Hardly a cameo; The Dick Van Dyke Show was off the air by the time Mission: Impossible premiered. They just cast an actor for the role, not because he was recognizable. Also, Morris did appear in another Dick Van Dyck Show as “Sticks” Mandalay.
In any case, The Dick Van Dyck Show was fairly advanced in race relations for its day.
Johnny Carson had a cameo on an earlier Get Smart as a train conductor.
Danny Thomas on The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Thomas was the executive producer for the series. I suspect he’d wanted to do a cameo for a long time, but didn’t want it to be obvious. Rob Petrie (Dick van Dyke) was head writer for the fictional Allan Brady Show, which would have been the obvious way to get Thomas on the show. I suspect no one wanted to do anything so straightforward (In fact, I can’t recall any “real life” stars who had cameos as guests on The Allen Brady Show, though I could be wrong).
They did it as dream episode. But they don’t simply dream that Danny Thomas shows up – they dream of an “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”-type scenario where the alien invader, Kolak, looks exactly like Danny Thomas – only with an English Accent*.
One of the best shows ever, featuring a closet full of walnuts
*Your “Mary Poppins” joke goes here.
Richard Belzer in character as Detective Munch sitting at the bar in a late episode of The Wire.
Jon Voight’s 24 second cameo appearance on Seinfeld
Wade Boggs on Cheers.
I like my cameos a little more out of left field - like Richard Belzer as Detective Munch on Arrested Development.
I’m not claiming it’s the best, but one of the weirdest may be Dan Castellaneta’s cameo on L. A. Law, as Homer Simpson (sort of).
Alex Trebeck on Cheers. Birth of “Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?”
Bruce Willis in Mad About You…?
Will & Grace always had the best guest appearances, although most of them were too long to be considered cameos. How about when Elton John appeared as the head of the gay mafia. “We’ll be watching you. One wrong move and this bitch will be back!”
Cher had kind of a funny scene with Jack where he thought she was actually a female impersonator and he was instructing “him” on how to do a better Cher
“If I could turn back ti i i i i i me”.
I have a terrible TV show memory, and so can only remember things I’ve seen relatively recently. The one that sticks in my mind is Carrie Fisher on 30 Rock:
Help me, Liz Lemon; you’re my only hope!
Come to think of it, 30 Rock has a lot of great guest appearances.
Morbo, this link originally went to the John Munch Wikipedia entry. I’ve replaced it with the link I assume you intended to put here. Let me know if I got it wrong.
Yes, I know. I just like Shatner getting shot at and missed, and then being poisoned.
Funny, but I remembered it wrong. Had you asked me before I went and found the clip, I would have said that Shatner said something like ‘You didn’t think they’d get me, did you?’ I didn’t hear that in the clip.
I loved the Brian Williams one - here about a minute in or so.
Oops - thanks!
Martin Sheen on Murphy Brown.
Malcolm McDowell’s live-action “Hello, I’m a British person,” from South Park.
Prime Minister of Canada does a cameo on a Canadian sitcom, Corner Gas. (And pokes a little fun at politicians at the same time.)
On the same show, one of my favourite cameos of all time - Kiefer Sutherland does a cameo on the same show.
I haven’t see this episode since it was broadcast 40 years ago. But there is an episode of “I Dream of Jeannie” where at the end Major Healey says he wished he was the funniest man in the world. Jeannie immediately changes him into Groucho Marx.
Stephen Hawking’s three appearances on “The Simpsons”.
Milton Berle as himself in Fine Tuning an episode of Steven Spielberg’s 1986 show Amazing Stories.