Promoted Fanboy: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"My entire career has been a secret plan to get this job. I applied before but I got knocked back because the BBC wanted someone else. Also, I was seven."''|'''[[Steven Moffat]]''', upon being named lead writer/producer for '''''[[Doctor Who]]'''''}}

 

 

 

As noted in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' entry below, many [[Long Runners|long-running franchises]] (such as ''[[Star Wars]]'', ''[[Star Trek]]'', ''[[Kamen Rider]]'', [[Marvel Comics]], [[DC Comics]] and ''[[Transformers]]'') have been on for so long that it's only natural that fans would get to work on them.

 

* A lot of folks who appear on ''[[Star Trek]]'' get roles because they are big fans of the show(s).

** And now, he's made [[Battlestar Galactica|his own sci-fi series]].

* Allegedly when Paramount learned Tyler Perry, of Madea fame, was a ''Trek'' fan, they got him a guest appearance in [[Star Trek (film)|the 11th film]] as the Dean of Starfleet Academy.

** This is also how [[Zachary Quinto]] who plays Sylar on ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' got the part of young Spock in the new movie.

* [[Simon Pegg]] is also a major fan of Trek, and he has said that he was placed in the [[Star Trek (film)|new movie]] (canonically the eleventh) to disprove comments his character made on the sitcom ''[[Spaced]]'':

{{quote|"Sure as every odd-numbered Star Trek film is shit."}}

* In his book "Worlds of Wonder" writer David Gerrold states he was one of these already during the show's original run.

* Almost happened to [[Tom Hanks]], yet another long-time Trekkie, who auditioned for the role of Zephram Cochrane in ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]''. He was very disappointed when the role went to [[James Cromwell]].

 

* [[Mark Hamill]] was a comics and sci-fi fan before playing the part of Luke Skywalker and becoming a voice actor for characters like [[The Joker]].

* Ryan Weiber, one of the creators of the popular ''[[Star Wars]]'' fanfilms "Ryan Vs Dorkman". While he doesn't work for George Lucas or ILM, he ''did'' work for LucasGames for a time; currently he is doing special effects work in Hollywood, notably on ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]''.

* In 2005-2008, Star Wars fan club members competed to write databank entries for obscure characters that weren't covered previously, or covered very slightly. The winning writers of the entries were then rewarded with having their ideas be a part of Star Wars canon.

** And it got even better for some. As of June 2009, three of those authors were later hired by the company to write short fiction stories for the website.

* It's no secret that [[Seth Green]] is a big fan (prime evidence: ''[[Robot Chicken]]''). He recently voiced a one-off character in season two of ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]''.

** His character has reappeared twice in season three, despite being killed in his original appearance, due to the non-linear nature of many of season three's episodes, and his character being the sidekick to [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] Cad Bane.

** They have come under fire, however. Particularly when Gary Sarli, [[Star Wars]] RPG writer and fellow scientist and ''Star Wars'' aficionado, pointed out the huge inconsistencies that went into making the books, specifically how Saxton's calculations for the Base Delta Zero command underestimated the number of ships involved by at least an order of magnitude, the amount of time required by at least an order of magnitude, and overestimated the thoroughness of the attack by about 3 orders of magnitude. Then he used these massively inflated numbers for the basis for almost everything else.

* Modi is the pseudonym for a Hungarian fan who had been making unofficial maps of the Star Wars galaxy for years. When Lucasfilm decided to publish ''The Essential Atlas'', they hired him to make some draft maps that professional artists would finish. His work ended up being such high quality that they scrapped the "professional artists" plan and just used his maps as is.

 

{{quote|Since ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has been running since 1963 (hiatus not withstanding), there's an entire ''generation'' of people who loved the show enough to be considered fans and work their way into the industry and onto the staff. Some of the more recent fans were even born after the show had started running. Though some of them also ended up [[Running the Asylum]].}}

* Matthew Waterhouse had been a ''[[Doctor Who]]'' fan before he got the role of [[The Scrappy|Adric]] and had a letter published in an early issue of ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' (before getting the part).

** Indeed, that special is really little more than an excuse for David Tennant to gush at how much he loves Peter Davison, while they're both in character. At one point, the 5th Doctor takes a close look at the 10th and laments "Oh no. You're a ''fan''!" Near the end, the 10th tells the 5th that he "was [his] Doctor."

** Tennant, like everyone else, loved Sarah Jane Smith. Not only did he get to work with [[Elisabeth Sladen]] during "School Reunion," but he got to be the one to give her the heart-melting "Goodbye, my Sarah Jane," that Sarah Jane waited decades for.

*** Building off of Tennant's promotion? The Fifth Doctor, [[Peter Davison]] himself, was ''also'' this - having been a massive fan of the Second Doctor's run on the series. That's right, the Second Doctor crafted the Fifth Doctor, who in turn crafted the Tenth Doctor. Expect another Doctor in about 20 to 30 years based on Tennant...

