History Main / AdvertisedExtra

* Poor Aurora. [[PinballProtagonist She is the title character]] in ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'', and yet, she is asleep for half the movie and has only 18 lines of dialogue. Much of the film is actually focused on the three fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather.

* [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter Camilo Madrigal]] received great publicity in the ''WesternAnimation/Encanto'' trailers before it was released as well as his older cousins and his younger brother, who are important at some point in the story. However, in reality he only appears on the screen for five minutes during the entire movie and he's the Madrigal that contributes the least to the plot.

* ''LightNovel/AriaTheScarletAmmo'' gives us [[EmotionlessGirl Reki]], who is put on par with [[{{Tsundere}} Aria]], [[{{Miko}} Shirayuki]] and [[BeAWhoreToGetYourMan Riko]] in promotional artwork but ended up getting a few tiny (albeit important) appearances while all the others got AnArc and/or plenty of screentime. In the novels, however, she's more prominent, and even get two novels dedicated for her.

* In the ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'' anime, Akira Himi, aka Aqua Current, is prominently shown in the openings and even joins the protagonists in the shot at the end of the first opening, despite only appearing in a single story arc early on, and not rejoining Nega Nebulus until much later in the light novels.

* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', Giyu Tomioka, the Water Hashira and the first introduced Demon Slayer is often prominently displayed despite being OutOfFocus for much of the series. He only plays a role at the very beginning, the Mount Natagumo arc, the Hashira Training arc and the climax.

Also may occur if an actor is in the opening credits but is seen in very little of the movie. Also could appear only in the cold opening and by the time their name appears in the opening credits they are not seen in the rest of the movie. This tends to be used with big named actors, and often in DVD re-releases of movies they appeared in before the big breakout role that made them stars. Might overlap with OneSceneWonder. Also could be known as an Opening Credits Cameo.

* At the height of the popularity of ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsBatman, Creator/DCComics announced that [[ComicBook/{{Robin}} Damian Wayne]] would be joining the cast of ''ComicBook/TeenTitans''. His arrival was heavily promoted and multiple variant covers were created for the issue where he joins, but he was only with the team for a grand total of four issues before being PutOnABus.

** Advertising for ''[[VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney TheGreatAceAttorney 2 :Resolve]]'' promoted Scotland Yard coroner Courtney Sithe as one of its major characters. In the game itself, [[spoiler:she isn't much more than a "villain of the week", being the culprit of the one case she appears in and only mentioned in passing afterwards]].

* The true route of ''[[{{VisualNovel/MajikoiLoveMeSeriously}} Maji De Watashi Ni Koishinasai S]]'' is often referred to as the Koyuki route. However, while it does give her a [[spoiler:happier backstory and saner personality]] she appears very little after the opening. getting only a brief fight and then an optional sex scene at the end. The trouble is that, as noted in the original VN, she has quite a bit of overlap with Miyako and what ''does'' set her apart are traits that are rather incompatible with being a love interest [[spoiler:and that she doesn't have if you've altered her backstory]]. So there isn't much to do with her that you couldn't do with a more important or popular character.

** The Hanayome spirit features predominantly in promotional material for ''VisualNovel/DeathMark'', and is even the only spirit to receive an acrylic charm design. In the game proper, she is the ArcVillain of the shortest chapter, the fight against her is [[BreatherBoss the easiest]] (she is fought in a Live Or Die Choice rather than the usual RPG-like format), and she has no ties to the overarching plot besides being created by the BigBad, as opposed to the later spirits Miss Zoo and the Kannon Soldier.

** Although ''Ride/TheSimpsonsRide'' is set at Krusty the Clown's theme park, he doesn't even appear in the main ride portion of the attraction.

* Yukine Miyazawa from ''VisualNovel/{{Clannad}}'' is featured on some box cover art for the game alongside the other main characters, since she was originally intended to be one of the romanceable heroines. However, that idea was scrapped, and in the story itself she's ultimately a minor character.

* The initial opening and ending of Anime/BoBoBoBoBoBoBo make it seem like Captain Battleship/Gunkan is going to be a major recurring character or even apart of the group. By the series end he only ends up appearing in 5 episodes as a villain. This may be a case of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness at play, as the original plan was to have him make a HeelFaceTurn and join the group.

* The initial opening and ending of Anime/BoBoBoBoBoBoBo make it seem like Captain Battleship/Gunkan is going to be a major recurring character or even apart of the group. By the series end he only ends up appearing in 4 episodes as a villain. This may be a case of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness at play, as the original plan was to have him make a HeelFaceTurn and join the group.

!!Examples:

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
* An increasingly popular trend is for blockbuster films to stunt cast well-known foreign actors in minor roles so that [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff they can heavily promote that aspect to overseas markets where those celebrities are more popular]].
** A big example of this is ''Film/IronMan3''. Wang Xueqi and Creator/FanBingbing have extremely minor roles (and in fact, Fan's scenes were not even included in the American release), but the overseas trailers depicted both actors alongside Creator/DonCheadle and Creator/GwynethPaltrow as though they were playing main characters.
** ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' cast popular French actor Omar Sy as Bishop, and popular Chinese actress Fan Bingbing (there she is again!) as Blink. The two heroes each got their own posters and were featured in the various trailers and TV spots. In the actual film, they only appear in a few scenes and have minimal dialogue. [[OneSceneWonder Blink at least gets a few cool action scenes]], though.
* ''[[{{Film/TwentyTwelve}} 2012]]'s'' Lama Rinpoche is the '''only''' character to be featured on any of the film's [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/2012_Poster.jpg posters]] and he's only in a couple of scenes in the film.
* Rick Genest, aka "Zombie Boy", was featured prominently in [[http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35100000/47-Ronin-Promotional-Poster-47-ronin-35151214-1579-2500.jpg posters]] for ''Film/FortySevenRonin''. He appears in one scene in the film that lasts about three minutes.
* Jeanette from ''Film/AlvinAndTheChipmunks: [[PunnyName The Squeakquel]]'': The boys and her sisters all get ample screen time, whereas Jeanette seems to fall by the wayside. Older fans know her from the 1980s cartoon as a genius, but this never really comes out. She's never seen without her sisters, and she gets about 5 minutes of screentime that isn't singing. Fortunately, she gets significantly more screen time in the third movie. Dave as well actually has much more of a minor role than the film let on, as he's hospitalized for nearly all of it. The main human in the movie is actually a relative of his played by Creator/ZacharyLevi.
* Despite being hyped up as a major supervillain in trailers and posters, Alexei "The Rhino" Sytsevich has around five minutes of screen-time in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'', and we only see him as the Rhino for around ''two'' minutes. Alexei appears in exactly two scenes: the ActionPrologue of the movie, and the final scene--where [[spoiler:the credits roll just as Spider-Man swings in to fight him]].
* A really weird backwards (though possibly deliberate) version happened with ''Film/AngelHeart''. For anyone who hasn't seen the movie, it really does look like Robert De Niro's character is such. He's always billed as a "special appearance" even though the posters and DVD cover prominently shows him in front of the leads, making it appear that the film is just overbilling an actor who in actuality only has one scene. In the actual movie, while he doesn't have as much screentime as the lead, De Niro does make multiple appearances [[spoiler:and his character turns out to be {{Satan}} himself, suddenly making the cover in which he is prominently displayed make a disturbing amount of sense]].
* Middle Eye is not the main character of ''{{Film/Apocalypto}}'' or even its BigBad. He just happened to be the most prominent silhouette on the film's [[https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71d%2BKo8zA4L.__AC_SX300_SY300_QL70_FMwebp_.jpg poster]].
* ''Film/ArtOfTheDead'': Despite his prominence in the credits, Richard Grieco plays a TeaserOnlyCharacter who dies before the main action starts.
* ''Film/AustinPowersTheSpyWhoShaggedMe'': Elizabeth Hurley appears in the cold opening but is [[SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome killed off]] before we see her name in the opening credits.
* In a way Film/{{Beetlejuice}} kind of fits this trope, despite being the title character (sort of), and the main focus of all advertisements and promotional material is on screen no more than 17 minutes of the film's 92 minute run time. The film might as well have been called ''The Maitlands'' if it hadn't been for the fact that Beetlejuice stole the movie. Chances are the only scenes you remember are the scenes with him and the "Banana Boat Song" scene. [[Theatre/{{Beetlejuice}} The Broadway musical]] attempts to redress this by re-writing the plot so Betelgeuse now appears almost immediately and has a much more consistent presence and relevance throughout the story.
* The cover for ''Film/{{Birdemic}} proclaims'' "Hollywood legend Creator/TippiHedren of Creator/AlfredHitchcock's ''Film/TheBirds'' co-stars." She only appears in one scene. ''[[CoversAlwaysLie In archive footage on a TV.]]''
* ''Film/{{Brimstone}}'': Creator/KitHarington receives top billing and his face is even on the cover, but his character only has a few scenes.
* The 2010 ReligiousHorror movie ''Camp Hell'' had a case of this with Creator/JesseEisenberg that actually resulted in legal action. One of the movie's posters consisted almost entirely of his face and the title and he was highlighted in the trailer, but his character only appeared in a few flashback scenes. As a result, Eisenberg sued the distributor, Lionsgate Entertainment and Grindstone Entertainment, for fraudulent advertising.
* After Creator/RobinWilliams became famous, he was given top billing in re-releases of his feature film debut ''Can I Do It Till I Need Glasses?'' which is a series of sketches involving sex jokes, Williams only appeared in two segments amounting to a minute of screen time.
* The beginning of ''Celeste and Jesse Forever'' imply the film is going to be evenly split between Celeste (Creator/RashidaJones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) but after ten minutes they stop hanging out together and the story sticks with Celeste; Jesse remains in the film on and off and he is important to the plot but he's definitely a supporting character in Celeste's story and gets far less screentime overall.
* Roux (Creator/JohnnyDepp) in ''Film/{{Chocolat}}'' was advertised on all the posters, but actually doesn't appear until an hour into the movie and only has a minor role compared to the less advertised characters.
* ''Film/{{Clash of the Titans|2010}}'' gave special focus to Danny Huston as Poseidon, Luke Evans as Apollo and Alexa Davalos as Andromeda. None of them gets more than about five minutes of screen time. In the latter two cases, the movie underwent extensive re-shoots and their characters ended up severely cut down. There was also considerable hype about some of the other Greek Gods, such as Hestia and Artemis. They would have had only a couple of lines in group scenes.
* In ''Country Crush'', Jana Kramer receives top billing and takes up the majority of the cover while only being a supporting character while the actual main characters are reduced to the bottom third of the cover.
* Creator/JoelMcCrea receives top billing in ''Film/CryBloodApache'', but only appears for about 10 minutes in the segments that bookend the main story. And he interacts with no other character in the film.
* Ultra Violet receives top billing in ''Film/CurseOfTheHeadlessHorseman'''. She appears in one scene as a foreign noblewoman looking to buy the ranch: a scene that has no bearing on the plot.
* The official Netflix title card for ''Film/Da5Bloods'' prominently features Creator/ChadwickBoseman, likely due to the popularity of ''Film/BlackPanther''. In the actual movie, he plays a PosthumousCharacter who, while extremely important to the plot, only shows up in a few {{Flashback}}s [[spoiler:and as a ghost/hallucination near the end]].
* Luchino Visconti's ''The Damned'' gives Florinda Bolkan a featured [[AndStarring and]] credit in the opening credits. Bolkan's role amounts to a two minute, wordless cameo as Martin's escort in the wedding scene.
* Creator/MrT in ''Film/DCCab''. The advertisers were hoping to cash in on his popularity from ''Film/RockyIII'', despite the fact that his character, aside from one memorable monologue in front of the Lincoln Memorial, has about as much screen time as most of the non-essential characters of the company (which, by the way, included Creator/BillMaher and Creator/GaryBusey).
* Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse:
** The advertising campaign for ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' heavily advertised the fact that Creator/GalGadot would be making her debut as Franchise/WonderWoman in the movie, and that Creator/JasonMomoa would be making his debut as ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}. Though neither of them were actually pictured in the posters for the movie, Creator/WarnerBros widely distributed publicity photos of them in costume as their characters, released action figures of the two for the film's various toy lines, and prominently featured footage of Gadot in the final trailer. In the actual movie, however, Wonder Woman is a minor supporting character at best, and doesn't appear in costume until the climax of the movie; if the trailers and publicity photos [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil hadn't given it away]], moviegoers might actually have been ''surprised'' to learn that the mysterious European antiquities dealer was Wonder Woman all along. Aquaman is even worse: Jason Momoa never even appears in the flesh, and is only seen in [[spoiler:some brief submarine footage in Lex Luthor's metahuman research archives]]. Ironically, [[spoiler:Ezra Miller's Franchise/TheFlash has actual dialogue and screen time, but he wasn't featured in advertisements and didn't get an action figure]].
*** After many fans and professional reviewers reacted very positively to this film's incarnation of Wonder Woman despite the film itself otherwise being panned, many covers for the DVD and online release went so far as to feature Wonder Woman front and centre, with Superman and Batman behind her in "sidekick" position.
** ''Film/{{Suicide Squad|2016}}'':
*** [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] was the focus of much of the film's marketing, but the majority of his scenes were cut, causing complaints from viewers and even Creator/JaredLeto.
*** [[Characters/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica2013 Katana]] was pretty prominently advertised as well, but in the movie, she doesn't have a lot of lines or screentime.
** ''Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague'': Creator/JesseEisenberg is billed amongst the main cast, but is only seen in the Genesis Chamber in the opening credits without a word spoken, and in the epilogue having a conversation with Deathstroke.
* Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} advertised ''Series/DrakeAndJosh Go Hollywood'' with "Don't miss Creator/MirandaCosgrove in the Drake & Josh movie". Miranda's character isn't a protagonist in the movie.
* Many trailers and posters for ''Film/DumbAndDumberTo'' feature the famous sheep dog van from [[Film/DumbAndDumber the first movie]]. Unfortunately, it was only featured in the actual film [[BackForTheDead for a few seconds before it crashed]], forcing our heroes to find another vehicle.
* Creator/EmmaRoberts is one of the three actors to appear on the poster for the 2013 crime drama ''Empire State'', even though she gets minimal screen time in the actual film. Strangely enough, Michael Angarano doesn't appear in ''any'' of the promotional material despite playing one of the main characters.
* ''Film/{{EuroTrip}}'': The Absinthe Fairy appears on every poster and advertisement, even though he only appears in two scenes of the finished film. Like Scrat, he is a [[EnsembleDarkhorse fan favorite]] since it's release.
* Jenna Jameson's appearance in ''Film/EvilBreedTheLegendOfSamhain'' is hyped to the point of her receiving top billing. Her actual role is only a few minutes of screen time, and has no bearing on the plot.
* Creator/StevenSeagal received top billing on ''Film/ExecutiveDecision'' despite [[spoiler:his character dying]] before the cast even got on the plane. This was perhaps purposefully invoked as the movie's initial twist was that it had a DecoyProtagonist.
* Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger and Creator/BruceWillis in ''Film/TheExpendables''. The two actors were featured on nearly every advertisement for the film but appear in only one scene. The trailers for the [[Film/TheExpendables2 first sequel]] showed that Arnie and Bruce were getting more screen time of the action variety, though they're still not the lead characters. For that matter, both Toll and Hale also have very minor roles despite having equal billing in the film. The only real members of the team to have any major roles are Barney, Lee, and to a lesser extent Yin.
* Creator/MichelleRodriguez in ''Film/FastAndFurious''. Her role in [[Film/FastAndFurious6 the sixth film]] made up for it.
* Most trailers and TV spots for ''The Fighting Temptations'' prominently featured Creator/SteveHarvey who plays an alcoholic radio host. While he is featured in a total of eight scenes (two are just voice overs), each appearance is brief and all he does is provide comic relief through his glaringly obvious commentary. He never interacts with any of main characters, except once. In spite of all this, Harvey receives fifth billing in the opening credits.
* ''Film/GhostInTheShell'': The members of Section 9 have their own posters and their actors, including CanonForeigner Ladriya, revealed details about their characters while promoting the movie. With the exception of the Major, Batou and Aramaki, the rest barely have some screentime in the movie itself.
* Duke in ''Film/GIJoeRetaliation'', who goes from star in the previous movie to [[BackForTheDead dead in the first minutes]].
* For ''Film/TheGiver'', Music/TaylorSwift was heavily advertised as Rosemary, a PosthumousCharacter who appears in perhaps three scenes.
* ''Film/{{Godzilla|2014}}'':
** Trailers heavily featured Creator/BryanCranston of ''Series/BreakingBad'' fame, as it was his first big film role since the show ended. His character is important in the beginning of the film, but [[spoiler:[[DecoyProtagonist dies at about the end of the first act]]]].
** Godzilla himself falls under this. He gets sparse screentime and isn't the one driving the story, [[NeverTrustATrailer despite several trailers portraying him as the main threat.]]
* ''Film/TheGoldenCompass'' heavily advertised Creator/DanielCraig, Creator/EvaGreen and Creator/SamElliott. The first two have about ten minutes of screen time, with Elliott not appearing until an hour in. WordOfGod is that a whole ''hour'' of footage was cut by the studio.
* Creator/RobertDeNiro's role in 1998's ''Literature/GreatExpectations'' is pretty small but he's advertised as one of the four leads. A better choice for 4th lead might have been a then-unknown Creator/ChrisCooper.
* The DVD cover of ''Film/{{Half a Sixpence}}'' features the main character, Kipps, along with a beautiful woman in a lacy leotard. That character, whose name is Laura, only appears in one scene early in the movie.
* Early ''Film/HalloweenResurrection'' trailers heavily featured Creator/JamieLeeCurtis and made it seem as though she played a big part in the movie. She ended up appearing in one scene at the beginning... [[spoiler:before being killed off]]. She is also positioned at the forefront of the movie [[http://i.imgur.com/kQcnf.jpg poster]]. It could be argued that she is actually a [[spoiler:DecoyProtagonist since viewers obviously weren't supposed to see her death coming]].
* ''Film/HarryPotter'':
** ''Film/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'' - Creator/JulieChristie as Madam Rosmerta. One scene with about three minutes of screen time. And no close-ups of her (since the entire scene is from under Harry's invisibility cloak).
** ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'' advertised Music/NataliaTena's Tonks with plenty of merchandise and even a special feature on the DVD with her giving a tour of the set. She's only in the film at the start and the big battle at the end.
** ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'' gave rather lots of attention to the twins Hestia and Flora Carrow in marketing. The characters have no lines and only appear in the Slug Club scenes. They were originally supposed to serve as a clue [[spoiler:that there were two Vanishing Cabinets - when Harry realises the one in Borgin & Burke's has a twin]] but that plot point was dropped. As such the twins serve no purpose. The film also made a note of advertising that Gemma Jones was returning as Madame Pomfrey. She has just one scene, no lines and is only in the background.
*** The credits and DVD release give an incredibly high billing to Creator/TimothySpall as Peter Pettigrew...who appears for less than a minute and has no dialogue.
** ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallowsPart1'' devoted some attention to Creator/BillNighy's casting as Rufus Scrimgeour. He has just two scenes.
* Wrestling/{{Edge}}'s feature film debut in ''Film/HighlanderEndgame'' was heavily promoted by {{Wrestling/WWE}}, including a mock in-ring Academy Awards ceremony and an Entertainment Tonight segment in which Edge invited co-stars Creator/ChristopherLambert and Creator/AdrianPaul [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K9PKCaSyJI backstage]]. Edge's screen-time totals about two minutes with two brief lines of dialogue and a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSXHUikakTY single, extremely truncated fight scene that's played mostly for laughs.]]
* This was PlayedForLaughs in Wrestling/RingOfHonor, where Matt Taven went out of his way to promote "his" feature film, "''The Film/{{Ghostbusters|2016}} Featuring Matt Taven''" while he was sidelined with an injury.
* ''Film/{{Hereditary}}'' has an interesting marketing strategy. All over the promotional material, not to mention posters and trailers, Charlie, the youngest child, is shown EVERYWHERE, making viewers think she's gonna be a main character. Guess what? 30 minutes in, and [[spoiler:her head has been decapitated by a telephone pole. Still, we can see that she is part of the plan of a Paimon cult, and her decapitated head, which we get a clear shot of the next morning, is later sticked onto a Paimon statue.]].
* ''Film/{{Hook}}'' drew a lot of press from Music/PhilCollins having a cameo as a police officer. Collins actually got worried that the press was making him out to have a larger role in the film - and feared people would think his scenes had been cut because he wasn't good.
* ''Film/TheHungerGames'':
** Creator/LiamHemsworth as Gale did appear in quite a bit of promotional material like posters and did a fair amount of press, but wasn't in much of the movie since Gale isn't a participant in the Hunger Games. Though Hemsworth isn't a big name, he's an up and comer that the studio wanted to promote. Also, Gale becomes a more prominent character as the series goes on. Sort of. This is actually a complaint about ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' in general - it treats Peeta/Katniss/Gale like a big triangle, but Gale barely appears in the first two books of the trilogy at all, thus making it fairly obvious who Katniss will end up with.
** Creator/JenaMalone as Johanna in ''Film/TheHungerGamesMockingjay''. In Part 1 she only appears briefly at the very end. In Part 2 she has just three scenes. Some of her scenes appear to have been cut.
** Creator/JoshHutcherson as Peeta in ''Film/TheHungerGamesMockingjayPart1''. Despite being a major character in the series, he only appears at the very end of the movie, and has no lines.
* ''Film/HurricaneBianca'': The Movie Poster and DVD cover lists the main cast as Roy Haylock, Rachel Dratch, Alan Cumming, Margaret Cho and Ru Paul. Cumming and Cho are both One Scene Wonders and Ru Paul has a few short scenes as a weatherman on TV.
* Creator/JoanCrawford gets top billing in ''Film/ISawWhatYouDid'', but her role— while important to the plot —amounts to 9 minutes on screen.
* The trailer to ''Film/{{Icebox}}'' makes it seem like there's a [[PuppyLove romance element]] to the plot. The girl is actually a nameless character who doesn't appear in any other scenes.
* Take [[ExaggeratedTrope Up to Eleven]] with ''Film/{{Idlewild}}''. In the trailer, you see a shot of comedian Bruce Bruce as a bodyguard leaving a room. Once you see the film, you realize that the trailer showed his entire role.
* Much of the criticism toward ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' comes from a feeling that the Basterds are this trope, not helped by the American marketing focusing heavily on Brad Pitt's titular crew. The European marketing made the EnsembleCast a bit clearer.
* Creator/JohnnyDepp as the Wolf in ''Film/IntoTheWoods''. Despite receiving major credit in the promotions and trailers, [[spoiler:the character's only in two scenes]].
