Character Outlives Actor

"And the story goes on... forever."

— The final words of The Sarah Jane Adventures

This trope is where a character on a TV series is still alive off-screen (referred to by on-screen characters, writes letters, etc.) but his/her actor has died; if the character hadn't already been Put on a Bus by that point, possibly even due to whatever health problem would eventually kill the actor, they by necessity must be afterward.

Contrast Bus Crash, where the character who was Put on a Bus dies, and Back for the Dead, where the bus and actor come back, only for the character to die right away. The Other Darrin is a possible solution to this but sometimes is avoided out of respect for the actor.

Not to be confused with Released to Elsewhere, where a character dies, and his killer tells us they were put on a Long Bus Trip.

The inversion is The Character Died with Him when the character is killed off due to the actor's death. Compare and contrast Actor Leaves, Character Dies, for when the character is killed off due to the actor leaving, but the actor is still very much alive. Compare Actor Existence Limbo, where a voiced character appears but does not speak after their voice actor dies or otherwise becomes unavailable.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Anpanman franchise and spin-off material featured a recurring character known as "Yanase Rabbit" who was a rabbit version of Takashi Yanase (creator of the Anpanman franchise). He even provided the voice of Yanase Rabbit in the 2011 and 2012 movies. After his passing on October 13, 2013, Ken Shiroyama became the current voice of Yanase Rabbit in future Anpanman animated media.
• One Piece:
  • Japanese version:
    • Ginzo Matsuo, Smoker's original voice actor, died of cancer in 2001. Mahito Oba replaced him as the voice of Smoker.
    • Daisuke Gōri, the voice actor for Dorry, Rockstar, and Jimbei, committed suicide in 2010. Katsuhisa Hoki replaced him as the voice of Jimbei.
    • Mihawk's VA Takeshi Aono suffered a stroke in 2010 and Hirohiko Kakegawa voiced Mihawk for all later appearances. Complications from Aono's stroke would later take his life in 2012.
    • Takkou Ishimori, Sengoku's VA, suffered fatal heart failure in 2013 and Tōru Ōkawa voiced him in his Time Skip appearances.
    • Gorō Naya, the voice of Crocus, succumbed to chronic respiratory failure in 2013, though he currently has no replacement as the character has not had any voiced dialogue since. His younger brother Rokurō Naya, voice of Haredas, died a year later and also has no replacement for the same reason.
    • Koji Yada, Zeff's original VA, died of chronic renal failure in 2014, so Ben Hiura replaced him for his later appearances.
    • Iemasa Kayumi, the voice of Cobra, died on September 30, 2014. Toshiya Ueda replaced him during his appearances in the Marineford arc and Hozumi Gouda fully took over after the Time Skip.
    • Chikao Ohtsuka, Gold Roger's VA from the very beginning, succumbed to fatal ischemic heart failure in January 2015, so Masane Tsukayama replaced him for further appearances.
    • Kazunari Tanaka, who provided the voice for Talaran, Avalo Pizarro, Brownbeard, Manboshi, and Blackback, died of intracerebral hemorrhage in October 2016. The latter three have been recast by Masashi Sugawara, Yasuhiro Mamiya, and Sota Arai respectively.
    • Hiromi Tsuru, the voice of Shakky, succumbed to an aortic aneurysm in November 2017, so Masumi Asano replaced her for further appearances.
    • Unshō Ishizuka, who voiced Kuina's father, Kizaru, and Kong, died of esophageal cancer on August 13, 2018. Ryōtarō Okiayu, the voice of Kaku took over as Kizaru.
    • Tetsuo Goto, the voice of Hannyabal, Saint Mjosgard, and Lao G, passed away on November 6, 2018 from esophageal cancer. His roles will be recast.
    • Kinryū Arimoto, the original voice of Whitebeard, died on February 1, 2019. He was recast with Ryūzaburō Ōtomo, the voice of Crocodile.
    • Keiji Fujiwara originally voiced Admiral Ryokugyu in his first appearance. However, he succumbed to cancer on April 12, 2020, meaning he'll be recast when Ryokugyu is re-introduced.
    • Minori Matsushima, the voice of Tsuru, passed away in April 2022. She will be recast when she reappears.
  • English version:
    • Jerry Russell, the English VA for Crocus and one of the Five Elders, died in 2013 from abdominal surgery complications, and he was later replaced by Burl Procter and Kurt Kleinmann for those respective roles. He was also the voice of Kohza's father Toto, and he has been recast (actor currently unknown) when he reappeared after Zou.
    • Cole Brown, Blackbeard's English VA, passed away in November 2016. Chris Rager began to fill in for him starting with the dub of One Piece Stampede.
    • Ed Blaylock, Sengoku's voice actor in the dub, passed away in April 2017 of cancer, and Sengoku was recast with Philip Weber. Tragically, this duplicates the circumstances of the death of his Japanese VA, whose last time chronologically voicing Sengoku before dying was One Piece Film: Z; Blaylock died after dubbing the whole Marineford Arc and Film Z prior to that, essentially leaving the voice actor replacement having to happen at the exact same point when the character reappears in a flashback during the Dressrosa Arc. Perhaps there is a Sengoku voice actor curse...
    • Brad Venable, the voice of Scratchmen Apoo, passed away suddenly on January 7, 2021. He has been recast by Brent Mukai.
  • Italian version:
    • Daniele Demma, Brook's original voice actor, died on November 6, 2017 after a serious illness.
  • German version:
    • Reinhard Brock, the first voice actor of the narrator, died on December 8, 2013 after a sudden illness. His second voice actor, Andreas Wilde, died on May 31 2017. The narrator's current voice actor is Markus Kästle.
    • Philipp Brammer, Zoro's original voice actor, died on July 28, 2014. He had disappeared during a mountain climbing tour and his body, having fallen to his death in an accident, was discovered days later. Since then he has been replaced by Uwe Thomsen.
• ARIA: Athena's voice actress Tomoko Kawakami passed away in 2011. In the three OVA Aria the Avvenire, made four years later to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the series, when the characters have a get-together, they mention that Athena is the only one who couldn't come because she is giving a concert at the Opera house this day. This easily justifies itself since Prima Undyne are really busy and it had been shown before that they rarely manage to all have a day off at the same time. Athena still appears at the end of the episode, to sing a song to her friends from the Opera Window. The actress passed away, but her beautiful songs remain.
• Super Dimension Fortress Macross toys with this in regards to Hikaru Ichijyo. His voice actor, Arihiro Hase, committed suicide in 1996, and the few times (for video games) that they needed to have him as a voiced character, there was The Other Darrin used. However, these appearances were flashbacks to the timeframe of the original series or Macross: Do You Remember Love?. As far as animated or manga appearances are concerned, his final chronological appearance was in Macross: Flashback 2012. Outside of a throwaway mention in a manual for a game that implies that the Megaroad ^note The colony ship that Hikaru, Misa and Minmay were aboard had run afoul of a Negative Space Wedgie of one sort or another, there has been no word on whether Hikaru is alive or dead. And given Shoji Kawamori's apathy towards revisiting the original trio, we may never know.
• From the original Mobile Suit Gundam, Sayla Mass was known to be alive as of the end of Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, the last Universal Century series she appeared in. Her original actress Yoh Inoue passed away in 2003, but as far as we know Sayla is still around as of all subsequent entries in the series.
• Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō has two instances:
  • Michiyo Sorano: Sayuri Yamauchi passed away in 2012 after losing a battle to cancer. She was replaced by Hiroko Nishi. Coincidently, her passing coincided with the time where Benesse had decided to retool the show.
  • Nyakkii Momoyama: Saori Sugimoto passed away from heart failure on October 21, 2021. However, she had a year off on the 2017 season where she was filled in by Masami Suzuki. Suzuki was called back on short notice and replaced Sugimoto as the VA of Nyakkii midway through the 2021 season.
• Since Maddie Blaustein's passing in 2008, Solomon Muto, Yugi's grandfather in Yu-Gi-Oh! has been voiced in English by Wayne Grayson (Joey's voice actor) in recent media.
• After Bob Magruder passed away in 2015, Jim White took over as the English dub narrator of Fairy Tail. White himself passed away in 2022 after the series had concluded.

