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This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

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Uncredited Role

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"Oh, I always love ?'s work, they're so talented."

For a variety of reasons (budget constraints, contractual obligations, Creator Backlash, plain ol' jackassery, etc.), sometimes a person will be involved in the creation of a work, but will go uncredited. It's generally only noteworthy if they played a significant role in the creative process (playing a major character, drafting a screenplay, writing a lyric); if the person is well-known enough to have a page on this wiki (many cameos meet this description); or if the role they played was insignificant, but the person went on to achieve greater fame thereafter.note 

In Hollywood, experienced screenwriters are often employed as uncredited "script doctors" to provide edits to existing drafts of screenplays before they go into production: these edits can range from simple punching up of the dialogue, to adding new scenes, to changing the entire structure of the screenplay.

In literature, writers may be employed as "ghostwriters"note  to write a book for another person: the latter person will be credited as the writer. The most common form this takes is when a celebrity hires a ghostwriter to pen their "auto"biography. The ghostwriter is usually bound to a non-disclosure agreement not to publicly reveal or discuss their involvement in the creation of the book, although they may be credited as an "editor" or "consultant" (in which case it's not an example of this trope). House Pseudonym (in which multiple ghostwriters are credited under a single pseudonym) is related to this trope.

In music, it's common for solo artists or groups to employ "session musicians" when recording a song or an album: contracted musicians who will perform on one or more tracks, but who are not considered an official member of the group or the solo artist's backing band. Sometimes these musicians will not be credited in the liner notes for the release, but will later go on to achieve fame in their own right. In Hip-Hop, it's an Open Secret that many rappers employ ghostwriters to write lyrics for them, who will unusually go uncredited to preserve the Kayfabe that the rapper exclusively writes their own material (this is quite different from pop music, in which songwriters usually receive credit independent of the performer). Music producers will also sometimes serve as "ghost producers" for various reasons. Also, it's not unheard of to decline credit to a featured artist on a duet or guest appearance, if the featured artist is on a different label and cannot secure promotion rights.

This was common industry practice in voiceover work for animation prior to the 1980s (see Unspecified Role Credit for more information).

Compare Deleted Role. See also Alan Smithee, for when a film director proves that they did not have creative control over a film and has the direction of the film credited to a pseudonym. An interesting case is when a creator is typecast in a particular role/genre, and goes uncredited in order to distance themselves from their usual type, which overlaps with He Also Did.

Note that it's not an example if the person is credited under a Pen Name or alias, or if they're Not Named in Opening Credits but still credited at the end. Sometimes creators will deliberately go uncredited so that their part in the work will be a surprise for the audience, so some examples on this page will be spoilers.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime 
  • Unfortunately, many anime TV series that are released in North America don't contain the entire Japanese credits roll, and only feature an abridged credits list (typically only listing the major positions like animation director and screenplay, etc.). As a result, crew members and supporting studios which are listed in the original Japanese credits are omitted in the North American release, this sometimes includes the original Japanese voices.
  • This form of crediting is also used quite often in Japan, usually in regards to outsourcing studios lacking a proper staff roll. In some instances, certain shows will outright omit key staff members, animation studios or key animators, Märchen Mädchen being a notorious example of this practice in action. Some titles like Rin Ne, To Your Eternity, Log Horizon, Guin Saga, Radiant, and NHK airings of certain anime such as Attack on Titan and Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! feature credits that lack any mention of their respective supporting contract studios and only credit the animators.
  • Similarly, there are times in which a cast member of an anime does more than one character. While in English they tend to be credited most of the time for these extra roles, in Japan, if it's a major member of the cast, those secondary roles usually go uncredited in favor of the more important one.
  • When The Fantastic Adventures of Unico and Unico in the Island of Magic gained an English dub in the 1980s. Barbara Goodson wasn't credited as the english voice of Unico due to only crediting the Japanese cast. This resulted with rumors of Karen Prell voicing the titular character, however Prell later debunked the rumor of her voicing the character but speculated it was Barbara Goodson. At numerous convention appearances and interviews, Goodson confirmed that she was the voice of Unico. When Discotek Media re-released the movies on DVD in the early 2010s, Barbara Goodson was credited alongside the other voice actors.
  • Starting with the Punk Hazard arc, the English dub of One Piece changed how they credit the crew at Funimation, placing all those credits after the episode rather than in the OP like before. Unfortunately, the acting credits only list the main cast and a few important characters. Side characters and minor characters are left completely uncredited. Fans only learn who voices who from the actors themselves, from bugging the ADR directors, or from Funinmation putting out a press release.
  • Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Theodore McFarlane goes without a voice actor credit in his first speaking appearance during Nanao's Troubled Backstory Flashback in "Soldier", despite significantly more minor characters getting credits.
  • When Ringing Bell (Chirin no Suzu) was released to the western market in the early 1980s, Barbara Goodson wasn't credited as the voice of Young Chirin. She would later get credited when the movie was re-released on DVD in 2014.
  • For the English dub of Space Battleship Yamato (called Star Blazers), the dub cast were not credited onscreen due to actor's union restrictions, this being a non-union job.
  • The 4Kids dub of Tokyo Mew Mew, Mew Mew Power, had most of the Japanese staff uncredited, including the show's director, Noriyuki Abe. Only the Japanese production companies and the original manga creators (Reiko Yoshida and Mia Ikumi) were credited.

