History Main / PromotedFanboy

** The 3rd Edition version of D&D's {{Ravenloft}} setting, produced by Arthaus under license from WotC, was produced almost entirely by PromotedFanboy writers. Arthaus recruited them from the "Kargatane", a web-based group of fanzine writers. (TSR's original Ravenloft design team took its name from an in-game secret police force, the Kargat, and the Kargatane are their [[TakeThatUs brainwashed mook underlings]], so....)

[[AC:General Anime and Manga]]

[[AC:General Comics]]

[[AC:General Film Industry]]

[[AC:General Literature]]

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[[AC:General LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:General Music]]

[[AC:General ProfessionalWrestling]]

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[[AC:General Toys]]

[[AC:General VideoGames and other gaming]]

[[AC:General WesternAnimation]]

->"When I finally had a copy of the finished, printed, lettered, colored U$#219 in my hands, with a complete $crooge adventure credited to being both written and drawn by "Don Rosa"? After I had dreamed of that so much all my life... and I mean ALL my life, from my earliest memory... dreamed of it so much that I copied [[CarlBarks Barks]] stories just for my own amusement as a child? How did I feel? Words fail to express it."
-->-- '''DonRosa'''

* Falcoon used to draw fan art for fighting game series like ''StreetFighter'' and ''TheKingOfFighters''. Now he draws canon art for the latter.

* Robert Bloch, author of ''{{Psycho}},'' started his career with {{Lovecraft}} pastiches; Lovecraft eventually dedicated a story to him.

->"My entire career has been a secret plan to get this job. I applied before but I got knocked back because the BBC wanted someone else. Also, I was seven."

As noted in the DoctorWho entry below, many LongRunner franchises (such as StarTrek, KamenRider, MarvelComics, DCComics and {{Transformers}}) have been on for so long that it's only natural that fans would get to work on them.

* Ronald Moore arranged a tour of the ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' set through his girlfriend and managed to pass a script to one of GeneRoddenberry's assistants while there. By the show's final season, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome he was head writer]].

* Director Bryan Singer revealed to PatrickStewart that he was a ''Trek'' fan, and therefore Stewart arranged for him a quick cameo in ''StarTrekNemesis''.

* Mark Hamill was a comics and sci-fi fan before playing the part of Luke Skywalker and becoming a voice actor for characters like [[BatmanTheAnimatedSeries The Joker]].

** His partner, Michael Scott, is also a budding filmmaker.

* Hayden Christensen always was interested in Darth Vader in his childhood. In ''RevengeOfTheSith'' the original intention was to have a large stuntman in the Vader suit but Christensen convinced them to build the suit for him and use various camera tricks to make him appear to be the 6'8 David Prowse size. When he strolled onto the set clad in Vader armor, the crew cheered.
* Another ''{{Star Wars}}'' example: In 2005-2008, Star Wars fan club members competed to write databank entries for obscure characters that weren't covered previously, or covered very slightly. The winning writers of the entries were then rewarded with having their ideas be a part of Star Wars canon.

* Yet '''another''' ''StarWars'' example: it's no secret that Seth Green is a big fan (Prime evidence: ''RobotChicken''). He recently voiced a one-off character in season two of ''StarWarsTheCloneWars''.
* Curtis Saxton, physics [=PhD=] and writer of the infamous ''StarWars'' Technical Commentaries, a ''very'' extensive site meant to figure out how the physics of the universe worked, was hired as a technical advisor for the prequels and eventually wrote some of the various ''Incredible Cross-Sections'' books, giving the ''Star Wars'' fans a '''massive''' edge in the [[UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny Star Wars VS Star Trek debates]] in the process.

* Matthew Waterhouse had been a ''DoctorWho'' fan before he got the role of [[TheScrappy Adric]] and had a letter published in an early issue of ''DoctorWhoMagazine'' (before getting the part).

*** Colin Baker was likewise a big fan of the franchise before playing the part of [[TheNthDoctor Six]]. He still is, and has gone on record saying that ''The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances'' are the best episodes the series has ever produced.
* JohnBarrowman was also a big fan and also describes himself as an {{Otaku}}.