* [[John Barrowman]] was also a big fan and also describes himself as an [[Otaku]].

* [[Russell T. Davies]], the ex-lead writer and ex-producer of the new series, was also a tremendous fan and had actually sent in scripts during the show's original run. For years he'd stated that the only reason he would return to working for [[The BBC]] was if they were to start up ''Doctor Who'' again and let him run it. He also seems to have a knack for pulling in other ''Who'' fans to work on the revived series.

* There's a reason there's a [[Steven Moffat]] quote at the top of this page.

* Many of the people writing for the [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] and the revival television series had an involvement with the AudioVisuals fan audios series starring Nicholas Briggs as his version of the Doctor. One of the more prominent AudioVisuals creators, Gary Russell (who had auditioned by the part of Adric), has script edited for the [[Whoniverse]] shows and Briggs has voiced the Daleks, Cybermen and sundry other monsters (in both the new series and [[Big Finish Doctor Who]], the latter of which he is also the executive producer of) and appeared in person in ''[[Torchwood]]: [[Torchwood: Children of Earth|Children of Earth]]''.

* [[Mark Gatiss]] is the only person to have the distinction of having written for every "New Who" Doctor ''and'' having appeared on the show as an actor twice. If you count Big Finish audios, he has written for seven Doctors, and he's also the only person to play both the Doctor and the Master.

* [[Derek Jacobi]], who, when he played the Master in the episode "Utopia", announced being in ''Doctor Who'' was one of his two unfulfilled ambitions. (The other was being in ''[[Coronation Street]]''.)

 

* [[Brad Swaile]], who voiced Kicker in ''[[Transformers Energon]]'', is a fan of ''[[Transformers]]'' and was eager to get a role on the series. [[Creator's Pet|Tough luck, Brad]].

* In something between this and [[Running the Asylum]]: Derrick J. Wyatt, the lead ''character designer'' of ''[[Transformers Animated]]'', is also a huge ''Transformers'' fan.

* Random sector locations in ''[[Beast Wars]]'' were named after fans from the forums.

* There's also Hirofumi Ichikawa, who started off writing [[Fanfic|doujinshi]] and was particularly influential in introducing Japanese fans to the original portrayals of the ''[[Beast Wars]]'', as opposed to the [[Cut and Paste Translation|somewhat less than faithful Japanese dub]]. He has since been hired by Takara to write a fair number of toy bios, comics, and guidebooks, and even got to design toys for the ''[[Transformers Energon|Super Link]]'' and ''[[Transformers Cybertron|Galaxy Force]]'' lines.

* Josh Nizzi produced a [[Transformers (film)|movie-inspired]] design for the Constructicon Dump Truck Long Haul. He was not only brought on to Hasbro, but Long Haul was the first new design for the ''Revenge of the Fallen'' toyline and he went on to design several more for the movie.

* [http://www.bwtf.com/ Benson Yee], a [[Big Name Fan]] in the community, was approached on usenet by the ''[[Beast Wars]]'' writers for his expertise in ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]''. He received a consultant credit for key mythology-heavy episodes, and was shot by ''Beast Wars'' Megatron at a convention.

{{quote|'''Waspinator:''' Not wacko -- wonko! Wonko the Sane!}}

* Shane McCarthy, a [[Small Name, Big Ego|small name writer]] and another asylum runner was hired by IDW publishing to take over the ''Transformers'' comic series from veteran Simon Furman. However, he did not have Wyatt's popularity, mostly due to his writing and the attitude he shows when someone critiques his work. [[Your Mileage May Vary|YMMV]], though especially if you have a [[Nostalgia Filter]] or you like [[Darker and Edgier]] stuff since his story is essentially a grimmer, [[Decompressed Comic]] version of the [[The Transformers (animation)|G1 cartoon series]].

* Brazilian voice actor Guilherme Briggs was a ''Transformers'' fan in his childhood, and later dubbed Optimus Primal in ''[[Beast Machines]]'' and all subsequent incarnations of Optimus Prime except ''Animated''.

* During the Dreamwave Comics period, a lot of Transformers fan-artists were hired to work on the comics, apparently [[Made a Slave|out of love]] for the series. That didn't go [http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&col=1&old=1&column=litg&article=2102 quite well]. Most [[Doing It for the Art|still remain working]] for IDW and/or Hasbro.

* Joe Hahn, turntablist and music video director for [[Linkin Park]], is well known to be a fan of the series - Transformers can be found Hahn's DJ booths on stage and even some of the band's cover art. [[Even Heroes Have Heroes|So when Linkin Park end up doing the main themes for the Michael Bay movies...]]