    Film — Animated 

    Film — Live-Action 

Screenwriters:

Producers:

  • Mel Brooks was an uncredited producer on David Lynch's The Elephant Man. He feared audiences would assume it was a comedy because of his involvement, so he left his own name out of the credits and marketing. He attempted to do the same with The Fly, but word of his involvement leaked ahead of time.
  • George Lucas was executive producer on Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat, mainly as a favor for Kasdan's help with the script for Return of the Jedi. Lucas went uncredited because he didn't want his work on an erotic thriller film to affect his family-friendly reputation from the first two Star Wars films.

Actors:

Miscellaneous:

  • A common practice is to leave out any of the actors doing ADR work, should they not list them in one large block of names.
  • An accidental case happened with Dr. No, where art director Syd Cain discovered his name wasn't in the credits, but it remained that way because the producers didn't want to spend more of the meager budget fixing them.
  • The Nan Movie, a film based on The Catherine Tate Show, is best known for its convoluted production issues that led to the final film not having a credited director. The original director was Josie Rourke (Mary, Queen of Scots), who filmed a Period Piece about Nan's young adulthood in the 1940's that was much more dramatic than the source material would suggest. The producers got cold feet at this version, and handed the film to Catherine Tate herself who directed a substantial Retool of the film into being about a present-day Road Trip Plot, only reusing a relatively small amount of footage from Rourke's cut. Neither woman is credited as the director; Josie Rourke is listed as a mere "Executive Producer", while Catherine Tate gets an "A Catherine Tate Film" caption in the opening credits.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Basil Brush Show: The puppeteer performing the titular character was uncredited in both versions of the show. It was later revealed that Ivan Owens was Basil's first performer but the identity of his second performer is still unknown.
  • Perry Benson played three separate characters in The Black Adder. However, his first role (an Italian priest in "The Archbishop") didn't have him credited.
  • The Community episode "Investigative Journalism" has an uncredited performance by Owen Wilson as the leader of another study group who recruits Buddy at the end.
  • Doctor in the House had an uncredited Linda Regan as a schoolgirl in the Doctor at Large episode, "Doctor Dish", and a girl at the dance in the Doctor in Charge episode, "The Taming of the Wolf".
  • Doctor Who:
  • In a 1968 episode of Dragnet, the LAPD held a community outreach to encourage black men to join the police force. One of the attendees was O. J. Simpson. Not only was this years before he became an actor; he had not yet even won the Heisman Trophy. (It is likely that he and the other attendees had responded to an open casting call for black men.)
  • EastEnders: At one point circa 1988, some of the cast of 'Allo 'Allo! snuck onto the Queen Vic set and tried to pass themselves off as extras. Kim Hartman ended up getting them caught when she asked for her extra's motivation, however, John D. Collins managed to stick around and remained in the final episode, leading to him being pointed out in the tabloids for his sneaky cameo.
  • Gladiators (2024): The Gladiators' personas are listed in the opening credits, but the performers behind them are never named. The Gladiators are entirely absent from the closing credits. so the performers aren't named there either.
  • The Invisible Man 1958 has the title character uncredited, despite being The Hero, so no one would know what Dr. Peter Brady actually looked like.
