# Movie inside jokes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 23, 2017, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429 "2017-08-23T03:09:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/81 "2017-08-25T02:35:24Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Acronym transposition. Didn’t see it come up on google, despite it sounding very plausible. Then again, I could have been whooshed.😃 > [@caligulathegod](#): > > According to wikipedia, it still is just an acronym. > > “…Pronounced as a word…” Only for HAL, though. IBM would have to be pronounced as a string of letters. Seems to be a whole whackload of different acronyms in Wiki. And btw - in an old Frank Capra flick (or possibly Noel Coward) there are several veiled suggestions to acronym initials getting spelled backwards and coded - a winking future reference to this post. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/82 "2017-08-25T13:23:02Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Probably well known is the problems involved with [using undersized watercraft](http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/jaws/253552/jaws-the-story-behind-the-bigger-boat-line-revealed). I had never heard that story before. That’s pretty damned funny. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_John_Marcej)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/83 "2017-08-25T17:48:41Z")
In the movie _ **Kingpin** _, during the bowling tournament someone from the audience yells “Attaboy, Luther!” Luther was the name of Don Knotts character in _ **The Ghost and Mr. Chicken** _ and in that movie, during a scene depicting a presentation in his honor (the locals think he’s a brave hero) just as he’s about to give his speech someone in the audience yells “Attaboy, Luther!” ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/84 "2017-08-25T20:26:07Z")
Just discovered this one: _Sister Act 2_ takes place in St. Francis Academy. Mary Wickes plays the part of Sister Mary Lazarus. Years before, Wickes appeared as a nun in _The Trouble With Angels._ The school there was called “St. Francis Academy.” ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/85 "2017-08-25T20:48:49Z")
> [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > In _Tango & Cash_, after Tango takes too long in one scene, Cash asks Tango (Stallone) if he stopped for coffee and a danish. Tango replies “I hate Danish.” Stallone had recently divorced from Brigitte Nielsen. At an earlier point in the film, someone says that Stallone thinks he’s Rambo, to which he replies, “Rambo was a pussy.” > [@TCMF-2L](#): > > The words are “klaatu”, “barada”, “nikto”, a reference to the old Sci-Fi film **The Day the Earth Stood Still** , are also used as a magic spell in **Army of Darkness** - the third **Evil Dead** film. > > TCMF-2L They were also 3 characters in [Return of the Jedi](https://www.google.com/search?q=klaatu+barada+nikto+star+wars&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS749US749&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3-cXLoPPVAhXH44MKHSfsDhQQ_AUICigB&biw=1600&bih=770#imgrc=MnwCa0iQBFh93M:). ---
**Author:** ![TYphoonSignal8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@TYphoonSignal8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TYphoonSignal8)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/86 "2017-08-28T07:41:39Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > In the “Twilight Zone Movie”, the segment directed by John Landis that takes place in Vietnam during the war, one of the soldiers exclaimed “I told you guys we shouldn’t have shot Lt. Neidermeyer!” > > It refers of course to Doug Neidermeyer, whom as we all know from the end cards of Landis’ “Animal House” was “Killed in Vietnam by his own troops.” > > I swear, I was the only one in the theater who laughed at that. Ha! ---
**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:** [August 28, 2017, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/87 "2017-08-28T11:56:28Z")
In the movie **Big Trouble in Little China** , when **Lightning** (James Pax) gets struck with the Big Stone Buddha (that presumably kills him), there is a flourish of lightning bolts. Off on one side, some of the lightning can be seen to make a Chinese character briefly, before it al fades out altogether (you might not have seen this if you didn’t catch the movie in the theater, or in a letterboxed edition. The image gets clipped off on a regular TV “fullscreen” image). For years I wondered what that character meant. It was obviously an in-joke. It wasn’t until the Internet Movie Database came around that I found the answer in the “Trivia” section. It’s the character for “Carpenter”, because John Carpenter was the director. > **[Big Trouble in Little China (1986) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090728/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv)** > > Big Trouble in Little China (1986) Trivia on IMDb: Cameos, Mistakes, Spoilers and more... ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/88 "2017-08-28T13:00:12Z")