* The marketing for ''Film/JackAndJill'' in Mexico made heavy emphasis on including Creator/EugenioDerbez in all the materials, making it look like he was a big character in the movie, while in the movie itself his role was fairly minor.
* Sally Kirkland gets second billing in ''Film/JackTheReaper'', but only has a few minutes screen time, dropping Harold off at school for the field trip. Her character is not even named, but is listed in the credits as Harold's Nana.
* The ''Film/JamesBond'' movies have a few examples:
** Paris Carver from ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies''. Her role was heavily promoted due to her being played by tv star Creator/TeriHatcher; she stands beside Creator/MichelleYeoh on the film poster, implying that they have equal importance. Her total screentime is about 15 minutes. [[spoiler:The only important thing she does is tell Bond about the secret lab on the roof of Carver's printing facility in Hamburg. She is murdered offscreen for her troubles, her death marking the end of the first act]].
** Severine in ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'', who appears in the movie just long enough to give her tragic backstory before sleeping with Bond and [[spoiler:getting tied up and murdered by [[BigBad Silva]] in front of an indifferent Bond just barely into the second act]].
** In ''Film/{{Spectre}}'', Lucia Sciarra, played by Creator/MonicaBellucci, was lauded as being the oldest Bond Girl in the series and was expected to be a game-changer. Everything about that sentence is a lie. Not only is she not the film's leading Bond Girl, but she doesn't even qualify as the Secondary Girl, which this movie lacks. She gets exactly five minutes of screentime despite being promoted as a major character in the film, with some suspecting that further scenes were left on the cutting room floor. As for her age, even if she had been the main Bond Girl of the movie, she would have been the oldest as of filming but not the first one to be older than Bond. Creator/HonorBlackman (Pussy Galore from ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}'') was 5 years older than Creator/SeanConnery, and Creator/DianaRigg (Tracy Draco from ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'') was a year older than Creator/GeorgeLazenby. Incidentally, Belluci previously auditioned to play Paris Carver in ''Tomorrow Never Dies'', who, as mentioned above, was also an example of this trope.
** ''Film/NoTimeToDie'': Despite being promoted as part of the main cast, Paloma (Creator/AnaDeArmas) only appears in one sequence and has around ten minutes of screen time. This was perhaps hinted at by the various trailers which only ever showed Paloma in the same outfit and one action sequence.
* ''Film/JohnWickChapter3Parabellum'': Despite being featured heavily in the trailers as Wick's partner, Halle Berry's character Sophia is only in the movie for about 20 minutes during the second act.
* Creator/VingRhames is listed as one of the stars of ''Film/JuliaX'', but only appears in the final scene of the film, and has less than 5 minutes screen time.
* In ''Film/{{Juno}}'', Paulie Bleeker (Creator/MichaelCera) was heavily emphasized in the promotional material and trailers. In actuality, he's a supporting character and goes OutOfFocus in the second half of the film.
* ''Film/KingsmanTheGoldenCircle'': Creator/ChanningTatum was prominently featured in the posters and received top billing. However in the film itself, his character appeared in 10 minutes [[spoiler:before he was put on ice after being infected by the BigBad's drugs]] and only showed up near the end [[spoiler:where he joins the newly revived Kingsman]].
* Creator/GaryOldman in ''Film/{{Lawless}}'', who was heavily featured in the promotional material and received third billing. In the actual film, Oldman appears in only a few scenes and is billed no less than tenth in the ending credits.
* Every original release poster and trailer of ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'' prominently features Jose Ferrer (Oscar winner for ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac'') as the Turkish Bey, who appeared for two scenes totaling less than five minutes in length. Avoided through various re-releases, as Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif have long since eclipsed Ferrer's fame.
* Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter is in ''Film/TheLoneRanger'' for about 10 minutes tops (in a 150 minute film). The marketing made her out to be the lead female.
* Creator/RowanAtkinson was one of the actors featured on the posters for ''Film/LoveActually'' and yet he only appeared in two short scenes and none of the threads in the movie featured him as a major character. Creator/KeiraKnightley also got high billing (having just become well known with ''Pirates of the Caribbean''), despite only being in four scenes and playing a supporting role in all of them.
* ''Film/{{Manhunter}}'' was broadcast on TV immediately after the phenomenal success of ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' but the title was changed to ''Red Dragon: The Pursuit of Hannibal Lector''. Of course, anyone who saw the movie in 1986 or read the book would realize that Lector (played by Brian Cox) had about eight minutes of screen time and being that the story is set prior to ''Silence of the Lambs'', Lector is still behind bars for the entire film. The character being pursued was a serial killer called The Tooth Fairy (real name [[spoiler:Francis Dolarhyde]]). Lector's influence is marginal and is mostly part of the main character's backstory. The name change and subtitle was just an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the recent 1991 blockbuster by broadcasting a little remembered film that was based on the previous book in the series.
* Creator/DavidWalliams received top billing for his one scene in ''Film/{{Marmaduke}}''.
* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'':
** Maria Hill was featured on many of the posters of ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'' alongside the team and Nick Fury. Ultimately she gets one action scene to herself in the first ten minutes, and after that is mostly a bystander. As she has at least three deleted scenes, it's safe to say that much of her material was cut for time. Some have theorised it was an attempt to disguise the glaring fact that [[TheSmurfettePrinciple Black Widow was the only female Avenger]].
** [[Characters/ShieldDirectors Nick Fury]] got a lot of presence in the posters and trailers for ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'', despite his role being much smaller than in the first one.
** [[Characters/ShieldDirectors Sharon Carter]] in ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar''. She is heavily featured in the merchandise and promotional art for the film as a member of Team Cap, including illustrations of her fighting alongside the others against Team Iron Man. In the actual film, she never suits up in the uniform she's seen wearing in the illustrations, nor does she officially join Team Cap or fight against Team Iron Man.
** ''Film/SpiderManHomecoming'':
*** Iron Man's supporting role was greatly played up, with the character being prominently featured in the marketing and merchandise. In reality, Tony only shows up in a few scenes, and only ''one'' of those actually has him wearing the armor.
*** Likewise, Creator/{{Zendaya}}'s mysterious Michelle was prominently featured on the theatrical poster, even though the character doesn't get much screen time. This is particularly egregious since Ned, who has a much larger role, and Liz, who is Peter's ''actual'' love interest, aren't on the poster.
** Odd example with ComicBook/DoctorStrange's role in ''Film/ThorRagnarok''. He only appears in one scene in the first act, and most of the promotion for the movie made sure to avoid exaggerating the size of his role. However, the preview for the movie included in the guide for the D23 expo definitely tried to make it seem like Strange had a much larger part than he actually does, likely due to the success of his [[Film/DoctorStrange2016 solo movie]]:
-->If you need even more intergalactic, world-saving action, ''Thor: Ragnarok'' in November brings together Thor, the Hulk, and Doctor Strange to face off against intergalactic baddies both familiar and new.
** Due to the massive success of [[Film/BlackPanther2018 his solo movie just a few months prior]], T'Challa and his supporting cast were heavily featured in most of the later marketing for ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar''. In the actual film, they don't really get to do much until the last act. ComicBook/{{Shuri}} in particular (who was very prominent in the print advertisements) only gets about two scenes before she disappears from the movie. This led to ''WebVideo/HonestTrailers'' jokingly speculating that Marvel did not expect the ''Black Panther'' film to be nearly as popular as it ended up being back when they were planning ''Infinity War''.
** One year later, ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' had Creator/DanaiGurira billed and appearing on the poster, given she's one of the few main characters who survived the previous movie. She appears in at most three scenes, none very prominently. Creator/BenedictWong is also in the poster, and yet Wong's first appearance in the movie is right in the climactic battle in the third act, bringing in the sorcerers to fight Thanos's forces. And then there's the star of [[Film/CaptainMarvel2019 the movie released right before]], Carol Danvers, who as soon as her movie became a hit got heavily promoted. (and in fact, was also hyped in TheStinger for ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', being [[GodzillaThreshold the person Nick Fury calls once he realizes it's the worst kind of disaster]]) She is sidelined by her own missions shortly after the TimeSkip, and only returns for the climax - though her case is justified by [[StoryBreakerPower Carol being as powerful, if not more, than the villain]].
* ''Film/MaryReilly'' bills Creator/GlennClose with AndStarring. She has only three scenes.
* ''Film/MenInBlack3'' has Lily, the FanserviceWithASmile girlfriend of villain Boris played by Nicole Scherzinger. She only appears to free Boris in the opening sequence, then he unceremoniously dumps her by letting her be [[ThrownOutTheAirlock sucked into vacuum]]. In a sense, there's also Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K. Agent K does have a significant role in the movie...but it's the ''[[TimeShiftedActor young]]'' Agent K, played by Josh Brolin, whereas Jones is only in the beginning and end.
* ''Film/MissFisherAndTheCryptOfTears'' keeps the credits order from ''Series/MissFishersMurderMysteries'', so Ashleigh Cummings receives second billing behind Essie Davis, despite [[DemotedToExtra appearing for only a few minutes]].
* Even though you probably didn't get a good look at his face in the split second it's on the screen (Creator/JoshHolloway, aka [[Series/{{Lost}} Sawyer]], by the way), you probably associate the trailers for ''Film/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol'' with a man jumping off a rooftop, spinning around and firing several shots in freefall. This is taken from a scene fairly early on in the movie, and while the character is pretty plot important and does survive the fall, [[KilledOffForReal he doesn't live for long afterwards.]]
* Creator/KayaScodelario as teenage Eve in ''Film/{{Moon}}'' receives top billing despite having only a minute or two of screen time. To a lesser extent, Dominique [=McElligott=] who plays Tess is only seen in a handful of flashbacks and videos. Justified as the only actors who have any significant screen time are Creator/SamRockwell and the voice of Creator/KevinSpacey.
* ''Film/MostLikelyToDie'': Creator/JakeBusey's character plays almost no role in the plot and is killed in his second scene. He has maybe 5 minutes screen time.
* ''Film/{{Motorama}}'': A young Creator/DrewBarrymore's face appears as a giant, floating head behind the main character on the video cover, but she's only in the film for a few seconds in a dream sequence.
* ''Film/TheMuppets'': Pepe. [[WolverinePublicity He was featured pretty prominently in some of the trailers]], but it turns out most of that footage came from the one scene he was in that remained in the final cut.
* In ''Film/MysteryRoad'', Jack Thomson is billed third in the credits and gets his name on the poster despite appearing in only one scene in the movie.
* The trailer for ''Film/TheNextThreeDays'' plays up Creator/LiamNeeson's role in the movie, but he's in it for a grand total of about five minutes and doesn't show up again.
* ''Film/PacificRim'' gives posters to all the [[AMechByAnyOtherName Jaegers]]. The [[{{Irony}} Japanese one]], Coyote Tango, is barely in the movie, only appearing in a flashback.
* Sao Feng from ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd''. Like Angel, advertised as a great new addition to the cast. When it came out, roughly 30 minutes of screentime (in a movie that's almost 3 hours long!) and an [[DroppedABridgeOnHim anticlimatic death]] one hour in.
* Parodied in ''Film/PlanetTerror'' with Creator/BruceWillis's villain Muldoon. Willis is front and centre on the poster, despite only appearing in one early scene and a few sequences in the final act. This parodies a B-movie tradition of casting a name actor in a small part and then hyping them up as if they were the star. Note that Willis rarely shares the frame with another actor in the film, giving the impression that his shots were all filmed separately in one short filming session.
* The advertising for the second ''[[Film/ThePrincessDiaries Princess Diaries]]'' movie would have you believe Princess Asana, played by Creator/RavenSymone, was a main character. She wasn't.
* Creator/ChristopherWalken appears only once in [[OneSceneWonder one of the most memorable scenes]] in ''Film/PulpFiction'' and receives top billing.
* The title character in ''Film/QueenOfTheDamned'' does not appear until an hour into the movie (unless her statue form counts). The film draws elements not only from its own source novel (basically just the framing story, the book being mostly about the background which gets summarized in the movie in two sentences), but also from ''Literature/TheVampireLestat'', and ''he'' is the central character along with love interest Jesse Reeves (whose actress, Marguerite Moreau, [[SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer never even gets a mention]]). There's also the fact that Akasha's actress, R&B singer Music/{{Aaliyah}}, died six months prior to the film's release, and the movie was heavily promoted as her last "starring" role.
* In ''Film/RollBounce'', Nick Cannon and Mike Epps. Each are only in three scenes. Epps' garbageman Byron is pure comic relief alongside his partner Victor, played by Charlie Murphy, who doesn't even make the theatrical poster. More egregious is Cannon, who's skate rental clerk Benard gets ONE semi-dramatic scene, yet somehow pulls second billing on [[http://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/roll-bounce-widescreen-edition-large.jpg TWO DIFFERENT]] [[http://www.copertinedvd.org/copertine-dvd-file/R/roll_bounce.jpg DVD COVERS.]]
* ''Film/SafetyPatrol:'' Security Chief Penn (Creator/LeslieNielsen) appears alongside Scout on the [=VHS=] cover. The back also prominently features Nielsen, and the description implies he's one of the main protagonists. In reality, he only has about ten minutes of screen time.
* Watching the first bit of ''Film/{{Scream 1996}}'', it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that Creator/DrewBarrymore is our main character. But, alas, [[spoiler:[[DecoyProtagonist she's offed after one scene]]]].
* ''Film/ScreamAndScreamAgain'': Creator/PeterCushing's role is little more than a cameo: appearing in one brief scene and dying at the end of it.
* Happened with the 2009 [=DVD=] release of ''Film/SesameStreetPresentsFollowThatBird'' -- the cover features Elmo amongst the pictured characters, but the film was made in 1985, before he became a prominent member of the show's cast. In the film he only has a few seconds of screen time at the beginning and end, with only one line of dialogue (part of the song at the end).
* Music/MichaelJackson appears on the front cover of ''A Special Sesame Street Christmas,'' despite only showing up for less than two minutes and ''not singing.''
* ''Film/SingStreet'': The trailers made it seem as if Evan had a bigger part. While his influence is definitely there, he's offscreen for most of the film.
* Advertisements for the classic movie musical ''Film/SinginInTheRain'' listed the names of all its stars, which was common at the time. However along with the people you would expect ([[Creator/GeneKelly Kelly]], O'Conner, [[Creator/DebbieReynolds Reynolds]], Hagen, Mitchell) they had Cyd Charisse. She was in the movie for less than 3 minutes as Kelly's dance partner during a BigLippedAlligatorMoment (which was inside another BigLippedAlligatorMoment). The strange thing is that Charisse was not a star yet; it probably would not have made a difference whether people saw the movie or not. You could chalk it up to {{fanservice}}.
* Franky Cook, played by Creator/AngelinaJolie in ''Film/SkyCaptainAndTheWorldOfTomorrow'', appears for about fifteen minutes of the film despite her extremely heavy presence in trailers and posters and Jolie's star billing. Audience disappointment over this has been credited for a lot of the film's bad post-release word-of-mouth.
* Early trailers for ''Film/SpaceJamANewLegacy'' had Penelope Pussycat as part of the team. In the actual film she isn’t on the team and can only be spotted in the audience at the game.
* A somewhat debatable example with Venom in ''Film/SpiderMan3''. Eddie Brock was around for most of the movie, but ComicBook/{{Venom}} is seen for all of 15 minutes. However, he did a ''lot'' in 15 minutes, including finally doing what no other villain in the movies could do; [[spoiler:kill one of Peter's loved ones, Harry Osborn]].
* Creator/MinnieDriver gets top billing in ''Film/StageFright2014'', but her character is killed before the opening credits. Her only other appearance is in a brief flashback during the climax.
* ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' was a somewhat infamous case of this, since the marketing campaign for the movie focused almost entirely on the fact that it was going to feature a team-up between Captains Kirk and Picard, the protagonists of ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' and ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. The poster of the movie only showed [[FloatingHeadSyndrome Kirk's and Picard's faces next to each other]], and the movie's TagLine was ''"Two Captains, One Destiny"''. In truth? Kirk gets trapped in a NegativeSpaceWedgie in the first twenty minutes of the movie, and he isn't seen again until he's freed right before the climactic action scene, during which [[spoiler:[[DroppedABridgeOnHim he unwittingly names a rather infamous trope]]]].
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** Biggs Darklighter, Luke's best friend from Tatooine was almost completely cut out of the final film, save for his scenes during the Death Star battle. This didn't stop him from appearing in the tie in storybooks, comics, and at least one foreign poster (in place of Han Solo nonetheless).
** Boba Fett is one of the prime examples of this trope. His sheer popularity and prominent marketing would make anyone who isn't familiar with ''Star Wars'' assume that he plays a massive role in the story. He even had his own action figure before ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' was released. In reality, he has about a minute and a half of screen time, four lines, and his overall contribution to the plot is fairly minimal. His role is reduced even further in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', where he has a minute of screen time, contributes nothing to the plot, and has one of the most disappointing/comical deaths of any character in the franchise. A lot of his current popularity comes from expanded universe material like ''Literature/TheBountyHunterWars''...that didn't make it past the Legends reboot.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'':
*** Captain Phasma was very heavily promoted but did little more than get about 5 minutes of screentime, most of which was spent getting her ass kicked, going down without a fight, and swiftly getting tossed in the garbage. WordOfGod had that her role would be expanded in ''Film/TheLastJedi'', [[spoiler:but she had even less screentime, a brief fight, and was apparently KilledOffForReal]].
*** Poe Dameron. He was heavily promoted as a main character, fueling speculation that he would be part of a new trio of heroes. While he's a major supporting character, he's ultimately just that--a ''supporting'' character. He vanishes for the entire middle act after [[spoiler:getting separated from Finn on Jakku]], and he spends the final act running interference with a Resistance X-Wing squadron while the main characters [[spoiler:storm Starkiller Base to rescue Rey and confront Kylo Ren. Unlike Phasma, his role ''does'' get greatly expanded in ''Film/TheLastJedi'']].
*** Lor San Tekka. Played by actor Creator/MaxVonSydow, who played Ming the Merciless in ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}'', whose [[Film/FlashGordonSerial original serials]] were a major influence upon ''Star Wars'', he was highly expected to be a prominent character, but [[spoiler:he's killed by Kylo Ren within the first five minutes of the film.]]
*** Luke Skywalker, bizarrely. He frequently got the SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer treatment in promotional material, but his presence in the movie was played up by Disney and Creator/MarkHamill received second billing (Creator/HarrisonFord got first). In the finished film, [[spoiler:he only appears in two very brief scenes, getting no lines and less than a minute of screentime]].
* Though posters for ''Film/{{Suffragette}}'' gave Creator/MerylStreep, who plays Emmeline Pankhurst, top billing and featured her next to Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham-Carter and she was prominently included in the film's trailer, she only appears in person in ''one single scene'' in the entire film and has less than five minutes of screen time.