Films — Animation

• Cars 2: Because of the death of Joe Ranft, Red the firetruck actually lost his voice permanently and does not speak in the sequel. Not that he spoke much in the previous film anyway.
• Toy Story: With the passing of Joe Ranft, Wheezy and Lenny were said to have been sold to new owners in Toy Story 3.
• Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie:
  • Harvey the Mailman appeared as a silent background extra, as his voice actor, Lou Rawls, passed away in 2006.
  • A cameo by Dino Spumoni's friend and lyricist Don Reynolds, when his voice actor Harvey Korman passed away in 2008.

Films — Live-Action

• The DVD of Animal House included a mockumentary detailing the fates of the characters decades after the events of the movie. The majority of the movie's cast reprise their roles, with the notable exception of John Belushi, who died in 1982. His absence was explained by noting that Belushi's character Bluto had become President of the United States and was too busy to be interviewed.
• After the death of Paul Walker, Furious 7 director James Wan and writer Chris Morgan revised the script so that footage Walker shot before his death, along with the combined efforts of Paul's brother Cody, various stunt actors, and the power of CGI, would be used to retire his character, Brian O'Conner, without killing him off.
• In Little Fockers, Debbie, who got married in the first film, is divorced offscreen. Nicole DeHuff died from pneumonia on February 16, 2005.
• Jean Harlow suddenly died of kidney failure during production of Saratoga, but instead of recasting the part and re-shooting her scenes (which were roughly 9/10 completed anyway) production carried on as usual, but with three doubles filling in for her, as well as her character being written out of some scenes.
• Star Wars: After Carrie Fisher's unfortunate death in December 2016 (during post-production of The Last Jedi), her character Leia made a final appearance in The Rise of Skywalker by repurposing unused footage from the previous two movies, such as previously-unseen shots of Leia embracing Rey, and using a Fake Shemp for some shots.
• Although the character was already deceased in-universe, old footage of Marlon Brando was used to portray a dialogue between recordings of Jor-El and Lex Luthor in Superman Returns.
• A variant occurred with The Three Stooges after Shemp died. For contract reasons, they had to deliver four more shorts and the studio wouldn't let the survivors off. Moe, Shemp's younger brother, and Larry still did four shorts, referring to Shemp and occasionally "meeting up" with him via archive footage filmed when he was still alive. They also did some new scenes where a stand-in was used for Shemp, making sure (not always successfully) to keep his back to the camera.
• Trail of the Pink Panther was made after the death of Peter Sellers. Rather than having the character of Inspector Clouseau die in the film, he is instead shown to be alive and well on a deserted island after surviving a plane crash; the subsequent film Curse of the Pink Panther reveals he got Magic Plastic Surgery to look like Roger Moore, and pulled a Face–Heel Turn to settle down with a jewel thief countess.
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife: Though Egon Spengler passed away at the beginning of the movie, he technically lived until 2021, seven years after his actor Harold Ramis's real-life death.