Another TV reference is the series _My Name Is Earl_. It aired during the transition period between standard definition 4:3 televisions and widescreen HD televisions and broadcasting, and they would sometimes include some joke moment that could only be seen in the edges that would be cropped in pan and scan or signs that could only be read on HD broadcasts. Also, a Mexican character would occasionally rant angrily in Spanish, but actually be [commenting to Spanish-speaking members of the audience](http://www.eeggs.com/items/51076.html). ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/89 "2017-08-28T17:24:07Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Darn it. I thought I had a good one. > > In _To Catch a Thief_, Cary Grant finds himself sitting in the back of a bus. He looks to his left. Alfred Hitchcock is sitting next to him. He looks to his right. There is a little old lady with a bird in a cage on her lap. He looks at the camera with a sour expression on his face. > > I thought it was a clever reference to _The Birds_. The trouble is, _To Catch a Thief_ came out eight years, and seven movies, before _The Birds_. > > How far ahead did Hitch start planning his future films? In the Truffaut interviews, he claimed that he first came across the Du Maurier short story when it was anthologised in one of the “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” books. That would [seem to be 1959](https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Daphne_du_Maurier), so a few years after _To Catch a Thief_. (The [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_(film)#Development) suggests that the script was started in 1961, but overlooks the story that someone - Jack Trevor Story? - produced a script rather closer to the original, with the gimmick that it was entirely confined to a house and so the birds were only heard rather than ever seen. That would be before Evan Hunter was brought on board.) ---
**Author:** ![Marlonius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Marlonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlonius)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/90 "2017-08-28T17:41:03Z")
A few: Quentin Tarantino always uses the fictional “Red Apple” brand for cigarettes in his movies. In “Hateful Eight”, the cigarettes are Spanish, called “Manzana Rojas”. Hot Shots Part Deux, Charlie Sheen on a river boat crosses paths with Martin Sheen on another river boat, in full Apocalypse Now regalia. They each point at each other and yell “I loved you in Wall Street”. The navigational deflector in Star Trek: First Contact is shown to be an “AE-35” model, which is the unit on the Discovery in 2001: A Space Odyssey. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/91 "2017-08-28T17:45:41Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > In the “Twilight Zone Movie”, the segment directed by John Landis that takes place in Vietnam during the war, one of the soldiers exclaimed “I told you guys we shouldn’t have shot Lt. Neidermeyer!” > > It refers of course to Doug Neidermeyer, whom as we all know from the end cards of Landis’ “Animal House” was “Killed in Vietnam by his own troops.” > > I swear, I was the only one in the theater who laughed at that. The same thing happened to me the first time I saw _ **Blazing Saddles** _ (1974), when they got to the line “Badges? We don’ need no steenkin’ badges!” Clearly, I was the only one in the theater who had seen _ **Treasure of the Sierra Madre** _. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/92 "2017-08-28T17:52:13Z")
Not sure if this qualifies, but in _Chaplin_, Geraldine Chaplin plays her real-life grandmother, Charlie Chaplin’s mother. In _The Maltese Falcon_, Walter Huston, father of director John Huston, plays Captain Jacoby, who dies without uttering a line. In Buster Keaton’s _The Navigator_, a photo of the captain which is the basis of several gags is actually a photo of Keaton’s co-director, Donald Crisp. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/93 "2017-08-28T18:05:37Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > In Buster Keaton’s _The Navigator_, a photo of the captain which is the basis of several gags is actually a photo of Keaton’s co-director, Donald Crisp. TV, not movie (again): In the episode of _ **Batman** _ where Alfred has been brainwashed by The Penguin, Batman makes him review a Rogues’ Gallery on the Batcomputer in the Batcave. The first two photos are those of William Dozier and Howie Horowitz, the series’ Executive Producer and Producer, respectively. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/94 "2017-08-28T18:07:42Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > The same thing happened to me the first time I saw _ **Blazing Saddles** _ (1974), when they got to the line “Badges? We don’ need no steenkin’ badges!” There’s also [the badgers of UHF](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx6TBrfCW54). ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/95 "2017-08-28T19:01:04Z")
