"Hi, I'm Troy McClure! You may remember me from such automated information kiosks as "Welcome to Springfield Airport", and "Where's Nordstrom?" While you're enjoying our hall of wonders, your car will be unfortunately be subject to repeated break-ins... "
— Troy McClure, The Simpsons, "This Little Wiggy"
When an actor with a popular role in the past has a resurgence doing something else. Often they will be cast purely for nostalgia reasons, or because the director or writer is a Promoted Fanboy. Ironically, though, they often become even more popular than they were before, causing their earlier work to be all but forgotten.
Named for The Simpsons' Troy McClure, who used to be a character actor, and then did educational films, infomercials, etc. He would introduce himself with "Hi, I'm Troy McClure! You might remember me from such films as Aliens Steal Cable! and The Adjectival Superhero." (The names of the two films were usually relevant to what he was in at the moment.)
Compare Retroactive Recognition, where the actor's previous roles weren't nearly as popular as their current one.
Examples:
- Richard Dean Anderson as MacGyver, then a decade later starred Stargate SG-1. Extra confusion/amusement in the Spanish dub: Luis Porcar as Jack O'Neill and Gregory House.
- Scott Bakula as Samuel Beckett on early-nineties Quantum Leap, then as Captain Archer on early-to-mid 2000s Star Trek: Enterprise. (In between, he did some voice acting and a couple of sports movies.) And now Agent Pride on NCIS: New Orleans.
- Catherine Bell who played Marine lawyer Sarah Mackenzie on JAG for 9 seasons was cast in another military-themed series, Army Wives.
- Corbin Bernsen is well-known as lawyer Arnie Becker from L.A. Law. Fast forward two decades, and we find him playing Shawn Spencer's dad on Psych.
- David Boreanaz spent eight years playing the vampire Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the eponymous spinoff. He spent another eight as FBI Agent Seeley Booth in the romantic forensic procedural Bones. Now he stars as Master Chief Jason Hays in Seal Team.
- Johnny Yong Bosch, a.k.a. Adam Park, former Black Mighty Morphin Power Ranger, Green Zeo Ranger and Green Turbo Ranger...current anime voice actor, his breakout role being Vash the Stampede from Trigun. Other roles include a chivalrous Soul Reaper, and another hero that's, uh... not so much. You might also remember him as Kung Jin from Mortal Kombat X.
- Pink Turbo Ranger and Pink Space Ranger Cassie Chan, rather Patricia Ja Lee has appeared in a few anime roles as well.
- Dan Southworth, a.k.a. the Quantum Ranger, also broke out into voice acting after Power Rangers, providing the voice of Vergil in the Devil May Cry series, a role he performed alongside fellow Power Rangers alumni Johnny Yong Bosch (who portrayed Nero in Devil May Cry 4 and Zero in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3).
- Bruce Boxleitner was originally best known for Scarecrow and Mrs. King, but is better-remembered now for the role of Captain Sheridan on Babylon 5, or as TRON.
- Ben Browder is known for two famous sci-fi roles: John Crichton on Farscape, and Cameron Mitchell on Stargate SG-1. He acted opposite Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun and Vala mal Doran, respectively) on both series; naturally Lampshade Hanging ensued on the latter about the former.
- Yvette Nicole Brown, who starred in Drake & Josh as Helen Dubious, makes a guest appearance as the exact same character, six years later, in Victorious. Nowadays she's best known as Shirley on Community.
- Becky from Roseanne as Elliot from Scrubs. No, not that Becky,* the other one.*
- After his success as Dr. Frank-n-Furter, Tim Curry went on to have a lucrative career in voice-acting along with live-action acting. Many of the roles he voiced include Nigel Thornberry, King Chicken, Emperor Doviculus, the Cat King, King Acorn, and even Satan (in Legend (1985)). He's also done quite a bit of stage acting (including a brief reprise as Dr. Frank-n-Furter).