Live-Action TV

• Many television series prior to the late 1960s did this, including Make Room For Daddy (Nana Bryant, who played Margaret Williams' elderly mother); Ward Bond, the original wagon master on Wagon Train; and others. The character would simply stop appearing and normally, no future mention would be made of them; if there was, it would be brief, indirect references, usually as though they were still alive. Often, unsophisticated viewers probably never noticed that the character was missing, given the transition was often seamless or that the viewer was more concerned about story development or other characters. It was merely presumed, then, that the character the now-deceased actor portrayed was still alive, since no mention – explicit or otherwise – was made that there was a death.
• A frequent occurrence in sitcoms co-written by David Croft (whether with Jimmy Perry or Jeremy Lloyd), as he was personally opposed to mid-series re-casting:
  • In Are You Being Served?, Arthur Brough, who played senior salesman Mr. Grainger, died in 1978 while preparations were being made for the sixth series (though he had announced his retirement from acting following his wife's death two months before, Lloyd and Croft were hoping to persuade him to return). He was replaced without explanation in-series by the character of Mr. Tebbs, played by James Hayter. Contrary to popular perception, Brough was the only actor who died before his character was written out of the series.
  • Dad's Army gave Walker a Written-In Absence when actor James Beck was suddenly taken into hospital with pancreatic cancer; Walker leaves a note to explain that he is going up to London to conduct a "business" deal. Beck then died and so Walker never returned, but he was not mentioned again and presumably was still alive off-screen; by the time of later radio sequel It Sticks Out Half a Mile he had returned to Walmington-on-Sea.
  • In It Ain't Half Hot, Mum, Michael Bates, who played bearer Rangi Ram, died of cancer in 1978 between Series 5 and 6. The character was written out of the remaining three series.
  • In 'Allo 'Allo!, Jack Haig, who played forger Roger LeClerc, died of cancer in 1989 toward the end of Series 5. He was written out as having voluntarily returned to prison (finding the food better than that at Café René) and being replaced by his brother Ernest. (The first actor to play Ernest, Derek Royle, also died after one season, but the role was then recast with the much younger Robin Parkinson.^note  David Croft was no longer involved with the series by this point, so his opposition to the idea of The Other Darrin wasn't an obstacle.)
• 7th Heaven infamously used this trope when Graham Jarvis, who played a main character's father, died. The character was not only kept alive for ten months following Jarvis's death, but when the actress that played his on-screen daughter had a contract dispute, she was said to be visiting him in several episodes.
• Alias Smith and Jones: Here's an unusual example, in that it combines the trope with The Other Darrin. Pete Duel, the original "Smith", killed himself in December 1971. To fit the trope and The Other Darrin trope, the role was re-cast with Roger Davis (the original narrator) taking over the role, filling it until the series ended in 1973. Smith, indeed, lived on on-screen … but looked completely different.
• Babylon 5:
  • Neither Dr Stephen Franklin nor G'Kar were ever Put on a Bus before their actors Richard Biggs and Andreas Katsulas passed away, but in Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, the late actors' characters are stated to have gone exploring "beyond the rim", the in-universe euphemism for ascending to a higher plane of existence.
  • In the case of G'Kar, the character's death was actually seen on-screen before the actor died. Londo shakes off his Drakh controller long enough to ask G'Kar to kill him to save him and the Centauri from having a mind-controlled Emperor any longer, but as G'Kar tries to oblige the symbiont wakes up and fights back, resulting in G'Kar and Londo killing each other. This was set years after the five-year plot, though, which ended with G'Kar and Lyta going adventuring in unknown parts, so he really could have been "beyond the rim."
  • Doctor Franklin, meanwhile, appears in the series Distant Finale, "Sleeping In Light", so he lives at least as long as Sheridan does - 20 years after Sheridan's trip to Z'Ha'Dum.
• By the time BBC Ulster got around to reviving Ballykissangel for its final series, actor Tony Doyle had died. Rather than kill off a main character offscreen (because theirs was a milieu where Death Is Always Big Onscreen Drama) they concocted a bizarre storyline in which his character, Brian Quigley, had become a fugitive from a federal tax evasion charge and had fled to Brazil. If he ever returned to Ireland, he'd spend his retirement in the pokey. When the plug was finally pulled on the programme, Brian was (apparently) still alive and living in Rio, but Tony was still beyond waiting for his cue.
• Nick Yemana from Barney Miller did not exactly Die On a Bus, even though the actor Jack Soo, who played him, died in real life. So the actor got a non-canon memorial-tribute episode, while Nick disappeared from the series and was definitely gone for good; there was an episode where a lot of drama was attached to the removal of his desk from the office, and characters would sometimes mention "back when Nick was here". However, it was never made clear whether he died or just went away somewhere. The final episode has Barney looking around the squad room one last time; he remembers (via flashback clips) the cops who'd left the squad in years past. When he remembers Chano, Wentworth, and Fish, Barney is smiling in fond remembrance. When he remembers Nick, though, his expression is very sad.
• On The Bold and the Beautiful, following actress Darlene Conley's death, her character Sally Spectra was allowed to live on off-screen rather than being recast or killed off.