In the final scene “What’s Up Doc?” (1972 ) there’s an exchange between Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal that is a clear reference to his earlier film “Love Story”. But I don’t know whether something so obvious counts as an “inside joke” for this thread. Ditto for the fact that while the pair shared a kiss and remarks the 1950 Bugs Bunny movie of the same name was playing. So here’s one from television that could easily slip by even a die-hard comics fan: In “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” (TV series, 1979) at one point Buck is crossing through a spaceport and an announcement over a spaceport’s loudspeaker system asks for “Doctor Adam Strange from Alpha Centauri” to “please report to the reservations desk.” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/96 "2017-08-28T23:19:22Z")
> [@Find\_Friends](#): > > So here’s one from television that could easily slip by even a die-hard comics fan: > > In “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” (TV series, 1979) at one point Buck is crossing through a spaceport and an announcement over a spaceport’s loudspeaker system asks for “Doctor Adam Strange from Alpha Centauri” to “please report to the reservations desk.” 🙂 I guess I’m not a die-hard comics fan (at least not since the early '70s), because \*\*this \*\*is the first thing that came to my mind when I read your post: > **[Strange Report](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Report)** > > Strange Report is a British television crime drama series starring Anthony Quayle as Adam Strange. It was produced by ITC Entertainment and first broadcast in 1969 on ITV > In the United States, NBC broadcast Strange Report between 8 January and 10 September 1971. It aired on Fridays from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time throughout its American run. > Adam Strange, a retired Home Office criminologist, solves bizarre cases with the help of Hamlyn Gynt (Kaz Garas), Evelyn McClean (Anneke Wills) an... I went “WTF?!?” :dubious: 😕 and had to Google “Adam Strange” to get the joke! ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/97 "2017-08-29T17:25:59Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > The trooper that Luke takes the armor of is TK-421 > > Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk In _Boogie Nights_, the stereo that Buck tries to sell to the young guy is called the TK421. In _Fargo_, Jerry Lundegaard is called by a man name Riley Dieffenbach. I never thought about this for years until I saw _Seven Days In May_ and heard several references to generals Riley and Dieffenbach. And _Sunset Boulevard_ had a lot of these. Gloria Swansons character pretty much echoed her own career, being a huge hit as a young silent movie star to an unrecognized nobody. And her bridge-game friends are supposedly other silent film stars played by actual silent film stars like Buster Keaton. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2017, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/98 "2017-08-29T17:46:20Z")
In _Coming to America_, Prince Hakeem (Eddie Murphy) gives money to two homeless men (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche). They are the Duke Brothers, who were bankrupt by Billy Ray (Eddie Murphy) in _Trading Places_. Both movies were directed by John Landis. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2017, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/99 "2017-08-29T20:21:26Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Darn it. I thought I had a good one. > > In _To Catch a Thief_, Cary Grant finds himself sitting in the back of a bus. He looks to his left. Alfred Hitchcock is sitting next to him. He looks to his right. There is a little old lady with a bird in a cage on her lap. He looks at the camera with a sour expression on his face. > > I thought it was a clever reference to _The Birds_. The trouble is, _To Catch a Thief_ came out eight years, and seven movies, before _The Birds_. > > How far ahead did Hitch start planning his future films? In Psycho 2 filmed years after Hitchcocks death you can see his silhouette on one of the screens in Norman Bates attic. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2017, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429/100 "2017-08-29T20:54:52Z")
R2-D2 got his name because George Lucas heard it when a sound editor was talking about “Reel 2, dialogue 2” while editing **American Graffiti** , and the name stuck in Lucas’s mind. C-3PO got his name after a post office which is located at reference C3 on a map of Lucas’ hometown. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-inside-jokes/794429.md?page=4)