- Micky Dolenz became popular in the 1950's as a child actor under the pseudonym Mickey Braddock. He starred in the TV series Circus Boy as the lead character, Corky. Only until mid-1960's was Dolenz launched into superstardom as one of the members of The Monkees.
- James Doohan is best known as Scotty from Star Trek. But he got a chance to play The Captain for a change in 1979's Jason of Star Command.
- D.C. Douglas is most well known for his voice acting work, particularly as Albert Wesker and Legion. He also appears often as a guest star in various soap operas and TV series, such as The Bold and the Beautiful, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Castle. In addition, he regularly features in films from The Asylum, including a highly-touted cameo in Sharknado 2: The Second One.
- Keir Dullea appeared as Devon, the protagonist of 70s TV series The Starlost. Get rid of the 70s mustache he wore in the series, you'll recognize him as Dave Bowman from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- Up until the mid-90s Noel Edmonds was a celebrity Saturday night entertainment show presenter, before which he was a successful DJ. He dropped out of the limelight for several years before reemerging in 2005 as the host of the British version of the game show Deal or No Deal. Similarly, Howie Mandel was a popular prop comic who played Dr. Fiscus on St. Elsewhere, then voiced the title character on Bobby's World. After years of obscurity he resurfaced as host of the US edition of Deal or No Deal.
- Jackie Earle Haley was best known as Kelly Leak in the original 1970s The Bad News Bears, and there's a 13-year gap on his IMDb page, 1993-2006. Now, he's Rorschach, Freddy Krueger, and Guerrero.
- Mark Hamill. After spending years known only as Luke Skywalker, he then got a career in voice acting, particularly as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. As well as the Hobgoblin from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Skips in Regular Show, and the Evil Dad role in Avatar: The Last Airbender. When he appeared in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the film actually stops and puts "Hey kids! It's Mark Hamill! (Applause)" onscreen. And then he got to be Luke Skywalker all over again.
- When Mark Hamill appeared on The Muppet Show, he would only appear if he could appear as Mark Hamill AND Luke Skywalker, two different characters. He also did some vocal impersonations, making this episode count as Hilarious in Hindsight.
- Mark Harmon has come back for more stardom at least twice. People who watched Chicago Hope may remember him from his role in St. Elsewhere. Now, of course, both of those shows are road markers for fans of NCIS, who know him as Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
- And his NCIS castmate David McCallum, currently known as Medical Examiner Donald "Ducky" Mallard, was known to an earlier generation as Iliya Kuriyakin of The Man from U.N.C.L.E..
- Neil Patrick Harris first became a household name playing Doogie Howser, M.D. and went into theater for a while before resurfacing as a Jerkass version of himself in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, a regular role as Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother, and the titular character of Joss Whedon's supervillain musical Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.
- Speaking of How I Met Your Mother, one episode had both Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof as guest stars.
- Dennis Haysbert was first known to many as voodoo power hitter Pedro Cerrano in Major League. After a few parts that didn't go far, he shows up on 24 as President Palmer, then as the team leader in The Unit, and is know known as the Allstate guy.
- Chrissy (Ashley Johnson) from Growing Pains, as Terra from Teen Titans.
- Alex Kingston was best known for her role as Dr. Elizabeth Corday in ER before she was cast as River Song in Doctor Who. Now she says she's more recognised for Who, which she says surprises her. Transformers may or may not know her as Quickshadow in Transformers: Rescue Bots
- Walter Koenig (a.k.a. Chekov from Star Trek) appearing as PsiCop Alfred Bester on Babylon 5.
- Jessica Lange is a two time Academy Award winner (her first win was in 1982 for her supporting role in Tootsie; her second win was in 1994 for her lead role in Blue Sky, however newer generations will most likely know her from her various stints on American Horror Story.
- Amanda Winn-Lee was a prolific voice actress for ADV Films, most well known for her roles as Rally Vincent and Rei Ayanami. After her son Nicholas's birth and diagnosis of leukemia, she dropped out of anime voice acting to spend time with him. Since her son's recovery, she has returned to voice acting, but this time focusing on video games published by Atlus, her most famous recent role being Yukiko Amagi from Persona 4.
