# Self-Referential Movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 21, 2007, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403 "2007-08-21T18:25:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![NailBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecae2f/32.png) [@NailBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NailBunny)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/81 "2007-12-13T17:52:35Z")
Isn’t there some Brad Pitt movie (I want to say _Fight Club_ but it’s been awhile since I’ve watched it) where his character is standing in the street in front of a very prominent movie marquee for _Seven Years in Tibet_? ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/82 "2007-12-13T17:58:28Z")
The was an episode of **G.I. Joe** back in the 80s wherein COBRA’s doomsday contraption _du jour_ was actually called “The McGuffin Device.” Talk about knowing you’re in a work of fiction. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/83 "2007-12-13T18:34:44Z")
[QUOTE=Terminus Est] On **NCIS** , the medical examiner “Ducky”, played by David McCallum, is said to have looked like Illya Kuryakin in his younger days. “Illya Kuryakin” is the Russian agent character from **The Man From U.N.C.L.E.** , played by David McCallum. [/QUOTE] i think that same ep comes complete with a terrifically deadpan reference made by mark harmon as to whom ducky resembles - and photographs of ducky as a young man - inside ducky’s home - that are clearly stills from the UNCLE tv series. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/84 "2007-12-13T19:17:18Z")
[QUOTE=Scubaqueen] i think that same ep comes complete with a terrifically deadpan reference made by mark harmon as to whom ducky resembles - and photographs of ducky as a young man - inside ducky’s home - that are clearly stills from the UNCLE tv series. [/QUOTE] Some Agent: What did Dr. Mallard look like when he was young? Mark Harmon (deadpan): Illya Kuryakin ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/85 "2007-12-13T19:27:27Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] Groucho Marx in **Horsefeathers** just before Chico does a piano solo: "I’ve got to stay here, but there’s no reason why you folks shouldn’t go out into the lobby until this thing to blows over. " [/QUOTE] And speaking of self-referential…see posts #34 and #59 😃 I guess neither of us had looked far enough back in the thread before we posted. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/86 "2007-12-14T01:07:03Z")
The 1994 movie [New Nightmare](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111686/) is highly self-referential. It features several people who were involved with the original 1984 ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ this time playing themselves as people in ‘real life’ who either are involved, or become involved, with the fact that writer/director Wes Craven is working on a new ‘Nightmare’ movie. It intentionally tries to blur the distinction between the fictional world of the ‘Nightmare’ series and the ‘real’ world in which people talk about these movies _as_ movies. This attempt to blur boundaries could have turned out a disastrous mess, but I think the end result is actually quite clever and well-directed, if not especially scary by the standards of the genre. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/87 "2007-12-14T02:26:12Z")
[QUOTE=Bayard] If TV shows count, then in the opening credits of the A-Team, Dirk Benedict looks at someone passing by in a Cylon suit as though he _might_ recognize him. I think I saw maybe two episodes of that show, so I don’t know what episode it came from, or if it just appeared in the credits. A rare moment of wit from the series, in any case. [/QUOTE] I actually caught the episode that scene was from the other day, and it really was the cleverest thing in an incredible dopey episode (and that’s as compared to other episodes of the show!) The A-Team is protecting an actress at Universal Studios from what appears to be a phantom. The climax of the film involves a chase through the studio backlot, with the cast reacting in terror to the special effects that are part of the studio backlot show, as if they were genuine threats, and not theatrics. “Oh no! The tram is headed right at that brick wall!” The tram heads right at that brick wall thirty times a day! You’re at an amusement park, you idiots! ---
**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:** [December 14, 2007, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/88 "2007-12-14T02:56:35Z")
In the Doris Day film **Caprice** , she goes into a movie theater where they are showing **Caprice**. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/89 "2007-12-14T03:44:49Z")
[Flushed Away](http://imdb.com/title/tt0424095/trivia) is full of this kind of thing. I just linked to the film’s trivia page, which lists a lot of them. My favorite is that Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman) dithers between choosing a rhinestone Elvis jumpsuit and a Wolverine costume in the beginning of the film. Hugh Jackman, of course, played Wolverine in the X-Men movies. He also flips past a Wallace (of "Wallace & Gromit) outfit. My favorite obscure one is that the cockroach in Rita’s family’s kitchen is reading Kafka’s_La Metamorphose_, in which a man wakes up one morning as an insect. It’s really a hilarious movie. Everyone should see it. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/90 "2007-12-14T04:34:25Z")
[Flushed Away](http://imdb.com/title/tt0424095/trivia) is full of this kind of thing. I just linked to the film’s trivia page, which lists a lot of them. My favorite is that Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman) dithers between choosing a rhinestone Elvis jumpsuit and a Wolverine costume in the beginning of the film. Hugh Jackman, of course, played Wolverine in the X-Men movies. He also flips past a Wallace (of "Wallace & Gromit) outfit. My favorite obscure one is that the cockroach in Rita’s family’s kitchen is reading Kafka’s_La Metamorphose_, in which a man wakes up one morning as an insect. It’s really a hilarious movie. Everyone should see it. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/91 "2007-12-14T20:52:54Z")
