# Cameos you think no one knows about. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 4, 2016, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993 "2016-09-04T03:11:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/21 "2016-09-04T19:42:10Z")
Nice. Had I seen Antman, I think I would have actually got that. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/22 "2016-09-04T20:34:02Z")
The Cold War comedy _[Spies Like Us](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spies_Like_Us)_ has a [very funny but not at all obscure cameo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqBPOWpOg0o) but there were others, by various directors. The one I remember in particular featured [Frank Oz as the proctor during the foreign service exam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaSUOFleNRU). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/23 "2016-09-04T21:21:52Z")
In the James Cagney film _White Heat_, there’s a famous scene where Cagney’s character learns his mother is dead and goes crazy. He gets the information by whispering the question (and getting the answer) to the convict next to him, who whispers to the next as they go down the line. The convict in the middle of that line is Jim Thorpe, the athlete. [Here’s the clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghapUv2Tp2I&t=1m20s). ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/24 "2016-09-04T21:51:30Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > The Cold War comedy _[Spies Like Us](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spies_Like_Us)_ has a [very funny but not at all obscure cameo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqBPOWpOg0o) but there were others, by various directors. The one I remember in particular featured [Frank Oz as the proctor during the foreign service exam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaSUOFleNRU). Sam Raimi, Joel Coen, and Martin Brest are the drive-in theater guards. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/25 "2016-09-04T23:04:30Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Annie Hall, even aside from the small parts that you’ll recognize (Carol Kane, Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall, Janet Margolin, Colleen Dewhurst, Christopher Walken, Marshall McLuhan, and Dick Cavett), has lots of brief cameos from people like Mark Lenard, John Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Shelley Hack, Beverly D’Angelo, Tracey Walter, Sigourney Weaver, and Truman Capote (in the weirdest role, where he plays a Truman Capote lookalike): > > Note that he's visible in that background of all of that video. As far as Chris Walken, John Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Shelley Hack, and Sigourney Weaver are concered, I wouldn’t really consider those cameos. They weren’t famous at that point in their careers, they’re all just early roles. _Annie Hall_ was both Walken’s and Weaver’s debut. Weaver is difficult to recognize, she only appears in a brief long shot and was only hired because she was so much taller than Woody Allen. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/26 "2016-09-04T23:13:06Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Annie Hall, even aside from the small parts that you’ll recognize (Carol Kane, Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall, Janet Margolin, Colleen Dewhurst, Christopher Walken, Marshall McLuhan, and Dick Cavett), has lots of brief cameos from people like Mark Lenard, John Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Shelley Hack, Beverly D’Angelo, Tracey Walter, Sigourney Weaver, and Truman Capote (in the weirdest role, where he plays a Truman Capote lookalike): > > Note that he's visible in that background of all of that video. I’m just not convinced that’s the actual intended Truman Capote joke. It’s surely funnier if both Alvy and Annie realise full well that it’s the real Truman Capote, only for them to knowingly dismiss him as just a Truman Capote lookalike. It’s hardly an unheralded example - see [this discussion](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/05/raymond-chandler-double-indemnity-cameo) - but there is the suggestion that Raymond Chandler had [a long-unnoticed fleeting cameo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN9THMXxndw) in _Double Indemnity_. In a similar vein, there’s the suggestion that Ian Fleming [crops up in the background](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA5-qKQvktg) in a scene in _From Russia With Love_. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/27 "2016-09-04T23:56:30Z")
In Young Guns, the escape from the burning house scene, Tom Cruise is on of the soldiers who gets shot. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/28 "2016-09-04T23:58:26Z")
I’m sure everyone knows about Bruce Campbell’s cameos in the three Spider-Man movies. He was getting to be a regular Stan Lee until they rebooted the series. He also does the narration (in a very funny way) in the games based on those movies, which might not be as well known. > [@bienville](#): > > In the movie [_Head_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063049/), the feature film vehicle for The Monkees, there’s a blink-and-you-miss-it glimpse of both [Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063049/trivia?item=tr0691734). > > There are many other cameos (Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Sonny Liston, and others) but these other cameos are much more obvious than the Nicholson and Hopper cameos. Nicholson was also one of the movie’s writers. > [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > Ron Jeremy had a cameo in both Ghostbusters [snip] A ton of other celebs of the day show up in the music video for Ghostbusters. ---
