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]]'''''}}

 

 

Compare [[Ascended Fanboy]] (a fan [[In-Universe]]), [[Big Name Fan]] (the ones most likely to be promoted), [[One of Us]], [[Official Fan-Submitted Content]].

* [[Seth MacFarlane]] is another admitted fan, and he guest started in two episodes of ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]''.

* [[Seinfeld|Jason Alexander]] has credited [[William Shatner]] for him wanting to be an actor and watched the original series growing up. He guest starred in an episode of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'' and played a comedic version of Kirk in ''The Ultimate Trek'' special.

* Tim Russ, most famous for his role as Lieutenant Tuvok in ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'', was a devoted trekkie long before that and had already had several small roles in other Star Trek series.

* 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]].

* [[David Tennant]]. He has said that it was because of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' and particularly, [[Peter Davison]]'s performance as the Fifth Doctor that he wanted to ''be'' the Doctor. He even got into acting specifically to play the Doctor. In 2007, Tennant appeared as the Tenth Doctor and in the special episode "[[Doctor Who/Recap/2007 Ci NS Time Crash|Time Crash]]", [[Peter Davison]] guest starred as the Fifth Doctor, with the Tenth Doctor met his earlier self. Promoted Fanboy in the extreme!

** 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...

*** ''[[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"]].

** Ultra-famous seiyuu [[Takehito Koyasu]] is a long-time ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' fanboy. In the early 90's, he had a tiny and unnamed voice role in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team]]''... and few later, he voiced [[Mobile Suit Gundam Wing|Zechs Merquise]], [[Turn A Gundam (Anime)|Gym Ghingham]] and [[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED|Mu La]] [[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny|Flaga]].

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

** [[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.

== Comics ==

* [[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.

** 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''.

 

== Literature ==

** Inverted with Nao Nagasawa (Nanami/Hurricane Blue in ''[[Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger]]''), who became a devoted fan of the ''Super Sentai'' franchise '''[http://diversejapan.com/2012/02/05/exclusive-interview-nao-nagasawa-actress-singer-and-idol-super-sentai-and-kamen-rider-heroine/ while]''' playing the role.

* 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").

* [[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.

 

== [[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.

 

* 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.

** [[Vin Diesel]] is a huge ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' fan, who got to write the introduction to Wizard of the Coast's D&D 30th anniversary book.

** 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.

* [[Capcom]] enlisting the entire [[OC Re Mix]] community for the soundtrack of ''[[Capcom Sequel Stagnation|Super]] [[Street Fighter II]] [[Capcom Sequel Stagnation|Turbo HD Remix]]''.

** Lee Brotherton, who now goes by the stage name Bentley Jones, did video game music remixes on [[OC Re Mix]] and would later sing "Dreams of an Absolution" for ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (video game)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]''.

** 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''.

* 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).

* [[Uber Haxor Nova]]'s long running [[Happy Wheels]] series got the creator's attention and had him voice a new character.

* Anika Noni Rose has stated that working for Disney, in any part at all, was her big dream. Then she is given the part of Tiana, main character of ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' and also an official [[Disney Princess]], which means that Tiana will forever be in the line up with [[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs]], [[Aladdin (Disney film)|Jasmine]], [[The Little Mermaid|Ariel]], [[Beauty and the Beast|Belle]], [[Mulan]], [[Pocahontas]], [[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Aurora]] and [[Cinderella (Disney film)|Cinderella]]. Magnificent.

** 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.

** 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.