What shows had a small cast (say around 8 characters or less on a regular basis) throughout it's run?

My list:

Gidget
The Golden Girls
The Odd couple
Bachelor Father
My Favorite Martian
I Love Lucy
The Monkees
Kate and Allie
Angie


Any other shows?

The Courtship of Eddie's Father

New Girl only has 5.

The Fugitive
Run for Your Life
The Six Million Dollar Man
Route 66
Movin' On

Hardcastle and McCormick (just Judge Milton C. Hardcastle [Keith] and ex-con McCormick [Hugh-Kelly])

Dragnet
Laverne & Shirley
Brotherly Love
Gilligan's Island
Living Single
Perfect Strangers

MacGyver (two main characters- MacGyver and Pete Thornton. And Dana Elcar wasn't even credited as part of the regular cast until the second season onward to the end.)

Quantum Leap- Dr. Sam Beckett and Rear Admiral Al Calavicci are the two main characters- there are a few other recurring characters who show up in a few episodes (and are mentioned in a lot more)- but those are the only two credited.

Early Edition- Gary Hobson, Chuck Fishman and Marissa Clark are the three main characters (and the only actors and actresses credited) in the first two seasons. By Seasons 3 and 4, a few other characters are added- Henry Paget [the actor, Myles Jeffrey, is actually credited], Erica Paget [the actress, Kristy Swanson, is not- as far as I recall.] and Patrick Quinn.
And of course, The Cat is always a main character in every episode.:) :cool:

8 is actually a fairly big cast to be considered small. I'd say 5 or less would be what I'd call small.

Anyway, Leave It To Beaver.

"Family ties" only had five regulars until Andy was introduced. "Clarissa explains it all" and "Murphy Brown" never had more than five regulars.

The Incredible Hulk had only three regular stars for its entire run

8 is actually a fairly big cast to be considered small. I'd say 5 or less would be what I'd call small.

Anyway, Leave It To Beaver.

Yeah. That's true, tbb033. Around 5 (or less) cast members would be more accurate.

8 is actually a fairly big cast to be considered small. I'd say 5 or less would be what I'd call small.

Anyway, Leave It To Beaver.


True. I'd guess that about 90% of all sitcoms, and at least half of all other types of shows had casts of 8 or less. MASH had a cast of 8 regularly appearing stars (by which I mean actors who appeared in almost every episode of a given season, and were named in the credits). This went down to 7 after Gary Burgoff left, but they always had another 3 or 4 frequently recurring characters (Rizzo, Nurse Kelly, Zale, Igor).

F Troop had 9 regular characters.

But I really can't think of very many other sitcoms with more than 8 full time cast members. 6 or 7 seems to be the norm.

I think the shows with the smallest regular cast (not counting anthology shows with NO recurring characters or cast members) would be a handful of shows with only 1 regular character. I can't think of any sitcoms with only 1 cast member, but there are a few dramas I can think of with only one regular cast member.

Cannon was a solo act. It is the only private eye show I can think of in which he did not have a regularly appearing policeman friend, or a regularly appearing informant, girlfriend, secretary, etc.

And Columbo never had any recurring characters other than the detective himself that I remember.

The British tv show Secret Agent (also called Danger Man) only had the one regular character.

Wanted: Dead or Alive only had Steve McQueen in its regular cast.

There are several shows I can think of with 2 regular characters - Route 66, I Spy, The Avengers (early seasons), The Wild Wild West, It takes a Thief - but again, none were comedies.

Red Dwarf - early seasons it was 3 to 4, after that it was around 4 to 5. Except season 8 which had the most characters during it's run since the crew of Red Dwarf was resurrected.

Season(Series) 10 had it back down to 4.

The Good Guys (1968)
The Immortal
Branded
The Guns of Will Sonnett
Have Gun-Will Travel

Far Out Space Nuts