  • The actor playing Kenneth in the It's Awfully Bad for Your Eyes, Darling... episode, "A New Lease", goes uncredited, possibly because Kenneth spends the whole episode passed out drunk.
  • Khan! was a short runner detective series running on CBS in 1975. Khigh Diegh (The Manchurian Candidate) starred as the title character, but refused onscreen credit.
  • Lost: Starting with the second season, François Chau made multiple guest appearances, even becoming a recurring character in the fifth season, but went uncredited until the Grand Finale.
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi: Liam Neeson made an uncredited appearance at the end of Part VI as Qui-Gon Jinn's Force ghost.
  • On the Buses didn't credit Linda Regan for playing Edna in "Christmas Duty".
  • Angus Deayton was credited for playing Patrick, a regular in One Foot in the Grave, but wasn't credited for his voiceover role as the TV presenter in "Monday Morning Will Be Fine".
  • Person of Interest:
  • In Phenom William Devane wanted first or at worst second billing credit but the producers didn't want to distract audiences from Juidth Light (this being her first show after Who's the Boss?), so he said he'd rather not be credited at all rather than being credited only at the end.
  • Felix Bowness wasn't credited for playing Gay Gordon in the Porridge episode, "Just Desserts".
  • Power Rangers: For the first few seasons, the end credits were rarely changed mid-season. This led to actors being credited in episodes they didn't appear in (sometimes many episodes before their characters even debuted), but it also meant that the vast majority of guest actors went totally uncredited, and to this day, we don't know the identities of dozens of actors who played one-off parts in 90s episodes. This still applies with the stunt actors and especially the suit performers, who have never been credited outright, though their identities are usually known.
  • The Really Loud House:
    • While Lily is played by two actors, only August Michael Peterson is credited while her stand-in Emily Ford is not. Ford is credited in the film A Really Haunted Loud House, but even then, she's simply listed in a block of credits for stand-ins.
    • The series also does this to most of its minor characters who appear without any dialogue, even if their names are mentioned. A notable exception to this trend across the series is Alizae, who has her name listed in the credits of her only appearance, "What's a Mother to Redo", despite not having any dialogue in the episode. Likewise, Mrs. Uggo appears without dialogue in her first appearance in "The Princess and the Everlasting Emerald: A Royal Woods Fairytale" and is thus uncredited in the episode, but strangely still remains uncredited when she makes an off-screen voice cameo appearance in "All Is Fair in Love and Sleepovers".
    • Among the known actors who had uncredited roles in the series include Aaron Rogers as Chief Wellington (as a stand-in for Keeshan Giles) and Mr. Uggo, Charles Ash as one of Milkshake Marty's goons, J Diego Gonçalves as the mailman from "The Blemish Dilemish", Jaxon Presley Karim as a boy wearing a shirt too small for him, and Samantha Christine as one of Taylor Wedge's cronies.
  • The Non-Singing Voice roles in both works of Rick Siggelkow's that utilize them (The Noddy Shop and the American dub of Tweenies) aren't credited at all. note 
  • Sykes: Felix Bowness went uncredited as a Glasgow porter in "Journey", a bus depot worker in "Bus", and a club compère in "The Hypnotist", while the same happened to Maureen Lipman as a wardrobe mistress in "Fancy Dress".
  • The West Wing: John Goodman appears in four episodes but was only credited for his final appearance in "The Stormy Present".
  • Pauline Quirke wasn't credited for playing Nelly in the Yes, Minister episode, "The Economy Drive".
  • The Young Ones: Chris Andrews wasn't credited for playing the ghost body in "Cash".