**Author:** ![Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harvey_The_Heavy)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2016, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/29 "2016-09-05T13:12:31Z")
It’s obvious now, but during the original run of _Seinfeld_, I don’t think a lot of people recognized Larry David, who popped up as Frank’s lawyer (with the cape), a newsstand operator, and probably a few more I don’t remember. But what I didn’t notice until I _Curb Your Enthusiasm_ came along is that his voice is all over that series. Aside from Steinbrenner, he was lots of off-screen voices, I think even Newman before Wayne Knight was cast. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/30 "2016-09-05T13:35:12Z")
In _THEM!_ watch among the bit players. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, & DeForest Kelly are all there. No phasers for the Giant Ants, though. Should have had a giant ants episode on Star Trek. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2016, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/31 "2016-09-05T13:52:32Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > It’s hardly an unheralded example - see [this discussion](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/05/raymond-chandler-double-indemnity-cameo) - but there is the suggestion that Raymond Chandler had [a long-unnoticed fleeting cameo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN9THMXxndw) in _Double Indemnity_. > > In a similar vein, there’s the suggestion that Ian Fleming [crops up in the background](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA5-qKQvktg) in a scene in _From Russia With Love_. In THE IPCRESS FILE, with Michael Caine as the bespectacled anti-007 who – gasp! swoon! – _cooks_ for a woman, that’s Len Deighton who cracks the eggs one-handed, because (a) if our hero _is_ going to cook for a woman, let’s have the guy do it in as manly a way as possible; and (b) the actor can’t do that, but the writer can. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/32 "2016-09-05T22:17:48Z")
Took someone telling me to realize that Hugh Laurie was the very funny British man on friends. Never occurred to me that he was English. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/33 "2016-09-05T23:09:18Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Took someone telling me to realize that Hugh Laurie was the very funny British man on friends. Never occurred to me that he was English. Watch the second or fourth series of _Blackadder_ someday, or the _Jeeves & Wooster_ series he did with Stephen Fry. ---
**Author:** ![Orr\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ee59a6/32.png) [@Orr\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orr_G)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/34 "2016-09-06T01:56:27Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Watch the second or fourth series of _Blackadder_ someday, or the _Jeeves & Wooster_ series he did with Stephen Fry. I’m partial to a bit of Fry and Laurie. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/35 "2016-09-06T02:30:37Z")
> [@Orr\_G](#): > > I’m partial to a bit of Fry and Laurie. I’ve only seen a bit of it, but liked it. He played lots of different characters on that, from what I remember; someone who knows him only from _House_ should see him in the full upper-class twit role that he does so well. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/36 "2016-09-06T02:31:47Z")
[Mel Gibson](http://cdn.chud.com/5/52/900x900px-LL-52afdd47_mel-gibson-fathers-day.jpeg) shows up in the Billy Crystal comedy _Father’s Day_ as a man showing off his body piercings. _Airplane!_ used Howard Jarvis – a big political figure in California at the time. He’s the passenger in Ted’s cab who’s left at the airport at the end of the film. No one recognizes him today, but he was a very familiar face when the film was released. Most people also know Barbara Billingsley has a couple of lines. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/37 "2016-09-06T15:25:49Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > The Cold War comedy _[Spies Like Us](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spies_Like_Us)_ has a [very funny but not at all obscure cameo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqBPOWpOg0o) but there were others, by various directors. The one I remember in particular featured [Frank Oz as the proctor during the foreign service exam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaSUOFleNRU). > [@snfaulkner](#): > > Sam Raimi, Joel Coen, and Martin Brest are the drive-in theater guards. John Landis likes to give other directors cameos in his movies. Sam Raimi returned the favor in Spider-Man 2. Landis is the surgeon who tries to remove Doc Ock’s mechanical arms. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/38 "2016-09-06T17:08:47Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > In _THEM!_ watch among the bit players. > William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, & DeForest Kelly are all there. Nimoy certainly, but where do Shatner and Kelly appear? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/39 "2016-09-06T21:54:17Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > Nimoy certainly, but where do Shatner and Kelly appear? Yeah, I didn’t remember them being in it either. Here’s the [full cast list](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047573/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast) on IMDb. They really get into a lot of uncredited folk, including Nimoy, but no sign of the other two. (You have to pretty much be on the alert for Nimoy to spot him. But once seen he can’t be unseen.) ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/40 "2016-09-06T22:01:01Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > I’ve got two, one visual, one audio. > > In the film **Kingpin** during the big bowling tournament, as one of the bowlers is about to bowl, an unseen person in the stands yells “Attaboy, Luther!”. Everytime Don Knotts character speaks in public in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), an unseen person also yells “Attaboy, Luther!”. Roger Clemens has a brief cameo in Kingpin as well for no apparent reason. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993.md?page=3)