* Inverted with MattSmith, who became a hardcore fan '''while''' playing the role. Watching the Second Doctor influenced his costume choice (particularly the bowtie), and he apparently wrote a fanfic where the Doctor meets Einstein.

* Subversion: FreemaAgyeman was more a Trekker.

* Evanna Lynch grew up as one of the biggest fans of the ''HarryPotter'' series, even going so far as to name her cats after characters in the books. When she was selected to play Luna Lovegood in the ''HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'' [[Film/HarryPotter movie]], her resemblance to the character [[AndTheFandomRejoiced went a long way toward hyping the movie for fans]]. Her performance, lauded as one of the best in the film series, led to even more praise for her and the movie.

* There's also Hirofumi Ichikawa, who started off writing [[{{Fanfic}} doujinshi]] and was particularly influential in introducing Japanese fans to the original portrayals of the ''BeastWars'', as opposed to the [[CutAndPasteTranslation somewhat less than faithful Japanese dub]]. He has since been hired by Takara to write a fair number of toy bios, comics, and guidebooks, and even got to design toys for the ''[[TransformersEnergon Super Link]]'' and ''[[TransformersCybertron Galaxy Force]]'' lines.
* David Willis, author of the ''{{Walkyverse}}'' {{webcomic}}s, is another long-time ''Transformers'' fan, who has been hired by Hasbro to produce convention art.

* [[http://www.bwtf.com/ Benson Yee]], a BigNameFan in the community, was approached on usenet by the ''BeastWars'' writers for his expertise in ''TransformersGeneration1''. He received a consultant credit for key mythology-heavy episodes. And was shot by Beast-Wars Megatron at a convention.

--->'''Waspinator:''' "Not wacko -- wonko! Wonko the Sane!"

*** ''AvatarTheLastAirbender''? Hey, that one too!

** [[{{Squick}} Squicktacularly]], he's also a huge ElvisPresley fan who ended up marrying the daughter of the King.
*** Why is that squicky? It's not like he [[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phantasies phantasies]] the King while he's... Oh. [[{{Squick}} Ooooh]], yikes.

* So did RobertRodriguez, who started with no-budget efforts such as ''Bedhead'' to draw atention, that would help him in making bigger things.

* ChristopherLee apparently re-reads ''TheLordOfTheRings'' once a year and was the only one on [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings the film set]] who has actually met {{Tolkien}}. 'Nuff said.

** He stated in an interview that he got to show his audition tape ("Things Murdock Would Do in a Hotel Room") to Dwight Schultz, the original Murdock, who both laughed ''and'' cried when he saw it. Sharlto must have had a {{Nerdgasm}} of epic proportions.

* Andy Mientus was known for being the creator and maintainer of the first ''{{Spring Awakening}}'' group on Facebook, which had been granted official status. Several years later he was cast in the touring production of the show as Hanschen.

** Neil Patrick Harris, who guest starred an episode, is also a big {{Muppet}} fan.

* A graphic artist and ''{{Mad Men}}'' fan who goes by the moniker "Dyna Moe" created cartoon illustrations of the show, including a Christmas card for her friend Rich Sommer, a member of the supporting cast. She posted many of her other ''Mad Men''-inspired pieces online. In advance of the third season, AMC gave Dyna the opportunity to use her fan-art in promotions for the show, particularly an online avatar-generator.

** On a related note YokoHonna, better known as the BottleFairy [[{{Gundam 00}} Sumeragi]] had a reocurring role in ''Black'' and ''Black RX'' as a child. Years later, ''FutariWaPrettyCure'' aired and she has adopted many ''Kamen Rider'' concepts to her character Nagisa (or it may be just a cross-reference to the Toei Company producing both ''PrettyCure'' and ''Kamen Rider''.).

* Hamish Blake and Andy Lee were fans of ''Rove Live'' in high school. Today they are [[EnsembleDarkhorse probably the best reason to watch the show.]]