    Music 
  • American Top 40 and its successor Casey's Top 40 almost never credited the people behind the music and jingles made for the shows themselves (as was normal on radio countdown shows) until the last two years of the latter's run, when longtime contributors JAM Creative Productions would get a shoutout in the credits. They went back to simply not mentioning the team behind them when AT40 was revived in 1998.
  • Avicii songs never credit the featured vocalist.
  • After John Barry's score for First Love was almost completely dropped from the movie, he took his name off the credits. La-La Land Records released it on CD in 2013.
  • Garth Brooks:
    • Trisha Yearwood's "Like We Never Had a Broken Heart" credited the backing vocals provided by Brooks (this was before they were married), but only on the Canadian charts.
    • Brooks was also uncredited for singing the second verse of Chris LeDoux's "Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy".
  • Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman of The Byrds re-recorded "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" in 1989 with backing from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, although the single release credited only McGuinn and Hillman.
  • Tracy Byrd's 2003 hit "The Truth About Men" does not credit the guest vocals from Blake Shelton, Montgomery Gentry, and Andy Griggs.
  • Subverted with "Shiftwork" by Kenny Chesney and George Strait. Strait was originally not credited for his solo singing on the second verse, but this changed halfway through the song's chart run when the two artists' labels were able to strike a deal.
  • Eric Clapton played an uncredited guitar solo on The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". To return the favour, George Harrison made an uncredited guest appearance on Cream's song "Badge".
  • Numerous artists have ghostwritten lyrics for Dr. Dre, including Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar.
  • Janie Fricke sang the entire second verse of "Thinkin' of a Rendezvous" by Johnny Duncan, but was not credited for it.
  • The Ghost Town DJs, the One-Book Author known for the hit "My Boo", officially consisted of session musicians Virgo, Greg Street, Rodney Terry, and DJ Demp. However, by all accounts the song's creative and production expertise came from non other than Lil' Jon, who couldn't be credited as part of the group because he was also So So Def's A&R Director at the time, which relegated him to an Executive Producer credit.
  • hinayukki has produced several songs that only credits one Vocaloid voicebank, even when there's another voicebank singing the harmony. For example, "Chiri Yuku Mono" and "Floriography" only credits Meiko as the singer, even though there's clearly another voice accompanying her in the chorus; likewise, Kaito's "Kamikaze Matsuri" and "Tabi no hate" both feature some obvious female accompaniment, but doesn't list any other voicebanks.
  • Mick Jagger sang uncredited backing vocals on Carly Simon's Signature Song "You're So Vain". The song was rumoured to be about Jagger himself (although Simon herself denied this).
  • Kesha's first appearance on a Billboard Top 40 pop hit was singing backing vocals on the chorus of "Right Round" by Flo Rida, which she was initially uncredited for. This was probably done for the same reasons she opted not to be in the video — she wanted to be known for her own music, not a guest appearance on a song by someone else.
  • Most pre-2009 Kidz Bop albums didn't credit the vocalists.
  • Many soundalike covers from labels like Madacy Entertainment, Drew's Famous Entertainment or Pickwick Records will often list the musicians by a collective name, but very rarely who the members actually are, if they bother to do it at all.
  • Reba McEntire:
    • "Every Other Weekend" was recorded as a duet with Kenny Chesney, but the official single edit replaced him with co-writer Skip Ewing due to a label disagreement. Despite this, nearly all stations played the Chesney version anyway, and the song was credited only to Reba on the charts.
    • Her 1995 cover of "On My Own" was a Massive Multiplayer Crossover featuring Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, and Linda Davis, but only McEntire received credit.
  • Nas was a ghostwriter for several artists, including Will Smith.
  • As the Nine Inch Nails short film Broken lacks credits, most of the cast (aside from the band in "Wish", and frontman Trent Reznor and S&M performance artist Bob Flanagan in "Happiness in Slavery") are completely unknown; this includes the killer and the victim in the wraparound segments.
  • Frank Ocean's "Pink + White" has Beyoncé singing backup vocals uncredited.
  • K.T. Oslin sang the last verse of Alabama's "Face to Face", but received no credit for it whatsoever.
  • Lee Roy Parnell's 1994 cover of "Take These Chains from My Heart" did not credit the duet vocals from Ronnie Dunn, who sang the second and third verses.
  • Run–D.M.C. contributed ghostwritten lyrics to Beastie Boys' debut album Licensed to Ill.
  • Caitlyn Smith sang backing vocals on Kenny Chesney's "All the Pretty Girls", but not even the liner notes credit her for this.
  • Sons of the Desert sang a call and response on Ty Herndon's 1998 hit "It Must Be Love", but were not credited for it; making this all the more egregious is that they were credited for their backing vocals on Lee Ann Womack's "I Hope You Dance" only two years later. This may be due to Sons of the Desert being in the middle of a dispute with Epic Records during the release of "It Must Be Love" (Herndon was also on Epic at the time), whereas by the release of "I Hope You Dance", both they and Lee Ann were on MCA Records.
  • Bluegrass musician Ralph Stanley was not credited for singing the second verse of "Me and God" by Josh Turner. Also uncredited on this song are the background vocals from Marty Roe, Gene Johnson, and Dana Williams of Diamond Rio. Zig-zagged in that a Turner-only version of the song also exists.
  • Cole Swindell's 2017 hit "Flatliner" does not credit Dierks Bentley, who sings the second verse and has banter with Cole before the last chorus.
  • UNKLE's 1998 song "Chaos" was co-written by Mark Hollis, who also played piano on the track. Hollis was left uncredited at his own request. The piano part was one of the few commercial music performances he did following his retirement from the music industry, and one of the last ones prior to his death in 2019.
  • Jack White performed uncredited backing vocals on Electric Six's song "Danger! High Voltage!". Just to mess with people, the band would maintain in interviews that it was a contest-winning fan who just happened to sound a lot like Jack White.

