Here’s an obscure one that I almost posted in the “after a million viewings” thread, but then this thread popped up.
I caught Day for Night on TCM, which I’ve probably seen more than a dozen times. It’s the ultimate movie about movies. In it, Francois Truffaut, playing himself, is directing a movie, “Meet Pamela”, about a love triangle between a young woman, her fiancée, and his father. Jaqueline Bisset play the young woman. In one scene from the film within a film, she explains to her future mother-in-law how she and her son met. She was on vacation in Yorkshire with a friend, but the friend came down with chickenpox and she and a young man they had met continued on with their travels, and that’s how they fell in love.
Just a few years earlier, Bisset had a small part in the movie Two For The Road, in which Audrey Hepburn and Bisset are part of a chorale group touring Europe when they meet Albert Finney, a young architect just out of school knocking around France. He helps them fix their broken down van, they stay at an inn, and the entire group comes down with…chickenpox! All except Hepburn (Bisset is the last to succumb), who then joins Finney, which kicks off their love/hate story. Bisset’s part consists of no more than 3-4 scenes in Two For The Road, but Day For Night was, in many ways, her breakout role as a serious actress.
Given Truffaut’s encyclopedic knowledge of film, I don’t think the two story lines are coincidental. In fact, given that Meet Pamela is obviously a hackneyed potboiler, it could be a sly dig at Stanley Donen’s film as well.
Maybe not exactly humorous, exactly, but it reminded me of this thread.
I was just watching The Diplomat on Netflix, and Ambassador Wyler (Keri Russell) makes a comment along the lines of “It’s not like we smuggled his [the Iranian ambassador’s] body out in a suitcase.” In her previous role as a Soviet spy on The Americans, Russell’s character did smuggle someone’s body out of a hotel in a suitcase.
In the 2023 comedy No Hard Feelings, middle-aged father Laird complains that his 19-year-old son Percy isn’t cutting loose and having fun like he did at Percy’s age. Laird is played by Matthew Broderick, who famously did exactly that in the role of Ferris Bueller.
I’ve seen some new ones of these recently, but can’t remember them. Except for this one (post copied from another thread)
I’ve started watching a body-swap movie called Family Swap. It isn’t great so far, but you really gotta respect this bit of lampshade hanging. One character is googling for body swapping on her cell phone. This conversation takes place among the four family members:
Any luck?
No. This is a completely unique and original situation that has literally never happened before.
After wracking my brain I remembered another one I saw recently that reminded me of this dormant thread. A couple of weeks ago for reasons I rewatched the Happy Days episode with Mork. It references The Andy Griffith Show.
Having recently finished watching The Good Place, I don’t think that scene fits the topic of this thread. Yeah, it’s got Ted Danson’s character tending bar, but there’s no nudge-nudge wink-wink intimation that this is in any way connected to his previous role on Cheers. In fact, I think the writers went out of their way to avoid any implication that it was a humorous reference.
Remembered another one. In an episode of Animal Control, Apr 8, 2023 · In Animal Control (2023), Joel McHale insists that his mangled pronunciation is correct because he took Spanish in community college.
I forgot about this reference to an actor’s previous TV commercials.
Sharon Maughan was in the successful 1987-1992 series of TV commercials for Nestle Gold Blend coffee (branded Tasters’ Choice in the USA) with Anthony Head.
She was in the Inspector Morse episode Deceived by Flight (1989), so the writer mischievously gave her character the line, “Coffee! Ugh! I hate coffee. It gives me a headache”.
I wonder if Virginia Christine was cast as Mrs Olson in the Folger’s commercials because she played Immigrant Eva in Billy the Kid Vs Dracula, or if it was the other way around.
Something of a meta-example from Very Bad Things: while trying to cover up an accidental death, Christian Slater’s character is asked “Have you done this before?” Ten years earlier, in Heathers, Slater played a character who covered up another accidental death - and was asked the same question.
Has anyone mentioned The A-Team? in the introduction Dirk Benedict is on a movie lot and a guy in a Cylon outfit walks by. He gets a puzzled look on his face.
