Remember how Roseanne use to show outtakes at the end of every show? One scene had her getting into bed with Dan, only instead of Dan, the bed was occupied by John Goodman’s old roommate Bruce Willis. It was a hoot.
The whole last season of Roseanne was revealed to be a chapter in the book Roseanne was writing about her family.
Frankie Murtz (Malcolm on Malcolm in the middle) did an excellent guest shot on Criminal minds
As Prentice, one of the Quantico team said “It’s the first case I’ve had where the unsub wasn’t the bad guy.”
Another cool Roseanne cameo was in a Halloween episode. Roseanne and friends went as the castaways from Gilligan’s Island for Halloween (and there was also a dream sequence). At the end the surviving castoways (Bob Denver, Russell Johnson, Dawn Wells, and most surprisingly Tina Louise- who never does Gilligan’s Island functions) appeared as the cast of Roseanne, each playing whichever character had dressed as them (Mary Ann=Darlene, Ginger=Roseanne, Gilligan=Jackie, and Professor=[the stupid son-in-law Glenn Quinn played]).
The Stephen Colbert episode of L&O was based on the Salamander letter forgery murders in Utah, though the religion was changed from Mormonism to Catholicism and the figure of the forgery from Joseph Smith to a dead NYC priest on the verge of sainthood and with a cultlike following. Colbert was good as the forger/murderer, but the plot was a bit contrived since it was too reminiscent of the actual event (on which of course it was not based in any way).
Martha Stewart also did a guest shot on Ellen. This was at the beginning of the backlash when she was gradually turning from domestic diva to brass-busted business bitch. But she was genuinely relaxed in her cameo, and her final line (asked if she wanted another beer, she said “I’m gooood.”) was delivered with real comic timing.
In addition to Carson’s walk-on appearance on Letterman, don’t forget Tom Brokaw’s appearance on the first Late Night on CBS. In the middle of letterman’s monologue, Brokaw walked onstage, grabbed the cue cards, announced “these jokes are the intellectual property of NBC” and walked off. The joke was that NBC had been threatening to sue CBS ever since Letterman jumped networks, claiming that all his classic bits belonged to NBC.
I don’t know if it’s only in the full version, but Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has a cameo in the Robin Sparkles “Let’s Go To The Mall” video from How I Met Your Mother
On guest shots on L&O, the most surprising one I can remember is only surprising when watching the series out of order.
In an early episode, Jerry Orbach appeared as a slightly scuzzy defence attorney. Then, later, of course, he’s cast in a regular role as Lenny Briscoe. S. Epatha Merickson also appeared as a different character before being cast as Lt. Van Buren, but by the time I caught that episode, I’d become used to actors playing multiple characters on the show.
Palin and Cleese on SNL recreating the “Dead Parrot Sketch”. Not only because they guest starred, but because the whole SET guest starred, somehow. I can only imagine the panicked prop guy on SNL rifling through his trunks for a dead parrot et al, with the knowledge that if he can pull this off, John freakin’ Cleese will be on his stage in 20 minutes!
I was never a regular SNL watcher; I consider myself terribly lucky to have been at my friend’s house while it was on in the background, and we all just happened to look at the television when the opening shot happened. “Huh,” I said. “That looks like the parrot sketch set…shoot, I hope they’re not going to do that old thing! Blasphemy. Kill it, they will, absolutely murder it…oh my god, is that John CLEESE?”
MTV’s Jackass. The back of a van opens up and a bunch of guys in gorrilla suits jump out. They run around acting like gorillas terrorizing the pedestrians. At the end they pull off their masks with their names captioned below. Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Brad Pitt. Of course thats a joke, right? Nope. The mask comes off and it is Brad Pitt. Later they show Pitt on line to buy something (I think it was movie tickets). You see the people around him talking to each other as they recognize him. Then a van pulls up and he is kidnapped in front of everyone.
James Earl Jones being schooled by Jack McFarland on Will & Grace. It was wrong on so many levels. JEJ turns out to be an even more insecure whiny bitch than Jack. It does make sense in kind of a Raymond Burr way, but it’s still wrong to see the voice of Darth Vader do the flamboyant fairy thing.
I had the same thing happen to me, but it was Vincent D’Onofrio playing some druggie in an early episode of the original series I believe, but I came in in the middle and thought it was his detective character off of Criminal Intent, so when it didn’t work out well, I was a bit confused.
Bob Newhart and his staff did a lot of misdirection beforehand, spreading rumors that Dick Loudon was going to die, and that he’d appear in Heaven before God, who’d be played by George Burns.
I saw that rumor reprinted in several newspapers before I saw the actual episode.
Actually, the whole series was a fictionalized version of her characters life from the book. She switched the boyfriends/husbands of her daughters, and those plot lines went way back before that season.
Friends had quite a few famous types in guest roles (Bruce Willis, Tom Selleck, Ben Stiller, Marlo Thomas, Morgan Fairchild, Kathryn Turner, et al), but one of my favorite true cameo roles was Chrissie Hinds of *The Pretenders *being taught “Smelly Cat” by Phoebe.
Maybe not the best or best known, but the one I always remember was Mike Dukakis as himself on St. Elsewhere. He was governor of MA at the time and known locally as an avid jogger.
The episode starts with him limping in wearing his sweats saying he twisted his ankle. When he gives his name, the doctor refuses to believe him and starts treating him like a deranged homeless guy. His scene ends with the doctor dumping him off on a med student with orders to “tape his ankle until his eyes bug out.”
Kathleen Turner as Chandler’s often mentioned cross dressing father. NOBODY else could have brought life to that role so successfully. Amd the dialogue between her and Morgan Fairchild as Chandler’s mother.
Kathleen: Don’t you have too many years to be wearing that dress?
Morgan: Don’t you have too much of a penis to be wearing that one?
Chandler: It’s bad luck to see the bride in her dress before the wedding.
Morgan:I saw the groom in my dress.
Kathleen: That was after the wedding, so it wasn’t bad luck.
Morgan: Well, it wasn’t good luck.
