ER was a top-10 show for a decade, regularly pulling in 20 million-plus viewers and winning gobs of Emmys for NBC, and yet, when was the last time you heard someone mention reference Dr. Greene or dress up like Dr. Romano for Halloween (only one arm!)? Since it went off the air in 2009, ER has seen its cultural relevance almost completely dry out — it’s not on Netflix Instant, and even TNT doesn’t bother with repeats anymore. That’s a steep drop for a show that was once the most-watched on TV.
It’s also kind of a shame. Although ER grew increasingly ridiculous in its later seasons, relying on cheap gimmicks like traveling to Africa and hiring John Stamos, it was a really good show, or at least a really addictive one, for many years. Coincidentally, that happened to be when George Clooney and Julianna Margulies were the stars, but even after they bolted, a steady stream of talented actors wore the County General scrubs, including Maura Tierney, Mekhi “Mom’s Spaghetti” Phifer, Linda Cardellini, Scott Grimes, and Parminder Nagra. A my-laptop-slowed-down-because-the-IMDb-page-is-so-lengthy load of famous faces also made brief appearances during the show’s 15-season run.
Here are 20 of them, to celebrate 20 years since the series premiere.
Shiri Appleby
Jonathan Banks
Lake Bell
Alexis Bledel
Kat Dennings
Kirsten Dunst
Tony Hale
Christina Hendricks
Glenn Howerton
Vincent Kartheiser
Shia LaBeouf
Lucy Liu
Joe Manganiello
Rooney Mara
Ewan McGregor
Eva Mendes
Nick Offerman
Adam Scott
Milana Vayntrub (that’s Lily from the AT&T commercials)
Ariel Winter
