Casting Gag / Western Animation

• Casting director Andrea Romano has made an award-winning career out of casting gags and a huge Production Posse. She's probably the fourth most important person in the DC Animated Universe after Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and Alan Burnett.
  • Batman: The Animated Series
    • Arguably the best casting gag of the DCAU was in Batman: The Animated Series when Adam West was cast to play a washed-up Typecast actor by the name of Simon Trent, who resents his prior role as a live-action TV hero.
    • Thomas Wayne is voiced by Richard Moll, who also voiced Harvey Dent and was one of Bruce's few friends in Gotham. Another gag is seen by the roles of Martha Wayne and Selina Kyle/Catwoman (both of which are some of the most important women in Bruce's life; judging from The Cat and the Claw) played by Adrienne Barbeau.
    • In the tie-in comic Batman Adventures, an in-universe example occurred as Bruce Wayne had some creative control in producing a new Grey Ghost movie and chose Simon Trent to play the mayor.
  • Batman Beyond
    • In the Batman Beyond 2-parter "The Call" which featured the Justice League, Christopher McDonald voiced the older Superman; MacDonald also notably voiced Superman's father Jor-El in Superman: The Animated Series. There's also another gag in the episode with the aquatic heroine Aquagirl, who's voiced by Jodi Benson of The Little Mermaid (1989) fame.
    • In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Dean Stockwell played the adult version of Tim Drake. Given the Tim is made into a child version of the Joker, it refers to the film, The Boy with Green Hair, where Stockwell as a child actor played the title character.
    • Henry Rollins, an anti-authoritarian and passionate rock musician, was cast as Mad Stan, an anti-authoritarian and passionate villain with a penchant for high explosives. He even quotes part of his "Information overload" monologue as Spider from Johnny Mnemonic.
      King: "Do you have any idea what it's like living in someone's shadow?!"
  • Justice League
    • Not to mention Nathan Fillion as Vigilante... a cowboy who flies a spaceship with Gina Torres' character, Vixen. Vigilante is also very unhappy about the events of a previous episode's war-scale crisis.
    • Also Arte Johnson was brought in as Virman Vundabar, who voiced him essentially as his Wolfgang character from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, complete with a "Very interesting ..."
    • Another joke was the casting of the Royal Flush Gang (Justice League version). All of the voice actors cast were the ones that played the principal characters in Teen Titans (2003).
    • Speaking of which, Kid Flash has the same voice actors as his Justice League counterpart, Michael Rosenbaum. This was flipped when Speedy appeared in Unlimited as Mike Erwin also reprised the role.
    • A somewhat obscure but particularly clever example of this was casting Fred Savage and Jason Hervey (the brothers from The Wonder Years) as Hawk and Dove, only reversing the relationship dynamic by casting Savage as Hawk and Hervey as Dove. Legend has it originally Savage and Hervey had the opposite roles, but for one take they decided to switch characters, and the director decided it worked better.
    • Another involving Michael Rosenbaum: the episode "The Great Brain Robbery" saw The Flash (played by Rosenbaum) accidentally switch brains with Lex Luthor, who was portrayed by Rosenbaum in Smallville.
  • The Batman is quite fond of this:
    • The mayor of Gotham is voiced by none other than Adam West himself who, other than Adam Westing it up, turns in a pretty serious and genuine performance.
    • Jeff Bennett, who voiced HARDAC in Batman: The Animated Series, returns to once again play a villainous A.I. this time in the form of D.A.V.E.
    • Robin's father is voiced by Kevin Conroy and mobster Tony Zucco is voiced by Mark Hamill. Fans of Batman: The Animated Series will recognize the voices of Batman and The Joker once again locked in combat.
    • The Flash is voiced by Charlie Schlatter, who played him in a single S:TAS episode, rather than Michael Rosenbaum, who played him in JL/JLU (and a whole lot more.) The reason it's a casting gag? Word of God says the Flash is Barry and promo materials state and Justice League, the Flash is Wally. This was repeated in Justice League: Doom with Schlatter's replacement as the DCAU Flash, Michael Rosenbaum.
    • J'onn J'onzz is voiced by Dorian Harewood, who previously played another Martian hero, Modo from Biker Mice from Mars.