* Richard Hammond was a devoted follower of the original ''TopGear'' when he went to audition for the revival with Jeremy Clarkson. He claims that he finished the audition thinking what a great job it would be and fiercely envying whatever lucky sod finally got it. (He did.)
* Elizabeth Taylor was a fan of ''GeneralHospital'', so in 1981, she called the executive producer and asked for a cameo role. She got the role of Helena Cassadine.
* Demi Lovato guest-starred on ''GreysAnatomy'', her favorite show.
** {{Taylor Swift}}, another big fan of Grey's, had her song "White Horse" featured in one of the episodes.

* Dan Aykroyd was a ''huge'' fan of Chicago blues music, and ended up introducing his friend John Belushi to the genre (Belushi's previous musical interest tended toward heavy metal and southern rock). The two ended up forming the ''BluesBrothers'' band as a sideline, and as a result revitalized interest in the blues as a musical form when [[TheMovie the movie]] was released.

* Rob Sheridan, current art director for [[NineInchNails Nine Inch Nails]], was lucky enough to be spotted and hired by Trent Reznor [[http://web.archive.org/web/20010625023248/members.nbci.com/ninatt/main.htm/ thanks to his fansite dedicated to the band.]]

* KeithOlbermann has one of the largest collections of baseball cards in the world (over 35,000) and had his first baseball book published when he was 14. He's now a consultant for Topps and writes an official blog for MLB. (Oh, and does [[CountdownWithKeithOlbermann that other thing]].)

* ''NeverwinterNights'' is all about its custom editor. Bioware regularly skims the community for their most famous works and offers them jobs. Some groups formed around mod-making may also develop into studios, such as Ossian Studios.

* The Unwashed Villagers, a group of Interplay's original ''{{Fallout}}'' forum goers who dealt with spammers and trolls, were included in a special encounter in ''Fallout 2'' where they battle a notorious troll of the forums.

* The ''KingdomHearts'' Japanese-only novelizations have been stated by [[WordOfGod Tetsuya Nomura]] to be non-canonical and simply, like the manga, an adaptation authorized by Square. However, the novel writer, Tomoco Kanamaki, became a promoted fangirl when she was brought on to write the scenario for ''Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days'' (however, in fears of any RunningTheAsylum happening, Nomura did actually edit and re-write the whole thing himself after she was through.)

** Several other {{OC ReMix}} musicians have done music for professional games including Jimmy "Big Giant Circles" Hinson (''{{Mass Effect}} 2''), Andrew "zircon" Aversa (''{{Monkey Island}} 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge''), Jillian "pixietricks" Goldin (''{{Civilization}} IV: Beyond the Sword''), Dain "Beatdrop" Olsen (''{{Dance Dance Revolution}}'' series), Daniel Baranowsky (''{{Meat Boy}}'', ''{{Canabalt}}'', ''Super Meat Boy''), Will "bustatunez" Roget, II (''{{Star Wars}}'' series with LucasArts)

* BenCroshaw AKA Yahtzee made, considered and ranted about games for years, and begged the industry at large for a job before coming up with {{Zero Punctuation}}. One month later he's in ''The Escapist'' and at some point he ended up writing for ''PC Gamer'' as well.

* The [[{{Pinball}} pinball]] industry has Lyman F. Sheats, Jr., who was one of the best pinball players during his time, and, after a stint of programming games at Data East Pinball, he went to Williams/Midway to program Brian Eddy's ''Attack from Mars'' and ''Medieval Madness''. Currently, he works as a programmer at Stern Pinball, the last remaining pinball company in the US.

* After the SoBadItsHorrible TheGuild2 Venice stand alone pack was made, several German members of the Guild 2 Modding Forum (Jowood is a German Company) who worked on the major mods of the Guild 2 on The Guild 2 Renaissance which became an official addon approved by Jowood.
* Jon Shafer grew up playing SidMeier's {{Civilization}}, became a well-known modder for the later installments, was hired by Firaxis to work on an expansion pack for Civ IV, and is now the lead designer of Civ V. At age 25.