• After Nicholas Colasanto died during the middle of production of the third season of Cheers, Coach was said to be off visiting family or taking a driver's test. The last episode Colasanto appeared in was pushed back to later in the season, and a Deleted Scene featuring Coach was used as The Teaser to open the third season finale. The audience was not told that The Character Died with Him until the Season 4 premiere and the arrival of Woody Boyd.
• Dushon Brown died in March of 2018 when Chicago Fire (on which she played Connie, Chief Boden's secretary) was in its sixth season. She managed to complete filming the entire season before her death, but the seventh season opened with Boden telling the squad that she had completed a Master's program in counseling and taken a job at a high school. Brown had a similar degree in real life, making this a posthumous Actor-Shared Background.
• While Mexican TV sitcom Vecinos is preparing for the thirteenth season, Octavio Ocaña, who played Benito, was shot to death in October 2021. When the show's aforementioned season premiered five months later, we learned that Benito is still alive offscreen and had moved away after getting a part for the series.
• Chico and the Man: Initially for Chico, portrayed by Freddie Prinze, after Prinze's suicide in 1977. Three episodes still remained to be filmed to complete the third season, and three scripts that revolved around other characters were re-written to explicitly mention that Chico was "away on business" (besides giving Chico's lines to other characters). When the "away on business" (and later, "visiting his father in Mexico") explanations were phased out early in the fourth season, it became less clear whether the Chico character was still alive … and then the episode "Raul Runs Away" put any doubt to rest.
• Cobra Kai: Miyagi's actor Pat Morita passed away in 2005 at the age of 73. The writers of the show had Miyagi himself live long enough to interact with Daniel LaRusso's children, Sam and Anthony, before Miyagi died in 2011 in his 80s — all of which happens off-screen before the events of the series begin.
• Dallas had Jock Ewing go on a trip to an oil reserve in South America, in order to keep him alive as long as possible after his actor, Jim Davis (not that one), died. As with Mr. Hooper, his death (which occurred on the return trip) wasn't addressed until some time later.
• Dennis the Menace: George Wilson, following his portrayer Joseph Kearns' death in 1962, midway through the third season. Immediately after his death and a brief hiatus to mourn Kearns' passing, two scripts where Wilson was non-essential were hastily re-written, with substitute characters added and no mention of Mr. Wilson made. Later in the season, it was explained that George had business out east, and his brother, John (Gale Gordon) was brought in to "house sit". Early in the fourth season, the Wilsons (offscreen) moved to the East Coast, leaving John the new homeowner … and it was still presumed that George was alive when the series ended in 1963.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Big Finish audio dramas have allowed companions and the aforementioned Doctors to continue appearing in stories despite their original actors being deceased (often done in the Companion Chronicles). Either they're played by other actors or they're described as being present. Although most (but not all) are Midquels set during their time in the series.
  • In "The Star Beast", filmed and broadcast the year after Bernard Cribbins's death, Donna says Wilf is No Longer with Us, meaning that he's in a UNIT retirement home.
• Elementary: Joan Watson's stepfather is mentioned as still being alive during the sixth season which aired a year after his actor, John Heard, passed away.
• Sandy Harper in Holby City is still alive off-screen in Australia, despite the 2003 death of actress Laura Sadler.
• Last of the Summer Wine generally isn't shy about having characters die at the same time that their actors do. However:
  • Incidental character Eli will probably be left in limbo forever, even though he appeared in most episodes. Actor Danny O'Dea died several years ago, but since Eli was rarely crucial to the plot, and wasn't closely related to any other characters, his ultimate fate will most likely remain unmentioned.
  • After Kathy Staff's death, her character, Nora Batty, packed up and moved off to Australia, and was never mentioned again, despite having been one of the show's iconic characters.
• The last mention of Frankie's dad Tag on The Middle acknowledges that he's still very much alive, despite Jerry Van Dyke's death in February of 2018.
• Even with Stanley Kamel's death from a heart attack in April 2008, Dr. Charles Kroger appeared in two Monk novels that were written before season 6's finale "Mr. Monk is On The Run" aired: Mr. Monk Goes to Germany and Mr. Monk is Miserable.
• NCIS:
  • Marty, Abby's fourth season boyfriend, broke up with her via instant message because Michael Gilden, the actor who played him, had committed suicide during the production of the fourth season. His last episode came out a week before his death.
  • After Nina Foch died in 2008, Ducky's aged mother Victoria (played by Foch) is alive and well but was on a nursing home for a good while until a few seasons later when we found out Victoria had died.
• In NCIS: Los Angeles, after Miguel Ferrer's death, his character Owen Granger was written out by walking away from everything in pursuit of his own adventures, having already been fatally diagnosed. It eventually became a The Character Died with Him in the following season.
• One Life to Live's Michael Zaslow died of ALS in December 1998, but his character David Renaldi was never acknowledged as having done so. It's believed TPTB did this not only out of respect, but of anger regarding the actor's poor treatment on his other shows Guiding Light, where he was unceremoniously fired when his illness began to affect his performance.
• Only Fools and Horses:
  • After his actor died, Mike was written out as having been jailed abroad for embezzlement in "If They Could See Us Now". This was done at the request of Kenneth MacDonald, who did not want his character to die with him.
  • Corine, Denzil's wife, outlived her actor, with the character divorcing Denzil after the actress died following a single appearance. The character was intended to have been recurring. Interestingly, she wasn't stated to have finally left him until quite a way into the series, despite no possibility of a reappearance after the third series.