- Christopher Lee played Dracula in a series of Hammer Horror movies in his younger days. More recently, he's played villains in summer blockbusters such as the Star Wars prequels and The Lord of the Rings. And a major character in Kingdom Hearts II. Going back a bit further, to the mid-70s, Lee was also Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun. He also did some spoken lines for the band Rhapsody of Fire. In fact, Sir Christopher holds the Guinness Record for the highest number of film acting roles ever... but 95% of people know him from this handful of roles.
- Troy McClure, from many films such as The Contrabulous Fabtraption of Horatio Hufnagel, Android Beach Party, Hitler Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Gladys the Groovy Mule, Muppets Go Medieval, Preacher with a Shovel and many, many more.
- There Will Be Brawl is a live-action web series featuring Matthew Mercer and Kyle Hebert, both well-known anime and video game voice-actors (Mercer Darrin'd for Troy Baker as Kanji Tatsumi and portrayed Chrom, while Hebert voiced greats such as Gohan and Kamina). Mercer has since gone on to no small amount of Internet fame as the Dungeon Master for the livestreamed Tabletop RPG Critical Role.
- Hugh Laurie is most well-known in the US and worldwide as Dr. Gregory House, but in his native England, he is most famous as a comedian, most notably in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (alongside Stephen Fry), Blackadder. There was also the role of Jasper in 1996's 101 Dalmatians.
- Alyssa Milano, who first became famous playing Tony Danza's daughter on Who's the Boss??, then did a couple of seasons on Melrose Place before logging eight years on Charmed.
- Of the four kid leads in Stand by Me, only Jerry O'Connell didn't have any other major roles as a child actor. He made up for it as an adult. Wil Wheaton is an odder example, becoming a target of nerd scorn on Star Trek: The Next Generation before his comeback in the aughties as a target of nerd admiration.
- In the The '60s and The '70s, Jerry Orbach was a famous Broadway star. He was in the inaugural cast of The Fantasticks, he was the first Billy Flynn in Chicago, and he even got a few movie roles. Fast forward thirty years, and what is he best known for? Lennie Briscoe on Law & Order. If anyone even knows he could sing, they probably know it because they saw him as Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast.
- Robert Patrick, a.k.a. the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, as Agent John Doggett in the late seasons of The X-Files.
- Brock Peters, best known for falsely convicted man Tom Robinson in the live-action adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, has had appearances in numerous works as a voice actor, star of live-action television shows, and numerous films in various genres, some of his characters recurring. People today recognize him as Admiral Cartwright in both Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Joseph Sisko, Lucius Fox, Jesse Dillard in Gunsmoke, and Dark Kat.
- Olivia, (Raven-Symoné) from The Cosby Show as Monique from Kim Possible and the title character from That's So Raven and its spin-off series, Raven's Home.
- On that note, Symoné is also know for playing Nicole in Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, which serves as this trope for Holly Robinson Peete (21 Jump Street), Dawnn Lewis (A Different World), Roger E. Mosley (Magnum, P.I.), Nell Carter (Gimme a Break!) and Omar Gooding (Nickelodeon's Wild and Crazy Kids). Later Peete would star in the sitcom For Your Love and Lewis would voice LaBarbara Conrad in Futurama.
- Emilie de Ravin was probably best known as Claire from Lost. Since 2012 she's been Belle (yes, that Belle) on Once Upon a Time.
- Eden Riegel may be recognized by fans of soap operas as Bianca Montenegro and Heather Williams. Video game and anime fans may recognize her as Dragon's Crown's Elf, Kaede Kaburagi, and Hitomi. Voice acting must run in the family.
- Robbie Rist, the original Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch, now provides the voice of Choji Akamichi from Naruto.
- Murdock (Dwight Schultz) from The A-Team in various video game and animation roles, most notably Harman Smith in Killer7.