* ''Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon'' promoted Shockwave as the new BigBad quite non-subtly. Since you should NeverTrustATrailer, it turned out a RedHerring to hide a shocking PlotTwist and Shockwave only had two lines in the whole movie and pretty little screentime.
** The trailers for ''Film/TransformersTheLastKnight'' made it look like Izabella would have a large role in the film. Instead, she disappears almost completely after the first 15 minutes -- in a film that's nearly 2 hours and 30 minutes long -- with only a brief return appearance near the end. It's not just Izabella, lots of characters appear in the initial trailer only to be given a limited amount of screentime.
*** Nemesis Prime, the brainwashed Optimus, who is implied to be major character in the previews and trailers, doesn't appear to fight Bumblebee until near the end of the movie.
*** It also looked like Megatron would have a big role in the story, but after the first Autobot/Decepticon battle, which the Cons lost in the most embarrassing fashion ever, Megatron vanishes for the rest of the movie, and doesn't return until the climax, only to get one shotted by Optimus at the end.
*** Grimlock only has a handful of scenes in the entire movie, and never shows up for the final fight.
* Creator/JackBlack in ''Film/TropicThunder'' is supposed to be one of three leads. In reality, his character is more of a SatelliteCharacter. It doesn't help that Creator/TomCruise and Creator/RobertDowneyJr stole the show.
* ''Film/UltramanGaiaTheBattleInHyperspace'': The Japanese title of the movie is ''Ultraman Tiga, Ultraman Dyna, & Ultraman Gaia: The Decisive Battle in Hyperspace'', despite the fact that Ultraman Tiga and Dyna only have 7 minutes of screentime combined (they play TheCavalry who arrives at the end of the movie to assist Gaia in battling Kingmons and his monster CoDragons, granted it's a BigDamnHeroes moment, but still...). Additionally, there are promotional materials and posters that features all three Ultras taking up roughly the same amount of poster space, when Tiga and Dyna are merely extras.
* ''Film/ValentinesDay'' has a huge cast made up numerous A-listers. The movie was advertised one of two ways, the first was by advertising all of the stars, regardless of how big their role was or by saying it "starred" Music/TaylorSwift and Creator/TaylorLautner despite them having roughly two scenes and their characters were clearly meant to be looked down upon. Even worse was that all the reviews focused almost entirely on Swift, judging her performance despite her being a cameo. The SpiritualSuccessor, ''Film/NewYearsEve'' managed to avoid this by only advertising the stars that had major parts (in fact there are several stars who don't appear in the commercials).
* The marketing from ''Film/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' placed a lot of emphasis on the White Witch, to the point of making her appear as the primary villain of the film. In fact, the character only appears sporadically, and only as an illusion- the ''real'' Witch never shows up at all. Creator/TildaSwinton expressed surprise that she was in the trailer, saying she'd only been on set for "about twenty minutes". Additionally Peter and Susan were included in the trailer, despite Peter having just one scene and Susan two.
* In the film ''Welcome To Collinwood'', Creator/GeorgeClooney has little more than a cameo as the older criminal mentor-figure Jerzy, despite being very heavily featured in the trailers.
* The ''Film/{{Wings}}'' poster gives fourth billing to Gary Cooper. His character, Cadet White only appears for three minutes at most [[spoiler:before he dies performing stunts]].
* The DirectToVideo action film ''Film/{{Wrong Side of Town}}'' actually starred Wrestling/RobVanDam. However you would not know that by looking at the DVD cover where Wrestling/{{Batista}} is featured front and center. He plays a minor supporting character that was only in three scenes. RVD was billed second and is in the background alongside third billed Music/JaRule who was an even better example of this trope. The rapper plays a gang leader who is shot by Batista literally three minutes after being introduced. Fourth billed R&B singer Omarion has a similar role to Ja Rule. Strangely other actors that have bigger roles in this movie [[note]] (Edrick Browne, Lara Grice, Jerry Katz, Ava Santana, and Creator/LouisHerthum)[[/note]] are not mentioned at all. According to [[WebVideo/BadMovieBeatdown some people]] this was because Batista was the best actor in it.
* ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'':
** ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'':
*** [[Characters/MarvelComicsCyclops Cyclops]]' screen time is ''greatly'' reduced because of Creator/JamesMarsden's other commitments.
*** Angel is featured heavily in all the promotional material, as part of the whole "the original X-Men team in the comics finally together in film." He only has three scenes: he refuses the cure and flies away; he very briefly shows up at the X-Mansion for the sole purpose of allowing them to state categorically that the school is still open; and finally he [[spoiler:saves his father's life]] during the final battle. He does nothing in between. The promo posters even showed Angel in an X-Men uniform despite the fact that he never officially joins the team (or dons a costume) during the movie.
*** The same can be said of Colossus -- he has one line (which is about as long as both of his two lines in ''Film/X2XMenUnited'' combined) and he's really only in the film for the FastballSpecial.
** ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'': [[Characters/XMen90sMembers Gambit]] has limited screen time, but manages to do a few things (sets/stops a fight between Logan and Sabretooth, takes Logan to the enemy base, and saves Logan in a BigDamnHeroes moment).
** ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'': Creator/AnnaPaquin as Rogue has a total of one scene (and a handful of seconds at that) in the theatrical release. She even got her own ''Empire'' magazine cover despite the fact that most of her scenes were cut from the final film.
** ''Film/XMenApocalypse'': [[Characters/XMen90sMembers Jubilee]] got a fair amount of focus in the advertising along with the co-stars who played the new recruits Cyclops, Jean, and Storm. In the middle of the movie, it looks like she's going to be on the same squad of rookies with Cyclops, Jean, and Nightcrawler, even going with them on their teen rebel mall trip as a heroic team of four to contrast the Horsemen. Then she gets knocked out and left behind at the mansion in the next scene, leaving the others as a PowerTrio instead.
** The trailers and TV spots for ''Film/Deadpool2'' heavily played up the introduction of ComicBook/XForce, complete with most of the team getting their own Twitter Emojis. [[spoiler:Domino is the only member of the team to actually get significant screentime, as Shatterstar, Bedlam, Zeitgeist, Peter and Vanisher are all KilledOffForReal very shortly after being introduced. The film's marketing was deliberately misleading to make their deaths come out of nowhere.]]
* Jay Laga'aia is billed prominently in ''Film/ZombiesZombiesZombies'', but actually plays one of the zombies, and gets maybe a couple of lines of dialogue before being turned.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* In season 5 of ''Series/TwentyFour'', Carlos Bernard was promoted back to the main cast as Tony Almedia after spending the previous season as a recurring character and appeared heavily in promotional materials. Tony then spent most of the first half of the season off screen in a coma, then when it reached the halfway point he was seemingly killed off for the remainder of the season. He was in a quarter of that season's episodes in total, compared to the rest of the cast who all appeared in at least half of the season if not more. In season 6 Regina King joined the main cast as Sandra Palmer, even getting the AndStarring credit for that year, yet she was only in a handful of episodes. In fact, she actually is notable for having the least amount of appearances total out of every actor or actress to ever be a main cast member on the show.
* In ''Series/BabylonFive'', Robert Rusler, who appears as Warren Keffer in 6 out of 22 episodes in Season 2 but is in the main credits for the entire season. A case of ExecutiveMeddling, since the network wanted J. Michael Straczynski to introduce a "hotshot ''Film/TopGun'' kind of pilot." The commentaries reveal that JMS ''hates'' this kind of character, and as soon as the network stopped giving him notes, he [[spoiler:offed the character as soon as he possibly could]].
* ''Series/BandOfBrothers'' includes Creator/SimonPegg in the opening credits of the first two episodes. He's in the background for a couple of scenes in the first episode and has just one line. He's killed off in the first five minutes of the second.
* In ''Series/BetterCallSaul'', Creator/MichaelMando is credited in all ten episodes of the first season, but his character Nacho Varga only appears in four of these episodes, and often only for just a scene or two. His role is greatly expanded for season 2.
* The ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'' season one DVD features Creator/PaulLynde on the label for its third disc. While fans would recognize Lynde as Samantha's Uncle Arthur, the actor actually only appears in one episode from the first season -- "Driving is the Only Way to Fly"--[[YouLookFamiliar as an entirely different character]].
* The third season DVD set of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' heavily feature images of [[WolverinePublicity Spike]] as much as the other post-season one cases do, and he even appears on the label of one of the discs. He also appears in only one episode of the entire season.
* Due to having LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, this is common on ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration''; in a given season, some characters will have lengthy story lines, while other become almost completely OutOfFocus, sometimes appearing in just a few episodes. Characters this has happened to include Toby, who, though prominent in the first few seasons, quickly became TheArtifact as the cast expanded, and Leia, who had two centric B-plots after she was introduced, then promptly disappeared.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E4TheVisitation "The Visitation"]]: John Savident as the Squire was promoted as the story's main guest star. He's actually a TeaserOnlyCharacter who gets murdered along with his family in the first scene, without even meeting any of the regular cast.
** In general, TheEighties producer Creator/JohnNathanTurner's controversial guest-star policy sometimes resulted in high-profile names cast in incidental roles. One intended case of this, ultimately averted, involved photographer Koo Stark (famous at the time for having had sex with Prince Andrew) playing of the matriarchal aliens in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E1AttackOfTheCybermen "Attack of the Cybermen"]], which JNT intended to milk for the notoriety value. Stark pulled out, however, and the role was played by an ex-children's television presenter instead.
*** Also averted with [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E6RevelationOfTheDaleks "Revelation of the Daleks"]]: Through a friend, Creator/LaurenceOlivier had expressed an interest in playing a role in ''Doctor Who'', provided it was on film. As JNT was abandoning film after this story owing to harrowing problems with the filmed portions of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E4TheTwoDoctors "The Two Doctors"]], what Olivier was offered was the last film role available, a minor alien extra in "Revelation". Olivier declined.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler "Let's Kill Hitler"]]: Hitler. Despite being the title character and featured in the trailers, he has about five minutes of screen time before he is punched out by [[MemeticBadass Rory]] and stuffed in the cupboard, where he is forgotten for the rest of the episode.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E8MummyOnTheOrientExpress "Mummy on the Orient Express"]]: Pop singer Foxes was promoted as one of the episode's main guest stars along with Frank Skinner. She appears briefly as a torch singer on the train doing a version of "Don't Stop Me Now", and was probably a computer program in-universe anyway.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall "Spyfall"]]: Creator/StephenFry as "C" was promoted as one of the main guest characters. He is assassinated not more than 15 minutes into Part 1 after only a few scenes. Given that the ''actual'' most important guest star in the story, who was [[SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer not announced at all]], is playing a WalkingSpoiler of gargantuan proportions...
* Tom Wopat and John Schneider famously held out during the fifth season of ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' and were replaced by Byron Cherry and Christopher Mayer playing their [[RememberTheNewGuy heretofore unmentioned cousins]] Coy and Vance Duke. After Wopat, Schneider and the studio agreed to terms, Bo and Luke returned. Even though Coy and Vance left 15 minutes into Bo and Luke's first episode back and were never seen nor referred to again, Cherry and Mayer were still shown in the opening credits the rest of the season.
* In the early seasons of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'', Dan Butler, who played Bulldog Briscoe. The character was ''very'' cut off from the "real" main cast of Frasier, Niles, Daphne, Roz and Martin, was a fairly two-dimensional coworker at KACL who only ever appeared as comic relief or a foil for Frasier or Roz, and had neither any specific importance to the show that would justify billing him along with the main cast, nor any deep connection to the rest of the billed characters. He was eventually dropped from the opening titles, appearing as a guest star in the end credits in the episodes he appeared instead. It's pretty jarring to see the character squeezed into promotional images and covers along with the five "real" leads, when Eddie the dog was more of a main character than he was. This was due to the original premise being that the series would focus on both sides of Frasier's life - work and home. They wanted characters from both sides to feature, and that's why Bulldog was in there along with Roz (because originally Roz wasn't supposed to become such close friends with Frasier). Obviously the dynamic changed and that's when they left him out of the photos.
* Grey Damon as Hastings Ruckle in Season 5 of ''Series/FridayNightLights''. Although billed as a main cast member, he gets fewer scenes than, for example, Dallas Tinker, who is listed as a guest star.
* The rules governing who will and who will not receive billing in the opening credits for ''Series/GameOfThrones'' seem increasingly arbitrary. Episode count and even amount of face time you receive per episode is apparently not a factor in whether or not you are billed in the opening credits as a regular or in the closing credits as a guest star. It is not uncommon for regular-billed actors to receive less screen time or appear in fewer episodes than non-regulars. Several of the actors billed as regulars are little more than semi-frequent guest stars, to wit:
** In the first season, Creator/ConlethHill appears in 6 episodes as Varys, but is billed as a guest star. He gets opening credits billing in every subsequent season, despite his appearances becoming less frequent. For that matter, Aiden Gillan's appearances have decreased each season, but he was credited as a regular from his first appearance onward.
** Creator/RoryMcCann's main role in seasons 1 and 2 is to stand around looking threatening, while uttering maybe one or two lines per episode. He is billed as a regular for both. He gets more screen time and character development beginning in the third season, though, and his development really took off in the fourth.
** Creator/JamesCosmo appears in five episodes in the first season, three in the second and four in the third. Guess which season only credits him as a guest star?
** Nearly all the Dragonstone crew, actors Creator/StephenDillane, Creator/LiamCunningham and Carice van Houten, seem to appear very infrequently compared to nearly all the others. Ms. van Houten appeared only four times in the second season, while Cunningham appeared in 6. While van Houten's appearances increased in the third season's, Cunningham's decreased. They hardly appeared at all in the fourth season. They have all been billed as regulars from their first appearance.
** Hannah Murray (Gilly) was added to the opening credits in Season Four, despite appearing in only three episodes; only half the amount of appearances she had in Season Three.
** Harry Lloyd appeared in five episodes. Credited as a regular for all of them.
** The series mostly copes with this problem by changing its opening titles for each episode, depending on who's actually in the episode. Most prominently, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau appears in only a few episodes during the second season, but when he does, he's always the third billed behind Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey. This was already the case, though less noticeable, in the first season, since all the regulars from the first season, barring Mark Addy and Harry Lloyd, appear in at least eight of the ten episodes.
** Played about as straight as possible in "First of His Name". Peter Dinklage (Tyrion) doesn't appear, so Nikolaj Coster-Waldau gets top billing, despite his only role in the episode being standing silently watching Tommen's coronation.
* From ''Series/{{Glee}}'':
** Tina, much of the time, is usually lucky to get two lines an episode. In the whole first season she had exactly one song to herself.
** Creator/JessalynGilsig is credited as a regular for the first 2 seasons but Terri stops appearing regularly after the first 13 episodes only having a few scattered appearances afterwards. In season 2 she only appeared in roughly 6 episodes.
* The Mother herself from ''Series/HowIMetYourMother''. She's in the fricking title and finally appears for real in the eighth season finale and her story is finally told throughout the final season. Her actress, Cristin Milioti, is billed as a regular cast member, but only appears in only half the episodes. This is apparently due to a rule by the showrunners that she is to only appear in episodes they personally wrote.
* The advertisements for the ''Series/ICarly'' episode "iFind Spencer Friends" hyped up Creator/EmmaStone as a guest star. When the actual episode aired however, we find out that she only appeared near the end of the episode, has about 30 seconds of screentime, and plays absolutely no role to the main plot.
* One of Creator/JimCarrey's first roles was in the 1981 television special ''Introducing... Janet'', where he gets second billing and his character doesn't appear until after at least 15 minutes. That special was released on video in 1995, shortly after he'd become a big star, and the packaging makes it look like he is the star of the special, being the main focus of all video covers, the only actor whose name appears on the cover (despite getting second billing), the video description talks about him more than the main character Janet, and when released on video the special was retitled ''Rubberface''.
* ''Series/KamenRiderGaim'': With the press that Gridon got in the beginning, being the unofficial fifth member of the show's cast and his identity kept a secret until his debut, most people were convinced that Gridon would be a major player. As it turns out, he only appeared in a third of the episodes and only became a main character during the last quarter of the show. This is because the Gridon suit was one of the first suits to be finished before filming began.