 

* Masahiro Inoue, the lead actor in ''[[Kamen Rider Decade]]'', is a long-time ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' fan, especially ''[[Kamen Rider Black|Black]]'' and ''[[Kamen Rider Black RX|Black RX]]'' (Hell, he's even part of the franchise's [[Periphery Demographic]] both before and after ''Decade''). When Decade's journey took him to Black RX's World, Inoue made a blog post in which he effectively geeked out over the entire situation.

** Inoue's co-star Ryouta Murai got this quite literally. As a child he was a huge fan of ''[[Kamen Rider Kuuga]]''; jump ahead nine years, and he gets to '''be''' Kuuga (well, an [[Alternate Universe]] incarnation of the character) in ''Decade''.

* Keisuke Kato was also this, he is a big Kamen Rider fan and landed the role of Kamen Rider IXA in [[Kamen Rider Kiva]] as [[The Danza|Keisuke Nago]].

 

* Many, possibly the majority, of well-known mangaka got their start writing doujinshi; typically starting with fan-fic before moving on to original work. Notable examples below.

* CLAMP, creators of ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'', ''Chobits'', and many other successful manga, started out as a doujinshi circle back in the 80's.

* Eiichiro Oda, author of ''[[One Piece]]'', was a massive ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' fan; heck, he loved all of [[Akira Toriyama]]'s works, and that's what inspired him to become a manga artist. Eventually, he ended up working at Shonen Jump, the same magazine that ''Dragon Ball'' was published in, and even collaborated with Toriyama on a ''DBZ/One Piece'' crossover manga.

* Shiori Teshirogi, the author who writes the ''[[Saint Seiya]]: The Lost Canvas'' manga, is actually a [[Shoujo]] author who once met Kurumada. ''Saint Seiya'' was always her favorite series and she jumped at the chance of making a new story when Kurumada pitched the idea to her, and what was originally thought to end up being a rather brief series has exploded in popularity. To put it simply, she is writing a non-canon doujin, getting ''paid'' for it, ''and'' getting an OVA deal for it. Not bad for someone's first [[Shonen]] story.

* Some actors in anime dubbing were [[Anime]] fans before getting work as [[Voice Actors]], including [[Greg Ayres]], [[Caitlin Glass]], and [[Crispin Freeman]].

** Hell, [[ADV Films]] was ''founded'' by anime fans who promoted ''themselves''.

** And talking on fandub, it also has happened on [[Latin Land|Latin America]], most especially in Chile.

*** ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''? Hey, that one too!

*** ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''? The same girl fan-dubbed the opening (and of course [[No Export for You|it hasn't been broadcasted officially]], but...)

** Rather subverted by good ol' [[Vic Mignogna]] (alias the number-one fan of [[Fullmetal Alchemist|Ed Elric]]). [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Don't ever dare to call him "shorty"]].

*** Likewise, [[Kei Shindou]] was a [[Cosplay Otaku Girl]] before she became a seiyuu.

* After holding panels at some conventions and posting some essays on the Internet, ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' fanboy Sean McCoy was invited by [[ADV Films]] to record some of the commentaries for the Platinum release of the series, giving him three full episodes and two special feature segments to share his [[Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory|incredibly elaborate theories]] (some might say [[Fan Wank|ridiculously]] [[Epileptic Trees|elaborate]]) about the meaning behind the show's abstract symbolism alongside ADV honcho and English dub director [[Matt Greenfield]]. Strangely, after this "promotion", he has barely been heard from again.

** [[Mike McFarland]], ADR director for the English dubs of the ''[[Rebuild of Evangelion]]'' films, was a fan of the series for the better part of a decade before he had a chance to actually work on it.

* The HeartGold/SoulSilver miniarc in ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' had Lyra's friend Khoury voiced in the dub by someone who had won a contest: Chris "[[TV Tome Adventures|Kir]][[Fireball 20 XL|bop]][[Dragon Ball Abridged|her]]" Niosi.

* [[Studio Gainax]], who got their start by producing a well-known pair of independent anime shorts (the DAICON III and IV Opening Animations) for a Japanese science fiction convention in 1981 and 1983.

* Lianne Sentar had been writing over 3,000 stories of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' [[Fan Fiction]] since she was 13. She was hired to write the [[Tokyo Pop]] novel adaptations distributed in North America for only this reason.

* [[Gackt]] (already mentioned under ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' above) is also a huge ''[[Gundam]]'' fan, having contributed the theme song to the long-dead theme park attraction "Gundam the Ride: A Baoa Qu", recording a remix of "Ai Senshi" from the original series, and even [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|getting a concert audience to chant "Sieg Zeon!" by delivering Garma Zabi's funeral speech from memory]]. In 2010 he finally got to join the ''Gundam'' universe proper by voicing ex-, the [[Original Generation]] [[Final Boss]] of ''[[Gundam vs. Series|Gundam Extreme Vs.]]''

 

 

* [[Nicolas Cage]] is a HUGE ''[[Ghost Rider]]'' fan, who's always wanted to portray the character (he even has him tattooed on his arm). [[Ghost Rider (film)|He got his wish]], even though that meant he had to cover the tattoo to portray the character.