- And more notably, as Lt. Reginald Barclay, one of the more prominent recurring characters on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Less notably for a one-off role in a Babylon 5 episode.
- Also Mung Daal from Chowder.
- Apart from a role in season five of Las Vegas, Tom Selleck has mostly been doing TV movies since Magnum, P.I. wrapped in 1988. Then in 2010 he was cast as Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in Blue Bloods.
- And of course, who can forget William Shatner? First Star Trek: The Original Series, then T.J. Hooker, and Denny Crane in Boston Legal.
- Another Boston Legal example: Candice Bergen (a.k.a. Murphy Brown) returns to the small screen after a six-year hiatus.
- Yet another one: René Auberjonois: first Benson, then Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, then Paul Lewiston in Boston Legal.
- In the dub of Digimon Data Squad, Steve Blum did not reprise his role as Gallantmon...instead, the Royal Knight's voice actor was Brad Sherwood!
- Charles Emerson Winchester, (David Ogden Stiers) from M*A*S*H, Governor Radcliffe and Wiggins in Pocahontas, as Jumba on Lilo & Stitch, Lane's father in Better Off Dead, and as Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast.
- Dean Stockwell, who was a child star in the 40's and 50's before (eventually) co-starring in Quantum Leap as Al, and then appearing in Battlestar Galactica (2003) as Cavil.
- Amanda Tapping, who played fan favorite character Samantha Carter on Stargate SG-1 for over a decade, has had another sci-fi hit with Sanctuary.
- Ashley Tisdale won fame in the mid-2000s for starring as candy counter girl Maddie Fitzpatrick on the Disney Channel's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. She later starred as Sharpay Evans in the High School Musical series and the made-for-DVD film, "Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure". Many younger Disney Channel watchers might better know her as Candace Flynn in Phineas and Ferb, while older TV watchers might know her from her role as Savannah Monroe in Hellcats.
- John Travolta used to be "that guy from Saturday Night Fever". Then he was "that guy from Pulp Fiction". And then "that L. Ron Hubbard fanboy who inflicted Battlefield Earth on us". Now he may be known as "that guy in a fat suit and drag in the 2007 version of Hairspray".
- Or as "that guy from Grease"
- He first got fame as Barbarino on TV's Welcome Back, Kotter.
- Tween movie watchers might recognize him as Bolt.
- Or as "that guy from Grease"
- Marcia Wallace was, at one point, sufficiently well-known from her role on The Bob Newhart Show in the '70s to be the subject of a Taxi episode (in which she guested as herself) later in that decade, as well as an appearance as her Bob Newhart character on Murphy Brown. Later on, of course, she became the voice of Mrs. Krabappel on The Simpsons.
- Elijah Wood was a famous child actor known as the other Macaulay Culkin (they even co-starred in The Good Son) years before being cast as Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings.
- Adam West, the original Batman, was a Cloud Cuckooland character on Family Guy where he is Mayor of Quahog.
- Jaleel White is best known for playing Steve Urkel on Family Matters and for being the first voice of Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Nearly 20 years after The Andy Griffith Show ended, Mr. Griffith returned to the limelight as the titular Matlock.
- Was one of Bob Lennon's catchphrases for a while.
- Though well-known for his role as Hiro Hamada in Big Hero 6, Ryan Potter earned fame as Mike Fukanaga in Supah Ninjas.
- Carol Kane, a famous actor in movies from the 70's who also appeared in the TV show Taxi, appeared as the Tooth Fairy in an episode of the then-popular PBS series The Noddy Shop, and later played Lillian on the Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
- This trope as applied to a company: NetEase Games first enjoyed fame as the creator of Onmyōji (2016) before Identity V came along, became a bigger success, and overshadows the previous association.
- Junky Janker voiced Gumball in The Amazing World of Gumball before joining SMPLive.
- Ke Huy Quan was Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Data in The Goonies. His major resurgence happened with the role of Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
