Comings And Goings At The Playhouse
Might as well try to explain all the cast changes in one thread to save time. I'm getting most of my info from the INSIDE THE PLAYHOUSE book, but I'm going by memory here so be kind.
Captain Carl's departure is easiest; Phil Hartman was accepted as a new cast member for SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and could only do one season.
Mrs. Steve was originally created for Suzanne Kent, the actress who later played Mrs. Renee and one of Reubens' friends from the Groundlings. Kent was busy on another project and couldn't take the job, so the role instead went to Shirley Stoller (sp?). No idea how the character might have been as played by Kent, but Reubens reportedly wasn't crazy about having to settle for a different actress and dropped Stoller in the second season when Kent became available, creating a new character, Mrs. Renee, for her.
Miss Yvonne and Jambi the Genie were carryovers from the Groundlings show.
Reubens wanted the TV show to have more ethnic diversity than the Groundlings show so he dropped the mail-carrier character, Mailman Mike, and created Reba the Mail-Lady to replace him. Mailman Mike returned for the Broadway show and the actor who played him, John (I think ) Moody, worked on the TV show as a writer.
When the show moved from New York to California, Reubens took the opportunity to rework and drop some characters. Not sure why the original King of Cartoons was dropped, but William Marshall was a brilliant replacement. Though probably best known for the 70's horror film BLACULA, he was also an acclaimed Shakespearean actor and something of an icon in the African-American theater community.
Again, not sure why Dixie was dropped but my guess is that it was decided her main purpose as the King's herald was redundant. She mainly just came in and introduced the King and it was easier and simpler to have the flowers do it instead.
Reubens was determined to have at least one Latino character on the show and was never really satisfied with either Tito or Ricardo, feeling he hadn't quite gotten them right. Tito I'm guessing was originally just so they could periodically have a near-nude hunk wander through the Playhouse; that probably would have tickled Reubens in rather the same way having Miss Yvonne hit on every male character did. Ricardo was a definite improvement but he never really took off the way Cowboy Curtis did. He was clearly there to fill a function (not just the resident Latino but also the expert on health and fitness) and that was that. No offense to the actor or the writers, who did the best they could, and I'm sure the character has his fans.
That's all the major ones, I think.