* [[Kevin Smith]] is probably the best known promoted fanboy on the planet. The sheer amount of knowledge he has about comics (and in turn how many he's written) is evidence enough.

* Ian "Potto" Flynn. Current writer for the [[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Archie Sonic comic series]], was once a fanboy with his own fan comic. Other notables from the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' fandom who went into doing stuff for the line are J. Axer and Dawn Best.

* Jim Shooter started writing ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes]]'' when he was 13. He's been in the industry ever since, including becoming Marvel's editor-in-chief.

* [[Don Rosa]]. Like so many people of his age he was a big fan of "[[Carl Barks|The Good Duck Artist]]". While he didn't get any education in art or narration, he wrote and painted [[Donald Duck]] series for various fanzines, as well as several LTE:s. He even corresponded to Carl Barks himself from time to time. After a new publishing company got the license to make Donald Duck comics, Don Rosa applied for the job as an artist by sending in a mail. He wrote that he was born to make new Donald Duck stories in the spirit of the old Carl Barks comics. He got the job, added some massive [[Continuity Porn]] to the series (against Barks' wishes) and dedicated all his stories to Carl Barks.

* Mark Waid. [http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=9076 This is his studio.]

** Gruenwald, Bridwell and Shooter are some of Waid's major influences.

* Several people involved in the [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]] qualify, but [[Samuel L. Jackson]] stands out for the way he got the part of [[Nick Fury]]. Marvel approached him to ask for his likeness rights for the [[Ultimate Marvel]] reimagining of Fury, and Jackson said yes - on the condition that he got first chance to play Fury in a movie.

 

* [[Peter Jackson]] started to experiment with special effects as a teenager, inspired by such artists as Willis O'Brien, got all the way to making his own high-budget version of [[King Kong]].

* [[Quentin Tarantino]] - the video store clerk who watched every single movie ever, and then started directing his own [[Shout-Out|original]] [[Reference Overdosed|films]].

* So did [[Robert Rodriguez]], who started with no-budget efforts such as ''Bedhead'' to draw attention, that would help him in making bigger things.

* So did [[Sam Raimi]].

* Tracie Thoms was a [[Rent]][[Fan Community Nickname|head]] in her younger years, and ended up cast as Joanne in the feature film.

* As a child, [[Brian Blessed]] used to play ''[[Flash Gordon (comic strip)|Flash Gordon]]'' with his brother, and used to actually pretend to be Vultan. Then he got to play Vultan in [[Flash Gordon (film)|the movie]].

* [[Jim Carrey]] was a [[Batman]] fanboy as a child. In [[The Nineties]], he got to play The Riddler in ''[[Batman Forever]]''.

** United States Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is an avowed fan of Batman, and has since had [[The Cameo|cameos]] in ''[[Batman and Robin (film)|Batman and Robin]]'' and ''[[The Dark Knight]]'': the former as an extra, and the latter as a guest at Bruce Wayne's party who stands up to the Joker. Since he could have been playing himself or an [[Expy]] thereof in ''The Dark Knight'', also counts as [[Politician Guest Star]].

* Noomi Rapace is an admitted fan of the films of Ridley Scott and credited him as an inspiration for her acting career. She would then get the lead role in his film ''Prometheus''.

 

* Famous author [[Isaac Asimov]] became interested in the [[Science Fiction]] pulp magazines sold in his family's candy stores when he was a child. He began writing when he was eleven, and managed to get published when he was nineteen ("Marooned Off Vesta", 1939).

* [[Michael Moorcock]] became editor of the small UK-based pulp magazine Tarzan Adventures when he was just 16

* Kingsley Amis was a noted fan of James Bond, writing a number of books on the subject, and finally was asked to write a canon novel for the series. Similarly, Raymond Benson had been fond enough of the series to write unofficial works before approached to write in canon, and eventually contributed six original novels. Notably, Benson ignored much of the earlier continuity.

 

* Michelle Trachtenberg guest starred in the the episode of ''[[House MD]]'', "Safe". She revealed on the December 22, 2006, episode of ''Late Night With [[Conan O'Brien]]'' that ''House'' is her favorite show, she is friends with one of the producers and she asked to be a guest star. Trachtenberg also said she has a crush on [[Hugh Laurie]], and during the scene in the elevator in which House searches her genital area for a tick, Trachtenberg said she played a joke on Laurie by putting a note between her legs that read "I Love You."

** She also claims to have been a huge fan of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' before joining the cast as Dawn Summers, and was even quoted gushing to [[Joss Whedon]]: "There was never a ''Buffy'' episode that sucked. I love you!" Joss's response: "So, next season, more Michelle, less Nick..."

* [[Demi Lovato]] guest-starred on ''[[Grey's Anatomy]]'', her favorite show.