  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold
    • She's brought in Adam West and Julie Newmar to play the Waynes alongside Batman: The Animated Series alumni Mark Hamill, Kevin Conroy and Richard Moll as The Spectre, The Phantom Stranger and Lew Moxon for the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Chill of the Night". Especially poetic since the Phantom Stranger (Conroy, who played Batman before) wants Batman to remain a force for justice and the Spectre (Hamill, who played the Joker before) who wanted him to become a merciless killer of criminals; they were gambling for his soul at the time.
    • For the episode "The Super-Batman of Planet X!" Kevin Conroy reprises his Batman role, and Dana Delany and Clancy Brown reprise their Superman: The Animated Series roles. Sort of.
    • Bill Fagerbakke's best-known live-action role was assistant coach Michael "Dauber" Dybinski in Coach. In Brave and the Bold, he voiced Ronnie Raymond, Jason Rusch's gym coach.
    • "The Knights of Tomorrow" ends with a future version of Batman (voiced again by Diedrich Bader) fighting crime alongside his son, who has become the future version of Robin. The new Robin was voiced by Sebastian Bader, Diedrich's real-life son.
    • Another Batman: The Brave and the Bold one: John Wesley Shipp played Barry Allen on the short-lived Flash live-action series in the 90s. In "Requiem for a Flash", he voiced Evil Counterpart, the Reverse-Flash/Professor Zoom. (It gets better: In that live-action series, when trying to get information from the bad guys, Barry once pretended to be a "Professor Zoom" who created the Flash. So he's kinda-sorta reprising the role of Professor Zoom.)
    • A subtle one: Jarvis Kord, Ted's Evil Uncle, is voiced by Tim Matheson, who previously played Maxwell Lord in the Justice League episode "Ultimatum". In the comics, Max was Ted's killer; in the series, it's Jarvis.
  • For Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox:
    • We've got C. Thomas Howell as Professor Zoom and Danny Huston as Sam Lane. Considering the comic it's based on, this basically means George Foyet and William Stryker have decided to replace Aaron Hotchner and Wolverine as the targets of their respective torments with the Flash and Superman.
    • The same film features Sam Daly voicing Superman, whose father Tim was also known for portraying the Man of Steel.
  • Batman vs. Robin sees Jeremy Sisto, who voiced Batman in Justice League: The New Frontier, as Talon.
  • Billie Hayes, who'd been Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo in H.R. Pufnstuf, playing witchy Mother Mae-Eye in Teen Titans (2003).
• In Steven Universe, the garnet is the traditional birthstone of people born in January, and Garnet's voice actress, Estelle, has a birthday on January 18th.
• Amphibia:
  • The season 3 episode "Fight at the Museum" introduces Anika Noni Rose as Dr. Jan, meaning she's once again playing a woman who gets caught up in supernatural events involving talking frogs.
  • King Andrias Leviathan was according to the creators based on King Vendrick from Dark Souls II. When they needed someone to voice Andrias' father, Aldrich, they got Vendrick's voice actor, William Houston.
• Archer has a few:
  • Jessica Walter heads up the main cast as a wealthy Evil Matriarch who has a tumultuous romantic history with a recurring character played by Jeffrey Tambor, and one of her employees is a sexually voracious Cloudcuckoo Lander secretary played by Judy Greer. Sounds familiar...
  • In the episode that featured Thomas Lennon as the villain of the week, Archer dressed up as Terry, a recurring gay prostitute from Lennon's series Reno 911!.
  • The two-part Season 4 finale casts Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal as boyfriend and girlfriend. The two play a brother and sister on H. Jon Benjamin's other show, Bob's Burgers.
• Thunder Cats 2011
  • Snarf has gone from the original's Talking Animal Non-Human Sidekick with a Verbal Tic to a Team Pet who can only Pokémon Speak. His voice actress is Satomi Koorogi, who voiced Togepi and Pichu in Pokémon: The Series.
  • Larry Kenney, the voice of Lion-O in the original series returns to voice Claudus, Lion-o's father. Which means he also gets to be the first to say "Thunder! Thunder!! Thunder-cats! HOOOOOOOO!!"
  • We now have Jim Cummings (1952), the voice of Tigger and many other cat-like characters, as Caspin, a member of the Tiger clan.
