# IMDb moments, or "Holy Crap - Ardra was Michelle from Magnum PI!" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 26, 2004, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984 "2004-07-26T21:28:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/41 "2004-07-27T20:45:03Z")
> [@honeydewgrrl](#): > > From what I can tell it must be a pretty great gig to work with those L&O folks. No wonder it is so common for actors to return and cause us those little moments of deja vous. I remember reading an article a few years back that likened the L&O franchise to welfare for New York actors. Whatever else may not be happening, an actor with some chops can usually count on L&O for a couple of days work. One not from IMDB but that leaped out of the credits at me a while back. There was on HBO, back when HBO used to show filmed performances of plays, a production of Sherlock Holmes with Frank Langella c. 1981. His little Baker Street Irregular was Christian Slater. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/42 "2004-07-27T21:31:40Z")
> [@lisacurl](#): > > Seth Green – aka Scott Evil from the _Austin Powers_ movies and “Oz” on _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, as well as numerous other roles – was Patrick Dempsey’s obnoxious younger brother in _Can’t Buy Me Love_. He was also Egg in _The Hotel New Hampshire_ with Jodie Foster. ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/43 "2004-07-27T21:47:27Z")
OK\< now I’m hooked on this too… > [@lisacurl](#): > > Seth Green – aka Scott Evil from the _Austin Powers_ movies and “Oz” on _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, as well as numerous other roles – was Patrick Dempsey’s obnoxious younger brother in _Can’t Buy Me Love_. I’d forgotten about that one! Also in that movie, the Hispanic “cool guy” who’s name I can’t remember was played by Gerardo. Yes, the same Gerardo who would go on to sing “Rico Suave” a few years later. ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/44 "2004-07-27T22:34:21Z")
Y’all stole mine - Alfred Molina! I still can’t believe he played the guy in _Raiders_, the uptight English lawyer in _Enchanted April_, and Angel in _Maverick_. He is versatility embodied! ---
**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:** [July 27, 2004, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/45 "2004-07-27T23:26:44Z")
> [@lisacurl](#): > > Also, Cynthia Nixon of _Sex in the City_ was the little hippy girl “Sunshine” in the 1980 movie, _Little Darlings_ starring Tatum O’Neal and Kristy MacNicol. She also played a “Bernice Goetz” style subway shooter in an early episode of _Law & Order_, as well as Mozart’s duplicitious maid in _Amadeus_. ---
**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/46 "2004-07-28T00:24:13Z")
Here’s a fun one that has recently surfaced: The guy who played Michael J. Fox’s rival Mick McAllister in _Teen Wolf_ [catches](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0681337/) for the N.Y. Mets. There is some debate over whether this checks out or not (he used a different name). [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/pete\_mcentegart/07/23/ten.spot/](http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/pete_mcentegart/07/23/ten.spot/) Also, something I learned on Fark today: The hot girl from _Cecil B. Demented_ and Cybill Shepherd’s daughter from her sitcom, [Alicia Witt](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001860/), was Alia in _Dune_. Fark has some lovely pictures of her from Stuff magazine. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/47 "2004-07-28T01:17:03Z")
> [@lisacurl](#): > > Also, Cynthia Nixon of _Sex in the City_ was the little hippy girl “Sunshine” in the 1980 movie, _Little Darlings_ starring Tatum O’Neal and Kristy MacNicol. And she played Jenny Anderman, the girlfriend in 1986’s _The Manhattan Project_…which also featured a young Robert Sean Leonard. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/48 "2004-07-28T01:23:26Z")
I was surprised to find out that Albert Brooks and “Super Dave” Osbourne are brothers. Also, their original last name is “Einstein”, so Albert Brooks’ real name is Albert Einstein. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2004, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/49 "2004-07-28T02:02:16Z")
