Editing out characters in syndication

[jamesanthony]

Is there some sort of rule that says that a regular character (someone whose name appears in the main titles of a show) can't have all of their screen time in an episode edited out in syndication? It would be ironic for a character's only scene in a show to be cut in reruns. I can't think of any examples of this but I was watching the Cosby Show's season 5 episodes and noticed that in some episodes a character like Vanessa might only appear for about 1 minute and not really have anything to do with that show's plot, and in some other shows Clair or Rudy weren't shown, but perhaps they were in the episode when it originally ran on NBC. Also in reading tvtome's reviews for Happy Days' episodes the editor mentions when a character is not in an episode, but this is based upon syndicated viewing.