# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/41 "2016-09-06T22:20:40Z")
Joe Dante’s film **The Howling** is filled with uncredited cameos: \*\*Forrest J. Ackerman (in a class by himself) Roger Corman\*\* (writer/director/producer) \*\* John Sayles **(writer/director)** Jonathan Kaplan\*\* (director) Another film with several cameos is [N]Matinee\*\* (several of them were in _The Howling_) \*\*Kevin McCarthy John Sayles William Schallert \*\* (Patty Duke’s “Dad” on TV, as well as in SF/Fantasy stuff, including _Them!_) **Robert Cornthwait** (scientist in the original _The Thing_, and in _War of the Worlds_ \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/42 "2016-09-06T22:24:55Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > There is one close to the end of “The Blues Brothers”. No, I’m not talking about Steven Spielberg’s cameo as the guy in the Cook County Assessor’s office. Everybody knows that one. It’s in the “Jailhouse Rock” scene in prison. The prisoner who jumps up on the table and starts dancing? That’s Joe Walsh. And everybody knows the prison officer at the beginning (One unused condom…one used) is Frank Oz. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/43 "2016-09-07T00:37:47Z")
Matt Damon as the guy singing “Scotty Doesn’t Know” in Eurotrip. Impossible to miss if you’ve seen the movie, but I’m guessing in these parts plenty of people haven’t seen it. Funny, dumb movie. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/44 "2016-09-07T01:31:34Z")
In the most recent **Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy** movie with Gary Oldman, John le Carré makes a cameo at the MI6 office Christmas party, standing next to a guy dressed as Lenin. Also, in the Tom Cruise movie **Jack Reacher** , author Lee Child has a cameo - he’s the cop behind the desk that agrees when Cruise tells Samantha Bond that a cop would never use their personal vehicle for work. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/45 "2016-09-07T01:37:45Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > Also, in the Tom Cruise movie **Jack Reacher** , author Lee Child has a cameo - he’s the cop behind the desk that agrees when Cruise tells Samantha Bond that a cop would never use their personal vehicle for work. Make that Rosamund Pike, not Samantha Bond. Not sure how that happened ---
**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 7, 2016, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/46 "2016-09-07T01:55:17Z")
> [@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. [Check out this great scene from _The Young Ones_.](https://youtu.be/ysG96dUtGh4?t=20) Features both Laurie, Fry and a very young Emma Thompson! > [@Mollie\_Magill](#): > > John Landis likes to give other directors cameos in his movies. I don’t know if he was a director yet, but he cast Frank Oz (from the Muppets) in small, similar roles (as an annoying bureaucrat) in both _An American Werewolf in London_ and _The Blues Brothers_. Oz returned the favor in _The Muppets Take Manhattan_ (_“A frog, with an afro…”_) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/47 "2016-09-07T03:01:14Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > [Check out this great scene from _The Young Ones_.](https://youtu.be/ysG96dUtGh4?t=20) Features both Laurie, Fry and a very young Emma Thompson! > > I don’t know if he was a director yet, but he cast Frank Oz (from the Muppets) in small, similar roles (as an annoying bureaucrat) in both _An American Werewolf in London_ and _The Blues Brothers_. Oz returned the favor in _The Muppets Take Manhattan_ (_“A frog, with an afro…”_) Landis also got Oz for a bit part in _Trading Places_, as a cop who finds PCP on Dan Ackroyd’s character. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/48 "2016-09-07T21:02:08Z")
James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild are fairly obvious in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure as Pee Wee and Dotty (movie versions), the members of Twisted Sister and Godzilla as themselves, Jason Hervey as the child actor, maybe even Jan Brooks as the tour guide at the Alamo but how about Phil Hartman as a reporter? Hartman was a long time Paul Rubens collaborator and a co-writer on the movie, so that explains his presence. You may remember he was also Captain Carl in the Pee Wee Herman Show and Pee Wee’s Playhouse. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/49 "2016-09-07T21:33:22Z")
George Harrison in Life of Brian and Dan Akiryod in the Temple of Doom. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/50 "2016-09-07T21:41:49Z")