    Video Games 
  • Most gacha games with many artists involved will list whoever drew the playable characters' illustrations and who voiced them (usually in the character's profile menu), but it's very common for artists and voice actors behind side-characters and enemies being left uncredited. A lot of gacha games don't have a Closing Credits sequence, and even when they have one, these will list the artists/voice actors but not which characters they were involved with.
  • Due an incident involving perceived censorship, Akiba's Beat doesn't credit one of the localizers, who requested his name be removed from it. The supposed censorship issue was merely miscommunication and ignorance of the subject at hand from the Japanese side of things.
  • ANNO: Mutationem: With the exception of Suzie Yeung and Lizzie Freeman (who voice Ann Flores and Ayane Misuno respectively), none of the other voice actors are credited in the Credits Roll.
  • Arcaea normally has some sort of chart designer credit for each combination of song and difficulty. Sometimes the chart credit is something specific to the song without giving any sort of hint to the charter's identity. However the charts for "Solitary Dream" do not have any sort of credit whatsoever.
  • Atari initially did not provide their programmers and designers, for fear of their being lured away by competitors. The game Adventure contains a hidden room which features a secret message crediting the game's developer, Warren Robinett. This was one of the first Easter Eggs. This reason is also why Activision was formed- so they could credit the developers of their games.
  • Neither the English nor the Japanese version of Beast Wars: Transformers credited the characters' voice actors, who weren't even the same voice actors in the Beast Wars cartoon.
  • BEMANI:
    • In late 2017, multiple original songs for the BEMANI series starting being credited to "BEMANI Sound Team" rather than the actual contributing artist. At least "GERBERA" had its actual artist, TAG, initially credited before being replaced with the BST credit, but the arranger for "Dance to Blue" and the composer for "Mychronicle" weren't as lucky. A compromise would be later reached, with the affected songs now showing "BEMANI Sound Team "(artist)"" as the credit.
    • In early 2018, visual artists for the series started to undergo the same treatment, with beatmania IIDX videos and overlays in particular simply crediting "BEMANI Designers". A similar compromise would eventually be reached in early 2019: "BEMANI Designers "(visual artist)""
  • ClayFighter: It is unknown until today who made the voices for characters of the first two games. Even though the voice actor lists appear in both games in IMDb, who-made-who is a mystery until now.
  • Cooking Companions: Bread's voice actor is unknown, only listed as "Deer Dream Studios Staff".
  • Dance Central: For some reason, the voice actor for Glitch has never been named in any of the game credits or on any website cast lists.
  • Hideaki Itsuno was the sole credited director for Devil May Cry 2, but he wasn't the director for a good chunk of its development, only being brought in for the final six months of development to try and salvage the project. The original director remains unknown, but the game's poor reception played a part in Itsuno deciding to direct Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening from beginning to end.
  • None of the English voice actors of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness were credited for their voice work in the game itself.
  • Fire Emblem Heroes:
  • While Yoshihisa Kurosawa designed and did the audiovisual assets for Hong Kong '97, the actual programming was done by someone who remains unknown. All that's known of this programmer is that his day job at the time was working for Enix, which is actually why Kurosawa agreed not to identify or credit him.
  • Many soundtracks for Konami games simply credit "Konami Kukeiha Club" instead of specfic composers or arrangers.
  • The characters of League of Legends have no official listing of voice actors, with many English voice actors not publicly disclosing their involvement and fansites such as Wikia/Fandom and This Very Wiki being mostly informed guesswork. The most common explanations for this range from union voice actors not wanting to disclose their involvement in a non-union game (itself due in part to being a live-service game that can hire actors to re-record lines) to stigma surrounding video game voice acting. This has led to speculations such as Zac being voiced by Patrick Warburton, which was confirmed to not be the case by a Rioter who was present at the recording.
