Walter D. Dishell was credited on just about every episode of the TV show M.A.S.H. as “Medical Advisor”, so I was surprised when his name surfaced as co-scripter on the 1979 episode Life Time for that series. That’s the one about the guy with the lacerated aorta, and there’s a clock in the lower corner ticking off how long his blood supply to his lower extremities has been cut off (the clock continued to run during the commercials, which was cool). That one makes sense.
According to the imdb, he also contributed the story for an episode of House Calls a couple of years later, and had a small part in an episode of Medical Center.
Which explains why all of the scenes are tilted 10 degrees.
I have a couple of friends who are writer/editor/production types and it’s always a pleasant giggle when their name appears in the credits, usually unexpectedly.
The 1973 movie the Last of Sheila is rich in these.
It’s written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins. I knew of Sondheim as a songwriter, but even then he had a list of TV episodes to his credit. Anthony Perkins, of course, was Norman Bates (among a great many other roles, but that’s his most famous). This was his only writing credit.
Apparently he lived in an apartment filled with games, and used to plan elaborate solve-the-riddle weekend parties, along with Perkins. I’ve read that this inspired Anthony Shaffer to write the play Sleuth, and later the film version. That was about a sadistic, controlling games player taking a reluctant man through such a game, and the aftermath. The Last of Sheila has James Coburn as a somewhat sadistic gamesplayer, taking a group of Hollywood friends through a series of such games. The two works are thus related.
And Bette Midler sang the closing song over the end credits. She wasn’t so well known then – she was Broadway, and her debut album The Divine Miss M was about to come out and catapult her to fame.
Susan Forristal and Geraldo Rivera are in the closing credits of the video release of Simon and Garfunkel’s concert in Central Park (under the listing “Special Thanks”). I recognized Forristal’s name from one of my favorite movies. Turns out she had married Lorne Michaels just a few days before the concert, and he was Executive Producer of video.
This may be ruled out on a technicality. Gates McFadden (according to IMDb) was choreographer on four projects, but you wouldn’t be surprised to see her name in the credits.
In The Dark Crystal she was uncredited. Dreamchild I’ve never even heard of.
For Labyrinth she used the name Cheryl McFadden.
And one was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
That’s because her husband is Jack Fisk, Oscar-nominated Production Designer who has worked on films by DePalma (including Phantom and Sissy’s Carrie), Terence Malick (including Sissy’s Badlands) and David Lynch (including Sissy’s The Straight Story).
Well, for a personal response for this thread. When the animated Transformers: The Movie was made I was working at Hasbro. While they were making it some of those involved making the film came to visit our offices and we talked about Transformers.
When I saw the film in the theater I was surprised to see my name on the big screen! I did not expect to see my name, along with other co-workers names, in the credits!:eek:
We were watching “Robin and the Seven Hoods” (1964) with the Rat Pack last weekend and my husband thought he recognized one of the dancers in a musical bit. I don’t remember who he thought it was, but I looked it up and it was 19-year-old Toni “Mickey” Basil, who probably did some of the choreography as well but wasn’t credited for that either.
Before she launched her singing career, Paula Abdul was a dancer and has numerous choreography credits to her name in 1980s era movies, including some you would never imagine. “The Running Man” starring Arnold Szhwarzenegger for one.
Seinfeld is good for that as well. If you watch an episode, frequently you’ll see someone who went on to a lead role in another program. Bryan Cranston (Walter White from Breaking Bad), for instance, was in Seinfeld as a dentist.
I always get a kick seeing Adam Sandler as producer/director on The Price Is Right. But no, it’s a different Adam Sandler, although the actor’s version might be a hoot. The first time I saw it I thought perhaps it was because of his including Bob Barker in Happy Gilmore.
Year ago, watching the credits for Say Anything, I noticed that actor Eric Stoltz was credited as a production assistant. This was after his starring roles in Mask and Some Kind of Wonderful. I wondered why at the time, and still don’t know.
Looking at IMDb now, I see he was also an uncredited stunt driver on Back to the Future.
This is because they shot a substantial part of the film with him as Marty McFly before he got fired from that gig, getting replaced by Michael J. Fox. It may be that some of the footage of him driving the car was used (without him openly visible) so they’re giving him props for that.
There’s an episode of “Gidget” where the Gidge and her friends are protesting higher prices at a movie theater, and she enlists a protest singer to help her out. Turns out the singer was art film director Henry Jaglom in an early role.
Well, there was choreographed dancing in the movie. The show-within-the-movie titled The Running Man and hosted by Damon Killian (Richard Dawson) had a troupe of dancers. Amusingly, they’re seen presenting a somewhat sexualized mourning dance after Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has killed off a number of the show’s “stalkers”.
This isn’t quite the same thing, but I am a tad suspicious of the credit for Alan Tudyk playing HeiHei in Moana, as it seems clear to me that they used genuine chicken sound effects, not requiring a Frank Welker-esque performance.
Dreamchild is a semi-fantasy biopic of Lewis Carroll. The fantasy elements were courtesy of Jim Henson, so she clearly only ever worked as a choreographer for him.
“Christopher Lloyd” pops up in the credits of a lot of sitcoms besides Taxi, including Frasier, The Golden Girls, Wings, and Modern Family. Turns out that this isn’t the actor but a producer and writer of the same name.