• Just before the resurgence of superhero movies stated above, Stan Lee has already been making cameo appearances in assorted Marvel Comics animated series, specifically the Spider-Man ones. The first season of The Spectacular Spider-Man, already has this covered. Of special note is his cameo in the '90s Spider-Man: The Animated Series — as himself, when Spider-Man travels to an alternate universe, implied to be ours, where Spider-Man is a comic book character. He's also the janitor in Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) and the mayor in The Super Hero Squad Show.
  Stan Lee: ('90s Spider-Man cartoon finale) Now how do I get down from here... Maybe the Fantastic Four will swing by...
  • Also of note, Joan Clayton Lee, Stan Lee's wife, played the voice of Madame Web in that series. So naturally, writer Stan finds Madame Web quite interesting in the finale.
  • Ed Asner was famous for his role as news editor Lou Grant (a character very similar to J Jonah Jameson) in MTM Enterprises' shows. He was eventually cast as JJ in this show.
• Gargoyles does this a lot with Star Trek. The original two antagonists were members of the TNG cast, and over the course of the series, seven other primary cast members from across four Star Trek series appeared on the show, many of them in reoccurring roles.
• On The Simpsons:
  • David Hyde Pierce playing the role of Cecil, Sideshow Bob (Kelsey Grammer)'s brother on (alluding to the show Frasier, in which he played Niles, the brother of another Kelsey Grammer character, Frasier). In a later episode, Bob and Cecil's dad was voiced by John Mahoney, who played Frasier and Niles' dad on Frasier.
    • At one point, Bart even covers Cecil's eyes with his hands and declares "Guess who?" Cecil's response is "Maris?", who's Niles' wife on Frasier.
  • In the episode "Let's Go Fly A Coot", Milhouse Van Houten's Dutch cousin Annika was played by...Dutch actress Carice Van Houten.
• G.I. Joe and Transformers, both being Hasbro-produced Merchandise-Driven series, tend to have a few of these. G.I. Joe has Corey Burton and Michael Bell playing twins Tomax and Xamot. Transformers has them as twins Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Also, Chris Latta, Brian Dobson, and Charlie Adler have played both Starscream and the Cobra Commander.
• Robbie the Reindeer in Close Encounters of the Herd Kind casts Gillian Anderson of The X-Files fame as the invading alien queen.
• When the JLA-expies, the Squadron Supreme, appeared on The Super Hero Squad Show, Adam West (who played Batman in the 60s TV series and the last two seasons of Super Friends) and Susan Eisenberg (Wonder Woman on Justice League, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, and Justice League: Doom) were cast in the respective roles of Batman-expy Nighthawk and Wonder Woman-expy Power Princess. Retroactively, Travis Willingham, who voiced Hyperion (and is a regular cast member as the Hulk), voiced Superman in the LEGO Batman games.
• Pat Buttram played a canine with a Southern accent in The Aristocats. He was then cast again as one in Robin Hood (1973), and then again in The Fox and the Hound.
• Julie Lemieux has voiced two different (male) bat characters with a fairly similar voice: Sleepy Bat on Birdz and Batty on Almost Naked Animals a good 13 years later.
• After voicing Iago, the loud-voiced parrot in Aladdin, Gilbert Gottfried was cast as two other loud-voiced birds, Digit in Cyberchase and the Aflac duck.
• In The Legend of Korra:
  • Asami is voiced by one Seychelle Gabriel, who played Princess Yue in the live-action film by M. Night Shyamalan. Expect to hear a line about beliefs.
  • In a flashback of the episode "Old Wounds", a teenage Suyin Beifong is voiced by Jessie Flower, who voiced Suyin's mother Toph in the original series.
  • Zuko's grandson General Iroh II is voiced by Dante Basco, Zuko's original voice actor.
  • Ming-Hua, one of the villains in season 3, is voiced by Grey DeLisle, the voice actress of Azula in the original series. In contrast to Azula who was a firebender, Ming-Hua is a waterbender.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In the episode "Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000," one of the villains trying to trick the Apple family out of their farm is voiced by Samuel Vincent, who has had previous experience pulling off scams.
  • And Discord, a very chaotic Trickster God type, is voiced by John de Lancie, aka Q.