  • Mass Effect 3 replaced Wreav's original voice actor, Jim Cummings with an uncredited voice, revealed years later via Word of God as Roger L. Jackson.
  • Cam Clarke (Liquid Snake) and John Cygan (Solidus Snake) are not credited in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots despite the use of their voice recordings from previous installments. This is a result of a localization oversight in the game's closing credits. Due to the death of Koji Totani (Revolver Ocelot's voice actor in the Japanese version), the role was taken over by Banjo Ginga under the pretense of Liquid Snake's personality taking over Revolver Ocelot's mind. Pat Zimmermann was unaffected by this and still voiced Ocelot in the English version, but the credits were not changed to reflect this casting difference in the English version and thus, Zimmermann is credited twice (once for his present role as Liquid Ocelot and the second time for the use of Revolver Ocelot clips from previous games). As for Solidus Snake, the character was played Akio Otsuka in Japanese, who also voices protagonist Solid Snake, resulting in only one character being credited in the Japanese version.
  • In NieR: Automata, the English voice of Commander White was uncredited on release. She turned out to be voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey.
  • While the original Resident Evil features a cast list at the closing credits, it only credits the actors who appear in the live-action segments (each credited by one name only), leading to the mistaken belief that the live-action actors also voiced the in-game characters. In reality, not only were in-game voice actors different, but the voice actors actually dubbed over the live-action actors' performances. The voices for Chris Redfield (the late Scott McCullough, who passed away in 2000), Barry Burton (Barry Gjerde), Albert Wesker (Pablo Kuntz) and Rebecca Chambers (Lynn Harris, who also served as the voice acting director) has since been identified.
  • For reasons unknown, the voice actors for the Playa in Saints Row were uncredited. The Caucasian and Asian voice was done by Andrew Kishino (who also voices Donnie), while the African-American voice was by Kenn Michael (the man behind Male Voice 2 in Saints Row 2 and onward). The Hispanic voice, however, is harder to pinpoint.
  • SEVEN's CODE does not credit the arrangers for the classical music remixes, only the original composers.
  • Michael Jackson contributed to the soundtrack of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, but was dissatisfied with the sound capabilities of the Sega Genesis and dropped out of the project. Then Jackson's child molestation accusations came to light, so Sega dropped his name from the credits to distance themselves from the controversy. What remnants of his contributions in the final product are disputed, however, it is thought that he at the very least, composed the miniboss theme, the melody for Carnival Night Zone and the end credits theme.
  • Certain union voice actors in the Super Smash Bros. cast are uncredited due to the game being a non-union dub. Examples include Laura Bailey as Lucina (who was also uncredited in Fire Emblem: Awakening), Antony Del Rio as Pit, and Hynden Walch as Viridi (both from Kid Icarus: Uprising). Other union actors were voice-matched, including Viridi in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, likely for similar reasons.
  • Most anything developed by TOSE, who prefers to remain anonymous.
  • Twisted Wonderland voice actors are not credited in-game, but are credited in official literature.
  • Justin Villiers, Will Byles and Pete Samuels developed the story for Until Dawn, but were not credited.
  • The G-OLM in Virtue's Last Reward's dub not only remained uncredited, but nobody knew who he was. Even the people who worked on the voice acting had no idea who the voice is from, with it only later being revealed that he was voiced by Dave B. Mitchell (Tenmyouji's VA).
  • Not crediting the dev teams was also a standard practice at Williams Electronics for fear of them being poached by competitors. The staffs were instead (mostly) credited on the high score screens as an Easter Egg. Several staff members were not identified until the 1990s.
  • The original English dub of Persona 3 was entirely uncredited, and as of this writing the English voice actors for Ken, Fuuka (both of whom were Darrined in spinoffs) and Chidori remain unknown.