* ''Series/LoisAndClark'': Tracy Scoggins as Kat Grant, a society page reporter in the first season. Given little to do, dropped after the first season.
* Characters on ''Series/{{Lost}}'' are invariably either some of the most dynamic and developed characters on TV, or completely wasted. Daniel Faraday, an important character in season 4, [[spoiler:disappears]] for most of season 5, and [[spoiler:[[BackForTheDead dies immediately upon re-appearing]]]]. Caesar was hinted as being mysteriously integral to the plot before Season 5 but [[spoiler:he dies less then halfway through the season. Then he gets replaced by the equally mysterious "Bram" in a sense, who dies in the first episode of Season 6]].
* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
** ''Series/Daredevil2015'': Claire Temple during the first two seasons. She only appears in five out of 13 episodes in the first season, and she doesn't have any big impact on the plot after Matt saves her from the Russians. In the second season, she only has three episodes: an early episode where Foggy approaches her seeking help scouring the hospitals for Matt after he's captured by Frank, and later being asked by Matt and Brett to shelter kids they've rescued from the Hand (and later quitting when the Hand attack, and the hospital covers up the event). In between the two ''Daredevil'' seasons, she also got an extended cameo in the season 1 finale of ''Series/JessicaJones2015''. It wouldn't be until ''Series/LukeCage2016'' that Claire finally began to take on a more prominent role, functioning as Luke's sidekick for the second half of season 1.
** ''Series/IronFist2017'':
*** Ramon Rodriguez gets main credits billing, yet Bakuto has fewer episodes across ''Iron Fist'' and ''The Defenders'' than Madame Gao, who is considered a FakeGuestStar.
*** Creator/SachaDhawan, who plays Davos, gets main credits billing even though he's only in the last five episodes of the season. {{Justified|Trope}}, since he returned to be the main antagonist of the second season.
** ''Series/TheDefenders2017'': Due to the time constraints of eight episodes, juggling four leads AND a very large supporting cast, the supporting cast kinda get pushed to the wayside and save for Claire, Misty, and Colleen, have about maybe 12 to 15 minutes screentime max. Additionally, regardless of how much screentime they get, the supporting cast in question all get title credits billing depending on if they were billed in the title credits of whatever solo show or shows they originated in.
** ''Series/ThePunisher2017'': [[Creator/DeborahAnnWoll Karen Page]]'s appearances in the first season falls into the same trap that Rosario Dawson fell into during ''Daredevil'' season 1: Deborah Ann Woll was pushed front and center during the promotional work, when in the finished show, her role is that of a special guest star and only appears in 4 of the 13 episodes, and doesn't contribute much to the main plot beyond helping Frank find Micro's family, and later being part of the resolution to the B-plot when he has to save her life from Lewis Wilson. Meanwhile, Amber Rose Revah (Dinah Madani), the actual female lead of the show, was practically ignored. The marketing team for ''The Punisher'' team was widely suspect by many to be trying to draw in "[[CrackShip Kastle]]" shippers and viewers from ''Daredevil'', where Frank had originated, and Karen was the character who had the most screentime with him. In fact, Karen's inclusion wasn't a part of Steve Lightfoot's story plan at all to start, until he decided to find a place for her after watching her scenes with Frank in ''Daredevil'' season 2, which would explain why her scenes feel disconnected from the rest of the narrative.
** ''Series/{{Loki|2021}}'': [[ComicBook/VoteLoki President Loki]] was prominently featured in many marketing materials for the series, often in a way which implied that he is the same character as the Loki which serves as the show's protagonist. In the final show, he appears for about two minutes in a single episode.
* In ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' Creator/KatieMcGrath who plays Morgana has been in the main credits since day one, but numerous episodes (especially early on) feature Morgana doing very little beyond looking beautiful in the background. Sometimes this even extends to periods of the show when her character is playing a vitally important role (such as early Series 4) but still often results in very limited screentime.
* King Sphinx in ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers''. Despite only being in one episode of the entire series, he was nevertheless ''all over'' the merchandise for the first season of the show, from the action figures to the trading cards to the coloring books. He easily eclipsed Finster and Scorpina (who were main villains) in terms of exposure, and if one weren't super familiar with the show, it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to assume he was one of the main cast.
* Gregory Itzin was a series regular on the short-lived ''Series/MobCity'', but only appeared in four of the show's six episodes, and only had a speaking part in three of them.
* Various promotional images for ''Series/MuppetsTonight'' prominently feature Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and Animal, as if they are main characters, but due to Frank Oz's directing career, their presence on the show (especially Fozzie's) wasn't as big as it was on ''Series/TheMuppetShow''. Various promotional images for ''Series/TheJimHensonHour'' prominently feature Zondra and Ubu, who only appeared in two episodes.
* ''Series/TheOfficeUS'': Ryan has been part of the opening credits since the first season despite being an ultimately minor character with shifts in role and personality to justify his place there. His inclusion in the opening credits was sometimes questioned in later seasons, as he's now considered to be even less significant than other characters whose actors are not mentioned in the opening credit. He has been removed from the opening in season 9, but only because his actor BJ Novak has left the show rather than acknowledging that Ryan's role had diminished.
* ''Series/OnceUponATime'':
** Michael Raymond-James' character Neal Cassidy [[spoiler:aka Baelfire]] was written out of the series midway through season 3, but was still credited as a regular for the rest of it, even though he only made a few brief appearances in flashbacks for the remainder of the season.
** The show really hyped up Frances O'Connor being cast as Belle's mother for Season 4. She appears in one episode and only in the first five minutes.
** Alexandra Metz's casting as Rapunzel got a surprising amount of attention - for the RaceLift they gave the classic blonde, and the popularity of ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}''. She appears in a supporting role in just one episode.
** Season 5 heavily advertised that Lancelot, Ruby and Mulan were returning. Lancelot returns, has one episode in which he plays a decent role, and is DemotedToExtra with his story unresolved. Ruby and Mulan have just one episode.
** Subverted with the 100th episode. Cruella was advertised as returning, and only the outside of her car is shown in the episode itself. However she appears in subsequent episodes as part of a story arc.
* ''Series/PoliceSquad'' had this as a CreditsGag. The opening prominently credits "Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln!" who never appears in the show itself. And then the episodes introduce a "Special Guest Star" who is promptly killed off in the credits and never appears in the show or is even part of the plot.
* In ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai'', one of the selling points was the return of [[Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers Bulk]], now training Spike, the son of his former sidekick Skull. Unlike the early days of the franchise, Bulk and Spike only very rarely interact with the Rangers, almost never have any significance to the plot, and there are quite a few episodes that don't even include them at all. One scene where they do sort of interact with the Rangers outside an ice cream shot, they are shot entirely from behind, which only highlights how the majority of their scenes were shot completely separate from the main show.
* ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'' has Josie [=McCoy=] and Kevin Keller listed as main cast members, and they appear in its buffer promos for The CW. But by the second season both of them appeared with decreasing frequency and in the third they are both little more than extras and either do not appear in episodes at all or, if they do, may not actually be part of the plot or even have any lines.
* After not being included in the first two seasons of the show, the appearance of Tuck in the BBC's ''Series/RobinHood'' was loudly heralded amongst the advertisers for season three, and interviews with actor David Harewood mentioned a "dark back-story" for the character. Tuck gets one character-centric episode (which is just pointless filler), and is then a tag-along member of the gang from then on.
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'':
** Tim Meadows had one of the longest tenures but rarely was onstage. It even became a RunningGag in the backstage sketches. "Are you still on the show?"
** Starting with Creator/DennisMiller in TheEighties it's been traditional for a ''Weekend Update'' anchor to only appear in other sketches sparingly despite being credited as a full cast member. Creator/NormMacDonald, Creator/JimmyFallon, Creator/AmyPoehler and Creator/CecilyStrong did appear prominently in sketches, as did Michael Che once Jay Pharaoh left the show, but with the exception of [=MacDonald=], all of them were co-anchors. Their anchoring partners (Creator/TinaFey, Creator/SethMeyers and Creator/ColinJost) rarely if ever appeared in sketches. Seth Meyers did appear in sketches prior to taking the anchor job.
* ''Series/ScreamQueens2015'' heavily hyped up Ariana Grande appearing as Chanel #2. She's killed off in the pilot. In this case, she was meant to be in around nine episodes - but due to scheduling conflicts with her tour, she had to have her role cut down. To a similar extent, Charisma Carpenter (who played Grande's mother) was advertised as appearing on the show. She has just two brief scenes in one episode. Nick Jonas likewise was hyped up as being as prominent at Glenn Powell's Chad and Diego Boneta's Pete. He doesn't even appear in half as many episodes as they do.
* In the late 80s and early 90s, a series of ''Series/SesameStreet'' videos based on the Israeli co-production Rechov Sumsum called ''Shalom Sesame'', focusing on being a travelogue for Israel. Many of the video boxes for the individual shows released in the 90s show American ''Sesame'' Muppets front and center despite the fact that the Muppet on the box only appears in one partially dubbed segment in the show. An example is the Chanukah episode; the video box shows The Count and Elmo - they only appear near the very end during a dubbed "Do De Rubber Duck," where Elmo doesn't even have a line.
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'':
** Johnathan Schneider's character was killed off 12 episodes in the 5th season and only appeared in two episodes afterwards in that season but continued to be credited as a main cast member for the entire season. Another example is Creator/EricaDurance who played Lois Lane. In the first season she appeared in she was only ever billed as a Special Guest Star for the 13 episodes she appeared in. She is also the only character to appear on posters and the DVD box other than Clark himself. When she got a PromotionToOpeningTitles the following season she still only appeared in 13 of the 22 episodes, and it wasn't until around the penultimate season that she finally appeared in the majority of a season.
** [[spoiler:[[ComicBook/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]] has the worst case. [[spoiler:In a poster of season nine he is the only character depicted other than Clark. ''He does not appear at all.'']]
* ''Series/{{Soap}}'': All cast members are credited only in episodes where they actually appear. But since (a) the cast list in the closing credits is done alphabetically, (b) Jimmy '''B'''aio as Billy Tate rarely has anything to do even in episodes where he appears, and (c) CreditsPushback, he's sometimes the ''only'' cast member credited even if all he did was stand around in a family crowd scene or something. Even when the credits aren't truncated he's still always listed first in episodes he appears in.
* From the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' franchise:
** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': Yeoman Janice Rand was featured heavily in early promotional material alongside Kirk. In fact, she received more focus in the marketing than ''Spock'', and was intended to have a major role as Kirk's recurring love interest. [[ActorInspiredElement Grace Lee Whitney also contributed to the development]] of the tricorder and the DangerouslyShortSkirt worn by female crew. However Rand ultimately only appeared in the first half of season 1 due to Whitney's dismissal.[[note]]With explanations ranging from not wanting Kirk to have a serious girlfriend, Whitney spurning the advances of (or fending off an outright ''assault'' by) a Paramount exec, to substance abuse problems making her difficult to work with.[[/note]]
** Travis Mayweather on ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]''. He was the pilot (when Captain Archer was also a pilot, and perfectly able to take over for Travis when needed) and had previous extensive experience in space (which was less and less of an issue as the show progressed).
*** To a lesser extent, Hoshi Sato from Enterprise also qualifies. She was the linguist and communications officer. Most of her work is not particularly interesting, so while she does get some scenes doing her actual job, she's more often treated as an office intern doing whatever odd jobs need doing. Since the show suffers from severe TheMainCharactersDoEverything, this means she'll do things she is grossly unqualified for, such as manning the transporter (which 200 years later in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was manned at all times by specialist staff).
** Harry Kim on ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' applies as well, as with the exception of a few episodes that were specifically about him, he usually gets the obligatory one line.
** Jake Sisko in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''. Despite being credited as a main character for the show's entire run, the Son of the Emissary appeared in less than half of the show's episodes. Not as strong a case as Mayweather and Kim, as Jake was a well-developed character who saw a lot of development during the series. That his actor was a teenager for much of the show provides a reason for his relatively small number of appearances, since he was simply unable to shoot as much as the adults.
*** Jake was also never intended to be a full cast member either: his purpose, when the show was created, was to provide fodder for Sisko, as the original idea for the show was "a father tries to raise his son on the frontier." (In fact, according to the original series bible, Jake was listed as a recurring character instead of a major one.)
*** Becomes more blatant in Season 7, since not only is Jake OutOfFocus for much of the season, but the show's heavy usage of the same recurring characters means that several supposedly non-main characters (particularly Garak and Nog) significantly eclipse Jake in both screen time and plot relevance.
** Jett Reno of ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' was prominently featured in Season 2 trailers. She ''was'' a principal character in two episodes, but then disappeared for a large chunk of the season before showing up again in a couple of scenes for episode 12. (It may have something to do with the fact that she's played by Creator/TigNotaro.)
* Creator/MishaCollins is credited as a main cast member for all the season five and six episodes of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' he appears in, including the ones where, in his own words, he "turns up, gives a piece of sage advice and disappears."
* The trailers for season 2 ''Series/{{Titans}}'' featured Aqualad, with some of the marketing making it seem like he'd be joining the team as a major character. [[spoiler:In reality, he turns out to be a PosthumousCharacter who'd already been killed off five years prior to the start of the show, and the only episode he actually appears in is a flashback detailing the events leading up to his death.]]
* Suzie in ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'', sort of. She was listed in the opening credits of the first episode, and released beside the rest of the cast as a major character. Suzie was a member of Torchwood at the start of the first episode, and quite important to the first episode. [[spoiler:She's the villain of the episode, and ends up dying by the end of it.]]
* ''Series/TotalDivas'' Season 3 hyped up the new additions to the cast in {{Wrestling/Paige}} and Wrestling/AliciaFox. Paige was prominently featured, but Alicia appeared entirely in a supporting role. She didn't get an episode in which she did anything of note until the fourth season.
* Creator/KevinConroy was a member of the main cast for the first season of ''Series/TourOfDuty'', but the writers could never figure out how to properly integrate him into the storylines, as his character was a commander who normally stayed on base. Stuck in Hawaii with nothing to do for most of the working week, he set up a small stand on the beach and sold sketch portraits to tourists out of boredom. His character was dramatically killed off before the end of the season.
* Jenna in the second season of ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'', really doesn't do anything of note despite being a main character. Also Tyler in the first season, who's sole purpose seemed to be getting in fights with people.
* In ''Series/VeronicaMars'', Teddy Dunn's character Duncan Kane was written out midway through the second season, but continued to get credited in the show's opening for that year. [[spoiler:This notably did help hide his surprise return in the season finale where the paid an assassin to kill Aaron Echolls.]]
* Simon Reynolds as Daniel Dickinson in the first season of ''Series/Warehouse13''. A particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}} case in that ''several'' of the "guest stars" appeared quite a lot more than he did in that span. A case can also be made for Leena (Genelle Williams) who was 'credits only' in four of the twelve first season episodes, and, generally, until her key role in the final story arc, merely puttering doing something intuitive, and not really essential to the 'A' or often even 'B' storyline. Of the thirty-eight episodes of the first three seasons, she was only in the credits for twelve, despite technically being main cast.
* ''[[Series/WonderWoman1975 Wonder Woman]]'': This was common in the WWII era of the show. Lyle Waggoner was a known actor, but had been turned down for Batman in Series/Batman1966 and was best known as a supporting Good Looking Guy(TM) for Creator/CarolBurnett on Series/TheCarolBurnettShow. Creator/LyndaCarter was far more of an unknown, having appeared in a TV movie and an episode of the short lived Nakia (1974). They compensated for this by casting, among others, 1972 Oscar winner Creator/ClorisLeachman as Wonder Woman's mother - Queen Hippolyta. The part is so poorly fleshed out that Hippolyta is never even referred to by name.
* ''Series/TheWire'' didn't have much rhyme or reason to its opening credits. Early on they seemed pretty judicious about who got opening credits billing, even crediting people who had storylines centered around them as guest stars, but in the final season they moved a number of former guest stars into the opening credits, such as Neal Huff, Gbenga Akkinagbe, and Michael Kostroff, despite their characters not really doing anything more than they had in previous seasons. Also, Tristan Wilds and Jermaine Crawford received PromotionToOpeningTitles despite having less to do than the previous season.
* Sheena Easton, who plays Queen Anne, has a spot in the opening credits of ''Series/YoungBlades'' despite appearing for about a minute each in two of the first five episodes -- and one of those is just to explain that she's gone on vacation and a SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute will take her place. She gets a larger role in the next few episodes, but still doesn't appear at all in 6 out of 13 of them.
* Dustin Brooks from ''Series/Zoey101''. Through he is credited as a main character for all 65 episodes, he only appears in 25 episodes and rarely contributes to the plot in a major way.

