It's always a bit of a thrill when a famous person pops up unexpectedly in a movie you're watching. These famous folks might be other actors, sports stars, TV personalities or even behind the scenes crew like directors or writers.
My initial list had almost 20 cameos, but I whittled it down to a compact ten. All of my choices ended up coming from either comedies or horror flicks, and most of them are from movies that haven't been mentioned on this blog before, so I'm excited to write about some movies that haven't fit in with any other topics so far.
1. Bill Murray in Zombieland
If you're a regular reader of this blog, it'll come as no surprise this is my pick for number one. Bill Murray is one of my absolute favorite actors and Zombieland is a terrific action/horror/comedy, so the combination is next level amazing. At this point, I think most people know about the famous cameo, but when I first saw the movie during it's initial run, I was pleasantly surprised. Just going off the top of my head, Murray might have the funniest death scene in all of cinema after he's shotgunned by Jesse Eisenberg's Columbus: he slumps into a chair, chit chats for a bit, and then answers "Garfield, maybe" to the question "Do you have any regrets?". It's a brilliant little moment and I can't imagine anyone doing a better job than the master of deadpan humor.
2. Bob Barker in Happy Gilmore
Happy Gilmore was one of my favorite comedies when I was a teenager. I probably watched it ten times in the late 90's but haven't revisited in a very long time. There are several scenes burned into my memory and one of the best features a great cameo from The Price is Right host, Bob Barker. He's unfortunately paired with Adam Sandler's titular nut-job golfer in a celebrity Pro-Am tournament and he doesn't take kindly to Happy's unusual style of golf. Their round ends in a fist fight, handily won by the geriatric Barker. It's a delight watching the normally relaxed and lovable Barker fly off the handle and pound on Happy for a few minutes.
3. Hulk Hogan in Gremlins 2: The New Batch
In one of the greatest sequels of all-time, Hulk Hogan gets one short, wonderful scene to really ham it up and go full Hulkster. Hogan headlined a whole string of his own movies in the late 80's and 90's, but this is the only good movie on his resume. Maybe the lesson learned is "A little Hogan goes a long way". He appears in a movie theater, watching the movie when those nasty little Gremlins attack the projection booth, halting the film. An usher approaches the WWE superstar and tells him what's going on. Hogan stands up, faces the booth and proceeds to threaten the monsters into restarting the movie. It's pretty similar to any one of his wrestling promos, but it was a treat to see him in this movie as a kid and remains a treat well into my adulthood.
4. Assorted Stars in Austin Powers in Goldmember
I have the unusual opinion that the Austin Powers flicks got better with each installment. One of the reasons I like Goldmember the best is the star-studded opening sequence, the Hollywood adaptation of Austin's life - Austinpussy. Tom Cruise plays Austin and Gwyneth Paltrow is Dixie Normous, but it's Kevin Spacey (as Dr. Evil) and Danny DeVito (as Mini Me) who steal the show. Their 30 seconds on screen are etched in my memory. When I first saw this scene in the theater, I remember crying with laughter. The hilarious bit is capped off by Steven Spielberg (wielding his Academy Award) as the director, telling the real life Austin that he knows better when it comes to movie-making decisions. Hard to argue with the American equivalent of the wonderful Mexican filmmaker, Senor Spielbergo.
5. Assorted Stars in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back
It might be cheating slightly to include back-to-back entries with multiple cameos, but it's my list and my blog, so I guess it's okay. I haven't watched Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back in many years, and the Kevin Smith movies I have rewatched lately haven't faired well, so this movie may not hold up. But I have a hard time believing that I wouldn't still love the scene where Gus Van Sant is directing Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Party. Affleck affects a silly, overexaggerated Boston accent and Damon blows away a fellow bar patron in dramatic fashion, all while Van Sant is distracted behind the camera, counting his money. It's a scene that my wife and I still quote fairly often and in fairly unusual circumstances.