Perhaps others noticed this, but for the longest time I didn’t realize it was Steve Buscemi as the Buddy Holly waiter in **Pulp Fiction**. Also in that movie was Bronagh Gallagher, from **The Commitments**. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/51 "2016-09-08T00:14:23Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > In the most recent **Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy** movie with Gary Oldman, John le Carré makes a cameo at the MI6 office Christmas party, standing next to a guy dressed as Lenin. There are quite a number of Le Carre cameos in film/TV versions of his novels. He crops up in the recent BBC _The Night Manager_. [QUOTE=chacoguy] George Harrison in Life of Brian [/QUOTE] Which also has the fleeting cameo from Spike Milligan. Who, so the story goes, had happened to be holidaying in the resort that they were using as the base for the location filming. It is rather British specific, but there is the claim that Janet Street-Porter is one of the tennis players at the end of Antonnioni’s _Blow Up_. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/52 "2016-09-08T00:19:25Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > There are quite a number of Le Carre cameos in film/TV versions of his novels. He crops up in the recent BBC _The Night Manager_. IMDb lists only four actor credits, including yours and mine. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/53 "2016-09-08T00:42:57Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > IMDb lists only four actor credits, including yours and mine. Though two of those are from just this year. Which may reflect the fact that his family, particularly his sons, have recently been actively pushing new film/TV versions of his works. Which now seem to come attached with the condition that Dad gets the cameo. I’ve heard Le Carre hold forth in person about his minor speaking role in the film of _The Little Drummer Girl_; he openly acknowledges that he was truly abysmal. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/54 "2016-09-08T03:07:34Z")
Former wrestler and then future governor and insane person Jesse Ventura played a prison guard in Batman and Robin. It was the third time he’d appeared in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger after The Running Man and Predator, but you’d never miss him in those two. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/55 "2016-09-08T03:59:13Z")
Gordon Liddy plays an FBI agent toward the end of “Feds” (1988). Richard Dreyfuss can just barely be seen as an extra on the sidewalk in “The Sentinel” (1977). Chuck Jones plays a supermarket customer in “Innerspace” (1987). And a somewhat weird one: Ralph Bellamy and William Castle both seem to be playing the same impatient person waiting for Rosemary to get out of the phone booth in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968). ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/56 "2016-09-08T10:21:25Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Richard Dreyfuss can just barely be seen as an extra on the sidewalk in “The Sentinel” (1977). According to Michael Winner’s autobiography Dreyfuss, who was already a big name having done _Jaws_, was visiting someone he knew on set when they where shooting that scene. He appeared in the scene as an extra without a credit just as a joke. Winner made sure that he was visible in a shot. ---
**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 8, 2016, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/57 "2016-09-08T13:26:16Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Richard Dreyfuss can just barely be seen as an extra on the sidewalk in “The Sentinel” (1977). Kevin Bacon has a bit part in Planes, Train, and Automobiles. He races Steve Martin for a cab. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/58 "2016-09-08T13:35:27Z")
Jello Biafra as the FBI agent in Tapeheads. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/59 "2016-09-08T13:42:47Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > Former wrestler and then future governor and insane person Jesse Ventura played a prison guard in Batman and Robin. It was the third time he’d appeared in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger after The Running Man and Predator, but you’d never miss him in those two. From [the Agony Booth recap](http://www.agonybooth.com/batman-robin-1997-part-1-653): > [@](#): > > The guards, already smitten with Ivy, become even more infatuated when she blows Lik-M-Aid in their faces. She tells them that she is “to die for” and kisses them both, causing both of them to keel over dead. And, thankfully, this is the last of the state governors that we’ll be seeing in this movie. [_April 2004 Note:_ This recap was originally posted in November of 2002, and yes, I know this joke is now out of date. Please stop emailing me. —Albert] ---
**Author:** ![howye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@howye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/howye)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993/60 "2016-09-08T14:51:18Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > 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. And if you haven’t, go pick up one of his albums. See him and his band on tour, a lot of fun and great music. Hugh Laurie is incredibly talented. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cameos-you-think-no-one-knows-about/764993.md?page=4)