White Dwarf Starlet / Western Animation

• A number of Adam West parodies, most of them voiced by West himself, tend to fall under this trope.
  • Most notable is "Timothy North," who used to star as "The Fearless Ferret", a Kim Possible universe analog of Batman that ran during the same era, and in his old age has come to think he is the hero. He spent a considerable amount of his fortune having his home redesigned into a replica of the Ferretcave and his alter ego's mansion so accurate that everything actually worked. In fact, he even ropes Ron Stoppable into becoming his successor when he discovers his secret (a shout out to Batman Beyond, especially since Ron's voice actor also voices the titular Batman of the future.) An actor who played a skunk-themed one-shot villain fell into the same delusion but went further to actually commit a plot. Eventually, the two recognize each other and proceed to greet each other warmly before happily enjoying themselves in Ferretcon with the fans who do still care and remember while savoring the old times:
    Whitestripe: How've you been?
    North: Oh, you know, living in a delusion, confusing fantasy with reality. You?
    Whitestripe: Me too.
  • West plays it For Drama in Batman: The Animated Series as the Grey Ghost, Batman's hero. Simon Trent, the actor who played the Ghost in the Show Within a Show Bruce Wayne watched as a kid winds up broke in a run-down one-room apartment hoarding memorabilia from his one starring role and laments it as it kept him from moving. However, Batman's kind words and encouragement (especially because the crime was based on a Grey Ghost episode) has Simon suit up and help Batman take down the bad guy in a surprisingly athletic display for a man who has to be in his 60's by this point. This rockets Simon back into popularity, complete with a VHS re-release of the Grey Ghost tv series (thought to had been lost in a studio fire, but Trent had kept copies of every episode at home) with Bruce Wayne giving a hint that he's Batman at a signing. His popularity remains constant at least until Batman Beyond (50 years later), where a young Terry went to see The Grey Ghost Returns, indicating that the Grey Ghost enjoys a similar level of love and popularity that Batman does in Real Life.
• Stan and Francine encounter one named June Rosewood in American Dad! who believes Stan is the reincarnation of her dead husband, Leonard Zane. June claims the two of them were a famous comedy duo back in the 1930s but from the one film of their's shown, Leonard was the one who had all the talent and comedic abilities while June just entered scenes commenting on how ridiculous everything was (which she thinks was hilarious). June still manages to convince Stan to help finish the last film she and Leonard were working on before he died, with Stan humoring her for a while about the reincarnation thing. June tries to kill Francine after she fills in for Gloria Delmar, an actress who had several routines with Leonard in the original film, to keep Stan to herself. Stan later finds out June killed Leonard and Gloria because they fell in love, and Francine is Gloria's reincarnation. When June tries to drown the Smiths the same way she drowned Leonard and Gloria, Stan and Francine accidentally run her over with a motorboat and kill her.
• Animaniacs
  • Slappy Squirrel is an inversion of this. The gag behind Slappy isn't really that she's a fallen starlet seeking to regain her fame — it's that she's a retired slapstick comedy star whose old antagonists don't seem to have let go as well as she has, only now, she's not only smarter than her opponents, she's old, grumpy, sarcastic and arthritic (think of an aged, vindictive Bugs Bunny), so not only is great harm befalling her geriatric rivals, it's gotten easier with practice and she enjoys it more.
  • The episode "The Warners 65th Anniversary Special" (a parody of Milestone Celebration specials) reveals that this is (supposedly) what happened with the Warners' original co-star Buddy (an actual WB cartoon character from the 1930s, infamous for his boring [to some] cartoons). Buddy was fired from the studio after Plotz decided that the Warners didn't need him anymore, though Buddy is seemingly okay with mundane life (he's a nut farmer in Ojai, California at this point). However, it's then revealed that the episode's mystery villain is, in fact, Buddy, bitter that the Warners cost him his career. He changes his mind when the Warners acknowledge him in their acceptance speech and thank him for their careers, but ends up running right into the trap he set for them when he rushes on stage.
• The Batman has Clayface II be Basil Karlo or at least an expy of him; a washed-up former horror movie star whose desire to get back into acting leads to him stealing the experimental mutagenic putty that gave the first Clayface in his universe - Ethan Bennet, a cop - their powers and drinking it to mutate himself on purpose.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • Recurring villain Mary "Baby Doll" Dahl, a White Dwarf Starlet, with emphasis on "Dwarf", who abducted her long-separated sitcom co-stars. Dahl had a peculiar form of dwarfism that made her look permanently like an 8-year old, making her attempts at legitimate acting after quitting her sitcom doomed from the start. Decades later, Dahl has become delusional and desperate to recapture the happiness she had felt in the glory days of her show, leading to her kidnapping her former co-stars to forcibly reunite the cast (and to get revenge on the annoying Cousin Oliver character that drove her out of the show). It's a tragic example as Mary eventually breaks down in tears when she sees how she could've been in a funhouse mirror.
