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Col. Blake gets a farewell salute from Radar — little knowing what lay in store for him in the next scene...
TV Industry jargon: When an actor leaves a show, and the character they played is then Killed Off For Real, they've been McLeaned. As for why a TV show might do this rather than simply putting the character on a bus, there are generally two reasons:
1. The odds of the actor returning to the show are next to nil, and killing them off gives the writers a chance to inject the series with some drama.
2. Relations between the actor and the show people are somewhat contentious, often as a direct result of the actor leaving, and the writers kill the character off either as an act of "revenge", or as a way of preventing the actor from ever being able to return to the role (unless Death Is Cheap sets in).
The trope is named for McLean Stevenson, and the death of his character Colonel Henry Blake after he left M*A*S*H. This event was of Type 1 above; it was not primarily about retaliation, even though the production staff was annoyed by Stevenson's leaving so soon after co-star Wayne Rogers had wriggled out of his contract. (Ironically, Rogers' character, "Trapper" John McIntyre was merely Put On A Bus and left there). The main reason was to bring home the idea that war can take anyone at any time, and to evoke a strong and unrehearsed response from the cast, most of whom would first hear of the character's fate minutes before the scene was being shot. This isn't to say that the exact manner of Blake's death wasn't just a bit vindictive...
Related to Dropped A Bridge On Him and Bus Crash.
Examples:
Advertising
- McDonalds once made a sandwich named the McLean Deluxe. It was discontinued in 1994, and has never, ever been brought back....
Live Action TV
- Diana Muldaur's departure from LA Law resulted in her character Rosalind Shays walking into an open elevator shaft.
- It should be noted that this was not because of dislike of Muldaur, but rather because the writers hated the character, who was very harsh and bitchy, and they thought the character was ruining the show.
- When David Anders left Heroes to film Children of the Corn, writers responded to giving his character Adam Monroe the worst case of Character Derailment I have personally ever seen in a TV show, all as a transparent bid to build up their new Big Bad, Villain Sue Arthur Petrelli.
- Elle. (It is noteworthy that Kristen Bell, the actress, said shortly before her character's death was televised that she'd play any character who wasn't a victim or a prop...and at the time, Elle was definitely going through some prop-hood...)
- In fact, the first part of Season 3 seemed to be more about cleaning up "loose ends" of Season 1 and 2 caused by the writer's strike and Tim Kring's hubris in thinking NBC would let him create an entirely new cast every season, especially after the show caught on. That 'cleaning up loose ends' consisted of 'getting rid of every Season 2 character except Maya, who the writers are bizarrely obsessed with. In terms of storyline, Adam Monroe was a far more significant character than, for example, Matt Parkman. But Matt was a regular from the very beginning, while Adam was a character resented by the writers for his popularity, so they Dropped A Bridge On Him and inserted their God Mode Sue replacement, Arthur Petrelli.
- Given that the writers have stated their intention to bring Adam back at some point, it seems unlikely they resented him. More likely a simple case of poor writing, which volume 3 had in spades.
- Link please? I remember reading one of the BTE interviews that stated the exact opposite
 .
- Valerie Harper walked from Valerie over a demand for creative control and salary; her character was promptly run over by a car and replaced by Sandy Duncan, and the show was renamed three times in a row, to Valeries Family, The Hogan Family, and finally The Hogans.
- When Patrick Duffy left Dallas for a film career in 1985, the producers killed Bobby Ewing in an auto accident. When they had to bring him back to save the show, they decided that the accident and the season's worth of episodes that took place after it were All Just A Dream. Wall Banger.
- When John Amos was fired from Good Times in 1975 for complaining about the quality of the show in Ebony magazine, his character James Evans was promptly killed in yet another auto accident (this one was particularly tragic, since James was planning on moving to Mississippi).
- Nearly thirty years later, John Amos was dumped from The West Wing when his character Admiral Percy Fitzwallace died.
- Charmed, a show in which every major character has been killed, some as many as nine times over eight years, explained that Prue was "dead for good" when Shannen Doherty was kicked off the show. (And unavailable as a Spirit Advisor, unlike every other female member of the Halliwell family who was still dead.) Death was suddenly tragic, to the characters at least (though definitely not for Alyssa Milano, who instigated Doherty's departure).
- It should be noted that it wasn't just Alyssa Milano who deeply disliked Shannen Doherty; reports have it that she fought constantly with every member of the cast and crew and acted like a total prima donna all the time. The writers even wrote an episode where Pru spent most of the episode as an *ahem* female dog. And apparently her terrible behavior wasn't limited to the set of Charmed; when her 90210 co-star Luke Perry (who is renowned as a very Regular Joe, friendly type of guy) was asked if he kept in contact with her, said "Let's just say she's accurately cast on Charmed, as a witch."