  • Tirek, the magic-devouring Satanic Archetype Arc Villain of Season 4, is voiced by Mark Acheson, who previously voiced Unicron in Transformers: Armada.
• When Phineas and Ferb went to Hawaii, the hotel manager was voiced by Phill Lewis, who also plays a hotel manager on some other Disney Channel shows, where he deals with the antics of a couple of young brothers. And since Candace decides to take time off from busting her brothers, he becomes the one running around trying to stop two boys from causing havoc...
  • This casting gag gets even better, perhaps, when you remember Candace is voiced by Ashley Tisdale, one of Lewis’s “Suite Life” co-stars.
  • Also Ferb's love interest Vanessa is played by Olivia Olson, who was also Thomas Brodie-Sangster's love interest in Love, Actually
• When the celebrity voice actors were replaced in the transition from the Madagascar films to The Penguins of Madagascar, celebrity voice actor Sacha Baron Cohen (the voice of King Julien) was replaced by Danny Jacobs. Jacobs previously played an impersonation of Cohen's Borat character in Epic Movie.
• Young Justice (2010):
  • Alyssa Milano was cast as Poison Ivy. She had starred in Poison Ivy II: Lily early in her career.
  • Young Justice also has Tye Longshadow voiced by the same actor who played Long Shadow from Justice League. Both are based on Apache Chief from Super Friends (with his size-changing power, he casts a long shadow. Though the YJ version basically creates giant energy astral projections of himself around him.)
  • Ben Diskin plays Harm, an Ax-Crazy villain with bizarre verbal idiosyncrasies. Just like his last role in a Greg Weisman cartoon.
  • Josh Keaton plays Black Spider, a villainous Captain Ersatz of Spider-Man. Keaton's previous gig in a Greg Weisman show? The title role in The Spectacular Spider-Man.
  • When it came time to cast the Flash, a crime scene investigator-turned-superhero, who did they choose? Why none other than former CSI star George Eads!
  • Cyborg’s father is voiced by Khary Payton, who is arguably considered the definitive Cyborg voice thanks to his work on Teen Titans (2003) and other DC productions. The crew seemed to go out of its way to point out the fact that Payton is not voicing Cyborg, who is instead voiced by Zeno Robinson. Additionally, Payton voices a random classmate of Cyborg's who yells "Booyah!" a lot, and Robotman, another part-man, part-machine superhero who is explicitly positioned as Cyborg's counterpart in a segment parodying the Teen Titans Go! cartoon. Said parody also has the rest of the Doom Patrol voiced by the cast of Teen Titans Go!, with Tara Strong as Negative Woman, Hynden Walch as Elasti-Girl, and Scott Menville as the Chief. The homage was completed by the presence of Greg Cipes, who voiced Beast Boy on both shows.
  • Miss Martian's father is voiced by Carl Lumbly, who famously voiced her uncle Martian Manhunter in Justice League.
  • In-Universe example: Beast Boy’s mother was the star of a short-lived cult sitcom when she was a teenager. Years later, Beast Boy becomes the star of a Star Trek clone, and the actor who played his mom’s boyfriend is cast as The Captain to highlight their characters’ quasi-father-son relationship.
• An episode of The Venture Bros. featured Hank becoming a Robin-like teen sidekick to a superhero named Captain Sunshine. Who voiced Sunshine? Kevin Conroy, known for playing Batman. Though interestingly enough, the hero is more of a Superman parody despite the sidekick relation.
• The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes has Captain America's sidekick Bucky Barnes share a voice actor with the Kid Sidekick, Robin, from Teen Titans (2003). Of course, TT Robin is a leader and no one's sidekick anymore.
• It seems doing this with the Squadron Supreme is popular as Avengers Assemble gets into the act as they've cast:
  • Brian Bloom (who voiced Superman's Mirror Universe counterpart, Ultraman, in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths) as Superman-expy Hyperion
  • Anthony Ruivivar (who voiced Batman in Beware the Batman) as Batman-expy Nighthawk
  • Jason Spisak (who voiced Kid Flash in Young Justice (2010) and The Flash in JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time) as Flash-expy Speed Demon
  • Phil LaMarr (who voiced the John Stewart Green Lantern in Justice League and Injustice: Gods Among Us) as Green Lantern-expy Doctor Spectrum. Retroactively, LaMarr, who also voiced Firestorm-expy Nuke, also voiced Firestorm in LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes: The Flash.
