10 Movies & TV Shows You Totally Forgot Amanda Bynes Had A Role In

It might be a bit strange to think about in 2021 but there was once a time where Amanda Bynes was among the most recognizable and popular actors in the world. Getting her start on Nickelodeon’s All That, Bynes was kind of everywhere for several years, including getting her own series.

Bynes moved over into some notable starring roles in things like What A Girl Wants, She’s The Man, and Big Fat Liar. Some personal issues caused her to step out of the spotlight, not having a single film or TV appearance since 2010. That means that a lot of people have forgotten some of the work she did in her career.

10 Figure It Out

Technically, this was the second series that Amanda Bynes appeared in during her career. With the success of All That, Bynes became a more prominent name. It allowed her to show up on other Nickelodeon series and one of them was Figure It Out, which ran from 1997 until 1999.

Figure It Out was a game show hosted by Summer Sanders where Nick stars had to try and guess the special talents of the guests. With Bynes being a major name at the time, she was one of the panelists for several seasons along with the likes of Danny Tamberelli and Lori Beth Denberg.

9 The Nightmare Room

Author R.L. Stine is most known for the Goosebumps franchise which has spawned a show and movies. Even his other Fear Street series is getting the Netflix treatment. However, one of his lesser-known set of books that came to TV was The Nightmare Room.

It only aired 13 episodes on Kids’ WB but featured some notable guest stars. Tania Raymonde, Madeline Zima, Brenda Song, Kaley Cuoco, and more appeared. Bynes was in the first episode, which told a story about a basement haunted by kids who were forgotten.

8 Arli$$

It feels like Arli$$ is a show that should get remembered more than it actually does. It aired on HBO and was similar to the popular Ballers series in that it centered on the world of sports and the people who work alongside the athletes. Here, it had to do with agents.

Arli$$ featured quality actors like Robert Wuhl and Sandra Oh and it was popular with a passionate fanbase for its obscure references. It was also unique in that the lead actor appeared on a WCW wrestling program to promote it, fully in character. Bynes showed up in a season four episode as a teen skating champion.

7 Family Guy

There have been so many episodes and seasons of Family Guy that trying to keep track of every guest star is next to impossible. A few years after the show’s big revival from cancellation in the mid-2000s, Amanda Bynes joined that long list of actors to lend their voice to the series.

In season six’s “Long John Peter,” Bynes voiced a girl named Anna who Chris falls for. The veterinarian intern begins dating him and although things ended on good terms for the couple in the episode, Bynes never returned to the role. It was one of her final performances.

6 Rugrats

Along the same lines as All That, one of Nickelodeon’s top shows of the ’90s was Rugrats. By the time the 2000s began, it was winding down and the ninth season was the final one. Amanda Bynes landed a recurring role on it but by then, it was easy to overlook.

Due to a storyline where Didi Pickles opted to return to college for her Master’s Degree in Child Development, the babies needed a babysitter. That’s where Taffy Maynston came into play, voiced by Bynes in nine episodes.

5 Love Wrecked

This is the rare case of Amanda Bynes having a leading role in something and it still being relatively easy to forget. Unlike her other leading performances, Love Wrecked wasn’t a theatrical release, instead airing on the ABC Family network in 2007.

The story follows a girl (Bynes) who gets stranded on an island with her musical idol and due to having a crush on him, she hides the truth that they’re not actually marooned and are near their resort. The cast was as 2000’s as it gets with Chris Carmack, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Fred Willard, and Lance Bass.

4 Charlotte’s Web 2: Wilbur’s Great Adventure

E.B. White’s children’s novel Charlotte’s Web is about as iconic as it gets. Almost every child seems to have read it at least once. The film adaptation from 2006 starring Dakota Fanning was also quite popular but it actually wasn’t the first movie version.

That came way back in 1973 in an animated picture. Obviously, that wasn’t the one to star Bynes but she took part in the 2003 sequel, Charlotte’s Web 2: Wilbur’s Great Adventure. Bynes voiced the character of Nellie, the leader of Charlotte’s three daughters.

3 Robots

2005’s Robots is one of the more underrated animated flicks from the era. The decade was seemingly dominated by the likes of Pixar and DreamWorks Studios, leaving things from 20th Century Fox to fall a bit by the wayside, even if Robots grossed $260.7 million at the box office.

Set in a world filled with robots, a hopeful inventor gets his dream job only to find that they’re scamming their customers. Bynes voiced Piper Pinwheeler, who gets some of the funniest lines in the film. The voice cast also featured Halle Berry, Ewan McGregor, and Robin Williams.

2 Easy A

It’s the final acting credit of Amanda Bynes’s career as of now. Not only that but it marked a different kind of character for her. Bynes traditionally seemed to play the good girl but her role in 2010’s Easy A was as one of the acclaimed film’s central antagonists, Marianne Bryant.

Marianna was a devout Christian girl who chastised Olive (Emma Stone) for the choices she made in her life, even if they weren’t true. It could be argued that Bynes saved the best work of her career for last, as Easy A was beloved by both critics and audiences everywhere.

1 Hairspray

A lot of child and teen TV stars also double as music artists. Amanda Bynes was not one of them, having never had any sort of singing career. That said, it didn’t stop her from joining the cast of 2007’s Hairspray, a musical based on the legendary Broadway play and a 1988 film.

In this take on Hairspray, Bynes nabbed the role of Penny Lou Pingleton, the best friend of protagonist Tracy Turnblad. Most of the young actors cast were relative unknowns, with Bynes being the biggest star of them. While she doesn’t sing a ton, she does get a few great lines

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