[[folder:Music]]
The most common incarnation of this trope in music is when featured artists get credit either for backing vocals that would not be immediately notable, or an otherwise trivial contribution to the song. Another common phenomenon occurs when a musician becomes a big star, and recordings featuring them in minor instrumental or backing vocal roles at the start of their career are rereleased with their contribution exaggerated in the packaging.
* Music/TimMcGraw has had this happen many times.
** His collaborations with [[CreatorCouple longtime wife]] Music/FaithHill zig-zag this. "Let's Make Love" and "I Need You" had Tim as the lead artist, but were full-fledged duets that credited Faith; "It's Your Love" and "Meanwhile Back at Mama's" credited her for merely providing backing vocals, while "Angry All the Time" did not. On singles where Faith was the lead artist, "Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me" credited Tim's backing vocals, but "Like We Never Loved at All" did not (although he still appeared in the video).
** He got credit for singing a far-from-prominent backing vocal on then-labelmate Music/JoDeeMessina's late 2001-early 2002 hit "Bring On the Rain". Even more, he already had a single out at the time ("The Cowboy in Me", which actually succeeded "Bring On the Rain" at #1).
** "Diamond Rings and Old Barstools" gives full credit for the backing vocals by Catherine Dunn (his cousin).
** And again in 2016, when [=McGraw=] got full credit for a barely discernible backing vocal on Music/BigAndRich's "Lovin' Lately".
* Music/GeorgeJones got chart credit for Shooter Jennings' "4th of July" even though his only contribution to the song was singing a few bars of "[[SignatureSong He Stopped Loving Her Today]]" at the end — a part that was cut out of the radio edit!
* Music/KennyChesney:
** [[Music/BobMarley The Wailers]] sing a chorus at the end of Music/KennyChesney's "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven", and still received chart credit despite their part being cut from the radio edit. Strangely, said credit did not show up until the song's second week at #1.
** Zig-zagged: "You and Tequila" and "Wild Child" gave full credit to backing vocalist Grace Potter (of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals), but "El Cerrito Place" in between did not.
** "Settin' the World on Fire" gives credit to Music/{{Pink}}, who gives barely noticeable backing vocals, but also sings one line near the end.
** Kenny also had an inversion when Music/GeorgeStrait did not get duet credit on "Shiftwork" until it was halfway up the charts, as Kenny's label had to get permission from George's.
** An even more bizarre inversion is his guest vocal on Music/RebaMcEntire's "Every Other Weekend". A few stations had been playing the song before it was a single, so it was just listed as "Reba [=McEntire=] with Kenny Chesney" on the charts. Once it was released as a single, Reba's label couldn't get permission to keep Kenny on, so the radio edit [[FakeShemp replaced his vocals]] with co-writer Skip Ewing. However, due to Kenny's much bigger name recognition, most stations continued to play the Kenny version anyway. As a result, it was credited to "Reba [=McEntire=] with Kenny Chesney or Skip Ewing" for one week, then to ''just'' Reba for the rest of its run.
* As with "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven", David Nail's "Let It Rain" did not give credit to the barely-audible backing vocalist Sarah Buxton until it was just shy of #1.
* After Music/BrooksAndDunn split up, some of their solo singles displayed this:
** Kix Brooks' "New to This Town" credits [[Music/{{Eagles}} Joe Walsh]], whose only contribution is a very short guitar solo.
** Bizarrely, Ronnie Dunn's "Damn Drunk" credits Kix Brooks for backing vocals. As Kix was always the less prominent of the two, it's a Brooks & Dunn song in all but name.
* Similarly to the "Damn Drunk" example, Music/WynonnaJudd's 2004 single "Flies on the Butter" gave credit to Wynonna's mother Naomi, who provides backing vocals. Since they recorded as Music/TheJudds in TheEighties prior to Wynonna's BreakupBreakout, one is left to wonder why they didn't just credit it to The Judds -- especially since "Stuck in Love" four years prior did just that despite being from an otherwise-solo Wynonna album.
* Music/ClintBlack also gave credit to his wife, Lisa Hartman Black, simply for singing backup vocals on "When I Said I Do" and "Easy for Me to Say".
* Inverted with Ty Herndon's "It Must Be Love". Sons of the Desert sing a very prominent {{Call and Response|Song}} on the chorus, but received zero chart credit. On the other hand, Sons of the Desert ''did'' get chart credit on the country and Hot 100 charts for their counterpoint on Music/LeeAnnWomack's "I Hope You Dance", even though the pop remix omitted them.
* Accordionist Flaco Jiménez got a credit on The Mavericks' "All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down" entirely for, you guessed it, playing accordion.
* Another strange inversion: Roger [=McGuinn=] and Chris Hillman of Music/TheByrds recorded Music/BobDylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" (which the Byrds themselves had previously recorded in 1968) on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's 1989 album ''Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two''. Even though the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band features prominently on this version, it was credited to just [=McGuinn=] and Hillman.
* Music/BradPaisley's "When I Get Where I'm Going" credits Music/DollyParton, even though (as with "Bring On the Rain", above) she only sings barely audible background vocals that you may not even notice the first few listens.
* Also similarly, {{Music/Alison Krauss|AndUnionStation}} and Billy Dean got credit for backing Music/KennyRogers on "Buy Me a Rose". Dean can be heard echoing the line "rest of your life" on the final chorus, but he and Krauss are otherwise rather unobtrusive.
* Yet again with Krauss. She and Music/VinceGill can barely be heard singing backup on Music/MarkChesnutt's "It's Not Over", but they still got chart credit.
* Music/SaraEvans got full chart credit for singing backing vocals on The Warren Brothers' "That's the Beat of a Heart". To her credit, she sings one line by herself near the end.
* Similarly, John Rich sings backing vocals on Gretchen Wilson's "Come to Bed", and sings just one line on the bridge by himself, but still got full chart credit.
* On Music/BlakeShelton's 2014 single "My Eyes", barely-discernible backing vocalist Gwen Sebastian (a contestant on ''Series/TheVoice'', where Shelton is a judge) gets full chart credit.
* Music/{{KISS}} has had several examples of this:
** The group's 1979 album ''Dynasty'' featured Peter Criss on the cover, even though he played on only one song.
** Years later, the group's 1998 reunion album ''Psycho Circus'' prominently featured original members Criss and Ace Frehley on the cover and in promotions even though Criss only on one song and Frehley on two or three (Kevin Valentine and future member Tommy Thayer played drums and guitar, respectively, on most of the album).
* Music/TrishaYearwood:
** "Like We Never Had a Broken Heart" featured Music/GarthBrooks on backing vocals, which was enough to get him credit on the Canadian charts (this was before they sang duets together and got married). However, Garth did write the song for her (along with one of his usual writing partners, Pat Alger).
** She got full chart credit for a backing vocal on Josh Turner's 2008 single "Another Try", even though Yearwood had her own single ("This Is Me You're Talking To") out at the same time.
** Her 2014 single "[=PrizeFighter=]" has backing vocals from Music/KellyClarkson, who gets full credit despite being only in the background.
* An older example: Gus Hardin ([[GenderBlenderName a female]]) had a Top 10 hit in 1984 with "All Tangled Up in Love". The song gave full credit to Earl Thomas Conley, whose only contribution was a barely-noticeable backing vocal.
* Yet another inversion: A then-unknown Janie Fricke sang the entire third verse of Johnny Duncan's "Thinkin' of a Rendezvous" but did not receive chart credit.
** She did, however, receive credit for Music/MerleHaggard's "Natural High" on which, as with many examples on this page, she only sang backup.
* Music/PixieLott gets a "feature" credit on the Music/SelenaGomez song "We Own The Night" but she really only sings backing vocals. Even so, the backing vocals are almost buried in the mix.
* WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows references this in his review of "We Are Young" by Music/{{Fun}} and Music/JanelleMonae. He says that Monáe's part was so unobtrusive that he never even realized she was singing on it, then mocks the concept by claiming the video is now a crossover with [[WebVideo/YouCanPlayThis JewWario]], who appears on-screen for two seconds to say "hi".
* Music/ColbieCaillat on Music/TaylorSwift's "Breathe". It's supposed to be a duet, but Colbie's voice is so drowned out, it sounds like just Taylor sing. On a flipside, Taylor is this on Music/JohnMayer's "Half of My Heart" (who incidentally is an advertised on Music/FallOutBoy's cover of Music/MichaelJackson's "Beat It", where he only plays the guitar solo).
* Numerous songs that feature [[Music/TheB52s Fred Schneider]] as a guest just feature him making the occasional shout, rather than singing or rapping anything.
* One of the covers of "Big Yellow Taxi" is by the Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton. However, her total contribution throughout the song is less than 15 seconds.
* Subverted/avoided in the song "Sixth Avenue Heartache" by the Wallflowers. Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows sings background vocals, but the song is not credited as being by The Wallflowers featuring Adam Duritz.
* Andrew Ridgeley of Wham! did not record very much with Wham!, but was always listed as a member. His contributions included the occasional guitar playing and co-write, but most of their work was down to George Michael and session musicians. Ridgeley was mainly listed as a band member for his sex appeal. This is why George Michael has gone seamlessly from Wham! to his solo career, but Ridgeley has floundered.
* Subverted with the Music/TimMcGraw-Music/TaylorSwift duet "Highway Don't Care", which also features Music/KeithUrban on lead guitar (but not on vocals). The album credits both Urban and Swift, but on the charts, only Swift was credited due to her being the only one of the two who actually sings.
* "Hangover" is supposedly a song by Music/{{PSY}} featuring Music/SnoopDogg. If you heard it without seeing who's credited, you could be forgiven for thinking that it's a Snoop Dogg song with PSY providing backing vocals.
* "Uptown Funk" is supposedly a song by Mark Ronson, featuring Music/BrunoMars. However, one could easy think this is simply a Bruno Mars song with any random band playing (as opposed to many modern Santana songs where, despite the fact that he doesn't sing, it is easy to tell they are his songs by the guitar style).
* "Time of Our Lives" is a song equally credited to Music/{{Pitbull}} and Music/NeYo, and it appears on both their albums. Honestly, it feels more like Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, since he does 90% of the song. Pitbull does half the chorus and all the verses, while Ne-Yo only does the other half of the chorus and the bridge towards the end.
* Pharrell is credited as a feature in 2 Chainz' "Feds Watching", but apart of a very brief introduction, he only sings backing vocals in the chorus, which is completely unnoticeable without headphones.
* "Darker Than Blood" is by Steve Aoki featuring Music/LinkinPark. It actually feels closer to being "Steve Aoki featuring Chester Bennington", the other members make little contribution, and Mike doesn't rap in the song (he does give his vocals, but it's hard to notice).
* {{Inverted|Trope}} with Avicii's songs. The featured vocalists are never credited for their contribution, most notably Aloe Blacc in his smash hit "Wake Me Up!", despite the fact they sing the entirety of the song.
* "The South" by The Cadillac Three gave full credit to guest artists Music/DierksBentley, Music/FloridaGeorgiaLine, and Mike Eli (lead singer of the Eli Young Band), who sing "This is where I was born and this is where I'll die" during a SubduedSection. However, most of this part was cut from the radio edit, so they are only heard for a few seconds on the radio edit. Even on the full version, their vocals are so closely blended that it's hard to tell who they even are.
* Ricky Skaggs is credited for barely-discernible backing vocals on High Valley's 2014 single "Make You Mine" in the band's native Canada. However, the American re-release two years later did not credit Skaggs.
* Music/VinceGill is credited for an almost unnoticeable backing vocal and brief guitar solo on Music/ChrisYoung's 2016 single "Sober Saturday Night".
* Music/{{Lonestar}} lead singer Richie [=McDonald=] got full credit for a barely noticeable backing vocal on Mindy [=McCready's=] 1996 hit "Maybe He'll Notice Her Now".
* In 1994, record producer Scott Rouse remixed several of Creator/JeffFoxworthy's stand-up routines with musical backing, and usually choruses from contemporary country music artists as well. One of these, "Party All Night", credited Little Texas for singing the chorus... and oddly, also credited Rouse for his production work. This is especially odd since Rouse did several more of these (plus several more for Creator/BillEngvall), and this wasn't even the first of the bunch, yet none of the other ones went so far as to give him a chart credit.
* Strangely inverted on Music/RonnieMilsap's 1988 hit "Old Folks". The song was featured on one of Milsap's albums, and credited as a duet with co-writer Mike Reid. However, Reid sings most of the song either by himself or with Milsap on harmony, with Milsap only singing the second verse.
* Music/MarenMorris gets full chart credit for her barely noticeable backing vocals on Music/ThomasRhett's "Craving You".
* Rodney Atkins' 2018 single "Caught Up in the Country" credits the backing vocals provided by the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
* Jim Brickman songs frequently invert this. As Brickman is only a pianist and not a vocalist, all of his singles feature vocalists who are credited, while his name is still on the song for his piano work.
* Ewan [=MacColl=]'s track "The Manchester Rambler" has appeared on compilations of his daughter Music/KirstyMaccoll's work, on the basis that she sings backing vocals on it. If that's true, then it's historically significant as both Kirsty's earliest known recording, and a unique example of the two generations recording together -- but that still doesn't mean you can actually pick her out from the other backing vocalists, and it's by no means certain that she's actually on it at all.