  • Avengers Assemble also has Tara Strong, known as the modern voice of Harley Quinn, voice Typhoid Mary, another psychotic and flamboyant female villain with a painted-up face.
  • Black Panther's father T'Chaka is voiced by Keith David, who voiced T'Challa in Fantastic Four: The Animated Series.
• Ultimate Spider-Man (2012):
  • Dante Basco playing the Scorpion, an exiled warrior obsessed with honor.
  • The Halloween special has the Living Mummy voiced by Oded Fehr, best known for his role in the The Mummy Trilogy.
  • It also has Corey Burton, an actor well-known for his Christopher Lee impression, as the Marvel version of Dracula, one of Lee's most famous characters.
  • Rapper and Community star Donald Glover ignited an internet firestorm after he campaigned to play Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man, and the ensuing racial controversy partially led to the creation of Miles Morales, the second Ultimate Spider-Man. When it came time to cast someone as Miles for the cartoon, guess who Marvel went with?
  • Spyder-Knight is voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes, who voiced Spider-Man in the 90's cartoon (as well as Spider-Man Noir in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man 2099 in Spider-Man: Edge of Time).
  • Spider-Ham is voiced by Ben Diskin, who voiced Spider-Man in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (as well as voicing Venom in The Spectacular Spider-Man).
  • Batman Expy Moon Knight is voiced by Diedrich Bader, who used to voice Batman in The Brave and the Bold.
  • Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson are voiced by Drake Bell and Tara Strong, who both played the role of Timmy Turner in The Fairly OddParents!: Drake played Timmy in the live-action movies, while Tara voiced Timmy in the cartoon.
• Robert Englund guest-starred in an episode of Green Lantern: The Animated Series as Myglom, an alien sadist who torments his victims by using their own nightmares and greatest fears against them, much like Freddy Krueger, the A Nightmare on Elm Street character that Englund is famous for playing.
• Kim Possible:
  • "The Fearless Ferrett" has Ron Stoppable as the next "Fearless Ferret," an in-joke in that Ron's VA, Will Friedle, voiced Terry McGinnis as the Future Batman in Batman Beyond. The first Fearless Ferrett, Timothy North, is voiced by Adam West. When Mr. North sees Kim, he muses about "Ferret Girl"...then calls her "Ferret Girl" again when he sees Kim again when The White Stripe tries to take on Ron.
  • In "Steal Wheels", Ron and Felix (Jason Marsden) become good friends. Will Friedle and Jason Marsden are good friends in Real Life.
• The title of the Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers episode "Gadget Goes Hawaiian" is an obvious play on Gidget Goes Hawaiian, the second Gidget film. Gadget's Hawaiian Identical Stranger, Lahwhinie, was voiced by Deborah Walley, who played Gidget in that film.
• In Sanjay and Craig, title character Sanjay Patel is voiced by Maulik Pancholy, who previously played a character of the same name on Weeds.
• The writers for Freakazoid! modeled one of the main villains after Khan from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. They never really expected Ricardo Montalban to play the role.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012):
  • Rob Paulsen, who was Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) makes an apperance here... as Donatello.
  • And Corey Feldman, who provided Donatello's voice in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) and its sequel, is now Slash.
  • Nolan North and Kevin Michael Richardson, who both had major roles in another Ninja Turtles project, respectively handle duties as the show's Big Bad Ensemble as the Kraang and the Shredder.
  • Season 3 has Renee Jacobs, the actress who voiced April in the original series, voicing April's mother.
  • Minae Noji, who played Karai in the 2014 film plays Tang Shen, Master Yoshi's wife who in this version is also Karai's mother.
  • David Tennant plays the Fugitoid, a runaway alien scientist, not unlike the runaway alien he famously played on Doctor Who.
  • Michael Dorn, best known for playing Worf in the Star Trek franchise, voices Captain Mozar, the leader of an alien space fleet.
  • An example where the gag originates from the series: Hoon Lee played Splinter, the turtles' mentor and sworn enemy of the Shredder...which makes it mildly ironic that in the next series, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he played the Shredder himself.
