separate "Also starring" credits

dpratt wrote:
I just wanted to suggest adding a new type of guest for cast who are credited as "also starring." I recently came across this on a show with three seasons, in only one episode in Season 2, there were guests who were credited as "also starring." I did the right thing and added them to the main cast. But the problem with that is that they're not part of the main cast. Again they were credited as "also starring" not "starring" and only appeared in one episode in Season 2 in a show with three seasons. Just a thought.

(The show in question is Henry Danger and the guest cast in question are Kira Kosarin and Jack Griffo.)

Usually "also starring" means they are main cast for this episode.

From the Data Policies:

A Cast entry specifies a person part of the show's main cast.

The following terms indicate that a credit is considered Main Cast:

Main Cast
Starring
Show/Series Regular
Lead Role

The following terms are normally considered Main Cast, though individual shows can have a different policy:

Principal Cast
Also Starring

LadyShelley wrote:
From the Data Policies:

A Cast entry specifies a person part of the show's main cast.

The following terms indicate that a credit is considered Main Cast:

Main Cast
Starring
Show/Series Regular
Lead Role

The following terms are normally considered Main Cast, though individual shows can have a different policy:

Principal Cast
Also Starring

So what happens when an individual show has a different policy? If they're all treated the same way by TVMaze, then the disclaimer seems unnecessary.

LadyShelley wrote:
From the Data Policies:

A Cast entry specifies a person part of the show's main cast.

The following terms indicate that a credit is considered Main Cast:

Main Cast
Starring
Show/Series Regular
Lead Role

The following terms are normally considered Main Cast, though individual shows can have a different policy:

Principal Cast
Also Starring

How do we find out what the policy is for each show? For example, what is the policy for Henry Danger when they credit cast as also starring? Because in my opinion Kira Kosarin and Jack Griffo were guest cast on that episode, not main cast. But I added them to the main cast because I thought I was doing the right thing. Here is a link to the episode in question: http://www.tvmaze.com/episodes/879846/henry-danger-2x17-danger-thunder/castappearances

Again this is an instance where I think Also Starring should be an option under guest cast.

To be honest I'm not an expert here. The way I understood it, "Also Starring" can refer to both Guest Cast and Main Cast, and you'd have to use the other available sources for a show to determine which one it is.

Adding a guest cast type of "also starring" probably isn't a great idea then, because it would imply that "also starring" always refers to Guest Cast.

Let me see if I understand this. After checking sources, and when still in doubt: If within a show, some guests are credited as guest starring and others are credited as also starring, then they should be treated as main cast. If within a show, all of the guests are credited as also starring, barring specials, etc, and the words "guest star" are not used, then they should be credited as guest stars. Does that sound right?

How actors are credited and what those credits look like is part PR, part agent pull with the production, and part SAG rules.

An "Also Starring" credit could mean the actor has more leeway in their availability for filming (Starring roles need to be available for filming on a rather strict schedule for example). It could also mean the actor's agent has the pull to get the actor listed slightly differently from the rest of the cast for a whole variety of reasons. Usually the top spots in cast listings is either first or last. I like using Larry Manetti as an example for this as he is *always* credited with a "With" at the end of the credit sequence.

If you look at the opening title sequence for Magnum PI, Tom Selleck is credit as "Starring" Tom Selleck as Magnum. Then you have "Also Starring" credits for Johnathan Hillerman and Roger Mosley and a "With" credit at the end for Larry Manetti (who also is the only other character named).

Flash forward 40 odd years and Manetti now is guest starring on Hawaii Five-0, but he is still listed at the end of the guest cast sequence and he still has that "With". (even in the days of Back Sheep Squadron, he's listed in the last block of actor names in the opening credits!)

That is all down to his pull as an actor to be able to demand such things from the production. He also gets slightly larger residuals as a result.

The reality is crediting is messy, it's not logical, and usually the decisions are made based on things the average viewer is never going to know anything about. All we can do here is try to make the best of it.

Also, the crediting "standards" have changed over the years.