• Norm Macdonald had already finished recording all his scenes as Yaphit in Season 3 of The Orville before his death from leukemia in 2021. Interestingly, if it’s addressed in a Season 4, The Other Darrin could be fully justified due to Bizarre Alien Biology. (Yaphit is a green alien Blob Monster that reproduces by mitosis)
• A weird example: Passions had the character of Timmy dying after a Heroic Sacrifice (to save Charity from her evil Zombie self). However, the supernatural nature of the storylines on the show often made it easy for characters to return to life, and Timmy was set to return as an angel. The plans were scuppered when Josh Ryan Evans died from complications resulting from open heart surgery a scant few weeks after taping the scene. Eerily, the date of his death was the same day Timmy died on the show.
• When Raymond Burr died in 1993, the writers of the Perry Mason TV movies offered a character played by Paul Sorvino as his replacement, claiming that Perry Mason had "gone on vacation." One snarky television critic offered this as a response: "Yeah, it must have been a permanent one."
• Petticoat Junction had this happen to lead character Kate, when actress Bea Benederet died shortly into the sixth season. In one episode, a character mentions that she has gone off to tend to a sick relative. After that, life continues as if she never existed. Her character comes up in conversation one other time during the rest of the show’s run, and the mood is momentarily somber, but no one ever mentions why she’s gone.
• The 2003 Porridge Reunion Show has Ingrid getting a phone call from Lenny Godber explaining he can't make it home; actor Richard Beckinsale had died in 1979.
• Rentaghost: Michael Darbyshire, who played Hubert Davenport, died between seasons. Davenport (and Mumford, whose actor did not want to continue in the show without Darbyshire) were written out by having them score permanent jobs haunting a stately home. (Obviously, in this case, the character was already dead, but still outlived the actor in the sense of not "moving on".)
• The Royle Family: Twiggy did not appear in the specials after 2010 as Geoffrey Hughes was suffering from advanced prostate cancer. As of 2010, he retired from acting (eventually dying in 2012) but is mentioned in later specials.
• The Sarah Jane Adventures:
  • A 2010 episode revealed that '60s Doctor Who companions Barbara Chesterton and Ben Jackson were both still alive, despite the actors who played them having died in the 1990s.
  • Sarah Jane Smith was still alive at the time the show ended, despite the death of Elisabeth Sladen. The last episode of the series ends with the words "And the story goes on... forever." However, a webcast produced in 2020 as part of the Doctor Who: Lockdown event is set around her funeral, by which time her friends are all well into their careers and Luke has been married for five years, indicating this takes place some time after the series ended.
• Sesame Street:
  • Initially, with Mr. Hooper, for episodes that aired in the winter and spring of 1983; this included episodes that had been completed prior to Will Lee's final illness, and also episodes that either had reruns of previous Street scenes featuring Hooper from the early 1980s ^note (from the mid-1970s onward, Sesame Street would repackage old Street scenes from about the previous 2-3 years with new content) or had Street scenes that did not feature the character, with some scripts revised and other adults given his lines. After considering a number of options - one of which was to explain that the beloved Hooper had left Sesame Street, such as retiring – Hooper's death was finally addressed in the groundbreaking episode that aired Thanksgiving Day, 1983 ... almost a year after Lee passed away.
  • Northern Calloway, who played David, was forced to resign due to his offscreen behavior that resulted from a decline in mental health sometime before his death in 1990. David however is still alive, but was only mentioned once more in the season premiere following Calloway's departure, in which it was revealed that David moved to his grandmother's farm to help her take care of it.
• Sesamstraat, the Dutch adaptation to Sesame Street, featured the character of Lex, a kindly old man who filled the role of surrogate grandfather to the childlike muppet characters. When his actor, Lex Goudsmit, died, he insisted in his will that all the sketches filmed before his death would still be aired, allowing the character to outlive the actor.
• Seven Days actor Sam Whipple died of cancer at the age of 41, and so at the beginning of the third and final season of the show, his character, Dr. John Ballard, suddenly retired to a tropical island he had won in a poker game, thus keeping the character alive within the fictional universe even though the actor himself died.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: Georgia Brown, who played Worf's adoptive human mother Helena Rozhenko, died suddenly in 1992, only months after her last appearance in "New Ground". In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Accession" from 1996, Worf says "I will be away from the station at that time. Far away. Visiting my parents. On Earth.", implying that Helena was still alive in-universe.
  • Kellie Waymire died suddenly in 2003, but apparently, in Star Trek: Enterprise, Crewman Cutler is still alive and well.
  • René Auberjonois, who played Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, died of lung cancer on December 8, 2019. However, the character of Odo apparently lived on in and by the time of season 3 of Star Trek: Picard, which aired in 2023, was helping Starfleet with their efforts against the renegade Changelings after they broke away from the mainstream Great Link. In-universe, there are multiple potential explanations for Odo's absence (ex. trying to hold the Great Link together on his end to prevent more defections, knowing inserting himself into Starfleet's investigation will only make things worse, etc.).
• Super Sentai and Power Rangers:

  • Robert Axelrod, the voice of Finster and Lord Zedd, died on September 7, 2019 at the age of 70 from complications caused by spinal surgery. The voice of Zedd was recast for a Flashback with the Other Darrin in the Beast Morphers Clip Show episode "Making Bad", leaving the door open for a present-day return. Which does end up happening in Power Rangers Dino Fury with Zedd now voiced by Andrew Laing.

  • It's a toss-up right now with the characters of Trini Kwan, Ernie, and Tommy Oliver from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers as their actors have all passed away since their final appearances in the show. With Power Rangers Ninja Storm and Power Rangers Mystic Force, both Shane and Udonna are confirmed as outliving their actors, albeit in morphed forms; their characters will likely always remain morphed when needed to reappear. With the appearance of a Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Yellow Ranger in Power Rangers Beast Morphers, we're never told on screen if that Yellow Ranger's Trini or Aisha, the source notes seem to indicate that she's Trini. With Tommy, even though his character lives past 2025 in the Soul of the Dragon comics (we're never given an exact year in which the series take place in), the comics have always been a toss-up of their own when it comes to canonicity within the television timeline. For Ernie, the only time we see him past his last appearance in the Power Rangers Turbo film is in Power Rangers Hyperforce, via archive footage. We're never given any indication one way or another if the character outlived the actor or if The Character Died with Him after being Put on a Bus in Power Rangers Turbo.
    • Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always finally puts Trini to rest, metaphorically and literally, as the first battle ends with her death. It takes place in present so this means that Trini outlives Thuy by over twenty years. Tommy meanwhile, is still alive and well and survives the special, though he's portrayed by a Fake Shemp and captured for most of it to justify Frank's absence as well as Frank getting a memorial at the end alongside Thuy. According to Zeo, Tommy lives to be an old man with grandchildren, so he canonically must outlive Frank.
  • Coincidentally, the first Yellow Ranger in Super Sentai also had a tragic fate: Baku Hatakeyama, who played Kiranger I in Himitsu Sentai Gorenger, committed suicide in 1978; but Kiranger returns as a Fake Shemp in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger and its crossover movie with Tensou Sentai Goseiger, and unlike the Thuy Trang case it is implied that Hatakeyama's character, Oiwa, is still in the suit. (It can't be the second Kiranger because he was Killed Off for Real and replaced by the returning Oiwa.) It's not that noticeable as there are only 13 unmasked Rangers (not counting the Gokaigers and Goseigers, or actors only seen from the back without speaking after the Legend War scene) in the movie.
  • This is the case with Daigo/Shishiranger, since his actor Tatsuya Nōmi committed suicide in May of 2017; a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue at the end of Dairanger established that Daigo is still alive with all his teammates as late as 2044, appearing as a grandfather played by Nomi in old man make-up. Later after the fact, the character is accounted for in the tournament bracket of 2019's Four Week Continuous Super Sentai Strongest Battle.
  • The crossover between Mashin Sentai Kiramager and Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger confirms that Ui is still alive, despite her actress having died the previous year.
• Trapper John, M.D.: Nurse Clara "Starch" Willoughby got married during the summer of 1980, retired, and moved from San Francisco; on screen, the character did not keep in touch with her former co-workers, and other than possibly brief mentions early in the 1980-1981 season, she is not referred to again and it was presumed she was still living when the series ended in 1986. That's because Starch's portrayer, Mary McCarty, died in the spring of 1980, shortly after production of the 1979-1980 season episodes ended; Madge Sinclair's character, Nurse Ernestine Shoop, replaced Starch.
• Although Twin Peaks: The Return has several characters die along their actors, a few whose actors who died before 2017 are shown to still be alive:
  • BOB's actor Frank Silva died in 1995. However, since BOB is a spirit whose role in the plot is mostly based on Demonic Possession, his character remains present and active by only showing the physical body he controls, plus a few brief appearances achieved using archival footage. Although it turns out the one assumed to be BOB in Cooper's body is actually Cooper's Evil Twin under Bob's passive, Symbiotic Possession.
  • Agent Philip Jeffries, David Bowie's character from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, is talked to over the phone despite Bowie's death in 2016. Jeffries eventually makes an appearance "in person", with his body so radically altered he's no longer played by a person at all, and his voice provided by a sound-alike. In this case, Bowie was planning to reprise the role, but died between writing and shooting, necessitating a late production change.
• While The Vicar of Dibley's 2020 "In Lockdown" specials mentioned Alice to have died after the passing of her actress, Emma Chambers, Owen and Frank — Roger Lloyd-Pack and John Bluthal passed away in 2014 and 2018 respectively — are stated to still be alive.
• Will & Grace: Will's boss Mr. Doucette suddenly retired after Gregory Hines died of cancer.
• Lead actor Yujiro Ishihara died of cancer months after filming his final scenes for Taiyo Ni Hoero. In the sequel series, it's mentioned that his character was promoted and reassigned to a new precinct.
• Kamen Rider: Takehisa Yamaguchi, who played Joji Yuki/Riderman, passed away from lung cancer in 1986. Given the character is considered a leading Rider, Riderman has kept making new appearances in the franchise despite his actor's passing as far as 1989 in Kamen Rider BLACK RX, portrayed by numerous suit actors.