** [[Taylor Swift]], another big fan of ''Grey's'', had her song "White Horse" featured in one of the episodes.

* Rich Koz, the current [[Svengoolie]], who applied for a writing position and became the show's star in both [[The Revival|revivals]] when the original Svengoolie, Jerry G. Bishop, decided he didn't want the job back and gave Koz his blessing.

* The [[Big Creepy-Crawlies|Megaoptera]] from ''[[Primeval]]'' were designed by a 16-year old fan of the show called Carim Nahaboo, who'd won a competition to design the most interesting creature.

* Missie Good was a ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' fan. She wrote some [[Expanded Universe]] novels and two episodes of the actual series (season six's "Coming Home" and "Legacy").

* [[Daniella Monet]] grew up a ''huge'' Nickelodeon fan and said in an interview that getting to work on the hit Nick show ''[[Victorious]]'' is like a dream come true for her and she sometimes has to pinch herself just to make sure she's not dreaming.

 

* [[Nirvana]]'s Kurt Cobain was a huge fan of indie rock music and his journals were filled with lists of his favorite bands and albums. After he became famous, made sure to never go an interview without gushing over some obscure twee pop or punk band that he adored. In fact, his love of bands like The Raincoats, [[Beat Happening]], The Meat Puppets, [[Shonen Knife]], Young Marble Giants, Melvins, Scratch Acid, Gang of Four and Millions of Dead Cops gained these bands (many of them long broken up) [[Colbert Bump|a major resurgence and increased album sales]]. His favorite band of all time, Scottish twee pop act the Vaselines, were signed to Sub Pop several years after they broke up for the release of a greatest hits album that was created solely from consumer interest spurred by Cobain's constant praise of the band. He even named his daughter after their guitarist Frances Mckee.

** Cobain also ''averted'' this trope by auditioning to play bass for the Melvins before Nirvana was formed. He was so nervous that he forgot all their songs and ended up settling for being a sometimes roadie for them until his own success. Cobain later co-produced The Melvins' only major label album, ''Houdini'', in 1993.

** Dave Grohl. And he still somehow manages to convey a "Gee! How lucky am I?" rock geek persona after winning numerous Grammy awards and playing to sold out stadiums (including Wembley!) with [[Foo Fighters]], occasionally with his musical heroes from bands like [[Led Zeppelin]], [[Queen]] and [[Motorhead]] joining him on stage. Yeah, Mr Grohl has this trope down pat.

* Russian keyboard player and [[Yes]] fan Igor Khoroshev got to do session work, and then became a full-time member of [[Yes]] (1997 - 2002) as a result of sending them a demo tape. Come to that, the Buggles (vocalist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes) were both Yes fans (they also shared a manager), were both pleased when they were asked to contribute to the group, and both stunned to find out that they were to replace the departed Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman.

** Benoît David He became the lead vocalist of a Yes tribute band called Close To The Edge in 1994. In 2008, he was selected by members of the group Yes to stand in for an ailing Jon Anderson

* Not exactly a literal example, but it still fits: [[The Beatles]] were working on the song "Across the Universe", but Lennon wasn't satisfied with how it was turning out. McCartney suggested they bring in two female fans loitering around Abbey Road Studios, Lizzie Bravo and Gayleen Pease, to do backing vocals. While their backing vocals did end up on the original version of "Across the Universe", Lennon wasn't satisfied with this development. Phil Spector later erased the backing vocals for the version that ended up on ''Let It Be'', replacing them with a choir.

** A slightly better, though still-not-quite-right example: [[wikipedia:Jimmy Nicol|Jimmy Nicol]] got to be a Beatle for about two weeks when, during a tour, Ringo Starr had to be hospitalized with tonsilitis.

** Mark Lewisohn went from winning a [[The Beatles|Beatles]] trivia contest, to writing the officially-sanctioned book ''The Beatles Recording Sessions'', to writing liner notes for Beatles CDs, to working directly for Paul McCartney.

* [[Dan Aykroyd]] was a ''huge'' fan of Chicago blues music, and ended up introducing his friend [[John Belushi]] to the genre (Belushi's previous musical interest tended toward heavy metal and southern rock). The two ended up forming the ''[[Blues Brothers]]'' band as a sideline, and as a result revitalized interest in the blues as a musical form when [[The Movie]] was released.

* Helen Love is a bubblegum pop-punk band that writes about almost nothing but the lead singer's crush on [[The Ramones|Joey Ramone]]. Joey Ramone did guest vocals on their song Punk Boy.

* Ron Wood has stated that when he first saw [[The Rolling Stones]], he said to himself that he wanted to be in that band someday. Years later, he became their lead guitarist.

** Speaking of Reznor, he's a big fan of [[David Bowie]], and was influenced by the album ''Low'' when recording ''The Downward Spiral''. NIN would later tour with Bowie in 1995, and Reznor himself would feature in the video for "I'm Afraid of Americans", which was based around one of his remixes.