> [@lisacurl](#): > > James Cromwell of _Babe_ and _L.A. Confidential_ was Archie Bunker’s buddy Stretch Cunningham on “All in the Family” back in the day. Cromwell, one of my favorite character actors, has turned up in a lot of interesting places. He was the nerd father in “Revenge of the Nerds”, and was also the inventor of warp drive in “Star Trek - First Contact”. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/50 "2004-07-28T02:29:12Z")
OK, this is a little obscure and tortuous, but here goes: On the old TV program “Sanford and Son,” most of Fred’s cronies on the program were either real-life cronies, or guys he had met a long time ago, and included them in roles on his program to get them a paycheck. Two of his friends were “Leroy” and “Slick Skillet.” Leroy Daniels played Leroy, and Ernest “Skillet” Mayhand played Slick Skillet. In real life, they formed a little-known comedy duo of “Leroy & Skillet.” When Debby Boone’s timeless classic “You Light Up My Life,” hit #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, she became the first person to have three generations in a family hit #1. Her dad hit #1 five times during his career, and her maternal grandpa, Red Foley, hit #1 a quarter century earlier with "Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy. And to tie them together, the writer of “Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy” write the song after watching shoe-shiner extraordinaire. . . Leroy Daniels! ---
**Author:** ![Fiona\_Orange](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@Fiona\_Orange](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiona_Orange)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/51 "2004-07-28T02:44:26Z")
I was surprised to see that Tim Curry of Rocky Horror fame does voicework for many of my favorite cartoons, most noteabley The Wild Thornberry’s Nigel. Nigel is easily my favorite cartoon character voice, and to find out it was Tim Curry behind the cartoon was delightfully surprising. ---
**Author:** ![Victoria\_Silverwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8c91f0/32.png) [@Victoria\_Silverwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Victoria_Silverwolf)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/52 "2004-07-28T08:07:23Z")
If you ever happen to take another look at Hitchcock’s **Psycho** , watch for a brief scene of a cop standing in a hallway after Norman Bates is in custody. He has no lines at all, but he faces the audience and gets a pretty good close-up. The cop is played by . . . none other then Ted Knight, better known as pompous newsman Ted Baxter on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” You can’t miss him. When I saw this in a theater some years ago, the audience burst out laughing, completely ruining the mood of the film. [Biography for Ted Knight (I)](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0461095/bio) > [@](#): > > Has a bit role at the very end of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) as a cell guard who opens the cell door for another officer who gives Norman Bates a blanket. ---
**Author:** ![Tuco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tuco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuco)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/53 "2004-07-28T08:14:20Z")
I was scrolling through **Jack Black** ’s filmography and imagine my surprise when I saw he was in **The Jackal** , **Waterworld** and **Demolition Man**. ---
**Author:** ![paulberserker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@paulberserker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulberserker)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/54 "2004-07-28T10:18:43Z")
Cynthia Nixon’s the babysitter in Baby Day Out too. Which Dune are we talking about for Alicia Witt? The little girl with the superpowers (if thats Alia) in the David Lynch one was Virginia Madsen, of Candyman, and Michaels sister, when she was a little kid. I saw Madsen in Wargames too. He looks well different. ---
**Author:** ![Dante](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dante/32/9673_2.png) [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/55 "2004-07-28T12:41:54Z")
> [@paulberserker](#): > > Which Dune are we talking about for Alicia Witt? The little girl with the superpowers (if thats Alia) in the David Lynch one was Virginia Madsen, of Candyman, and Michaels sister, when she was a little kid. Virginia Madsen plays Princess Irulan in Dune. She does the voice over at the start of the movie. IIRC, for the rest of the movie she just stood there… Alicia Witt plays Alia, Paul’s sister, who was born a Bene Gesserit when Lady Jessica drank the water of life while pregnant with her. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2004, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/56 "2004-07-28T13:04:17Z")