Puppet Shows

• When John Gordon-Sinclair took over the "Doc" role in the UK Fraggle Rock as P.K., following the death of Fulton Mackay who played the Captain, he tells Sprocket "He hasn't gone back to sea and left you all alone. He wouldn't have gone back at all if I'd caught him this morning!" For the rest of the series, we're meant to assume that the Captain is on a ship somewhere, however it's such a brief line that many viewers assumed P.K. was taking over the lighthouse after his uncle's death.

Radio

• When Hal Smith, the voice actor for the star of Focus on the Family's Adventures in Odyssey, John Avery "Whit" Whittaker, suddenly died, Whit was sent on an emergency archaeological expedition to the Middle East until a new voice actor (Paul Herlinger) was found. Interestingly, the radio producers made an episode specifically for the occasion, but they wound up broadcasting it before Smith passed away, because they liked the story so much and wanted to finish it without offing Mr. Whittaker. As of 2010, Whit has now outlived two actors. Herlinger retired in 2008 due to declining health (around the same time, Odyssey was temporarily put on hiatus in order to refresh the series) and died in 2010. When the series returned from hiatus, Andre Stojka had taken over as Whit. Coincidentally, both Smith and Stojka had previously been the voice of Owl.

Video Games

• Likely the fate of Rosa in Assassin's Creed II, who had been a love interest for Ezio but suffered Chuck Cunningham Syndrome after that game since her actress, Lita Tresierra, was killed in a car accident shortly before production began on Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Despite the character never appearing in the games again the novelizations for Brotherhood and Revelations say that she eventually took over the Rosa in Fiore from Claudia and became an Italian Assassin leader.
• The death of Kaneto Shiozawa, the voice actor that played Zato-1 in Guilty Gear, inspired the plot point of having the symbiote that gave him powers completely take over, replete with a new voice actor. This overlaps with The Character Died with Him, as Eddie (the parasite) claimed full control of the body because Milia killed Zato-1.
  • Zato-1 is resurrected for Guilty Gear Xrd, so the character has truly outlived Kaneto Shiozawa, with Takehito Koyasu voicing the revived Zato-1.
• Keiji Fujiwara, the voice of Final Fantasy VII's Reno, died the same week Final Fantasy VII Remake released. Fujiwara's archived voice clips were reused for Reno's appearance in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which also ended up limiting Reno's appearances. Nomura stated that this decision was out of respect for Fujiwara and the character would be recast for the third game.
• The iDOLM@STER: After Kan Tokumaru (the voice actor of 765 Production president Junichirou Takagi) passed away, the later game reveals that Junichirou resigns, becomes a chairman instead and goes for a long vacation in Hawaii, and the position of president is filled by his cousin Junjirou Takagi.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Master Xehanort is a double example, with both Chikao Ohtsuka and Leonard Nimoy (his respective Japanese and English voice actors) dying a month apart in early 2015. Ohtsuka was succeeded by his son Akio Ōtsuka while Nimoy was succeeded by Rutger Hauer, who died before recordings for the ReMind DLC began, and was himself succeeded by Christopher Lloyd there, although Xehanort is killed in combat as the Final Boss of Kingdom Hearts III and makes one more voiced appearance as a post-mortem Ghost Memory in Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory.
  • 2015 was not kind to the Kingdom Hearts voice cast, it seemed. Even though Corey Burton has taken over the role of Ansem the Wise since 2010, his original English voice actor is Christopher Lee, who died in June 2015.
  • With the inclusion of Toy Story in the series, R. Lee Ermey's passing in 2018 necessitated having Piotr Michael take over as Sarge for the English dub of the game.
  • Keiji Fujiwara, the original Japanese voice actor for Axel/Lea, died of cancer in April 2020.
  • Phil's Japanese voice actor, Ichirō Nagai, passed away in 2014. Disney chose not to recast him out of respect, leading to his appearance in Kingdom Hearts III to be completely silent.
• Robin Sachs finished recording his dialogue for Zaeed Massani in the Citadel DLC of Mass Effect 3 a month before its release, and a special multiplayer event, "Operation: Tribute", was held in his honor.
• Kōji Totani, the Japanese voice actor of Metal Gear villain Revolver Ocelot, died during the production of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. As a result, the role was recast with Banjo Ginga (Liquid Snake's Japanese voice), with Liquid Snake's persona having apparently taken complete control of Ocelot's mind as a convenient excuse for the recast. This wasn't much of an issue in the English version since Ocelot's English voice actor Pat Zimmerman was still alive and reprised the role anyway.
  • Following the death of Takeshi Aono, Hideo Kojima stated on Twitter that he would retire Roy Campbell from the series. By the time Kojima left Konami, he kept his word.
• Daisuke Gōri voiced the aged Heihachi Mishima from Tekken 3 to Tekken 6. After Gouri tragically passed on, Heihachi had to be recast for Tekken Tag Tournament 2. In light of this, Bandai Namco Entertainment decided to make Heihachi young again instead of simply having a new VA for Old Man Heihachi. Heihachi's role was passed to Unshō Ishizuka, who himself died in 2018.
  • Ishizuka also voiced Heihachi in Street Fighter X Tekken, where Heihachi WAS old...
  • Tekken 7 is the continuation of the story from 6 so Heihachi is canonically back to his old self (though young Heihachi does appear in a few flashbacks). And then he gets Killed Off for Real by Kazuya at the end of the Story Mode.
  • Heihachi appears in the Mishima Dojo stage in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as part of the tenth DLC pack, with recycled voice clips. It released three years after his death in June 2021. Ishizuka also passed before release of the base game, leading Incineroar to be another example.
• Igor in Persona: His Japanese voice actor, Isamu Tanonaka, had died in 2010 due to a myocardial infarction. To preserve the character, Atlus reused all his lines from older games for the Persona 4: The Animation adaptation and Persona 4: Arena, even in the English version, though Dan Woren is still alive at the time of these releases. This persisted for every single Persona 3 and Persona 4-related spin-off media that he appeared in. Even in Persona 5, where the real Igor, after the protagonist makes the fake Igor leave, makes an appearance near the end, still using Tanonaka's old recordings. It wasn't until Persona 5: The Phantom X and Persona 3 Reload that Igor had a new voice actor in the Japanese tracks, Hōchū Ōtsuka for Phantom X and Bin Shimada for Reload, respectively.
• Postal 2 has Gary Coleman appear As Himself in the base game. Paradise Lost DLC, released 12 years later, has Gary appear once again, but since the actor passed away in 2010, the in-game character only reuses the previously recorded lines and has his bodyguard be the actual spokesperson.
• Hirotaka Suzuoki has continued to voice Banjo Haran and Bright Noa in Super Robot Wars games released as recently as 2021, despite having died in 2006. Characters in Super Robot Wars only speak during battle, so Manipulative Editing is used to add new context to Suzuoki's large bank of previously recorded lines.

