trey Atwood, Ryan's sonofabitch older brother who's basically the whole reason he got disowned and shipped off to Orange County in the first place—grand theft auto gets both of them arrested. After a year (essentially a season and change) in jail, Trey comes out a whole new man, literally. Instead of Stryker, Marshall-Green meddles his way into Ryan's life, and becomes the target in one the most parodied moments of the show's history: Marissa's epicly melodramatic, Imogen Heap-scored shooting. 

It's unclear why producers traded Treys, though we'd assume it's because of acting capability. Marshall-Green recently starred in one of last year's most hyped about movies, Prometheus.

Babies are boring. If there's one thing sitcoms and our friends from high school who now have kids have taught us, it's that all babies do is cry and poop themselves. Pathetic! We need cute kid actors, stat! Preferably some that can deliver lines.

We were kind of hoping Modern Family wouldn't go the route of sitcoms past by replacing the cute twins who originally played Lily with an older actress so soon. But we do get it. Sitcoms are "situational comedies," and we guess toddlers are better at making stuff happen on screen than babies who can just be adorable or terrifying when they scream/smell. But did the producers really think we wouldn't question the rapidly aging Lily? Rapid premature aging in children is no laughing matter, ABC, it's a real disease.

Remember the first guy who played Jason DiLaurentis, the murdered Liars older brother? Probably not, because as the general Tumblr consensus says, Drew Van Acker looks more like a Teen Bop poster boy than Parker Bagley does—i.e. the Pretty in Pretty Little Liars. According to creator Marlene King, "[Van Acker] works more for where we're going with that story." Which, as we've noticed, is toward more shirtless scenes, more brooding glances and more hairflips. And Van Ecker has exceled at all of those. As E! noted, "No offense to Mr. Bagley, but Drew Van Acker—a former underwear model—is yummier than a box of A's cupcakes." We rest our case.

As if there were a shortage of black actors in the '90s, Saved by the Bell: The New Class cast Gabrielle Union twice in two different one-off roles: first as Hilary in the season 3 episode, "The Christmas Gift," then as Jennifer in season four's "The Tall and the Short of It." Nobody really noticed that she played two characters on one show, not because it wasn't apparent but because not too many people were watching in the first place. —BG

Chalke replaced Goranson after the fifth season—so that Goranson could attend Vassar College—expecting audiences to embrace this chick who wasn't the Becky they'd come to love over five years. 

For those with attachment issues, Goranson signed on for the eighth, and what was believed to be the last, season of the show, in which she and Chalke alternated playing the Conners' eldest kid. To the series credit, they didn't expect audiences to be that dumb, and joked about Becky's ever-changing face.

Ultimately, the joke was on the producers, as the show was renewed for one more year. Having only signed a contract for one season, Goranson relinquished all Becky duties to Chalke, and we were all expected to pretend none of the shenanigans of season eight ever happened.

During the first two seasons of Boy Meets World, Morgan (played by Lily Ricksay) was Cory and Eric's cute little sis, the one the elder brother would use to pick up chicks. Yet, at the start of season three, she went MIA without any explanation. A few episodes in, however, Morgan reappeared as a guest star with actress Lindsay Ridgeway's face—according to the producers, a pointedly more mature face. As a nod to the audience in her return episode, Cory says to her, "Long time, no see!" to which she responds, "That was the longest time-out I've ever had!"

And now it looks like Ricksay is trying to get back in on the show that once cut her off. When TMZ asked the original Morgan about a role on the reboot of the show, Girl Meets World, she replied, "I’d love to talk [to Disney] about being a part of it.”

We're not scientists but kids develop facial recognition when they're like, 2, right? So how is it that no one else worried about this woman claiming to be Aunt Viv? That is not your aunt! Get out of the house, imposter!

According to Will Smith, the O.G. Mrs. Banks, Hubert-Whiten, whose character much more career-oriented and outspoken, was fired from the show because she had bad attitude toward working with the then-rising star, so producers replaced her in season four with Reid, who played a more subdued, homemaker version of Aunt Viv.