The one that got me recently came when I wayched my new copy of **A Night at the Opera** on DVD. I went to IMDB to look up the other things the actors had done and found that **Siegfried “Sig” Ruman** , who played Bad Guy opera director Hermann Gottlieb was Seargent Schultz in **Stalag 17**!!: > **[Sig Ruman - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0750079/)** > > Sig Ruman, Actor: To Be or Not to Be. Wonderfully talented German-born actor, capable of tremendous comedic and dramatic performances, usually as some type of pompous bureaucrat or similarly arrogant individual. Ruman was born on October 11, 1884, in... The ones that continue to floor me are movies that you see years later and find that some minor character is now famous, and you can’t help noticing the face. It changes the movie. Examples: **Bananas** – in this Woody Allen comedy, Sylvester Stallone plays a thug who mugs someone next to Woody in a subway car. **Creepshow** – In the segment with Leslie Nielsen, who revenges himself upon his cheating wife, the other cheater is played by a pre-Cheers Ted Danson. **House of Wax** – Vincent Price’s silent assistant Igor (Yes! Igor!!) is played by Charles Bronson, under his real name Charles Buchinsky. (I just watched this on DVD, too). Mad magazine did a satire of **Kramer vs. Kramer** in which they have the kid stumbling across a naked lady in the middle of the night (an actual scene from the film) making some line about how unlikely it was that hus Dustin Hoffman father ended up with a “hottie” like her. They drew some generic naked lady, not noticing (as I hadn’t) that she was played by JoBeth Williams, of Poltergeist et al. I only learned about this because she wrote a letter in, thanking them for calling her a hottie. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/57 "2004-07-28T13:18:58Z")
> [@Genghis Bob](#): > > \*\*And \*\* Edgar, the wife-beater who gets taken over by the alien in _Men in Black._ He also played Robert E. Howard in [The Whole Wide World](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118163/combined). ---
**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:** [July 28, 2004, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/58 "2004-07-28T13:30:40Z")
> [@](#): > > James Cromwell of Babe and L.A. Confidential was Archie Bunker’s buddy Stretch Cunningham on “All in the Family” back in the day. What kills me now is that Cromwell played the chauffeur to James Coco’s Hercule Poirot clone in Neil Simon’s **Murder by Death**. Again, now I can’t watcjh the film without think “That’ll do, pig”, or some other line by him in a famous film. ---
**Author:** ![paulberserker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@paulberserker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulberserker)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/59 "2004-07-28T13:35:50Z")
> [@Dante](#): > > Virginia Madsen plays Princess Irulan in Dune. She does the voice over at the start of the movie. IIRC, for the rest of the movie she just stood there… Alicia Witt plays Alia, Paul’s sister, who was born a Bene Gesserit when Lady Jessica drank the water of life while pregnant with her. Gotcha. My bad, I haven’t seen it in ages. ---
**Author:** ![av8rmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984/60 "2004-07-28T18:15:16Z")
> [@Hal Briston](#): > > Vincent D’Onofrio, from _Law & Order: Criminal Intent_, was [Pvt. Pyle](http://www.archiviokubrick.it/film/fmj/foto/pyle01.jpg) from _Full Metal Jacket_?!?!? :eek: Speaking of Full Metal Jacket, Animal Mother ("If I’m gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is poontang. ") was played by [Adam Baldwin](http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0000284/), who played Jayne in “Firefly.” Speaking of “Scrubs,” R. Lee Ermey did a guest spot as the aforementioned Janitor’s father. John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox) played a Marine in both _The Rock_ and _Platoon_. Christa Miller, who plays his wife on “Scrubs,” had two different guest appearances on “Seinfeld.” Bryan Cranston, the dad on “Malcolm in the Middle” was Dr. Tim Whatley, the dentist. Larry Thomas, the Soup Nazi, played “himself” on “Scrubs,” when J.D. swears that he looks _just like_ the Soup Nazi. I better stop, I could go all day. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imdb-moments-or-holy-crap-ardra-was-michelle-from-magnum-pi/256984.md?page=4)