• In The LEGO Movie:
  • Will Forte voices Abraham Lincoln. Again.
  • Superman and Green Lantern are respectively voiced by Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, with Green Lantern constantly getting on Superman's nerves. The two played the leads in directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller's previous film.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated:
  • Casey Kasem, who voiced Shaggy in the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, has a recurring role as Shaggy's father.
  • In the episode "The Night the Clown Cried", a character voiced by Matt Lanter (who had previously voiced Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Clone Wars) turns out to be the true identity of that episode's Monster of the Week—who is voiced by Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker in the classic Star Wars trilogy). Said Monster of the Week is also a supervillain with a Monster Clown gimmick, referencing Hamill's second most famous role.
  • The recurring character Professor H.P. Hatecraft (a thinly-veiled parody of H. P. Lovecraft) is voiced by Jeffrey Combs, who's best known for playing Dr. Herbert West in the film version of Lovecraft's Re-Animator.
  • The recurring character Marcie Fleach (aka "Hot Dog Water"), who's initially introduced as Velma's rival, is voiced by Linda Cardellini—who played Velma in the 2002 live-action film.
• Disney's Mickey Mouse Works series features several shorts featuring The Three Little Pigs. These updated cartoons feature Bill Farmer as Practical Pig and Jim Cummings (1952) as the Big Bad Wolf. This makes the second time they've played a Foil to one another, the first being respectively as Goofy and Pete, in tribute to the fact that these sets of characters were originally voiced by Pinto Colvig and Billy Bletcher back in the 1930s.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway are paired together as the comically inept nautical-themed superheroes Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, referencing the duo's previous roles as the comically inept naval officers Quinton McHale and Chuck Parker in the 1960s sitcom McHale's Navy. When Time Travel is used and their younger selves are encountered in one episode, said younger selves are voiced by Adam West and Burt Ward, in an obvious nod to Batman (1966).
  • In "Tango Tangle", Plankton and Karen take tango lessons. Rosie Perez guest stars as their instructor, and she's a professional choreographer and dancer in real life.
• The Grand Finale to Star Wars: The Clone Wars features an appearance by the Sith Lord Darth Bane, voiced by none other than Mark Hamill!
  • Simon Pegg, who famously hates the prequels, was cast as Dengar.
• Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi: The teenage Qui-Gon Jinn (famously played as an adult by Liam Neeson in The Phantom Menace) is voiced by Micheál Richardson, Neeson's real-life son.
• In LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles , Lando's father Lindo Calrissian is voiced by Billy Dee Williams, who played Lando in the original movies.
• In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls the main villain is a Shadow Archetype of main character Twilight Sparkle, named Sunset Shimmer. In addition to having similar names and contrasting color schemes (that being a red/yellow version of dusk rather than purple), the gag extends all the way to their voice actresses. Sunset's actress? Twilight's singing voice: Rebecca Shoichet
• In the Disney Channel UK Disney Fairies short "Pixie Hollow Bake-Off" the role of Gelata, the leader of the Baker Fairies who challenge Tinker Bell and her friends to a bake-off is Lisa Faulkner, who won the British Celebrity Masterchef in 2001, and has since hosted cookery shows in addition to her acting career.
• JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time has a few:
  • Jason Spisak as The Flash and Grey DeLisle as Wonder Woman, as they've both previously voiced these characters' respective kid sidekicks.
  • A possible one exists in Dante Basco as Karate Kid - a hot-headed atoner, just like his most famous role, Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• An episode of The Adventures of Puss in Boots features an expy of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. To drive the reference further, three of them share a voice actor with a different incarnation of Michelangelo.
• In Adventure Time, Marceline's mother was for a long time a mystery, and Marceline's backstory was heavily written and expanded on by one of the series' writers, Rebecca Sugar, who left early in season 5 to make her own show. When an episode in season 7 finally calling for a voiced appearance by Marceline's mother came along, guess who returned to the Adventure Time production for an episode to voice her. Go on, guess.
• Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, a guy known for being typecast as the Scary Black Man, voices a character in Fish Hooks who is a parody of his Scary Black Man persona, seeing as he plays a drama coach with a rather aggressive personality.