Web Animation

• Eddsworld: After the passing of Edd Gould, who was the main character's VA, the series continued with Tim Hautekiet voicing him, and later Edd's brother George Gould.
• RWBY: After the passing of the show's creator Monty Oum, his character Lie Ren has been voiced by Oum's brother, Neath.

Western Animation

• Archer: Jessica Walter, the voice of Mallory, passed away in 2021 and Ron Leibman, the voice of Ron Cadillac, passed in 2019. The characters were eventually Put on a Bus and retired offscreen in the season 12 finale.
• Due to the death of his voice actor Walter Massey, Principal Haney from Arthur was permanently written out of the show by having him move away to Tanzania so he can build a new school there.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Mako, who voiced Iroh in Seasons 1 and 2, died while production of Season 2 was wrapping up. Greg Baldwin took over for him in Season 3. Iroh himself dies between the end of Avatar and the beginning of The Legend of Korra, but appears in the Spirit World in Seasons 2 and 3 of the latter show with Baldwin still doing his voice.
• Baldwin also replaced Mako as the voice of Aku in Samurai Jack when it was Un-Canceled in 2017.
• Big Hero 6: The Series: Fred's dad appears in "The Fate of the Roommates", "Supersonic Sue", and "Major Blast" after his actor Stan Lee's death, with the last of these episodes only using two archival lines.
• After Harry Goz, the voice of Sealab 2021's Captain Murphy, died in 2003, the character left the station to fight in "the Spice Wars". The last episode had a dedication to Murphy as if he was dead, but this was using Animated Actors. Murphy showed up a decade later in an episode of Archer, now voiced by Jon Hamm then dies before the episode is over.
• King of the Hill: John Redcorn was originally voiced by Victor Aaron, who was tragically killed in a car accident just prior to the show's second season. For the remainder of the series, John was voiced by Jonathan Joss.
• Transformers:
  • After Scatman Crothers fell ill shortly after the Movie, Jazz didn't have any further lines in the show. (However, the focus had moved on from the original cast by that point, and there's no evidence Jazz was ever going to have a more major role post-movie.)
  • Cyclonus' voice actor, Roger C. Carmel, passed away towards the end of Season 3 and Jack Angel (who was already voicing Astrotrain, Ultra Magnus, and Ramjet, among others) took over the role.
• Futurama:
  • Happens to Dr McCoy, after a fashion. In "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", the main cast of Star Trek: The Original Series voice themselves, except for James Doohan and DeForest Kelley. While Doohan had simply said he wasn't interested, Kelley had died. As such, Kelley's likeness appears but has no speaking lines.
  • Another example: Coleene, Fry's polyamorous love interest from the second movie, "Beast With A Billion Backs", who was voiced by the sadly departed Brittany Murphy. In the story, Coleene was last seen fully engaged in a relationship with Yivo, the planet-sized tentacly creature from Another Dimension, with the gateway to said dimension being closed off by the end, sealing her status as "presumably still living there with shklim and not going to make any new appearances".
• The Simpsons:
  • After the mariticide of Phil Hartman in 1998, Matt Groening had Hartman's primary characters, Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, muted out of respect. The last episode to feature Hartman, "Bart the Mother", which featured Troy McClure, aired the following season. Both Hutz and McClure are alive in story and continued to appear in crowd shots, but have never done anything significant. They also appear frequently in the comics, since they don't need to be voiced.
  • This initially happened to Lunchlady Doris as well after Doris Grau's death. Eventually, she started getting voiced appearances again with the help of Tress MacNeille.
  • In October 2013, Marcia Wallace, who played Edna Krabappel, sadly died. Matt Groening has said that Edna Krabappel will be retired from the show out of respect for her actress, much like Hutz and McClure. However, thanks to the fact that much of Wallace's voice work for future episodes had already been recorded, this did not occur until the 26th season. The episode "Four Regrettings and a Funeral", shown on November 3rd, 2013, was dedicated to Wallace. The episode "Looking for Mr. Goodbart" stated that Krabappel had died.
  • After Russi Taylor (Martin, Sherri & Terri, Uter) died in 2019, Grey DeLisle took over her roles.
  • While the core sextet in the English version (Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer) has been with the series since the beginning,^note  The very beginning in the case of Castellaneta, Kavner, Cartwright, and Smith, who go back to the Tracey Ullman Show years. many of the international versions are not so lucky.
    • For the German dub, a real problem arose in 2006 when Marge's voice actress Elisabeth Volkmann died. She had to be replaced to keep the German dub running, but Anke Engelke, another famous TV comedian, sounds nothing like her (she has tried to emulate Kavner's performance rather than Volkmann's). Homer's voice actor, Norbert Gastell, also passed away in 2015. He was replaced by Christoph Jablonka.
    • Homer's first European Spanish voice, Carlos Revilla, passed away in 2000. To solve this problem, Carlos Ysbert was called in to keep the dub alive. This was made worse by Ángel Egido (Abe and Smithers) also dying, and Pedro Sempson (Mr. Burns) and Eva Díez (Milhouse) retiring around the same time. And worse still, Revilla was also the localization director, so the whole voice acting suffered his absence as a result.
    • Marge's Brazilian voice actress from seasons 9 to 14, Nelly Amaral, passed away in 2002. She had to be replaced by Selma Lopes, who had already voiced Marge from seasons 1 to 8. Also, André Filho, who voiced Skinner, passed away in 1997 and was eventually replaced by Márcio Simões.
    • The same happened in Italy when Tonino Accolla, Homer's voice (as well as the voice of popular actors such as Jim Carrey and Eddie Murphy), passed away in 2013. He was replaced by Massimo Lopez, which was received with quite a bit of backlash by fans.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Rather than phase out Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy after the death of Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway in 2012 and 2019, respectively, the writers decided to reduce them to non-speaking cameos instead.
  • Squidward in the German dub had this happen to him after the death of his voice actor Eberhard Prüter. Problematically, Prüter's voice was so distinctive that they'd have been hard-pressed to find anyone who sounds like him. However, when Tobias Lelle was cast for the film, he took it in a different direction and made his voice sound more like Rodger Bumpass while being reminiscent of the late Rokurō Naya (his Japanese voice actor).
  • Squidward's Brazilian voice actor also died in 2006. He was replaced by Marcelo Pissardini, who sounds almost exactly like him, to the point that many fans did not even notice the difference.
• Family Guy:
  • Frank Sinatra Jr. was a recurring guest star, having played himself for three episodes. His last episode, "Bookie of the Year", was aired months after his March 2016 death, though his character remains alive in the show.
  • Carrie Fisher had played Peter's boss Angela until her death in December 2016. Angela is retired from the show, and a new boss character played by Bryan Cranston will succeed her in the 2017-18 season.
    • The producers would later kill Angela off by having her drowning to death offscreen for the 17th season.
• On Arthur, Lakewood Elementary Principal Mr. Haney was sent away to Africa to live his dream of opening a school following the death of his voice actor Walter Massey in 2014.
• Anton Yelchin died after finishing a majority of his character Jim's dialogue for Trollhunters, which was the entirety of season 1 and 2 along with a considerate amount of season 3. As a result, his close friend Emile Hirsch took over the role and series creator Guillermo del Toro confirmed that the production team will be doing a unique way to incorporate a voice transition organic to the story and create a path for Hirsch, to carry on his legacy and role, so Yelchin’s performance has been left intact where possible and some portions have been merged with Hirsch’s performance to complete season three. Given the fact that Jim is the main protagonist of the series, it was for the best to do so instead of having him being Put on a Bus or Killed Offscreen.
• The person who voiced Widow Hutchison in Rocko's Modern Life, Kevin Meaney, died in October 2016 after a fatal heart attack. The special Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling does include Widow, but she's left unvoiced.
• Rugrats:
  • While she wouldn't pass on until 2014, Christine Cavanaugh was replaced as Chuckie by Nancy Cartwright following her retirement from voice acting in 2001.
  • After David Doyle's death in 1997, Joe Alaskey replaced him as Grandpa Lou for the rest of the series' run. Alaskey himself would pass on in 2016, resulting in Lou being recast with Michael McKean for the 2021 reboot.
  • Stu Pickles is currently voiced by Tommy Dewey in the reboot following the death of Jack Riley, which happened not long after Alaskey's passing.
• Scooby-Doo:
  • Casey Kasem, who was Shaggy's original voice, was replaced with Matthew Lillard, who played Shaggy in the live-action Scooby-Doo movie, following Kasem's retirement in 2009. This was when Kasem was still alive, mind you, although he did die in 2014.
  • After Don Messick passed away in 1997, Scott Innes and Hadley Kay took turns voicing Scooby until they settled on Frank Welker as his permanent voice.
• After Caillou's second voice actress, Jaclyn Linetsky, died in a car crash on the way to the taping of an episode of 15/Love, his voice was replaced by Annie Bovaird.
• Star Trek: Prodigy: Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, and René Auberjonois, who had played Spock, Scotty, and Odo, had passed away by the time the series aired. Nonetheless, like with Don Rickles in Toy Story 4, the series' creators were able to reuse their existing performances to bring them back as holodeck programs for the sixth episode of the series.

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