History Main / ActorExistenceLimbo

* ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'': Eustace's mother stopped appearing after Season 3 following the death of her voice actress Creator/BillieLouWatt.

When the character is plain [[DroppedABridgeOnHim killed off]] due to the Actor Existence Limbo becoming too much, it becomes a case of McLeaned. When the network does this, it is a RoleEndingMisdemeanor. See also DemotedToExtra and FakeShemp.

* Bill from ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' got McLeaned in [[VideoGame/Left4Dead2 the second game's]] DLC, since his VA was unavailable for nearly a year. Bill was also not voiced for the Crash Course DLC due to having no time left to record lines for the character since the DLC was so close to release. Zoey, Francis, and Louis all have new lines while Bill just reuses lines that were in the game before the DLC.

* On ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy have been reduced to appearing on pictures and as toys since season 9 due to the death of Ernest Borgnine (Mermaid Man) in 2012 and Tim Conway (Barnacle Boy) suffering from dementia a few years later before passing away in 2019 and Stephen Hillenburg's wishes being that the two not be replaced by soundalikes. Grandma [=SquarePants=] would similarly be relegated to voiceless cameos after Marion Ross retired from acting.

* Jazz and Cliffjumper stopped appearing in ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' when Scatman Crothers fell ill and Creator/CaseyKasem quit. What made their disappearances ironic is that they were two of the ''very'' few season one characters who survived [[KillEmAll the infamous movie]].

* In Season 3 of ''WesternAnimation/YuGiOhVRAINS'', Specter's seiyuu was busy with theater work to record lines, resulting in Specter never speaking until the very end of the series.

** Nemo, Francine’s cat, becomes a permanent non-speaking character after Season 19 due to the passing of voice actor Greg Kramer in 2013. The S19 finale “The Last Day” was dedicated to him.

* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'': Abe D'Catfish, a minor character brought in after Kelsey's firing from ''Secretariat'' 's {{biopic}}, featured Creator/GarryMarshall as his VA for a CastingGag[-/-]SelfDeprecation nod by playing a hack director and a stand-in of how watered down the once gritty project had become. Early season 3 deals with its premiere in film festivals, but Marshall passed away before recording could begin. Now what? How about having his last cameo set in his native Pacific Ocean City with bubbles muffling his speech? That'll do it!

* Wally West, Franchise/TheFlash III and one of the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague's'' founders and a major character throughout the series, is [[DemotedToExtra reduced to a silent background character]] during the 3rd season due to his voice actor Creator/MichaelRosenbaum being busy with ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' while season 3 was having its voice work recorded. Rosenbaum was able to finish his work on Smallville in time to allow the Flash to [[AscendedExtra resume his usual position]] in time for season 4.
* On ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy have been reduced to appearing on pictures and as toys since season 9 due to the death of Ernest Borgnine (Mermaid Man) in 2012 and Tim Conway (Barnacle Boy) suffering from dementia a few years later before passing away in 2019 and Stephen Hillenburg's wishes being that Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway not be replaced by soundalikes. Grandma [=SquarePants=] would similarly be relegated to voiceless cameos after Marion Ross retired from acting.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' has an extensive recorded voice banks that they could re-use, even if said voice actor was to pass away (as was the case of Creator/HirotakaSuzuoki and [[Anime/Daitarn3 Banjou Haran]]). However, in some cases, even if the actor is still alive, they just opted not to use them for various reason. Most notable of this case would be series starring Creator/AkiraKamiya, which has been a staple in earlier titles and 70-80's anime. Since Kamiya has generally retired and also admitted that he has strained his throat for doing a lot of HotBlooded {{Kiai}} in the past that he couldn't record new ones (but still could come back for roles that doesn't require him to do so, like [[Manga/CityHunter Ryo Saeba]]), not to mention that his legendary status means that pulling him out of retirement will cost a very expensive price tag and latter ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' title practically mandates voice acting, Bandai Namco worked around this by ''not'' including anime that starred him (they actually could if they want, but the official reason from Takanobu Terada which was agreed by Akira Kamiya himself was that 'It's simply not the time yet.'), such as ''Anime/{{Raideen}}'', ''Anime/{{Daimos}}'', ''Anime/{{Gaiking}}'', ''Anime/{{Dangaioh}}'', and in case of the 70's ''Manga/GetterRobo'' TV Show, they just used the cast in ''Getter Robo Armageddon'' (with Ryouma being voiced by Creator/HideoIshikawa) as the staple form of ''Getter'' ever since ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsZ 2'' onwards. When some of those anime series ended up appearing in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsXOmega'', the pilots over there were left unvoiced, causing them to suffer from PowerCreep.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' has an extensive recorded voice banks that they could re-use, even if said voice actor was to pass away (as was the case of Creator/HirotakaSuzuoki and [[Anime/Daitarn3 Banjou Haran]]). However, in some cases, even if the actor is still alive, they just opted not to use them for various reason. Most notable of this case would be series starring Creator/AkiraKamiya, which has been a staple in earlier titles and 70-80's anime. Since Kamiya has generally retired and also admitted that he has strained his throat for doing a lot of HotBlooded {{Kiai}} in the past that he couldn't record new ones (but still could come back for roles that doesn't require him to do so, like [[Manga/CityHunter Ryo Saeba]]), not to mention that his legendary status means that pulling him out of retirement will cost a very expensive price tag and latter ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' title practically mandates voice acting, Bandai Namco worked around this by ''not'' including anime that starred him, such as ''Anime/{{Raideen}}'', ''Anime/{{Daimos}}'', ''Anime/{{Gaiking}}'', ''Anime/{{Dangaioh}}'', and in case of the 70's ''Manga/GetterRobo'' TV Show, they just used the cast in ''Getter Robo Armageddon'' (with Ryouma being voiced by Creator/HideoIshikawa) as the staple form of ''Getter'' ever since ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsZ 2'' onwards. When some of those anime series ended up appearing in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsXOmega'', the pilots over there were left unvoiced, causing them to suffer from PowerCreep.