- An in-show example takes place on Friends. Dr. Drake Ramoray, the character played by Joey in the Show Within A Show version of Days Of Our Lives, falls down an elevator shaft (reluctantly) after Joey claims in an interview that he writes his own lines (he merely ad-libs a few parts), with the in-show "tragedy" being that the only doctor who could have saved Drake was... Drake himself. Years later, Joey was able to return to the show as Dr. Drake Ramoray when the character played by Susan Sarandon's character was killed off in the McLean manner as well (in a horse-riding accident, even though the character was established to be afraid of horses), and according to soap-opera logic, Drake received her brain and fully recovered.
- She received Drake's body. Drake was killed off for real and Joey returned to the show playing Susan Sarandon's character's character Jessica Lockhart.
- Only initially. Later episodes make it clear that Joey is playing Drake again. But that's a whole other trope...
- Law & Order prosecutor Alexandra Borgia was kidnapped, brutally beaten, locked in a car trunk, and choked to death on her own vomit. Rumor has it that her particularly brutal McLeaning is a result of Annie Parisse, who portrayed her, refusing to sleep with one of the show's writers.
- Though there were other factors about her character that probably didn't help either.
- It wasn't L&O's first McLeaning, either—when Jill Hennessey left the show, prosecutor Claire Kincaid was killed by a drunk driver hitting her car in the driver's door. This is a particularly interesting case, though, since the producers originally intended to have the character merely paralyzed, but changed it to killing her off when Hennessey refused to return for one more episode that would show this.
- Jadzia Dax from Star Trek Deep Space Nine got offed when Terry Farrell quit the show at the end of the sixth season. Interestingly though, only Jadzia was killed off; they could keep the Dax symbiont around in another actress (Nicole de Boer), The Nth Doctor-style, and run a new, more insecure, character, yet one that had some similarities to the original.
- And let's not forget when Tasha Yar was killed off by a sentient oil slick when Denise Crosby left midway through the first season of Star Trek The Next Generation. Although her character came back twice in later episodes, both times were due to time travel; the "original" Tasha was gone for good.
- A very weird example occurred in the last episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Emma Caulfield wanted to take her career in other directions so explicitly asked to be killed off so that her character could never be used in any of the Spinoffs.
- On Angel the writers asked Alexis Denisof what he wanted to do with his character of Wesley as the show and its parent had both been canceled permanently. He let the writers kill him off to make a dramatic point. Oddly his ghost is still "alive" and kicking in the post season comics.
- When Sasha Alexander wanted out of NCIS, her character was shot between the eyes.
- Although she did spend the next season's two-part premier dressing up like an idiot and bothering the not-dead cast, which is more than Lauren Holly got a few seasons later.
- Spooks will usually either brutally kill or permanently exile the character of any actor who leaves the show. Specifically, when the actress who played Fiona Carter had to leave due to pregnancy, she was kidnapped, tortured and then shot trying to escape. She died in her husband's arms.
- The actor who played him later decided to move on. He was blown up by a car bomb.
- Sliders was awful for this. When the actress who played Wade wanted to leave the show, they stuck her character in a Kromagg breeding camp, then brought her back briefly as a brain in a jar. When the actor who played Quinn wanted out, they had him merge with an alternate-reality version of himself which erased his personality. When John Rhys-Davies... well, you get the picture. Getting out of Sliders was almost as bad as staying in Sliders.
- Legend has it that John Rhys-Davies actually insisted on Professor Arturo's death being that extreme — he was disgusted with the direction the show was taking, and wanted to make sure he would absolutely never be brought back for any reason.
- Just for the record, Arturo was told he had terminal inoperable cancer early in the season. Then over the course of a two-part episode, he had his brain matter sucked out, leaving him essentially a zombie, he was shot dead, and then left on a planet that blew the hell up. "Extreme" might not be a strong enough word.
- Eddie LeBec from Cheers, one of Carla's most recurring love interests then husband. Though never being a cast regular, he was permanently written off the show when he (offscreen, of course), was run over by a Zamboni trying to push a fellow cast member of the ice show he worked at out of the way. On the very same episode, it was revealed he had a mistress whom he also got pregnant and married (despite already being married to Carla obviously), leading an enraged Carla to reuse the name Tortelli. The producers of the show explained this turn of events at the time as test audiences not liking Carla being married, thus making it an apparent Bridge Drop until almost two decades later, both Jay Thomas (who played Eddie) and one of the writers revealed this was actually the result of the former being fired due to making an insulting remark about Rhea Perlman (who played Carla) on live radio (while Rhea happened to be listening, no less), thus making it a McLeaning.