* Ed Crawford was a fan of [[The Minutemen]] who heard a false rumor that the band were looking for a new guitarist and vocalist after D. Boon's death, found Mike Watt's phone number, and called to express his interest in trying out. In fact surviving members Watt and George Hurley were still too despondent over Boon's death to even consider continuing to make music. However, Crawford and Mike Watt kept in contact with each other through mail, and Crawford's persistence in wanting the two to keep making music eventually paid off in a big way: He made an unannounced trip from Ohio to California and convinced Watt to let him "audition". He then became the guitarist and vocalist of fIREHOSE, Watt and Hurley's next project.

* Jeremy Deller collaborated with the Williams Fairey Brass Band to create the album ''Acid Brass'', consisting of brass band covers of classic acid house and techno songs. One of the songs they covered was [[The KLF]]'s "What Time Is Love". When Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty of the KLF heard the acid brass version of their song at a live performance, they liked it so much that they contacted Jeremy Deller so they could incorporate it into their satirical comeback performance "Fuck the Millennium". Then when they released the "***k the Millennium" CD single, the acid brass version of "What Time Is Love" was included as a b-side.

 

 

== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==

* Rob Naylor was a fairly well known name in the internet wrestling community for quite a while before getting gigs doing commentary for various indy promotions. At one point he was namedropped during an episode of Raw by [[CM Punk]] and not long afterwards was officially hired by the WWE. He currently works as the ring announcer for their developmental promotion Florida Championship Wrestling.

 

== Sports ==

* Jon Miller, radio announcer for the San Francisco Giants and former longtime voice of ESPN's ''Sunday Night Baseball'', grew up idolizing announcers like Russ Hodges and Vin Scully and pretending to "call" the simulated baseball games he played on Strat-o-matic as a kid.

 

 

== Toys ==

 

* Dave "Fargo" Kosak, artist of a ''[[World of Warcraft]]''-inspired webcomic, ''[[Flintlocke's Guide to Azeroth]]'', was hired to become ''[[World of Warcraft]]'''s lead quest designer.

* [[Valve]] likes to hire the makers of successful fan-made mods. Both the makers of ''Team Fortress'' and ''[[Counter-Strike]]'' have been hired in this fashion. Also hired was Adam Foster, who single-handedly created the ''Minerva: Metastasis'' single-player map.

* ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'' is all about its custom editor. [[BioWare]] regularly skims the community for their most famous works and offers them jobs. Some groups formed around mod-making may also develop into studios, such as Ossian Studios.

* Dominic Armato was a fan of the first two ''[[Monkey Island]]'' games, which may have given him his edge over the other guy when they were casting Guybrush Threepwood's voice actor.

* A few modders that worked on the Xtended Mod for ''[[X (video game)|X3: Reunion]]'' were picked up by Egosoft to develop the mod's "official" release in ''X3: Terran Conflict''.

** And then some modders who worked on ''Xtended for Terran Conflict'' were picked up for ''X3: Albion Prelude''.

* The RPG industry is, by its nature, full of people who started out as customers and 'ascended' to become pro writers, usually by way of lots of unpaid work.

** The best ''[[Exalted]]'' freelance writers come from the forums; by 2011 it'd got to the point that the majority of the writing team and at least one of the developers had started on the forums.

** Aurora Nikolaeva made a complete [[Age of Aquarius]] career from a fan to a leading developer.

* ''[[Fallout]]'':

** The Unwashed Villagers, a group of Interplay's original ''Fallout'' forum goers who dealt with spammers and trolls, were included in a special encounter in ''[[Fallout 2]]'' where they battle a notorious troll of the forums.

** Actor Matthew Perry has stated in interviews that he was a very big fan of Fallout 3 and played the game fanatically to the point his hands started aching. This led to him getting a role in [[Fallout: New Vegas]] as Benny, a major antagonist.

* ''[[Nintendo Power]]'' writer Steven Grimm gave ''[[Animal Crossing]]: Wild World'' an amazing 9.5 review and mentioned that he loved the game. Nearly three years later, you can spot his name in the credits of ''Animal Crossing: City Folk''.

* Falcoon used to draw fan art for fighting game series like ''[[Street Fighter]]'' and ''[[The King of Fighters]]''. Now he draws canon art for the latter.

* The ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' Japanese-only novelizations have been stated by [[Word of God|Tetsuya Nomura]] to be non-canonical and simply, like the manga, an adaptation authorized by Square. However, the novel writer, Tomoco Kanamaki, became a promoted fangirl when she was brought on to write the scenario for ''Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days'' (however, in fears of any [[Running the Asylum]] happening, Nomura did actually edit and rewrite the whole thing himself after she was through).