Perhaps most famously, Jonathan Harris was listed as a Special Guest Star for his entire run of Lost in Space. But he was essentially a plain old show star, no different (other than the amount of screen time and script emphasis) then the other show stars.

Then again, he's listed as both a Show Star and a Special Guest Star at TVMaze. So go figure.

Gadfly wrote:
Also, the crediting "standards" have changed over the years.

Perhaps most famously, Jonathan Harris was listed as a Special Guest Star for his entire run of Lost in Space. But he was essentially a plain old show star, no different (other than the amount of screen time and script emphasis) then the other show stars.

Then again, he's listed as both a Show Star and a Special Guest Star at TVMaze. So go figure.

This is also why some shows list strictly alphabetically, it avoids such problems.

The 1960s were a different beast entirely for these rules. It was almost entirely based on the pull of the actor/agent. Most of the regular cast of Star Trek for example were listed as "Featuring" and then it was after the big name guest stars, but we list them all as Main Cast here for obvious reasons.

There is a bit of common sense needed when adding cast to the site. You're* watching the show, you* know who the regular cast are compared to the guest stars regardless of any wonky credit listings.

*that's a collective "you" BTW not any specific person. :)

What obvious reasons are those?

The fact that they're recurring guest stars doesn't make them show stars, credit wise. And it's rather confusing anyway: James Doohan is listed as both a show star and a guest star for Trek, for both older and newer episodes in the three season. Nichelle Nichols is listed as both as well. But Walter Koenig isn't.

Trek, by the way, had Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley listed in the opening credits. The rest of the cast weren't listed until 40+ minutes later, and the three mains weren't listed in the end credits. I wouldn't call one"after" the other. :)

it thought we had standards so that we didn't need to rely on "common sense." Of which there are almost as many versions as there are contributors. ;) It also looks like one person made the changes: So is that person in charge of the Star Trek pages? If they're making the final decisions, it sure sounds like it.

Good answer LadyShelley.

Gadfly wrote:
What obvious reasons are those?

The fact that they're recurring guest stars doesn't make them show stars, credit wise. And it's rather confusing anyway: James Doohan is listed as both a show star and a guest star for Trek, for both older and newer episodes in the three season. Nichelle Nichols is listed as both as well. But Walter Koenig isn't.

Trek, by the way, had Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley listed in the opening credits. The rest of the cast weren't listed until 40+ minutes later, and the three mains weren't listed in the end credits. I wouldn't call one"after" the other. :)

it thought we had standards so that we didn't need to rely on "common sense." Of which there are almost as many versions as there are contributors. ;) It also looks like one person made the changes: So is that person in charge of the Star Trek pages? If they're making the final decisions, it sure sounds like it.

You do realise I'm in essence agreeing with you, yes? If you go to the main cast page for the show all seven of them are listed, even though four of them were only ever listed as "Featuring" at the time. Why? Because casting standards were different in 1966 compared to now. You look at just about any show we have here that pre-dates roughly 1978ish and you will find these sorts of things.

And Nichelle, Walter, James, and George were listed as "Featuring" AFTER the "Co-starring" credit of everyone who was guest starring that week. All of this was in the end credit roll.

Users here entering information do have to use some common sense when adding data for these old shows.

It's of interest to me because I've been looking at Star Trek the Animated. Series. And it credited the actors the same way (although without the character names). But that was in the 70s.

For instance, why is it "common sense" that Walter Koenig is a show star but Majel Barrett isn't? She was in 30-35 episodes, Koenig was in 36. They were both credited the same way at the end. She was in the animated series, he wasn't. He was featured in the movies, she wasn't (although she appeared briefly a few times). So do the movies 10+ years later decide who gets credited how in the 60s?

I'd have to go dig out my DVDs and look at how she was credited in Star Trek; if it was as a "Co-Star" I can completely understand why whoever added the info added her as a "Guest Star" as opposed to Main Cast, that's what the term "co-star" meant in the 1960s through the mid to late 1970s.

Animated shows are a whole other casting kettle of fish.