  • Played with regarding Clayface who was a Composite Character of Basil Karlo (the original Clayface, a washed-up actor who went insane), Matt Hagen (the second, and the first to have shapeshifting powers) and Preston Payne (the third, famous for being disfigured). In the animated series, Matt Hagen was a famous actor who was hideously disfigured in a car accident. Corrupt Corporate Executive Roland Daggett approached Hagen in the hospital before word got out about his mutilated face, and offered Hagen use of the experimental "Renuyu" compound. Hagen used Renuyu to restore his face, with his stunt double (and possible boyfriend) Teddy acknowledge Hagen's biggest hits were released after his accident. However, Hagen's growing addiction to both the narcotic-like Renuyu and continuing his fame as an actor starts a chain of events that results in Daggett's henchmen Force Feeding him an entire vial of raw Renuyu and turning him into Clayface. Rather than being a White-Dwarf Starlet like the original Basil Karlo, Hagen was desperate not to become one too.
  • "The New Batman Adventures" episode "Mean Seasons" has a former model intent on killing the people who had led to her downfall, wearing full-body covering and a featureless mask to hide what she's become since her fame ran out. The Reveal shows that she looks to be in her 30s and is still beautiful, but she "can only see the flaws". Wanna know the kicker, though? Her voice actress was former model Sela Ward, which sort of makes the episode Truth in Television, although Ward obviously didn't go stark raving nuts in Real Life.^note At the age of 39, she expressed interest in being a Bond Girl opposite 42-year-old Pierce Brosnan, and was told: "What we really want is Sela, but Sela ten years ago."
• Bojack Horseman:
  • Bojack is a male example. He was the star of a surprise hit sitcom called Horsin' Around back in the '80s and early '90s but quickly fizzled out after the show ended, and has spent the past 20 years pining for the glory days and sabotaging any chances at a comeback because of his massive ego and emotional problems. He spends most of his time, especially in season 1, watching old episodes of the show, to the point where he carries around DVDs of it!
  • Sarah Lynn, who played the youngest child on the show, is just on the cusp of becoming one of these. She was by far the most successful of the cast (aside from Bojack, one of the other child actors turned to theater and the other quit acting), and had massive success as a teen pop star and actress. However, by the time the show starts, her career is winding down as she's replaced by younger icons, and she's even dumped by her publicity boyfriend Andrew Garfield. Ironically, she doesn't even like acting all that much, having been pushed into it by her Stage Mom, but eventually became addicted to the attention and fame (making her a distaff counterpart to Bojack who had the same happen to him). Season 3 ends with her winning an Oscar and seemingly set up a comeback, but she says herself that the win isn't making her feel any happier and she dies of a drug overdose, making the whole thing moot.
• Big Food from Chowder is a perfect example of this trope, even using the line "I am a big star, it's the roles that got small!" with her name and fridge replacing "a big star" and "roles" respectively.
• Betty Boop's Drawn Together analog, Toot Braunstein, is the burnt-out husk left after the collapse of a white dwarf starlet. She's a Planetary Nebula Starlet (not as hot but larger). Unlike most versions of this trope, she still looks exactly the same as she did in her prime since toons don't age, but what was considered an ideal body in the 1920s is seen as chubby and unappealing today (by mainstream entertainment standards).
• A Norma Desmond-like character named Gloria Swansong (and yes, she's a swan) was featured on the DuckTales (1987) episode "The Uncrashable Hindentitanic." And, at least going by a critic's reaction to her old films being shown, she apparently wasn't a very good actress in her heyday.
• Jim Starling in the Ducktales 2017 reboot isn't taking it well that Show Within a Show Darkwing Duck is no longer relevant in modern times, and he can only get gigs at furniture stores. He's initially thrilled to find out that Darkwing Duck is getting rebooted, but doesn't take it well when he finds out that they never even considered him to reprise his role since he was too old. This led to him attempting to hijack the film, which ends up setting the set on fire, forcing his replacement Drake Mallard to try to stop him while Launchpad puts out the fire. After a brief moment of Heel Realization, Jim saves Launchpad from a falling antenna which explodes. The explosion shattered whatever sanity Jim had left, turning him into Negaduck.