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* Happened a lot when ''[[Wrestling/WWERaw Raw]]'' had the weekly celebrity guest hosts. Some would be routinely involved throughout the show. Others would only arrive, plug their project or whatever and barely be seen. Wrestling/TrishStratus had an opening introduction, one backstage segment and a short match for example. This was about fifteen minutes of screen time in a two hour show.
* Can happen when a PPV advertises a title match that turns out to be a SquashMatch. Most egregiously was [=WrestleMania=] 25 where the Intercontinental Championship between Wrestling/{{Rey Mysterio|Jr}} and Wrestling/{{J|ohnBradshawLayfield}}BL was hyped up. It was over in twenty one seconds. This will often happen when [[RealLifeWritesThePlot a wrestler is injured in the months between promotion material printing and the actual event]]. The wrestler can't perform a full match, so they do a squash or have him "attacked" back stage.
* Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley's {{parody commercial}}s were done in protest to their lack of [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]] bookings, despite the reported importance of The Motor City Machine Guns to the X and TagTeam divions.
* When Ring Warriors joined the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance in 2011, the NWA decided to use it to reestablish an NWA presence in the Caribbean. Several Puerto Ricans were brought in with help from Carlos Colon, Bahamian Bad Boy Bo Bo Brazell was contacted and Kahagas mouth piece, Haitain wrestler Tyree Pride, was brought out of retirement. Aside from Pride however, none of these wrestlers were used when Ring Warriors first started doing shows in the region in 2012, and it was PlayedForDrama when Wrestling/LaRosaNegra crashed a Nassau Bahamas show to [[NoFourthWall protest not being booked]].
* In 1990, WCW held a PPV called ''Capital Combat: The Return of [=RoboCop=]'' to help promote the release of ''Film/RoboCop2''. His involvement amounted to some backstage segments, doing a BigDamnHeroes by saving Wrestling/{{Sting}} from the Four Horsemen by ripping some flimsy bars off a shark cage...and that's basically it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Radio]]
* Trillian in ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' radio series doesn't have much character development, supposedly because the actress' performance didn't give Creator/DouglasAdams much to work with, and because her purpose was to have someone who Arthur could talk to about Earth, but Ford served that purpose just as well. Her character is much more developed in the later books (and in the movie).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Phillipe Loren in ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'' was advertised as the game's BigBad. [[spoiler:He's killed at the end of the first act.]]
* ''VideoGame/BioShock'':
** While Big Daddy ''is'' a big part of ''VideoGame/BioShock1'', the "Bouncer" one with that adorns the cover is not as present as it seems: it is only encountered in 5 areas out of 14 in the game, only in the black look with a drill in three (the others having the "Elite" version that is both white and dons a harpoon), and in the opening level it only appears in cutscenes. Also, only twice it is a mandatory battle - the first and last Big Daddies you fight in the game.
** The Handymen from ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' were heavily present in trailers for the game, being presented as the game counterpart for Big Daddies. In reality, only four of them appear, and they're just {{Elite Mook}}s with none of the story relevance of the Big Daddies.
* The cover, advertising and loading screens of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' all feature an [[SexSells attractive blonde in a skimpy bikini]]. Some people think that this is supposed to be the minor character of Tracey De Santa, making it this trope. The other possibility is that she is just a LadyNotAppearingInThisGame.
* In ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'', [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI Shantotto]] and [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII Gabranth]] were secret characters with no real effect on the storyline, only showing up in flashbacks. In the prequel, they're much easier to unlock, appear on the cover and are shown standing side-by-side with the other characters in the opening FMV...but they still have no role in the main story.
* The advertisement for ''VideoGame/JumpForce'' heavily featured Light Yagami overseeing battles, alluding to the idea he would be a major villain in the game. In the actual game itself, he contributes very little to the story mode and his arc is unresolved, instead ending on a blatant Sequel Hook.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfZestiria'', Alisha was heavily advertised alongside Sorey in just about every piece of promotional material prior to the game's release, even having a [[DownloadableContent DLC]] [[LimitBreak Mystic Arte]] as a preorder bonus, leading many to reasonably believe that she was the female lead. When the game was released, however, Alisha turns out to [[GuestStarPartyMember only be playable for a short while early on]], the rest of the party seems to very swiftly forget all about her not long after she leaves, and [[PutOnABus she's not even so much as mentioned for a very long time]], with the real female lead turning out to be Rose. This lead to many fans being upset about being misled. Bandai-Namco attempted to make up for this by releasing [[AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent an additional story taking place after the end of the main game featuring Alisha as the main character]] as DLC, but due the story being very short and linear, as well as having rather poor writing, it didn't help much, and for some it just twisted the knife further due to Rose being a SpotlightStealingSquad within the story itself.
* Your avatar in ''VideoGame/WhiteKnightChronicles''. [[NeverTrustATrailer Despite the trailers]] and the back of the box, Leonard is the main character of the game, and the character that you put all the effort into creating will be quickly relegated to standing in the background of cutscenes, nodding dumbly along with whatever Leo is saying, with no one bothering to even interact with him or her most of the time -- if your avatar even appears in the cutscene to begin with. You're not even required to have yourself in the party, whereas the game forces Leo in at various story points.
* ''Franchise/FireEmblem'':
** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', Hinoka easily has the least presence in the story of all the siblings from both sides. Unlike all the other siblings, she has barely, if any, impact or presence in the story besides her scenes in the pre-route split chapters and her recruitment chapters in ''Birthright'' and ''Revelation'', meaning that virtually all her screentime is limited to supports and My Castle skits. Hell, it has actually been discovered that she has more story lines in ''Conquest'' than in ''Birthright'', her own route! Possibly justified as she was added to the game fairly late into its development, after much of the story had already been finalized.
** The Avatar from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem]]'' is similar. Despite being promoted by trailers as a major mechanic (create your own Fire Emblem character), the Avatar has very little role in the plot past the Prologue, only existing as a SatelliteCharacter others can provide exposition to, and aren't even required to be in the party for most of the game. The masked assassin Legion is another example: being featured very prominently in promotional materials and being one of the few new characters to get official art. In the game proper, he's easily the least developed of the QuirkyMinibossSquad, and why he has [[SendInTheClones an army of clones of himself]] is [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment never explained.]]
** To promote ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', seven characters were added to ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'': the male and female versions of Byleth, the player character; Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard, the leaders of the three houses; Sothis, the mysterious "Girl on the Throne"; and Kronya, one of the villains. Of all of them, Kronya has the least amount of screen time, showing up in one chapter [[spoiler:to kill an important character, before being killed herself]], and having almost nothing to do with the overall storyline. It seems like she was only added to ''Heroes'' because of her [[{{Stripperiffic}} distinct]] [[SexSells appearance]].
* Tentomon and Gomamon appear on the PAL boxart for ''VideoGame/DigimonWorld'', alongside the playable Agumon, Biyomon, Gabumon, Palmon and Patamon, who in total make up the original lineup of main characters from the anime, of which this game is not an adaptation. Tentomon is only a common enemy in-game, with only his evolved form, Kabuterimon, available to the player character, so he is at least featured. Gomamon and all of his associated forms are '''entirely absent from the game'''.
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'''s marketing campaign heavily advertised the fact that Creator/PatrickStewart would be playing the voice of the series' perennial BigGood, Emperor Uriel Septim VII. In the actual game, he only has a few brief lines of dialogue before he gets killed during the tutorial mission.
* Promotional art for ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' heavily features Jedi Master Atris, portraying her as a kind of light side counterpart to Sith Lord Darth Nihilus. However, while she is important to the game's backstory, her involvement in the actual game is much smaller than it should have been; she was originally supposed to be a party member and, in an alternate ending, [[spoiler:replace [[EvilMentor Kreia]] as the BigBad]], but, like many other features, it was cut short by [[ExecutiveMeddling rushed development]].
** The same goes for Nihilus, who was also featured prominently in advertisements but had a diminished role in the actual game. Doubles as CoversAlwaysLie, thanks to a piece of promotional art which showed Atris and Nihilus in a lightsaber duel. [[spoiler:They're never in the same place at the same time]].
* ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami'' features a nameless bum. He is present in many promotional artworks and UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} emoticons and even serves as the narrator for the tutorial of the game. However, his actual canon-role to the story is to simply get killed in the first level, right after being introduced.
* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'':
** The cover of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' features many of the important characters over the series, though some only showing up during the final battle (Terra, Roxas and Xion) with special mention towards Namine who only appears in an optional missable scene in "The Final World" and in the game's ending cutscene. The former scene is so easy to miss that several fans were surprised when her name showed up in the credits. Similarly is the Darkling from ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsX Union X]]'' on the cover who doesn't even appear in the game at all.
** ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2'': WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse is featured on the cover alongside the main characters, but he only shows up in one scene of the story.
** Several trailers for ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' featured a scene with [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep Vanitas]] standing beside Young Xehanort and speaking to Sora. As it turned out, that scene was Vanitas's only appearance in the entire game, and to add to that the line he says in the trailers is his only ''line'' in the whole game.
* You'd think with a name like ''VideoGame/{{Skylanders}}: Spyro's Adventure'', that famed [=PlayStation=] mascot Franchise/SpyroTheDragon would be the main character, right? Wrong. Spyro's name was slapped on for being recognizable. In reality, Spyro's role in the game is no bigger than any of the other plastic toys. He isn't even the central character on the box art, that role belonging to Stealth Elf. As the series has grown in popularity, Spyro has only been pushed further away from the spotlight. He's still around, but it really doesn't matter if he's in the game or not at this point.
* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII'', five characters (Aleph, Beth, Daleth, Gimmel, and Zayin) are generally prominently shown. [[spoiler:Beth dies early on, Daleth drops out of the plot soon after, and Gimmel's importance is only revealed in a short sidequest in which you kill him. In the end, only Aleph and Zayin maintain prominence, with Hiroko and Lucifer being the other actual main characters.]]
* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', the European box art prominently shows Dante from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' on the cover, implying he is a major character. In the actual game, he only antagonizes the PlayerCharacter once or twice, past the first time you have to go out of your way to encounter him, and he has no meaningful impact on the story.
* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', Navarre is often advertised alongside the rest of the player's group of Samurai. However, while they are all important characters, Navarre bows out of the story after the first dungeon and is never mentioned again save for one unimportant sidequest. ''[[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse Apocalypse]]'', on the other hand, makes him a full-blown party member, subverting the trope.
* In ''VideoGame/PersonaQ2NewCinemaLabyrinth'', one of the InUniverse movie Labyrinths known as ''Junessic Land'' hypes up mighty carnivorous dinosaurs as the BigBad and the weak Herbivore Dinosaurs as protagonists. In reality, the carnivorous dinosaurs are nothing other than [=FOE=]s patrolling the upper floors and the Herbivore Dinosaurs are revealed to be [[GreaterScopeVillain Greater Scope Villains]] who refused to confront any carnivorous dinosaurs at all and ostracized anyone who doesn't follow the decision made by the majority of herbivores.
* Kasumi[[spoiler:/Sumire]] Yoshizawa got an especially large amount of focus in advertising for ''VideoGame/Persona5 [[UpdatedRerelease Royal]]'' to the point of frequently appearing alongside [[PlayerCharacter Joker]] himself, implying she'll be an important member of the Phantom Thieves. While her storyline does get some focus and development during the ''Royal''-exclusive third semester, she spends most of the game as a plot-irrelevant NPC, and is only directly playable in a handful of battles throughout the story before finally joining the thieves in [[spoiler:[[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Maruki's Palace]] during the True Ending route.]] If you fail to max out [[spoiler:Maruki's]] confidant in time (locking you into the ending route from the vanilla game), it's possible to go through the entire story without unlocking Kasumi as a playable party member.
* Similarly to the ''VideoGame/WhiteKnightChronicles'' example above, your created character in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' has almost no influence on the story, and might as well not even exist. They're not alone in this though. ''Every'' party member in this game except for Elma and [[TokenMiniMoe Lin]] seems to exist solely so that you have more than two party members to use.[[labelnote:*]]([[RequiredPartyMember Not that story missions even let you use]] [[CantDropTheHero any of them the vast majority of the time though.]])[[/labelnote]] This is especially jarring considering that this is a sequel to [[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1 a game]] with a ''very'' well-developed and lovable cast of characters who all had their turn in the spotlight.
* Sega's ''Rent A Hero No. 1'' for Dreamcast, the remake of the Genesis title ''VideoGame/RentAHero'', featured in each and every piece of promotional material Rent A Hiroko, the titular character's DistaffCounterpart. In the actual game, though, her presence is somewhat limited and, while the ending [[SequelHook sort of implies]] that she would have had a much bigger part in the sequel, no further games were ever made, thus making players wonder what all the fuss about her was about.
* ''VideoGame/PulpAdventures'' main menu screen is an artwork featuring several of the campaign's party members. While most of them are plot-critical protagonists directly involved in the plot, some others are much less prominent. Conan, Zorro, and the Lone Ranger are special characters only playable in their own level ([[ShowWithinAShow said levels represent the protagonists of the main timeline reading books]]). Also, the Spirit is available as a regular party member but he is completely optional (he must be bought with Prestige Points instead of being obtained for free when the plot proceeds).
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Poliwhirl was ubiquitous in early ''Pokémon'' merchandise, despite being almost completely ignored in the games (it's the middle stage in an evolutionary line), and never having more than a cameo role in the anime's first two seasons. This may have been due to it being a personal favorite of Satoshi Tajiri, or possibly just the fact that its simple shape made it an easy merch target.
** With the start of a new generation, a Mythical Pokémon is generally revealed either first or very early on. As the name implies, Mythical Pokémon are unobtainable in a normal playthrough outside of limited-time events, and as such a player is likely never going to even hear of them, much less fight/catch them.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' were the first games to feature unique OlympusMons for each game, but Lugia and Ho-Oh weren't important to the plot at all. In fact, you could beat the TrueFinalBoss without ever fighting them. The remakes fixed this by making them required encounters.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' had Zorua and Zoroark as some of the first new Pokémon to be revealed. However, neither can be encountered in normal gameplay; they could only be accessed with event Pokémon (the events required to get either of them are long past) and aren't used by any Trainer [[spoiler:aside from N in his final battle]]. This is cited as one reason why Zoroark failed to [[FollowTheLeader follow in the footsteps]] of resident BreakoutCharacter [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Lucario]], leading to Zorua and Zoroark becoming common in later games.
** Promotional art and trailers for ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRanger Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia]]'' made a great showoff about surfing on an Empoleon's back as one of the main things in the game. How many times it happens? ''Once''. Two or three if you want to go for HundredPercentCompletion.
** Advertisements for ''VideoGame/PokemonSuperMysteryDungeon'' featured Latios and Latias among several [[OlympusMons Legendary and Mythical Pokémon]] that would play a major role in the story or a boss battle. They appear towards the second half of the game, only to have a few lines before [[TakenForGranite turning to stone]] [[SacrificialLamb for the rest of the story]] (they are recruitable during the post-game).
** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'':
*** The game's trailers revealed Zygarde's new formes, which made it appear as if it would have a big role in the plot (particularly since, unlike Rayquaza, Giratina and Kyurem, it never got an UpdatedRerelease or sequels focusing on it). In-game, Zygarde is nothing more than a CollectionSidequest with no plot significance.
*** The Ultra Beasts were hyped up as having a big role, while in the actual game only UB-01 Symbiont/[[spoiler:Nihilego]] has any role in the main plot, with the rest being shunted off to postgame status.
*** The Tapus, despite being presented as Alola's revered guardian deities, play miniscule roles overall. While Tapu Koko gets decent screentime during the main game, the other three are never seen until the main story's over and are otherwise glossed over, receiving offhand mentions at best.
* ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'': The interns at the Motherlobe end up being this. While they are prominent characters in the first few hours of the game, this prominence drops off around the time the player finishes the casino mission at the Lady Luctopus, relegating them to nothing but fancy-looking [=NPCs=] who maybe have a quest for you. [[spoiler:They make a triumphant return in the end to help Raz against Maligula, though.]]
* ''VideoGame/MiddleEarthShadowOfWar''
** The Balrog Tar-Goroth was featured heavily in the game's advertisement, indicating he'd be a major antagonist working for Sauron and sent to hunt down Talion and the Wraith. Turns out in the game itself that he is a secondary villain with no direct relation to the plot - he was awakened by an entirely unrelated event and is causing destruction on his own. [[spoiler:He appears for only two missions very early in the questline he is involved, and he isn't even the ArcVillain, but rather the necromancer Zog the Eternal (who is trying to bind the Balrog to his service).]]
** The Agonizer is a subversion: he got his own trailer, but he follows the exact same rules as every other orc, appears at random, and it's possible to permanently kill him during your first few hours, so he can be made one if the player so chooses.
* Mog in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' is featured heavily in the English SNES version's advertising, being the only character to appear on the cover, and the only one to appear in the TV commercial and magazine ads. Even so, he's irrelevant to the plot, being an optional character who's easily missed, and his only other appearance is in a brief tutorial sequence near the beginning.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' features five of its party members on the cover. Zidane is TheHero and Garnet, Steiner and Vivi all have major roles in the story and significant CharacterDevelopment but Amarant is the last to join, and has the least overall role in the game's story.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' has Lunafreya Nox Fleuret billed as the game's main heroine, and side materials such as ''Anime/KingsglaiveFinalFantasyXV'' and the ''Brotherhood'' anime set her up to be a prominent figure, but she only appears for roughly half an hour of the 30+ hour game, and even then very little of it is spent interacting with the main heroes and/or [[spoiler:alive]]. Especially egregious in the ''[[UpdatedRerelease Royal Edition]]'', where she appears on the cover of the game, but her added screentime amounts to a brief cutscene of [[spoiler:her spirit appearing to provide a DeusExMachina to help the heroes get past a magic barrier, with little in the way of new insight on the character]].
* Early posters and promo material for ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' tended to make a big deal out of a gang of OriginalGeneration characters: the opening even shows off one of each class, in the form of Altera, Arjuna, Scathach, Ushiwakamaru, Jekyll, Mephistopheles, and Darius. Saber Artoria Pendragon is also prominent in nearly all early material, if not outright front-and-center. However, while all of them are playable, most of the group aren't particularly plot-relevant; the first four at least have semi-prominent showings in various story chapters or limited events, but the others are lucky if they even get cameos. Artoria stands out in particular, because she's only appeared ''once'' in the entire main story, in a flashback. Ironically, the game showcases a lot of future versions or past versions or alternate versions of her, some of whom have been extremely prominent and popular... leaving the version of her that shows up in all the advertising in the dust.
* The trailers for ''VideoGame/HuntDownTheFreeman'' made it appear as though Gordon Freeman (the protagonist of the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' series of games) was the BigBad of the game. However, he actually only shows up in one scene at the end, and the BigBad is [[spoiler:someone else posing as Freeman]].
* In ''VideoGame/BlazblueCrossTagBattle'', [[spoiler:[[WebAnimation/{{RWBY}} Yang Xiao Long]]]] is never fought in any of the game's story modes. In Episode: RWBY, [[spoiler:she appears at the beginning, goes off to look for the Keystones and only returns at the end to cover for the injured Ragna while Ruby and Weiss deal with the BigBad. As a result, [[TheUnfought she is the only character who never fights in any capacity in the story]]; other [=DLC=] characters appear as opponents in fights and even have prominent story roles]].
* [[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zxo9Ve0LWW4/maxresdefault.jpg The Japanese box art]] for ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' prominently features Yoshi on the cover along with the five party members, suggesting that he's a major character in the game. Yoshi is only prominently featured in one optional area and while he can be summoned into battle with a certain item, he has no involvement in the main story.
* Waluigi appears in a lot of group art of ''[[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Super Mario]]'' major characters, despite not appearing in any mainline games and only making physical appearances with playable roles in the franchise's [[SpinOff spin-offs]], like ''VideoGame/MarioTennis'', ''VideoGame/MarioParty'', and ''VideoGame/MarioKart''. For example, the picture on this Wiki's [[Characters/SuperMarioBros character page]] for the franchise contains Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Bowser, Bowser Jr. (main characters), Franchise/DonkeyKong, VideoGame/{{Yoshi|sIsland}}, VideoGame/{{Wario}} (major supporting characters with their own franchises that behave as sister series to ''Super Mario''), Goomba, Koopa Troopa, Koopa Paratroopa, Boo (recurring {{Mooks}}), Birdo (appeared in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'', a main series game), and Waluigi (no notable distinguishers). He also fits the "advertised" part, as he was apparently important enough to get some [[https://www.mariowiki.com/Gallery:Waluigi#Miscellaneous vector artworks]] in the style that Nintendo uses for merchandise.
* The ContemptibleCover and print ads for ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' focus on [[MsFanservice Jeanette Voerman]], a minor character who ceases to be plot relevant after the first few missions ([[spoiler:if she even lives that long]]).
* Darth Vader appears on both the front and back cover of ''[[VideoGame/LegoStarWars LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars]]'', and on the front appears as a looming [[FloatingHeadSyndrome floating head in the sky]] alongside General Grevious, but given that the game only covers the first two seasons of its [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars source material]], before that show even foreshadowed Anakin's dark transformation, Vader is only playable after collecting all the minikits for "Legacy of Terror".
* [[https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Файл:FPFP_box.jpg The box art]] for ''VideoGame/FreddyPharkasFrontierPharmacist'' said "Meet the great-grear-grandpappy of Leisure Suit Larry" making the game look like a prequel to ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry''. But nope, that's not Freddy, who couldn't differ from Larry more even if he tried. The advertised ancestor is plot-irrelevant Zircon Laffer, who appears in 1 scene with 1 line.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsIntoReverie'', the infamous OverarchingVillain of the ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'', the Grandmaster, is the cover of the game. Trailers even show that she's weaving three different lights (representing the three protagonists of the game, [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel Rean]], [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZeroAndTrailsToAzure Lloyd]], and the brand new character "C") and combining the three lights into one with her hand. In-game however, [[spoiler:she only shows up ''once'' in a special episode for the future Calvard arc, talking with both [=McBurn=], and the newly elected president of Calvard.]] Also those three lights? [[spoiler:turns out they represent the prequels for what is to come in the Calvard arc.]]
* The boxart, and indeed name, of ''VideoGame/BalanWonderworld'' might lead you to think that Balan himself is the main/playable character of the game. Instead you control a couple of generic children, while Balan is limited to a handful of cutscenes.
* ''Wandersong'' Prominently features Viola, an npc that only appears in two chapters, and only sort of drives the events of one, and Eyala, a character that despite appearing semi-frequently, only "starts" the adventure before largely becoming irrelevent to the plot, right next to [[TheProtagonist The Bard]]. Meanwhile, Miriam, who is the game's SupportingProtagonist, is off to the side and further away.
* The amount of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilVillage'' marketing featuring Lady Dimitrescu would make you think she's either the main villain or really important. However, she's merely the first major boss and you beat her early in the game. [[ZigzaggedTrope That being said]], this is offset by the fact that her level is the most extensive in the game, and even more is that she's an active obstacle for much of it. Out of all the bosses, she's the one that you'll personally encounter the most.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'':
** The Mad Thinker narrates the opening of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oRwpy66NXc this trailer]], but only appears in episodes 5 and 6. The writers even relegated his demise into one of the short stories included in the tie-in comics.
** ComicBook/BlackWidow appears on the cover of the Australian Blu-Ray compiling the first season. In actuality, only six of those episodes feature her, though her subplot strongly ties into the main events.
** The Australian Blu-Ray package for Season 2 has both her and [[Characters/ShieldDirectors Nick Fury]] on the cover, due pretty much only to their prominence in [[Film/TheAvengers2012 the movie]]. ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} and Franchise/SpiderMan are shown as well, despite only appearing in three and two episodes respectively (one of which was a big CrisisCrossover with [[Characters/CaptainAmericaHeroes The Falcon]], ComicBook/LukeCage, Comicbook/IronFist, [[Characters/IronManHeroes War Machine]], the ComicBook/FantasticFour, and pretty much every other hero that ever appeared on the show). They're only on the cover because [[WolverinePublicity they're two of Marvel's most popular characters]].
* The DVD collection of the complete ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersUnitedTheyStand'' has a cover showing stills from the series in a star. Front and centre are headshots of Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse stars Comicbook/CaptainAmerica and Comicbook/IronMan, with Cap also appearing in a group shot. The two characters appear in one episode each.
* Roberta Tubbs from ''WesternAnimation/TheClevelandShow'' was billed as a main character, but her screentime was much smaller compared to the rest of her family. While [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Meg]] and [[WesternAnimation/AmericanDad Hayley]] both got DemotedToExtra over time, they at least started out as prominent characters on their respective shows; unlike the other two, Roberta was ''never'' prominent to begin with.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'': Runaan is hyped by the promos as one of the major characters of the show. He however, only has any relevance in 4 out of the 9 episodes of the first season, most of which he is rather secondary and contributes relatively little to the plot compared to other major characters.
* ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'': Cheese and Berry frequently appeared in advertisements and merchandise for the series in the mid-to-late 2000s, the former especially. Cheese only had a major appearance in three episodes (and minor appearances in three more) while Berry only appeared in two.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'' has a villain named Kid Carrion, who resembled a zombie cowboy. His appearances in the show's opening suggests that he was intended to be a recurring villain, but his only appearance in the actual series is a silent cameo in "Relax-O-Vision". He doesn't even appear with the other villains in the show's GrandFinale in spite of one-shot villain Invisibo being among them.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' spoofs this trope: in the opening credits for the first film, "[[Recap/FuturamaM1BendersBigScore Bender's Big Score]]", the new character [[http://theinfosphere.org/Zylex Zylex]] is announced with great fanfare... only to appear just for a couple of seconds, while begging for food!
* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'': Nadine is the most prominently featured girl in the opening sequence aside from Helga, but in the series, she's either a background character or a SatelliteCharacter to Rhonda.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheHollow'': Death was in the show's trailer as much as the other characters, but he only appears as a major character in the third episode, with another brief appearance in the finale.
* Although she gets a lot of screentime, Minka in ''WesternAnimation/LittlestPetShop2012'' has not had an episode focused on her as of late 2013 and is the only major character with this distinction. She has received a B-plot in two episodes, however, but in both cases, Minka is incessantly doing one single thing for most of the B-plot, meaning the story makes very little progression. For most of the rest of the series, she just hangs out with the other main characters doing whatever they're doing.
* Pieces of merchandise for ''WesternAnimation/TheMrMenShow'' feature Little Miss Fun from the original books despite her never actually appearing in the series. She was most likely there to replace Little Miss Calamity, who was removed in the second season, as director Mark Risley said Little Miss Fun wasn't meant to be a character.
* Bunsen and Beaker have their own line in the ExpositoryThemeTune of ''WesternAnimation/{{Muppet Babies|1984}}'', but they only make occasional appearances on the show itself.
* ''Franchise/ThePowerpuffGirls'':
** In the TV special "Dance Pantsed" heavily promoted special guest star Music/RingoStarr. He has about three minutes of screen time and he doesn't even sing. And while a song & music video for "I Want To Be A Powerpuff Girl" ''was'' shown during the special's breaks, it wasn't part of the actual story.
** Despite appearing in the promotional material, posters, animated bumpers, video covers, and even the intro amongst the villain roster, Roach Coach had only one starring episode and, after he is revealed as a cockroach operating a human-like robot body, he never returned even for in-episode cameos.
* ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'':
** The title sequence of ''WesternAnimation/ShaggyAndScoobyDooGetAClue'' featured silhouettes of Fred, Daphne, and Velma in spite of the series having them out of the spotlight for the majority of the series in favor of focusing on Shaggy and Scooby. The only episodes to have the entire Scooby Gang together and with every member having a speaking role are the series premiere "Shags to Riches" and "Almost Ghosts", with the episode "Inside Job" only featuring Fred and Daphne as silent cameos.
** The featured guest of the second episode of ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndGuessWho'' is claimed to be UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln, but the ''real'' featured guests are the cast from ''WesternAnimation/TheFunkyPhantom'', while Lincoln only appears in the show for about five minutes, [[spoiler:before being revealed as Mudsy in disguise]].
* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'':
** Frosta is one of the Elemental Princesses and shows up in the opening and promotional material as a major character and in equal importance to characters like Mermista and Perfuma, but she appears very little compared to them, not helped by her late introduction in the first season. [[spoiler:She leaves right after that and doesn't show up again until the Season 1 Finale as an EleventhHourRanger to join the Rebellion.]] Averted in later seasons, though, where Frosta remains a recurring part of the ensemble cast [[spoiler:with a full focus episode in season two, and some cute interactions with Scorpia in season four.]]
** Netossa and Spinnerella were portrayed as secondary characters that would be a source of help to the main characters, but they show up in the background only and only even speak or act in the Season 1 Finale. Even in the fourth season, where they got a focus episode, we don't learn much about them, and as much of the episode's focus is on Glimmer becoming more ruthless and willing to make morally dubious decisions to win as anything related to Netossa and Spinnerella.
** Downplayed with Rogelio, the LizardFolk cadet in Adora and Catra's squad. He was supposed to be a secondary character as much as Kyle and Lonnie, but he has much less characterization and screen time than either of them and doesn't even speak through all the first season. Most aspects of his personality can only be inferred and his name was only revealed by the crew's Twitter. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] when he is finally named in the series during season two, and Scorpia has no idea who Lonnie is talking about until she spells it out.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' is rife with this:
** Maggie Simpson in general. Marketing treats her as one of the show's core characters, but she in reality has far less screentime than many of the non-Simpson-family characters. Since she is a baby, she is usually little more than a LivingProp.
** The deal they made out of Music/{{U2}} appearing on [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E22TrashOfTheTitans the 200th episode]] and they only had a scene and a bit. Before that was "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E10LisasFirstWord Lisa's First Word]]", the episode "starring" Creator/ElizabethTaylor... wherein she spoke one word! (But it was [[spoiler:Maggie's ''first'' word]], so it was pretty important.)
** Creator/DenisLeary in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS20E2LostVerizon Lost Verizon]]". He gets five minutes of screen time. And is portrayed as ''an utter psychopath''.
** Another that was heavily advertised was Creator/AlysonHannigan; her character has very limited screen time and only has three lines of dialogue.
** Sky's (and FOX's) promotion of "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS22E1ElementarySchoolMusical Elementary School Musical]]" was pretty bad too, emphasising the guest voices of ''Series/{{Glee}}'' regulars Lea Michele, Amber Riley and Cory Monteith while completely ignoring the presence of Music/FlightOfTheConchords, even though Messrs. Clement and [=McKenzie=]'s characters had far more screen time, were essential to the plot, and writing original songs for the episode!
** Parodied in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E12SundayCruddySunday Sunday, Cruddy Sunday]]" with Music/DollyParton, who appears in the Super Bowl halftime show, only she's wearing a [[GoofySuit Snoopy costume]]. This is commented on at the end of the episode.
** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E6BartStar Bart Star]]" was advertised as a {{Crossover}} with ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' even though Hank Hill is on screen for only a few seconds. It probably set a record for shortest {{Crossover}} ever made. Additionally, WordOfGod says these shows don't exist in the same Universe, making it even weirder.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E6TodayIAmAClown Today I Am a Clown]]" Lisa mentions having an imaginary Jewish friend named Rachel who she created to make up for having no real friends when she was younger. Rachel finally makes an appearance in the 600th episode. [[spoiler:Except that 600th episode is "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS28E4TreehouseOfHorrorXXVII Treehouse of Horror XXVII]]", and Rachel is a murderous spirit who kills all of Lisa's friends out of revenge for Lisa forgetting her.]]
** Creator/KevinSmith's appearance in "Highway To Well" was hyped up. He only has one line of dialogue and five seconds of screen time.
** There's promo art of baseball player Randy Johnson's appearance in "Bart Has Two Mommies". He has no plot relevance to the episode, appearing in a 30-second CutawayGag in the first act where he threatens Ned Flanders into buying his merchandise at a convention.
** Rapper 50 Cent was promoted as appearing in "Pranksta Rap". He does, but only in a short scene where he drives by Bart and offers him encouragement. 50 Cent doesn't appear for the rest of the episode.
** "Husbands and Knives" features ''five'' guest stars, although none of them appear after the episode's first act and only have a few lines.
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
** Parodied in the early episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS1E4BigGayAlsBigGayBoatRide Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride]]". Creator/GeorgeClooney was advertised as a guest star on the show. Yet, in the episode itself, he is just Stan's gay dog, Sparky. All he does is bark. Similarly, another episode features Jay Leno providing the meowing sounds of Cartman's cat.
** Played straight, however, with Music/IsaacHayes as Chef. The end credits for the first 9 seasons featured the credit "Featuring the voice of Isaac Hayes as "Chef"" right after listing the voice cast, even if Chef had no lines in an episode or didn't appear in the episode at all.
** Downplayed with Kenny. In the early seasons, Kenny would die in nearly every episode, usually not appearing again until the next episode. After season 7, Kenny started to star in more episodes, though still noticeably less often than the other three main characters.
** Promotional trailers for "[[Recap/SouthParQVaccinationSpecial The Vaccination Special]]", heavily featured Wendy, Bebe and Red, and Stephen Stotch. In the actual episode Red is a background character, Bebe has a brief speaking role, Wendy doesn't even have a role, and Stephen is only used for a few quick gags.
* A ton of celebrities were advertised to appear in the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' 10th Anniversary special, "Truth or Square" but almost all of them only made cameos, most of them don't even appear in the trimmed-down rerun version. ''None'' of them appear in the animated segments and instead appeared in the live-action Patchy segments. This trope is however, averted with Music/{{Pink}}'s appearance as she got to sing "We've Got Scurvy".
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWarsSeasonSeven Season 7]]: Obi-Wan Kenobi is featured ''very'' prominently in the poster for the season, standing alongside Ahsoka and Anakin and towering over the other characters featured in the poster. He pops up in four episodes and is only around for short periods of time in each one. Conversely, the Bad Batch and the Martez sisters are far more prominent, despite being smaller in stature on the poster.
* Most of the regular cast from ''WesternAnimation/TazMania'' is acknowledged in the opening, including characters whose appearances were very few and far-between (including Wendell T. Wolf, Buddy Boar, The Kiwi, and The Bushrats). In fact, some of those characters who ended up appearing in many episodes (such as Digeri Dingo and Francis X. Bushlad) weren't in many episodes during the first season.
* Both Ironhide and Arcee were actually given this treatment in the Japanese opening for ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated''. Ironically, according to the [=AllSpark=] Almanac, Ironhide ''was'' intended [[AscendedExtra to become a main character]] in the fourth season before the show was canceled at three.
* Cliffjumper was one of the main advertising faces of the ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' promos, got a preview comic devoted to him and even a handful of figures when the toyline was released, and generally seemed to be the future main-character of the show. [[spoiler:He dies within the first couple of minutes of the pilot, then becomes a zombie and is killed again, and only gets a Flashback episode halfway through the series. After that, he received several ''other'' toys depicting him as a Terrorcon zombie.]]
* All of the major celebrity players on ''WesternAnimation/UltraCitySmiths'' are credited for every episode, even the ones they don't appear in. Most notable is Creator/KurtwoodSmith's character Carpenter W. Smith, who only appears in the first episode before being killed off, setting the main events of the show into motion.
* ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'': Much of the marketing for Season 7 played up the importance of Adam, Shiro's ex-boyfriend. This even included images of Adam and Shiro being used as official headers for the show's Netflix page. [[spoiler:In reality, Adam only appears in two flashback scenes, and ''[[BuryYourGays dies]]'' at the end of the second. The character's fate and general lack of importance ended up igniting an internet firestorm, with one of the show's creators even issuing an apology on Twitter.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries'':
** Despite being one of the main team members in the intro, Beast is arrested halfway through the second episode and spends the rest of the season in jail, only appearing briefly a few times for the rest of the season. The following seasons would make up for this, making him a full-time member of the team again.
** Nightcrawler is depicted on the cover for Volume 2 of the DVD series, despite only making a brief cameo in one episode on the disc, and a non-speaking one to boot. His starring episode wasn't included until a later DVD.
[[/folder]]