- Fictional Example: On 30 Rock, Jack conspires to kill off his telenovella Doppelganger, the Generalissimo, in an effort to appease his Puerto Rican girlfriend's grandmother. It backfires when, in true Soap fashion, the Generalissimo dodges every bullet fired at him.
- When Kal Penn left House to serve in the Obama administration, the producers had his character, Kutner, commit suicide.
- Though this was due to the first reason, not because of any friction with the rest of the cast. They just wanted some drama and a Very Special Episode.
- Lost: Though many characters have died, there were only two occasions it wasn't a planned plot death and was due to actors leaving:
- When Mire Furlan wanted to leave the US, they killed Danielle off. However, it sounds like her character wouldn't have survived season 4 anyway: Alex's resulting death was very important to the plot and was planned, so apparently she was just killed off earlier than they had originally planned, before she could get a long-awaited centric episodes though the events of it were placed into season 5.
- When Adawale Akkinoue Abaje left the show, Eko was killed off and the really involved arc they had planned for him was mostly pushed onto other characters, with bits being lost forever.
- On Babylon 5 Andrea Thompson, who played the telepath Talia Winters, got a bit demanding on the set. Notably, she wanted to appear in more episodes that she was, in fact in more episodes than most of the regular cast but the lead. She left the show in the ensuing discussions, and was taken back to Psi Corps headquarters by Bester. In a later episode, Al Bester lets slip that they found out things about the crew in the course of her debriefing and dissec...er examination.
- This one's notable in that Talia was always intended, right from the start to be sent back to PSI Corps. T Hey even wrote in the mechanism that would enable her to return. The only thing that changed is that unlike the original plan, she never came back.
- Arguably true for Ianto in Torchwood: Children of Earth. The actor was already auditioning for pilots of other shows, but the way the character was killed off suggests either this or Stuffed Into The Fridge. Online, there is some disagreement about this.
Western Animation
- When Maggie Roswell walked from The Simpsons over a pay dispute, her primary character, Maude Flanders, was killed in a tragic T-shirt launching accident and all her other characters were given to another actress to voice. Roswell was eventually rehired and given all those characters back, but Maude remained dead, reappearing only in flashbacks.
- When Isaac Hayes left South Park in protest over its satirical treatment of Scientology, Chef joined a club of brainwashing pedophiles, then was burned by a lightning strike, dropped off a bridge, impaled on a large branch, shot multiple times and then had his face and limbs eaten by a mountain lion and a grizzly bear. Only to be later revived as Darth Chef. While parts of it (the burning and limb-losing mutilation) can be credited as a Revenge of the Sith parody, it still is seems like an over the top retaliation.
- Furthermore, the background of Isaac Hayes's departure is rather sketchy, even for the South Park creators. He either a) quit on his own due his outrage over their parody of Scientology b) was forced to leave by Scientology c) left without his knowledge - someone else (i.e. Scientology) did it for him or d) his agent used the Scientology episode as an elaborate excuse, the real reason being health issues. Isaac Hayes died two years later.
- Kyle's speech at Chef's funeral was also a very direct commentary on the creator's feelings on Hayes' departure.
- It should also be pointed out that, despite Hayes supposedly being angry that the creators had ridiculed a religious belief (despite taking part in many a lampooning of other religions over the years), on a satellite radio show slightly less than two months or so before those statements were made (and about a month after the Scientology episode in question had already aired), Hayes was explicitly asked whether or not he had a problem with the fact that Trey Parker and Matt Stone took shots at Scientology in their show, to which his response was along the lines of "hey, you have to have a sense of humor, they take shots at everyone", and otherwise showing zero concern or animosity to them over the issue, their stance, the episode, etc. In the same interview, he generally spoke well of Matt and Trey, admitted that he liked them a great deal, and defended their brand of humor. The fact that his opinion apparently changed radically in less than two months (and with no obvious cause) is one of the reasons why MANY people feel he was pressured by the Church of Scientology into his later stance, rather than it representing his own personal views. Some even go so far as to suggest the entire incident may have contributed to his declining health and eventual death two years later.
- Celebrity Deathmatch has another good example. Stacy Cornbred, the somewhat ditzy interviewer, was apparently Killed Off For Real after her voice actress left the show. How'd they do it? A sudden case of spontaneous human combustion.
- The brutal and onscreen death of Blurr in a compactor in Transformers Animated, coupled with the appearance of a cube in his exact shade of blue being tossed down the garbage chute a scene later, makes it pretty clear he's not coming back bar anything short of a miracle from Primus. A likely motive besides drama might be the fact that getting one of the fastest talking men in existence as his voice actor is pretty expensive.
- It should be noted that design sketches revealed after the episode in question showing a rather suspiciously smashed-looking Cube with what is clearly a still-living Spark inside of it indicate that they may decide to bring him back later. Until then though, it makes for a very cramped and very unpleasant bus.
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