TV Episodes where two actors who later hit it big guest starred

Cafe Society
21

Dave Chappelle and Jim Breuer made an appearance together on an episode of Home Improvement, 3 years before Half-Baked.

22

How about an episode of Police Story with Mark Harmon and Lauren Tewes?

23

That’s the one. They’re both Marines according to Wikipedia.

24

The Law & Order episode Skin Deep featured guest stars Claire Danes, Lauren Ambrose and Gina Torres, all at the very beginning of their careers.

25

This LAW & ORDER episode had Samuel L. Jackson and Philip Seymour Hoffman. (Oh, and future Emmy winner Gil Bellows.)

26

I saw an episode of Emergency recently that fits the bill. The paramedics tended to a young couple injured in a car crash; they were played by Donny Most and Audrey Landers.

“Demon with a Glass Hand” wasn’t bad; Robert Culp and Arlene Martel both went on to long careers.

27

ER must have numerous examples.

28

Fry and Laurie were in the Bambi episode of The Young Ones. Are they big?

29

Before they were Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Williams were in this episode of Dan August – featuring Gary Busey as “Hippie #2”.

30

Ed Harris, Sean Penn and Madeleine Stowe appeared in a “Barnaby Jones” episode called “School for Terror.”

31

As per IMDb, Martin Sheen’s first TV credit was a Route 66 episode with young unknown Jimmy Caan (yes, that’s how he was credited); the next year, Sheen was doing his thing on an episode of Armstrong Circle Theatre with young unknown Dabney Coleman.

32

Here a post I made a few years ago and about an A-team episode I had just seen.

I don’t know if any of them got big by your standards, nor can I remember where they were in their popularity arcs, but still it was pretty cool.

33

Here’s an episode of Mr. Lucky from 1960 with a gang of young toughs including Jack Nicholson and Richard Chamberlain.

34

I dunno. Who else starred in the Swayze episode and went on to be famous?

35

I recall an episode of the Untouchables with Gavin MacLeod and Cloris Leachman.

36

Laurence Fishburne as ‘Cowboy Curtis’ in Peewee’s Playhouse…wonder if Morpheus cringes when remembering the good ol’ days…

37

Helen Hunt and Dana Plato in a 1976 episode of Family.

And damn the OP for wasting my afternoon!

38

Sorry, I misunderstood the OP that the later-to-be-famous actors had to be in the same episode. There were tons of later-to-be-famous actors popping up in Seinfeld but usually not in pairs. I’ll have to see if I can think of any other examples.

39

Dunno if this episode of YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES counts, but I’d never heard of Daniel Craig or Catherine Zeta-Jones back then, and I’ll wager you hadn’t either.

40

One of the episodes of Murder She Wrote with Bryan Cranston also had a young Bill Maher. Good Bye, Charlie.