Famous Names in Movies

Cafe Society
1

Inspired by this thread: Crapping with crappies behind you, or the new Fish N' Flush tank - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board , I notice that there are names that were once nondescript chosen for characters in the movies that you couldn’t get away with now. In this thread, it’s mentioned that the name of Lloyd Bridges’ character in the series sea Hunt was Mike Nelson, which, of course was the name of the headwriter and later the character in Mystery Science Theater 3000
In the original Godzilla (American adaptation), Raymond Burr’s character is named … Steve Martin.

I KNOW there are others. I have a bunch on the tip of my tongue, but can’t quite recall them.

2

In David Cronenberg’s Scanners, the character played by Patrick McGoohan is called Dr. Ruth.

3

In “Day of the Locust,” the main character is called Homer Simpson.

4

In the first Superman comic, published in 1938 the name of the murder victim is…Jack Kennedy

5

Dick Powell’s character in The Tall Target is John Kennedy and Khyber Patrol features a character named George Kennedy.

1957’s Rockabilly Baby features two characters named Fred Rogers and Jimmy Carter.

Also, the famous real-life Australian outlaw Ned Kelly has had several films made about him, which usually also mention one of his sisters: Grace.

And of course, Office Space features a character named Michael Bolton (much to his chagrin)

6

There was an episode of the TV western Big Valley that featured a brothel with a madame named Amy Carter. Watching a rerun during the Carter adminstration provoked a lot of giggles.

7

In The Greatest American Hero the name of the schoolteacher/superhero was Ralph Hinkley. When John Hinkley put a cap in President Reagan, they quickly looped over Ralph’s last name, having his students call him Mr. H for a while, until new episodes were filmed with him named Ralph Hanley. This went on for a whole season, then they must have realized how silly it was and changed it back.

8

I remembered another last night. In Fredric Brown’s Edgar-winning mystery The Fabulous Clipjoint, one o the crooks is named “Dutch” Reagan. I’ll bet our future president’s nickname wasn’t well known back then.

9

The main character in Quantum Leap was Sam Beckett, which is awfully close to Samuel Beckett, the Irish playwright.

10

The Halloween movies feature the badguy Michael Myers.

11

I think Samuel Beckett came before Sam Beckett