Barrett was credited the same way that the others were. As i recall without doing more extensive checking, they were almost always listed as co-stars. So... wouldn't that make them guest stars, since you say that's what "co-star" meant in the 1960s?

Although there were many people listed as guest stars in Star Trek that aren't listed as show stars. So I'm not following the reasoning here. Guest Stars are show stars, and co-stars are guest stars, except we treat many of the guest stars on Trek as guest stars.

The odd thing is that the Star Trek credits are relatively "normal" by modern-day standards. Compare them to, say, Land of the Giants, which lists the show cast at the beginning and end, doesn't list them as Show Stars at the end, and often adds a guest star to the tail end of the show stars. Since there were seven of them, you'd have a screen of four, then a screen of three and one guest star added at the end with no distinction from the three before it.

It's odd because you're saying that credits were different in the 60s. There was certainly some weird 60s stuff (like the aforementioned Jonathan Harris/Lost in Space thing), but Trek wasn't one of the odd ones.

I don't think whoever did/didn't add the actors as show stars was at all concerned with how they were listed in the credits. Setting aside the fact that they have (for instance) James Doohan listed as both a show star and a guest star when he was credited the same way every time, the changes seem to have been made based on "common sense", i.e., that's what many people think the show stars are.

If it helps, I checked a 3rd season episode, "That Which Survives."

--new screen--

Guest Star

Lee Merwiether as Losira

--new screen--

James Doohan as Scott

Arthur Batanides as D'Amato

--new screen--

smaller print

George Takei... Sulu

Nichelle Nichols... Uhura

Naomi Pollack... Rahda

--new screen--

(same print size as last one)

Booker Bradshaw... Dr. M'Benga

Brad Forrest... Ensign

Kenneth Washington... Watkins

-----

And there's the usual Shatner-Nimoy-Kelley thing at the beginning.

So how you can tell from all of this that Doohan is a show star, but Batanides is a guest star. Or Takei and Nichols are show stars, but Pollck is a guest star (and they're all in smaller print and come later in the credits than Batanides), I have no idea. If nothing else, I'd think that one of the things that would make an actor a show star would be them being consistently listed the same way. The only thing that seems to make Doohan-Takei-Nichols-Koenig (DTNK? ) show stars is # of appearances and how the Trek movies treated them.

Gadfly wrote:
If it helps, I checked a 3rd season episode, "That Which Survives."

--new screen--

Guest Star

Lee Merwiether as Losira

--new screen--

James Doohan as Scott

Arthur Batanides as D'Amato

--new screen--

smaller print

George Takei... Sulu

Nichelle Nichols... Uhura

Naomi Pollack... Rahda

--new screen--

(same print size as last one)

Booker Bradshaw... Dr. M'Benga

Brad Forrest... Ensign

Kenneth Washington... Watkins

-----

And there's the usual Shatner-Nimoy-Kelley thing at the beginning.

So how you can tell from all of this that Doohan is a show star, but Batanides is a guest star. Or Takei and Nichols are show stars, but Pollck is a guest star (and they're all in smaller print and come later in the credits than Batanides), I have no idea. If nothing else, I'd think that one of the things that would make an actor a show star would be them being consistently listed the same way. The only thing that seems to make Doohan-Takei-Nichols-Koenig (DTNK? ) show stars is # of appearances and how the Trek movies treated them.

If I understand this correctly, Shatner-Nimoy-Kelley should be main cast here and all the ones that are shown after the "Guest Cast" are of course only guest cast.

There's one more crediting type, which is not covered by policy at all. Featuring.
It's rare now, but was often used in 60s-80s (IMMSMC). I think I've seen it in some contemporary UK series as well.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but usually it was applied to "rising stars", and could mean both main and guest cast belonging. But I could be wrong :)

UPD. Missed that @LadyShelley mentioned it. But nonetheless, this matter should be cleared as well IMO.

@LadyShelley @Gadfly You know more about this than I do, any advice? Anything we can add to or remove from the policy to make it more clear how to deal with these, even if it's impossible to have a generic rule for this that covers all shows?