I love cameos. For whatever reason, they make a film more interesting just for the fun factor alone. Especially the unbilled ones. For example, years ago there was a movie “The Wild Life” that starred Chris Penn. Somewhere in the film there was a party scene and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones is there. No speaking lines…he’s just carrying on drinking and smoking.
What are your faves?
Well, going back a little bit farther, Moe Howard has an unbilled cameo in “The Best Years of Our Lives.” He leans his head (but only about halfway, so you don’t see his whole face) out a car and says something to someone. It’s unmistakably Moe.
Older brother Shemp had a “real” role in the film.
I saw The Player on IFC last night. That was a cameo-fest, but all were credited.
Pretty Woman : Director Garry Marshall sweeping the sidewalk in front of the HOTEL - and yah, only the HO was lit. Ha hah.
Ed Wood (director) as a mourner at Bela Lugosi’s funeral in Plan 9 from Outer Space
Peter O’Toole during the dream sequence in Casino Royale where he claims to be Richard Burton.
All those Bing Crosby cameos in old Bob Hope movies, like where he’s the disappointed executioner in My Favorite Brunette.
That Bob Hope, “Doctors. Glad I’m not sick,” line in a movie I otherwise hated, Spies Like Us. It was a cute acknowledgement that the film was a take off of those old Hope/Crosby Road pictures.
Michael Keaton playing his Jackie Brown character for one scene in Out Of Sight.
Bill Wyman in the British cannibalism/class satire/black comedy Eat The Rich, where you see him get bonked on the head and carried into the kitchen, presumably to be an upcoming menu item.
Do you mean cameos or uncredited appearances? Some cameos are credited, and some fairly large roles are uncredited (e.g., Robin Williams in “Dead Again”).
There’s always Joseph Cotton in “Touch of Evil.” He happened to visit the set, and Welles put him in the picture. Mercedes McCambridge also appears uncredited in the film.
I’m also partial to John Huston’s appearance in “The Maltese Falcon.” He plays Captain Jacobi, who staggers into Sam Spade’s office with a package and dies.
Mel Gibson has a neat cameo in “Father’s Day,” but he may be credited.
Jerry Garcia appears at the banjo playing bum in the remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
That was actually Walter, John’s pop.
Robin Williams has done a lot of uncredited work over the years. Maybe I’m misremembering, but I don’t think he got onscreen credit for being The Moon in Erik the Viking.
Speaking of Jerry Garcia, plnr, the entire band was in Petulia (1968) as the house band. You don’t see much of them, though, and they were credited.
Steven King often appears in some inconsequential small part in movies based on his books. I’m not sure if he is routinely credited or not, though.
He sometimes is. He had a fairly large role in Creepshow as Jordy (?) and was a beer-guzzlin’ spectator in George Romero’s Knightriders (1981).
Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein. Best cameo ever.
More recently in The Rundown, Arnold Schwarzeneggar passed Dwayne Johnson in a bar and told him to “Have fun.”
And among the zillions of cameos in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), the Three Stooges can be glimpsed as firemen getting ready to put out the fire that occurs when the plane with Jim Backus, Mickey Rooney, and Buddy Hackett crashes at the airport.
Thats a good one DaPearl but I was also partial to Merv Griffen (as himself) in Steve Martin’s “The Man With Two Brains”.
Stan Lee makes cameos in Marvel comic-book movie adaptations like Spiderman, Hulk, Daredevil, and I think X-Men.
John does have a memorable cameo in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre though, as the well-dressed man who keeps giving Bogart money and finally chews him out.
Favorite recent cameo: Brad Pitt and Matt Damon in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
On an episode of The Dating Game, we see the very unattractive Bachelor #3 as he lamely answers the bachelorette. When she chooses him, the camera pans–as if incidentally–past the other bachelors, the ones she didn’t choose: Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. Hoot.
Walter Matthau appeared uncredited in two scenes, as a drunk, in Earthquake.
Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) had a small cameo in Scream 3.
Hulk Hogan made a cameo appearance in Gremlins 2.
I think you mean The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I don’t recall Robin Williams in Erik the Viking. Or the moon, for that matter. In Munchausen, Williams was credited as Ray DiTutto, which is dog-Italian for “King of Everything.”
Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman did have a great cameo in the animated Bloom County Xmas special, A Wish for Wings that Work, playing a suicidal kiwi and a crossdressing cockroach, respectively.
Other good cameos, often in very bad movies:
Sean Connery as Richard the Lionhearted in Robin Hood: The Sucky Version. Similarly, Patrick Stewart in the same role in Robin Hood: The Sucky Version that’s Supposed to Be Funny, but Isn’t.
Christian Slater waking up James Kirk in Star Trek VI.
Mel Gibson with five tons of metal in his face, in Father’s Day.
I’m actually kind of bitter that the N’Sync cameo got cut from Attack of the Clones. Not like it could have made the movie worse.
Yeah, that’s the one. Ah, similar movies. No, really.