    Web Videos 
  • Wormwood Institute: To keep up the illusion that these were archived video tapes, none of the actors playing the students are credited.

    Western Animation 

In General:

  • Due to union rules at the time, this happened a lot when it came to overseas animators during the 1980s. Some shows, usually those by Sunbow Entertainment and Ruby-Spears, don't even credit any overseas studios.

Actors:

Studios:

  • DiC Entertainment: The Real Ghostbusters was particularly odd about this, with the first three seasons lacking specific episode credits utilizing only one generic staff listing throughout*. While the later seasons and the Slimer! spinoff actually list the studios used. Similar cases also happened in DiC's other shows from that era, most notably Kidd Video (Season 1 crediting Cuckoo's Nest Studio, while Season 2 only listed the studios used for animation shooting — Studio Wood, Takahashi Production and Wako Production), Inspector Gadget (Seasons 1 and 2 having their own dedicated staff rolls, but no episode specific credits, and no credit at all for Toei during Season 1) and M.A.S.K. (with Ashi Productions and Studio World listed for Season 2, but no animator credits for Season 1). Some of their 90s efforts such as Extreme Dinosaurs, Stunt Dawgs and Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog list the studios involved, but not for any specific episodes. In a more general sense, most of DiC's late 80s output just outright failed to credit any overseas companies altogether, and if they weren't outright omitted, voice actors would be listed without proper accreditation to their roles. Something that would continue until their closure.
  • Dan Gordon was dismissed from Famous Studios shortly after its inception; his name was removed from the completed cartoons he directed such as "No Mutton Fer Nuttin'".
  • Fred Wolf Films was notoriously bad about crediting overseas animation studios; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) only did it for the first two seasons (Toei and A-1 Productions, respectively) and Seasons 7-10 (Dai Won and Morning Sun), leaving who animated Seasons 3-6 (and specifically, which studios animated which specific episodes) a mystery outside of the episodes shipped to their Ireland branch. James Bond Jr., Barnyard Commandos and Toxic Crusaders never listed any studio in the end credits. The New Adventures of Speed Racer goes a step further and leaves out the voice cast as well.
  • Depending on the country the shows air in, some Mondo TV series will not list that the animation was done in North Korea by SEK Studio. The voice cast is also left out in several Mondo TV original shows from the 1990s and 2000s.
  • Upon the release of Green Eggs and Ham (2019) (itself an example, listing only the studios involved with the series), Andrew Dickman spoke up about Warner Bros. not only pulling this trope, but also making animators become outright unpersons.

Shows:

  • The Australian cartoon Bluey only credited the characters voiced by adult actors, with the characters voiced by children going uncredited due to privacy concerns. This means that Bandit and Chilli (AKA Dad and Mum)'s actors were credited, but not Bluey or Bingo's voice actresses.
  • Ruby Wax was credited for every episode of Count Duckula she provided voices for barring her first, "Castle Duckula: Open to the Public".
  • Ed Love, an animator at Hanna-Barbera at the time, animated some Wing Dings segments of Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines but his name appears nowhere in the credits.
  • Kathy Griffin never received screen credit for voicing Alice in the animated adaptation of Dilbert. This was due to Griffin also starring in Suddenly Susan at the same time, as her contract with NBC prohibited her from receiving screen credit on shows airing on other networks ("Dilbert" aired on UPN).
  • Family Guy: Lacey Chabert went uncredited when she voiced Meg during the first production season, before she was replaced by Mila Kunis. She finally received credit in "Back to the Pilot" and "Yug Ylimaf".
  • G.I. Joe: Resolute does not credit Snake-Eyes' voice actor for the flashback depicting the assassination of the Hard Master and the gunshot wound that made Snake-Eyes unable to speak.
  • Invincible: When the show premiered, it was not known who provided the voice of Todd, before Chris Diamantopoulos was credited.
  • King of the Hill: Stephen Root was not credited for the first few seasons, due to his role on NewsRadio.
  • Language Arts Through Imagination: Unlike Figment's voice actor for the shorts, Billy Barty, none of the live action child actors were given any credit.
  • Looney Tunes:
    • Until 1944, Mel Blanc received no onscreen credit for his voice work. He only was given a credit after asking for a raise. His bosses refused to give him one, but instead begrudgingly agreed to give him a voice work credit for all future Looney Tunes productions, making him one of the first voice actors to escape this trope. The first actor other than Blanc to receive screen credit was Stan Freberg in 1957's The Three Little Bops.
    • Directors typically went uncredited on cartoons completed or released after leaving Warner Bros.
      • Tex Avery didn't receive credit on his last five cartoons, All This and Rabbit Stew, The Bug Parade, The Cagey Canary, Aloha Hooey and Crazy Cruise; the latter three were completed by Bob Clampett.
      • Clampett would later got this treatment on The Big Snooze and Bacall to Arms, the latter being completed by Art Davis (who was also uncredited).
      • Friz Freleng went uncredited as director on Hollywood Daffy. Allegedly, Freleng was briefly suspended over a pay dispute, leaving his layout artist Hawley Pratt to pick up the slack.
      • Frank Tashlin quit the studio in 1944, meaning that the remainder of the shorts he directed, such as Nasty Quacks or Hare Remover, had him uncredited. The latter was finished by Robert McKimson, who also went uncredited.
      • Everyone involved with Dough for the Do-Do (a shot-for-shot colour remake of Porky in Wackyland, with a wholly different team working on it) went uncredited, with the only exceptions being Mel Blanc and Carl Stalling, both of whom were involved in the production of the original. This was because Friz Freleng himself felt that he didn't deviate from the original enough to warrant a credit, and since Clampett had long since left the studio, they couldn't credit him either.
      • Chuck Jones did not receive credit for the shorts Zip Zip Hooray! or Roadrunner a Go-Go, which were edited from the failed Adventures of the Road Runner pilot after the original Warner Bros. studio closed down. At the time these shorts were released (1965), Jones was working for MGM on the Tom and Jerry series.
    • All shorts that were given Blue Ribbon reissues before 1956 (encompassing re-releases of all the pre-1948 shorts, as well as five post-1948 shortsnote ) scrapped the original titles, including the credits, meaning none of the crew would be credited in re-releases of those cartoons.
    • Nobody was credited for Page Miss Glory except for layout/background artist Leadora Congdon, although producer Leon Schlesinger is credited on the lobby cards. Tex Avery was rather dismissive of the cartoon, in part because he wasn't credited.
    • Milt Franklyn suffered a fatal heart attack while scoring The Jet Cage, finishing only the first third of the cartoon. Bill Lava took over for the rest of the cartoon, starting with the scene where Sylvester tries to catch Tweety's cage with a net. Lava was not credited for his work in this particular cartoon.
    • Porky and Gabby and Porky's Super Service are both agreed by animation historians to have been ghost-directed by Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones. However, Ub Iwerks is credited as the shorts' director, because they were outsourced to his studio.
  • On Filmation's The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle, studio heads Norm Prescott and Lou Schiemer voiced Theodore Bear (in the Quacula episodes) and Mighty Mouse respectively but neither are credited.
  • During the time when Face was the main mascot of Nick Jr., there were dubs of his bumpers made for the Australian market, but the voice actor dubbing his lines is unknown.note 
  • The 1963 animated short Noddy Goes To Toyland by Arthur Humberstone never credited the voice actors. It wasn't until late 2021, when it was revealed that Bernard Cribbins and Kathryn Beaumont (best known as the voice of Alice and Wendy) were the main voice actors for the short.
  • The Simpsons: Matt Groening had his name removed from the episode "A Star Is Burns" due to viewing the episode as a half-hour commercial for The Critic, leading to a well-publicized spat with producer James L. Brooks (who had fought to bring The Critic to Fox).
  • Star Wars Rebels:
  • The Transformers did this with its animation teams to the point where one episode, "Call of the Primitives", was the subject of a longtime rumor over who animated it. It wouldn't be until 2020 when the answer finally came out — it was series regulars Toei Animation (as was half of Season 3).

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