• Hey Arnold!:
  • When the original voice of Arnold, Toran Caudell, started going through puberty and sounded too old, they created the character Wolfgang, an older bully who picks on Arnold and his friends, for him to voice so he could stay on the show. Phillip Van Dyke took over the voice of Arnold for a few seasons before the same thing happened and Spencer Klein would replace Phillip. This all ended up being subtly referenced in the episode "New Bully on the Block", where Wolfgang, a new bully character named Ludwig (voiced by Phillip), and Arnold get into a war over who should own the vacant lot.
  • In Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie most of Lasombra's henchmen are voiced by Toran Caudell and Jamil Walker Smith, the original voices of Arnold and Gerald.
• The Mexican Spanish dub of Voltron: Legendary Defender manages to pull this twice:
  • The VA for Matthew "Matt" Holt is Eduardo Garza, who played Pidge Gundersson in the dub of the original Voltron. Even better, VLD's Pidge is Matt's cross-dressing little sister Katie.
  • In the original, Carlos Segundo voiced Prince Lotor. In VLD, he voices Gyrgan of Rygnirath.
• In the Big Hero 6: The Series episode "Food Fight" the host of the underground cooking competition is played by Alton Brown, and Cass's first opponent is played by Gordon Ramsay.
• DuckTales (2017):
  • In "The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra!", Cree Summer plays Amunet, a living mummy in modern day. She also played a living mummy in modern day in Mummies Alive!.
  • "The Missing Links of Moorshire!" features a pair of kelpies, colorful magical ponies, voiced by Tara Strong and Andrea Libman, who also voiced major characters on a show all about colorful magical ponies, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
  • Black Heron (who was introduced in an episode homaging Adventures of the Gummi Bears) is voiced by April Winchell, daughter of Paul Winchell, the original Zummi Gummi. Her description of the Gummiberry Juice emphasising the bouncing qualities also hearkens to Paul Winchell's other most popular Disney role of Tigger in Winnie the Pooh.
  • In "Last Christmas!", Young Donald is played by Russi Taylor, in the same voice she used when playing Huey, Dewey, and Louie in DuckTales (1987).
  • In "The Duck Knight Returns!" features a security guard who has never heard of Darkwing Duck. They're voiced by Tad Stones, Darkwing's original creator.
  • In "Quack Pack!", Jaleel White plays Gene the Genie — appropriate, given the reality he's constructed consciously mirrors the genre conventions of TGIF shows like Family Matters.
  • In "The Last Adventure!", Riki Lindhome voices May, who is a clone of Webby (voiced by Lindhome's Garfunkel and Oates bandmate Kate Micucci).
• Justice League Action had an online short in which two supervillains capture a celebrity, only to be foiled by a superhero... with every role played by Mark Hamill (the villains being the Joker and the Trickster, the hero being Swamp Thing, and the celebrity Hamill himself). Hamill even distracts the Joker and Trickster by throwing his voice to make himself sound like them and getting them to argue.
• Rita Moreno, the voice of Carmen Sandiego in the '90s cartoon, voices a criminal named Cookie Booker in the two-part premiere of the 2019 Carmen Sandiego reboot. In a clever Passing the Torch moment, Carmen’s iconic red coat and hat are revealed to be an outfit she stole from Cookie in order to impersonate her after tying her up.
• The Mr. Men Show: There is Little Miss Bossy, who is voiced by Cheryl Chase, the voice of the equally bossy Angelica Pickles on Rugrats (which the show's executive producer previously worked on).
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy had a few episodes with Nigel Planter, a blatant Harry Potter parody. The Latin American dub takes it even further by having him voiced by Víctor Ugarte, who voices Harry from the third film onwards.
• In Transformers: Animated, the show's incarnation of Wreck-Gar is played by "Weird Al" Yankovic, whose song "Dare to be Stupid" was used to accompany the Junkions in The Transformers: The Movie, which was the introduction of the original Wreck-Gar to the franchise.
• In Ed, Edd n Eddy, Ed is a Gentle Giant, while Eddy is The Napoleon. In real life, between the Eds' three voice actors, Tony Sampson (Eddy's voice actor) is the tallest, while Matt Hill (Ed's voice actor) is the shortest. Either way, this puts Samuel Vincent (and his character, Edd) right in the middle.