* Several [[Fan Translation]] translators have moved onto actual game or anime translations, including Clyde Mandelin, aka Tomato (''[[Mother 3]]'', ''[[Bahamut Lagoon]]'', ''[[Star Ocean]]''), who now works for [[FUNimation]], and Nora Stevens Heath (''[[Live a Live]]'') who is a freelancer and has done work on ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]: War of the Lions''.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has Dr. Aeon, the new developer in charge of the Mission Architect system, who was a longtime player and prolific author on that system.

** Before that, the developer Castle was just a normal player that managed to get into the development team and became a popular presence in the forum community. A few years after he joined the staff, the Castle character was created and appeared in one of the comics as well as being permanently added to the game as a trainer in Peregrine Island.

** Same game: Actress Lacey Chabert had been a huge ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' fan for some time before landing a role in the English version: Princess Elise.

*** Considering the [[Obvious Beta|nature of the game they worked on]], Jones lucked out better in the fan reputation department (the game was bashed, but the soundtrack was praised).

* Successful entrepreneurs sometimes succeed in the very themes they wanted to be in since childhood or work on what they've wanted since joining the workforce. Tycho and Gabe of ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'' are gamers who now host an exposition for gamers and make games with Hothead Games.

* [[Jack Black]] loves ''[[Psychonauts]]'' and wanted to develop his own game. The result? ''[[Brütal Legend|Brutal Legend]]''.

** In a similar (non-Capcom) vein, arcade stick fanatic Mark Julio, a.k.a. Markman, was hired by controller manufacturer MadCatz to work on their ''Street Fighter IV''-branded controllers. Julio's knowledge of arcade sticks and guidance made the company's FightSticks ''the'' premier American-manufactured arcade stick for fighting games.

** 1UP.com's Neidel Crisan used to simply post his own articles on fighting games on sites like Shoryuken.com and iPlayWinner before being hired to do fighting game reviews for the aforementioned site. His reviews on 1UP.com are now considered to be the only ones worth reading when it comes to fighting games.

* [[wikipedia:DM Ashura|DM Ashura]] originally started out making fan remixes and original stepcharts for ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]'' simulators, then one of his songs [[Contest Winner Cameo|won a contest to get into an official DDR home version.]] He's had several more songs in DDR since then, plus one in an arcade version of ''[[Beatmania]] IIDX''.

** Although IIDX has still never seen an arcade release stateside, one of the most prominent composers who works on the series visited the Tokyo Game Action arcade in Rhode Island (back when it was still in business) on several occasions to put on a concert for the western fans who were lucky enough to be present. It has recently been discovered that this composer sampled some of the background chatter during this event, and inserted some distorted voice samples into [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSmL4Po29V4 a track called ICARUS] in a subsequent release. If you know what to listen for you can actually hear several US east coast community members get namedropped in the game itself. Which is, you know, ''pretty damn cool''.

** [[Shizuka Ito]] follwed suit, working really damn hard to set herself a role in [[Super Robot Wars]], doing several roles in the [[Mecha]] genre before getting a role as an [[Original Character]] in [[Super Robot Wars NEO]]. Now if she wants a role in Gundam Generation, she will have to be voicing at least one role in Gundam (Only one voice actor of the original cast didn't had a ''Gundam'' related role. Everyone else did at least one major Gundam Role in their careers)

** [[Akeno Watanabe]] also got similar treatment, landing the role of [[Super Robot Wars Alpha|Ibis Douglas]]

* After the ''[[Halo]]'' IP was given to 343 Industries, the writers of the ''Halo''-related blog ''Ascendant Justice'' got hired to work on several articles on ''Halo Waypoint'' concerning ''Halo'' canon.

** Frank O'Connor, head of 343 Industries, is a specific example - he started off as a ''Halo'' fan, and is now practically in charge of the ''Halo'' canon, and was the general director for ''[[Halo Legends]]''.

* IGN's Jessica Chobot has been a huge fan of the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' series from the beginning and she was recently cast in ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'' as Diana Allers, a reporter embedded with the Normandy.

** Also if Freddy Prinze Jr's enthusiasm is to be believed, he is also this having been cast as James Vega for ''[[Mass Effect 3]]''.

* ''[[Escape Velocity]]: Override'' began life as a [[Game Mod|total conversion]] for ''[[Escape Velocity]]'' before Ambrosia Software brought the developers on board and released it as a whole game with a few engine upgrades. Likewise, ''EV Nova'' was a TC for ''Override'' that ended up as a new game (and the first one to be ported to Windows).

* Randall "Frigidman" Shaw, who produced several network maps for ''[[Marathon]] 2'', as well as later contributing to the total conversion ''EVIL'', was hired to do the [[Brutal Bonus Level|Vidmaster's Challenge]] levels for ''Infinity'', along with some of its multiplayer maps.