* ''VideoGame/SplinterCellConviction'' has Prentiss, who is prominently featured in the demo for the game, but is never physically met in the actual game (though it is implied he is the one driving the helicopter that attacks at the end of Michigan Avenue Reservoir).

** ''Series/{{Loki}}'': [[ComicBook/VoteLoki President Loki]] was prominently featured in many marketing materials for the series, often in a way which implied that he is the same character as the Loki which serves as the show's protagonist. In the final show, he appears for about two minutes in a single episode.

* The amount of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilVillage'' marketing featuring Lady Dimitrescu would make you think she's either the main villain or really important. However, she's merely the first major boss and you beat her early in the game.

** The Handymen from ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' were heavily present in trailers for the game, being presented as the game counterpart for Big Daddies. In reality, only fours of them appears and they are just [[EliteMook Elite Mooks]] with none of the story relevance of the Big Daddies.

* ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami'' features a nameless bum. He is presents in many promotional arts, as well as UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} emoticons and even serve as the narrator for the tutorial of the game. However, his actual canon-role to the story is to simply get killed in the first level, right after being introduced.

* While Big Daddy ''is'' a big part of ''VideoGame/BioShock1'', the "Bouncer" one with that adorns the cover is not as present as it seems: it is only encountered in 5 areas out of 14 in the game, only in the black look with a drill in three (the others having the "Elite" version that is both white and dons a harpoon), and in the opening level it only appears in cutscenes. Also, only twice it is a mandatory battle - the first and last Big Daddies you fight in the game.

* Songbird Serenade in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017'' is featured front-and-center on displays at stores as if she is the protagonist, has her own plush toy, a large plastic doll, and a lot of other miscellaneous merchandise, but she appears only at the beginning, for one scene halfway through, and for the first credits song, with very little plot relevance. Undoubtedly this is to draw in fans of Music/{{Sia}}, as she voiand yet ces Songbird and is the basis for her design. Averted with the advertisement not related to the toys though, in which she is either in the background or absent entirely.

** To a lesser extent, some social media ads played up YouTube star Glozell's character, Grandma Rosiepuff. She only appears in flashback, shouting a few distorted lines before being killed off.

* Songbird Serenade in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017'' is featured front-and-center on displays at stores as if she is the protagonist, has her own plush toy, a large plastic doll, and a lot of other miscellaneous merchandise, but she appears only at the beginning, for one scene halfway through, and for the first credits song, with very little plot relevance. Undoubtedly this is to draw in fans of Music/{{Sia}}, as she voices Songbird and is the basis for her design. Averted with the advertisement not related to the toys though, in which she is either in the background or absent entirely.

* ''Film/SafetyPatrol:'' Security Chief Penn (Creator/LeslieNielsen) appears alongside Scout on the [=VHS=] cover even though he only has about ten minutes of screen time.

* Any fans of B movies know that if the B movie heavily advertises a "name actor" being in the film, there is a high chance they are barely even in the movie.