* ItsJustSomeRandomGuy is known on YouTube for his ''[[{{ptitlels44m36afkrs}} I'm a Marvel and I'm a DC]]'' videos that use [[MarvelComics Marvel]] and [[DCComics DC]] action figures to parody spots comparing Marvel and DC movies in the style of the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads. While not hired by Marvel or DC, he was hired by New York Comic Con to do bits in the style of his videos, which were approved by Marvel.

* Many of the contributors on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses started out as fans of the Nostalgia Critic. Almost all of them had been featured as Transmission Awesome's Awesome Blog of the Week before being picked up.

* ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'' BigNameFan Johanne Matte AKA Rufftoon became a storyboard artist for the show.

* Anika Noni Rose has stated that working for Disney, in any part at all, was her big dream. Then she is given the part of Tiana, main character of ''ThePrincessAndtheFrog'' and also an official DisneyPrincess, which means that Tiana will forever be in the line up with Disney/{{Snow White|AndTheSevenDwarfs}}, [[Disney/{{Aladdin}} Jasmine]], [[TheLittleMermaid Ariel]], [[Film/BeautyAndTheBeast Belle]], {{Mulan}}, {{Pocahontas}}, [[Disney/SleepingBeauty Aurora]] and Disney/{{Cinderella}}. Magnificent.

* Ryan O'Connell used to drink lots of wine and read books about wine and, despite a total lack of formal training, he now operates [[http://ovineyards.com/english/ascended-fanboy-tvtropes-winemaker/ O'Vineyards]] in the south of France and runs a wine blog that allows him to hang out with all the famous winemakers and wine writers he admired from afar.

* Laliari from ''GalaxyQuest'', from an [[PlanetOfHats alien species which wears the Hat of Fandom for the Show Within A Show]], appears at the end of the movie in the credits for its relaunch.
** Guy Fleegman, who played a {{Redshirt}} in the show during its original run, is essentially this as well.

** {[Taylor Swift}}, another big fan of Grey's, had her song "White Horse" featured in one of the episodes.

->''My entire career has been a secret plan to get this job. I applied before but I got knocked back because the BBC wanted someone else. Also, I was seven.''

->''When I finally had a copy of the finished, printed, lettered, colored U$#219 in my hands, with a complete $crooge adventure credited to being both written and drawn by "Don Rosa"? After I had dreamed of that so much all my life... and I mean ALL my life, from my earliest memory... dreamed of it so much that I copied [[CarlBarks Barks]] stories just for my own amusement as a child? How did I feel? Words fail to express it.''

* [[http://www.bwtf.com/ Benson Yee]], a BigNameFan in the community, was approached on usenet by the ''BeastWars'' writers for his expertise in ''TransformersGeneration1''. He received a consultant credit for key mythology-heavy episodes.

* Nick Roche and James Roberts are a pair of UK ''Transformers'' fans who became co-writers (with Roche also doing art) for IDW's ''Transformers'' comics. Their current collaboration, ''TransformersLastStandOfTheWreckers'', has been very well received, especially since they have much more fan-friendly [[RunningTheAsylum asylum-running]] tendencies than [=McCarthy=].

* Tracie Thoms was a [=RENThead=] in her younger years, and ended up cast as Joanne in the feature film.
* ''TheATeam'': Sharlto Copley, [[http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/1886/babysharlto.jpg full stop]].

* Robert Bloch, author of ''Psycho,'' started his career with Lovecraft pastiches; Lovecraft eventually dedicated a story to him.

* Michelle Trachtenberg guest starred in the the episode of House, M.D., "Safe". She revealed on the December 22, 2006, episode of Late Night With Conan O'Brien that House is her favorite show, she is friends with one of the producers and she asked to be a guest star. Trachtenberg also said she has a crush on Hugh Laurie, and during the scene in the elevator in which House searches her genital area for a tick, Trachtenberg said she played a joke on Laurie by putting a note between her legs that read "I Love You."
** She also claims to have been a huge fan of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' before joining the cast as Dawn Summers, and was even quoted gushing to Joss Whedon: "There was never a ''Buffy'' episode that sucked. I love you!"