 

* When the original artist for [[Erfworld]], Jamie Noguchi, left after the end of Book 1, then fan Xin Ye was hired as the new artist after she sent in [http://www.erfworld.com/summer-update-2009-archive/?px=/E022_elddonnemar_ZhopaBasket.png fanart] for one of the intermission updates.

** Also, for each official song that is released a piece of specialized album art accompanies it. Originally all the songs just had the main album artwork, and then there were pictures from the comic itself, but now most of the artwork is drawn by fans.

* Jeffrey Wells wrote an extremely long and suprisingly good fanfic for the [[Narbonic]] comic. It was so good that author Shaenon Garrity not only featured it as filler during most of Narbonic's run but also wound up working with Jeff to write her later comic [[Skin Horse]]. Neither of them are exactly sure how, tho.

* One fan of [[Enjuhneer]] cosplayed one of the characters at an anime convention, ran into the creator of the comic, and was [http://www.enjuhneer.com/archives/484-seeing-double put into the comic] for being the first cosplayer that the creator had heard of.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* [[James Rolfe]] is a huge film geek, particularly B and horror movies. He became an amateur filmmaker himself, and after [[The Angry Video Game Nerd|one of his movies involving bashing video games]] turned him into an internet hit, most of his productions are available on his website, and he does film reviews and countdowns on both his site ''and'' Spike TV!

** He's also making a short appearance in the upcoming remake of Plan Nine From Outer Space.

* Arglefumph, famous for his ''[[Nancy Drew (video game)|Nancy Drew]]'' walkthroughs, entered a photo contest to have a cameo in the remake of "Secrets Can Kill." The results of said contest? Well, check out [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViTLKEHGdRI this video]. Also qualifies as a funny moment.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** Including a ''[[Death Note]]'' parody for the recent Treehouse Of Horror, which managed to win an Eisner Award.

** She is currently writing ''Yokaidan'', a comic published through Del Ray Manga.

** Similarly, [[Chuck|Zachary Levi]] stated in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ia4UL2N8o this] making-of video for ''[[Tangled]]'' that getting to play the hero in a Disney film is like a dream he's still scared he'll wake up from.

** Also, [[Jon Cryer]] has stated that he has always wanted to play a role in a Disney movie, and was ecstatic when he landed the role of Dusty in ''[[Planes]]''.

* Animator Katie Rice was a big fan of [[Ren and Stimpy]] growing up, she eventually got to animate for the Adult Party Cartoon version.

* [[Jason Marsden]] is a big fan of Disney, he even named his pets after Disney characters, and he got to play Kovu in ''Lion King 2''. At the end of 'behind the microphone' type-thing, he was really jazzed about how he 'can't believe he gets to be in a Disney movie!'

** He also got to be Max Goof in ''[[A Goofy Movie]]'', a role that he continued in for years.

** The episode's [[Credits Gag]]: "[[One-Episode Wonder|Please Mail Your Unsolicited Manuscripts Along With A Self-Addressed Envelope To: Some Other Show!]]"

* [[Lauren Faust]], who was a fan of ''[[My Little Pony]]'' toys as a child, was eventually hired to create a cartoon based on the toys, ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]''. It's even been said that [[Patchwork Fic|the characters personalities are the ones she gave them while playing with the toys]].

** Before that, Lauren Faust was a big fan of ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' that she BEGGED to be on the production team, she eventually produced, wrote, and directed several episodes, and [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|ultimately wedded Powerpuff Girls creator]] [[Craig McCracken]].

* Controversy arose around the Hungarian dub of ''[[South Park]]'', when the fans noticed that the dubbing script for one of Season 9's episodes matched the translations of a [[Fan Sub]] created (way earlier) by a fan called "vito" word-for-word. Unfortunately, as copyright laws don't quite tend to favor unofficial fan works, the dubbers got away with the deal. But ''something'' still happened, as beginning from Season 13, vito has been working on the ''real'' scripts for the show as its official translator. And he's also credited under that name.

* At various times on the bonus features of the ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' DVDs, the various crew members admit to being "hardcore comic book geeks" who appreciated the old comics. [[Your Mileage May Vary]], but one could say that the fact that they tried to make the series more like the comics they so loved was the main reason that the series is so well-done and fondly remembered.

 

* Ryan O'Connell used to drink lots of wine and read books about wine and, despite a total lack of formal training, he now operates [http://ovineyards.com/english/ascended-fanboy-tvtropes-winemaker/ O'Vineyards] in the south of France and runs a wine blog that allows him to hang out with all the famous winemakers and wine writers he admired from afar.

* In 2005, Steve Wade, a Tasmanian-based Saab fan, launched a blog about his favourite car. Six years, 5400 articles and 50,000 comments later, Saab formally credited [http://www.saabsunited.com SaabsUnited] with helping to save the company, and employed him in their newly-formed global social media marketing team (based in Melbourne, Australia).

 

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[[Category:Unisex Tropes]]

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[[Category:Show Business]]

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