• In the Family Guy episode “And Then There Were Fewer”, it’s revealed that this was Diane Simmons’s motivation for going on her killing spree: she had turned 40, and soon after, James Woods had dumped her and her news network was replacing her with a younger anchor at the behest of her former co-anchor, who was allowed to remain on.
• In the Futurama episode "That's Lobstertainment!", Dr. Zoidberg's uncle Harold Zoid is a silent film star who now lives in obscurity in a retirement home. While not as delusional as Norma Desmond, Harold still believes he's one film away from getting back into the business and tries to use his nephew's money to make that film. At other times, he seems resigned to his fate as a has-been.
  [On the red carpet before the Academy Awards]
  Joan Rivers' Head: Oh, and here's washed-up actor, whats-his-name, Harold Zoid. Are you presenting one of those tacky honorary awards, or just getting one?
  Harold Zoid: I'm a seat-filler, Joan's head. My only marketable skill is to occupy space.
• I Am Weasel once had I Am Weasel and I.R. Baboon as ghosts who are tasked with scaring a retired starlet (played, as usual, by The Red Guy), who spends all her time reminiscing about her glory days. However, we're shown that she only ever played bit parts (and she sucked at those too), and is completely delusional. By the end, their failure to scare her has their boss return Weasel and Baboon to life, only to find out The Red Guy recently died and was assigned to be their ghost.
• One Robot Chicken skit featured a middle-aged, overweight Jem taking up a job as an entertainer for children's birthday parties.
  Man: (paying Jem for "performing" at his daughter's birthday party) Forty dollars, right? You know, this is really embarrassing, but in the '80s I used to masturbate to you all the time.
  Jem: Yeah, you were just a boy then, but now you're a man, right?
  Man: Uh, yes. A married man.
  Jem: So is it an open marriage, or— (hacking smoker's cough that continues for several seconds) So is it an open marriage?
• Early seasons of The Simpsons featured Troy McClure, a B-list actor who had starred in a ridiculously huge array of B Movies, junky commercials and failed TV shows, and persisted trying to chase A-list stardom despite his long litany of flops. Ironically, one episode in which he manages to score the lead position in Planet of the Apes: The Musical, shows he's a Master Actor; he's just so desperate to leap into stardom that he makes himself look worse than he really is by constantly appearing in schlocky productions. His myriad vices, including raging alcoholism and an unspeakable fish fetish, don't improve his chances.
  "Hi, I'm Troy McClure, you might remember me..."
• Randy Marsh in South Park. He used to sing in a boy band, but instead of stardom he eventually went to college. He still sometimes memorizes his youth in music and he can play guitar really well.
• SpongeBob SquarePants features Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, Bikini Bottom analogues of Batman and Robin (and actual superheroes within the SpongeBob universe, albeit far past their prime) who (via the intervention of SpongeBob) frequently end up attempting to relive their past days of glory.
• Strange Hill High has Nimrod, a malfunctioning supercomputer from the 1950s. He yearns for his days when he was the most powerful computer in all the world, and was fighting in the cold war. However, after the cold war ended, more advanced computers were built, and Nimrod was pushed to the side. He kept being handed from government department to government department until he reached what he considers the lowest position possible, a math teacher in a school, teaching a bunch of ungrateful children.
• Tiny Toon Adventures:
  • The episode "Sepulveda Boulevard" is a parody of both Sunset Boulevard and the trope itself with Elmyra playing the Norma role, a former cartoon star whose career tanked because audiences no longer wanted cute (in her own mind, anyway).
  • The episode "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?" has Sappy Stanley, an embittered elephant who moved to France after losing the Academy Award to Bugs Bunny.
  • Both cartoons even paraphrase the "pictures that got small" speech from Sunset Boulevard.
• Piella Bakewell from Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death. Wallace recognizes her as the spokeswoman for Bake-O-Lite Bread, but she was fired as the "Bake-O-Lite Girl" when she became too heavy to fly the balloon they used in advertising. She's more broken-up about this than she lets on, as Wallace and Gromit learn when she turns out to be the "cereal killer" who's been offing bakers all across town. Though given the content of the spoiler, one really does wonder if whether her version of events shouldn't be taken with a pinch of salt. When she is revealed as "the cereal killer", her mind snaps and she insists on trying to flee in her old balloon, despite being blatantly far heavier than she was in her heyday. As a result, the balloon crashes... into the crocodile pit at the local zoo, where she gets Eaten Alive offscreen in one of the most gruesome moments of any Wallace and Gromit movie.

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