• Monkey King from Monkie Kid, a character based on Sun Wukong, is voiced by Sean Schemmel. AKA, the guy most well-known for voicing THE character based on Sun Wukong.
• In MODOK, Wonder Man is voiced by Nathan Fillion, who was previously slated to portray the character's alter ego of Simon Williams on a poster in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 before the scene was cut.
• In Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, Ming-Na and B.D. Wong, who were love interests in Mulan, play the protagonist's parents. Further, James Hong, who was Wong's character's strict supervisor, plays his character's father.
• David Macaulay's Pyramid features, as did his other animated documentaries, several voices from several actors who were famous for their roles in Roman drama I, Claudius. When it came time to cover pyramids, the animated segments are a Whole-Plot Reference to Claudius, compressed and with the addition of discussions on architecture. Of note: Derek Jacobi playing a royal son who'd rather be a scholar than a ruler (unlike Claudius, Hordedef gets his wish). Then there is the third queen who plays a long, patient, murderous game to place her son on the throne ahead of his rivals—voiced by Livia herself, Siân Phillips.
• All but one of the Eldwurms in DOTA: Dragon's Blood are voiced by horror icons: Sylrak is voiced by Tony Todd (the Candyman and William Bludworth), Aethrak is voiced by Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), Lirrak is voiced by Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark), Vahrak is voiced by John Kassir (The Crypt Keeper), Byssrak is voiced by Doug Bradley (Pinhead), and Indrak and Orrak are voiced by Bradley's co-stars in the first Hellraiser, Andrew Robinson and Ashley Laurence (Larry and Kristy Cotton).
• Ready Jet Go!:
  • This is not the first show to have Ashleigh Ball playing the main protagonist. Just ask Blythe Baxter.
  • Uncle Zucchini, Jet's uncle, is voiced by Ian James Corlett. We have Ashleigh Ball voicing a young male character, and his uncle is voiced by Ian James Corlett. That's not the first time it happened.
  • Tatyana Vesyolkina voices Jet in the Russian dub. She also voiced the protagonists (Arnold and Buddy) in the Russian dubs of Craig Bartlett's two other shows.
• Miranda Richardson has been in so many roles that involve beheading — Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder II, the Queen of Hearts in 1999's Alice in Wonderland TV miniseries, Lady Van Tassel in Sleepy Hollow (1999) — that it's hard to imagine her role as the chicken-killing Mrs. Tweedy in Chicken Run being anything other than an allusion to her past head-removing roles.
• J-Lo as Tip's mom in Home (2015), as a reference to Oh's name in The True Meaning of Smekday — the novel the film was based on.
• In The Book of Life, Skeleton Jorge was played by famous Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo and in the film who states that instead of bullfighting he wanted to sing at Operas.
• In The Incredibles, Holly Hunter plays Elastigirl, a superhero forced into mandatory retirement when politicians pass a Super Registration Act. In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, she plays Senator Finch, a politician trying to pass a Super Registration Act herself.
• The Owl House has Flora D'esplora, who -as her name suggests- is a parody of Dora the Explorer. Naturally, she's voiced by Eileen Galindo, who was also the voice of Dora's mother.
• In the French language version of Lucky Luke (1983), Jacques Thébault voiced Luke. Thébault previously dubbed James West (Robert Conrad) in The Wild Wild West, another famous heroic gunslinger in an episodic Western series.
• In the Samurai Jack episode "Jack and the Labyrinth", Jack encounters a thief who's very clearly modeled off Daisuke Jigen. In the Japanese dub, the thief is voiced by Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Jigen's longtime seiyū.
• Harley Quinn:
  • Jim Gordon's voice actor is Christopher Meloni, best known for his iconic role as a cop.
  • Firefly is voiced by Alan Tudyk, known for his role on... Firefly.
  • Destined reincarnated lovers Hawkman and Hawkgirl are voiced by Tyler James Williams and Quinta Brunson, respectively, who play love interests in Abbott Elementary.
• The season 2 finale of Invincible features an appearance of a Spider-Man Expy called Agent Spider, voiced by Josh Keaton, who previously voiced Spidey in The Spectacular Spider-Man.

---