To continue the hijack in this, what programs have missed a chance for a nod to an actor’s former character.
When Joan Collins starred as Roseanne’s cousin Ronnie, the episode did not include Roseanne’s friend Crystal. I can hear it now:
Roseanne: And you remember I use to be best friends with Chrystal.
Ronnie: You know, lately I cannot stand that name.
Family Ties had Tom Hanks star as Elyse’s brother Ned and Peter Scolari as a co-worker. I can see Peter helping Elyse to bring some shopping boxes in, only to find Ned there. Elyse shows Ned the dress she has just bought for her awards dinner.
Ned holds up the dress against his body: No, I don’t think it would fit.
Holds it up against Peter: But maybe on you.
Peter gets all embarassed and mumbles: I really got to go.
Elyse: Thanks for helping me bring in the boxes. (Peter leavbes).
Eylse to Ned: You know, now that you’ve quit drinking, I thought you’d be nicer. You really embarrased him.
Ned: Well, it’s not like we’re Bosom Buddies.
I actually wrote to the West Wing producers in the last year of the show to beg them to have Christopher Walken on, playing himself during a reception for showbiz types. He could shake President Bartlet’s hand in the receiving line, look at him quizzically, then move on. He wouldn’t have to say a word… but it would’ve been a nice tip of the hat to The Dead Zone.
YES! This is a thread I’ve been waiting on for years.
Robert Beltran portrayed Commander Chakotay on “Star Trek:Voyager”.
Years before that, he was in a movie called “Night of the Comet”. It was horror/comedy/end-of-the-world tale in which a comet turned everyone on Earth into red dust - unless you had been protected from it in some way. Steel seems to have been the the barrier of choice. After the comet passes, Beltran runs into a couple of late-teens girls, who, in the course of the movie, get themselves kidnapped by a “think-tank” that had predicted what would happen when the comet passed Earth. The group had carelessly left some vents open in their underground bunker, which had resulted in their being exposed to whatever it was that ‘dusted’ everyone. Having been inadequately protected, they were dying slowly, and they wanted to use other survivors to make some sort of serum to save themselves. The process, due to limited survivors and time, was fatal to those they kidnapped(exsanguination).
Beltran mounts a rescue, and at one point taunts the think tank folks into chasing him by saying, “Think tank, huh? Think this over.”, and then gives them the finger and drives off. Not great art, but a fun movie.
AAANYWAY, years later on Voyager, Beltran is put up against an ‘interstellar think tank’, of all things. They have outwitted and outmaneuvered the Voyager crew all episode, and he’s in the command chair when they finally got past their defenses and disabled their ship with torpedo or phaser fire. It would have been a great line to say (sans finger) as he ordered the ships weapons to fire, but it was not to be. I was waiting for it, but they never delivered. Boo.
My friends and I watched X-Files for years, hoping that Darren McGavin would do a guest appearance. When he finally did, they made absolutely no reference to Kolchak. Bastards. :mad:
Why wasn’t Denny Crane on Boston Legal ever visited by his cousin Martin? Like really, after Denny spent all these years watching out for Fraiser and Niles when they went to coleges on the East Coast, you think Martin could dtop in on Denny once in a while to have a drink together and say “Thanks.” And “Cheers!”
(Maybe not exactly what the OP was asking for, but I think this fits in the thread nonetheless: )
In Blues Brothers 2000 (I’ll skip the critique of the film but I did enjoy the musical numbers), when the Band played “Ghost Riders In the Sky” on an outdoor stage, the storm clouds overhead formed into a herd of stampeding horses with, yes, ghost riders. I was hoping for – actually, expecting – one of the riders to turn out to be Joliet Jake himself. But, nooooo!!
Kurtwood Smith played the very caring and protective father of a mentally retarded savant on an episode of House MD. He also played Robert Sean Leonard’s (Wilson of House MD) father in Dead Poet’s Society. I so wanted them to make some kind of reference (something to do with fathers taking into account what their children want). If you’ve seen DPS, you know it could have worked, dammit.
They also missed the chance to introduce him to Dr. Foreman and have Smith say “I use to know a kid named Eric Foreman. You don’t look at all like him.”
A nod to his That 70’s Show character Red Foreman, father to Eric.
I thought there was a huge missed opportunity in one of the last episodes of [iArrested Development*. George Michael goes to Pastor Veal’s house looking for Egg (I think). Pastor Veal was played by Alan Tudyk of another beloved canceled Fox show, Friefly.
I think it would have been hilarious for the camera to peek in the house to see a dinner party consisting of Caroline Dhavernas, Jay Baruchel, Seth Green, Andy Richter (or one of his twins), and anyone else they could scrounge up.