[This thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=433635?y=1) includes an extensive list of self-referential movies. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/92 "2007-12-14T20:59:59Z")
[QUOTE=kunilou] At the end of _What’s Up Doc?_ not only does Barbra Streisand tell Ryan O’Neal “Love means never having to say your sorry” but the in-flight movie is a cartoon with Bugs and Daffy singing “What’s Up Doc?” [/QUOTE] And he responds, IIRC “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.” ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/93 "2007-12-14T22:13:39Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] There was a similar gag in a **Green Acres** episode where Lisa is looking toward the credits and Oliver asks what she’s doing. She says she’s waiting for Richard L. Bare (who directed all the episodes). [/QUOTE] And again when the credits appear superimposed on recently-laid eggs, and in the first scene, Gabor’s character comes in to the kitchen complaining, “Oliver, the eggs have writing on them again!” ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/94 "2007-12-14T22:37:22Z")
[QUOTE=drewbert] Don’t know if it’s a different episode, but I seem to remember Monk claiming he’d never heard of “Wings.” Another episode of Monk had Sarah Silverman’s character complaining about her favorite show changing theme songs. Monk itself changed had theme songs a few episodes earlier, to an annoying Randy Newman tune\*. [sub]\*but I repeat myself[/sub] [/QUOTE] In Sarah Silverman’s first appearance on the show, she was an obsessive fan of an actor whose ex-wife is murdered. Monk solves the case. In her second appearance, her character has become an obsessive fan of Monk himself, with an encyclopediac knowledge of Monk’s prior cases… which she refers to by the episode titles… for example, she’s built a diorama of a scene where Monk’s at a county fair trying to discover why someone is trying to win all the pies, and refers to it as the case of “Mr. Monk and the Three Pies” – which was, of course, the title of that episode. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/95 "2007-12-14T22:55:09Z")
[QUOTE=Morbo] And then there’s the scene in **Coming To America** with Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche reprising their “Randolph and Mortimer Duke” roles from **Trading Places**. “We’re back!” [/QUOTE] In the same movie, James Earl Jones speaks the line, “Do not alert him to my presence, I will deal with him myself.” - parrotting a line he also spoke in Star Wars. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2007, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/96 "2007-12-15T15:05:01Z")
[QUOTE=Jophiel] In one episode, Mary (Jane Curtin) is watching TV when we hear that, coming up next, is the Susan Saint James story on _Biography_. Mary gives a dismissive “Pffftt… who cares about _her?_” and changes the channel. Jane Curtin & Susan Saint James, of course, having been co-stars in the 1980’s sitcom “Kate & Allie”. [/QUOTE] And, continuing on 3rd Rock, we find Tommy in a rock band, and Dick goes downstairs and gives him and his band the “No Rock Music” speech from “Footloose” - in which John Lithgow plays the anti-dancing preacher. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2007, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/97 "2007-12-15T16:09:23Z")
[QUOTE=Merijeek] And, continuing on 3rd Rock, we find Tommy in a rock band, and Dick goes downstairs and gives him and his band the “No Rock Music” speech from “Footloose” - in which John Lithgow plays the anti-dancing preacher. -Joe [/QUOTE] He did this standing in front of a giant speaker as his “pulpit.” One of the funniest things I ever saw. 3rd Rock had quite a few of them. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2007, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/98 "2007-12-15T21:53:46Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] He did this standing in front of a giant speaker as his “pulpit.” One of the funniest things I ever saw. 3rd Rock had quite a few of them. [/QUOTE] Yeah, well, if Viewsonic would ever get around to replacing my goddamned TV, I could finish watching my complete set! Viewsonic - their support sucks donkey balls. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2007, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/99 "2007-12-17T15:08:37Z")
Nannette Guzman, Frasier Crane’s first wife, appeared on the last season of his show. She was sick of her long run as a children’s TV show host and asked Frasier “Do you know what it’s like to play the same character on television for twenty years?” Yes, Kelsey Grammer does. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403/100 "2008-01-11T08:37:03Z")
[QUOTE=NailBunny] Isn’t there some Brad Pitt movie (I want to say _Fight Club_ but it’s been awhile since I’ve watched it) where his character is standing in the street in front of a very prominent movie marquee for _Seven Years in Tibet_? [/QUOTE] Yeah, that was _Fight Club_. In fact, the director wanted to go for the trifecta and link Edward Norton with a marquee for _Primal Fear_, and Helena Bonham-Carter with one for _Wings of the Dove_, but somehow, was only able to get the Pitt/Tibet shot. Now I’m trying to remember which Spielberg film had a marquee advertising _A Boy’s Life_ and _Watch the Skies_, which were the working titles for _E.T._ and _Close Encounters_… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-referential-movies/416403.md?page=4)