* This worked both ways with Amy Ryan's recurring role on ''{{The Office}}''. Ryan was a big fan of the show and the people behind the show were all big fans of {{The Wire}}, even throwing a shoutout to it a few episodes before she showed up.

* {{Nirvana}}'s Kurt Cobain was a huge fan of indie rock music and his journals were filled with lists of his favorite bands and albums. After he became famous, made sure to never go an interview without gushing over some obscure twee pop or punk band that he adored. In fact, his love of bands like The Raincoats, Beat Happening, The Meat Puppets, Shonen Knife, Young Marble Giants, Melvins, Scratch Acid, Gang of Four and Millions of Dead Cops gained these bands (many of them long broken up) a major resurgence and increased album sales. His favorite band of all time, Scottish twee pop act the Vaselines, were signed to Sub Pop several years after they broke up for the release of a greatest hits album that was created solely from consumer interest spurred by Cobain's constant praise of the band. He even named his daughter after their guitarist Frances Mckee.

* Brian Nelson became a fan of {{Alice Cooper}} in the early '70s and owned a huge collection of Alice related stuff before even meeting the man. He eventually got hired as Alice's personal assistant in the early '80s and kept the job until he passed away in 2009. He never stopped collecting and was generally considered to be the biggest Alice Cooper fan in the world.

* Helen Love is a bubblegum pop-punk band that writes about almost nothing but the lead singer's crush on Joey Ramone. Joey Ramone did guest vocals on their song Punk Boy.
* Ron Wood has stated that when he first saw the Rolling Stones, he said to himself that he wanted to be in that band someday. Years later, he became their lead guitarist.

* {{Valve}} likes to hire the makers of successful fan-made mods. Both the makers of ''Team Fortress'' and ''CounterStrike'' have been hired in this fashion. Also hired was Adam Foster, who single-handedly created the ''Minerva: Metastasis'' single-player map.

**** Another {{Valve}} example. ''Portal'' was developed in it's earliest guise by a team of game design students as part of their course. Valve liked it so much, they reportedly hired the students to make a full version for the company. You no doubt know the rest...

*** Considering the [[ObviousBeta nature of the game they worked on]], Jones lucked out better in the fan reputation department.

* Reportedly, this is how Neversoft took over development of the ''GuitarHero'' series: when {{Activision}} bought [=RedOctane=] but MTV bought Harmonix (the series' original developers), Activision was apparently wondering what to do with the ''Guitar Hero'' license, at which point Neversoft stood up and said "Hey, we're such big fans of ''Guitar Hero'' that we played it on breaks while we were working on Tony Hawk! We can totally do it!" Reactions to their treatment of the series has been, well, [[YourMileageMayVary mixed]] (It didn't help that ''RockBand'' was, and still is, looming over the horizon at the same time.) but [[CashCowFranchise it worked out in Activision's favor big time]].

* Video game designer Warren Spector is a long-time Disney geek; by his own admission though, he kept that a secret, mainly because of the AnimationAgeGhetto. The fact that Disney managed to get a big fan like him on board [[EpicMickey a project that aims to make Mickey Mouse relevant in this present era]] was coincidental; they sought him for his resume alone[[hottip:* :After all, he was responsible for ''DeusEx''.]], being unaware of his fanboy aspect at first. Either way, from what we know of the game so far, he put his geekiness to extremely good use there.

* Just some Random Guy is known on YouTube for his ''[[{{ptitlels44m36afkrs}} I'm a Marvel and I'm a DC]]'' videos that use [[MarvelComics Marvel]] and [[DCComics DC]] action figures to parody spots comparing Marvel and DC movies in the style of the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads. While not hired by Marvel or DC, he was hired by New York Comic Con to do bits in the style of his videos, which were approved by Marvel.

* Animator Katie Rice was a big fan of {{RenandStimpy}} growing up, she eventually got to animate for the Adult Party Cartoon version.
* The majority of the new voice actors for the {{LooneyTunes}} characters are big fans of the original theatrical shorts, Bob Bergen in particular went as far as to track down {{MelBlanc}} himself for voice acting lessons.