* ''Franchise/TheFlash'' (ComicBook/WallyWest in this incarnation), one of the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague's'' founders and a major character throughout the series, is [[DemotedToExtra reduced to a silent background character]] during the 3rd season due to his voice actor Creator/MichaelRosenbaum being busy with ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' while season 3 was having its voice work recorded. Rosenbaum was able to finish his work on Smallville in time to allow the Flash to [[AscendedExtra resume his usual position]] in time for season 4.

** Ichirō Nagai, who voiced [[WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}} Philoctetes]], passed away in January 2014. He was given a non-speaking role worldwide.
** Pierre Taki, who voiced [[WesternAnimation/Frozen2013 Olaf]], was arrested for cocaine use... after the game was already released. Because of the [[ValuesDissonance Japanese cultural expectation]] that actors guilty of drug-related chaeges [[{{Unperson}} be removed from works wherever possible]], Olaf's lines were dubbed over by Shunsuke Takeuchi in an update patch. Unlike Nagai's case above, this only impacted the Japanese version.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'', the voice actor for Trixie Tang retired prior to Season 9, which has resulted in Trixie at best being occasionally seen in background shots, but not voiced.

* ''VideoGame/AkaSeka'' and ''VideoGame/Yume100'', from the same publisher, left new versions of Creator/YuichiroUmehara's characters Ono no Imoko and Hinoto, respectively, unvoiced while he was on hiatus due to illness.

* Isamu Tanonaka, the voice of Igor in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/Persona4'', died in 2010 due to myocardial infarction. To work around his death, they re-used his previously recorded lines in ''Persona 4'' for ''[[TheAnimeOfTheGame The Animation]]'' in 2011 and ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'', with the character being absent from ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'' and being replaced with Elizabeth and Margaret, based on the player's path. He was seemingly recast for ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'' with Masane Tsukayama, [[spoiler:only for the new Igor to be revealed to be an impostor who had captured the real Igor, still voiced by Tanonaka's old recordings.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'': Judith Barsi, who voiced Anne-Marie, was tragically murdered by her father almost immediately after she recorded all her lines in the movie. Anne-Marie never appeared in another ''All Dogs Go to Heaven'' film.

* After already [[TheOtherDarrin being replaced]] once, Valmont in ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' is reduced to a nonspeaking cameo in Season Five.

* During the Spider Island story arc of ''WesternAnimation/MarvelsSpiderMan'' , Creator/LauraBailey lost her voice for a week when she got sick. As such, even though her character Gwen Stacy appears in all 5 parts of the special [[spoiler: spending most of it as a mutated spider creature]] , she only speaks in parts 1-2 and the beginning of part 3.

* When Creator/HartleySawyer was fired from ''Series/TheFlash2014'', his character of ComicBook/ElongatedMan was reduced to a half-melted blob with a text to speech voice to wait out the possibility of a new actor taking the part.

* On ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy have been reduced to appearing on pictures and as toys since season 9 due to the death of Ernest Borgnine (Mermaid Man) in 2012 and Tim Conway (Barnacle Boy) suffering from dementia a few years later before passing away in 2019 and Stephen Hillenburg's wishes being that Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway not be replaced by soundalikes.

** Joey Mazzarino left the show in 2015, causing Murray Monster and Horatio the Elephant to be sidelined. Horatio would eventually return in 2019, now puppetereed by Tyler Bunch (with Peter Linz doing the voice for his one line in ''Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration''). They have yet to find a new performer for Murray (with some sources saying that Sesame Workshop has no plans to recast Murray).

** After Steve Whitmire was fired, Matt Vogel took over Kermit; Eric Jacobson took over the Newsman; David Rudman, who has performed many of Richard Hunt's roles for the past decade, took over Beaker; and Peter Linz took on Statler, Lips and Link Hogthrob. They have yet to find new performers for his iconic role of Rizzo the Rat or his earlier role of Bean Bunny.