6. Christopher Lloyd in A Million Ways to Die in the West
Seth MacFarlane's 2014 comedy-western is mostly lackluster, but it does have some funny moments. The best of which only takes up about 30 seconds, but it's definitely the highlight of the movie for me and the one scene I ever really think about. MacFarlane's Albert is walking down the dirt road when he sees strange lights coming from a barn. He opens the door and comes face-to-face with the legendary Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) from the Back to the Future series. Doc is working on his DeLorean and quickly covers the car with a tarp and then lies to Albert, calling the machine a weather experiment. When Albert leaves the barn, the camera cuts to Lloyd and he utters his famous catchphrase, "Great Scott!" with his typical, wonderful delivery. It's a totally unexpected and funny scene. A simple call-back, but an effective one for sure.
7. Stephen King in It: Chapter 2
Stephen King is one of my favorite authors and I think he's got a lot of charisma when he appears on screen, whether it be in terrible movies like Maximum Overdrive or an excellent episode of Sons of Anarchy. In his most recent big screen appearance, King plays a used bookstore owner with a thick Maine accent. He gets a couple of meta-critiques of James McAvoy's writer character, the most thinly veiled being how he (King) hates McAvoy's endings. Since it's a common complaint about the real life best selling author, it works as a a little in-joke for the audience. I don't know if he's normally offered cameos in movies based on his books, like Stan Lee, but if not, he definitely should be. It'd be fun looking forward to each little scene. And, honestly, for a lot of his adaptations, he'd be the highlight.
8. Stan Lee in Mallrats
Speaking of Stan Lee, I could have easily picked any number of his more famous MCU cameos (some of my favorites are him as "Hugh Hefner" in Iron Man and as the security guard alongside Lou Ferigno in The Incredible Hulk) but I went with how I saw him first, or at least the earliest of his cameos that I actually remember seeing. Lee plays himself in a somewhat pivotal scene where he extols advice and life lessons to Jason Lee's lovelorn loser Brodie. Mallrats is one of the above mentioned Kevin Smith movies that just doesn't hold up (my wife and I both agreed to jettison the DVD from our collection after the most recent viewing), but both Lee's are still entertaining and it's interesting to see Stan surrounded by all the foul mouthed View Askew characters since, for the last 15 years, he's been sharing the screen with mostly clean cut MCU heroes.
9. Danny Glover in Maverick
Maverick is easily my most watched movie on this list - it's something that I loved as a 12 year old when it came out in 1994 and I still love now, as an old man. It's a fun, delightful, and oddly suspenseful action-comedy western. Regardless of what kind of person he is in real life, Mel Gibson has remained one of my favorite actors and he's in fine form here. Danny Glover - Gibson's Lethal Weapon co-star - has a memorable scene as a bank robber who very briefly interacts with Gibson's Maverick. As he's getting robbed by the bandana-covered bandit, Maverick reaches up and plucks Glover's face covering away and the two men stare at each other like they somehow remember each other from their previous work together. After a moment, both men wave off the brief feeling, but when Glover exits the bank, he gets to say his Lethal Weapon catchphrase "I'm getting too old for this shit". If you're a fan of the series, it's a little moment of joy.
10. Wes Craven in Scream
This is the only subtle cameo on my list, but that just makes it even more interesting. I definitely didn't catch the horror icon onscreen when I first saw Scream in the 90's. If my memory serves me correctly, it wasn't until I had seen the movie a couple more times on VHS that I learned Craven played the school custodian, slyly dressed a lot like Freddy Krueger. At the time, I'm sure I thought the joke was simply about the look of Krueger, but the additional layer of it being Krueger's creator playing him makes it a bit more fun. Craven has one line in response to Henry Winkler's principal character, but it's a fun treat to see the famous costume and Craven appear.
Well, there's my list! What do you think? Did I miss any of your favorite movie cameos? If so, let me know in the comments section.
Thanks for reading!
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