Ten Of The Most Memorable Cameos In TV History

Movies are full of stars and directors playing heightened versions of themselves. Indeed, they don’t come much bigger than Robert Altman’s The Player (1992), in which Tim Robbins played a ruthless producer against a backdrop of stars including Cher, Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts, Burt Reynolds and Jack Lemmon. But, until The Studio came along, TV shows have always played by different rules. For Ike Barinholtz and Seth Rogen’s show, Hollywood legends have been queuing up, from Martin Scorsese, to Ron Howard, Olivia Wilde, Anthony Mackie, Ice Cube, Charlize Theron, Ted Sarandos, Johnny Knoxville and Aaron Sorkin.

In non-industry comedies, however, playing yourself is quite the rarity. Here are ten examples of celebrities who were prepared to go all-in for the small screen…

1. Muhammad Ali (Diff’rent Strokes, 1979)

NBC show Diff’rent Strokes (1978-1986) was originally envisaged as a vehicle for the odd-couple pairing of deadpan comedy actor Conrad Bain, who’d been a hit in the All in the Family spin-off Maude (starring The Golden Girls’ Bea Arthur), and cheeky child star Gary Coleman, then ten years old. The premise of the series was that a white Park Avenue millionaire (Bain) has taken in his late, Black housekeeper’s two young sons, Arnold (Coleman) and Willis (Todd Bridges), and its title came from an old saying — “Different strokes for different folks” — reflecting the culture clash within the household.

Someone who often used this phrase was boxing world champion Muhammed Ali, who turned up as himself in Season 2. In the episode, Arnold is being bullied, so Willis and their adoptive sister Kimberly (Dana Plato) write to Ali claiming that Arnold is dying of a rare tropical disease. Ali comes to his bedside to sign a photograph, but smells a rat when Arnold whips out a pen and dictates a very detailed dedication. “I’ve been north, and I’ve been south, but now I’ve finally met someone with my kind of mouth,” says Ali. “Now, I’m not gonna suffer no fool — tell me what’s goin’ on here!” Arnold has no choice but to fess up.

2. Andy Warhol (The Love Boat, 1985)

Setting sail in September 1977, The Love Boat ran for 10 seasons, and as well as being the last U.S. sitcom to feature a laugh track well into the ’80s, it was famous for its cameos. Not everyone who boarded the MS Pacific Princess played themselves, however; only a handful of celebrities had that honor, including fashion icon Gloria Vanderbilt, mononymous New York designer Halston, and gay-marketed disco group The Village People, who had a whole episode in which they raced, and sang about, a horse called Magic Night.

The strangest episode, however, has to have been when pop artist Andy Warhol appeared. In the episode, the cruise ship is celebrating its 200^th voyage, and Warhol is on board to take Polaroids of the guests, with a view to choosing one for a special portrait. Where it becomes weird is that the week’s special guest stars were Marion Ross and Tom Bosley — AKA Howard and Marion Cunningham from ABC’s Happy Days — as a suburban couple. The wife, however, has a secret that she is trying to keep from her conservative husband: In her wild youth, she was a Warhol starlet called Marina Del Rey, who appeared in a boring, arty film called White Giraffe. She’s relieved, at first, when Warhol pretends not to recognize her. (“That’s the man that dyed my hair green and dressed me in fruit labels,” she confides in a crew member. Maybe I’ve changed too much!”) Warhol, though, know exactly who she is, and, inevitably, she not only wins the prize but rekindles the spark of her marriage when her husband finds out the truth.

3. Thomas Pynchon (The Simpsons, 2004)

The Simpsons, perhaps more than any show, prides itself on its eclectic guest stars, ranging from Stephen Hawking to Elizabeth Taylor, Bob Hope, Tito Puente, and, famously, Michael Jackson. Perhaps the most niche, though, was author Thomas Pynchon, now 88 and considered the last of the great American novelists, penning doorstop tomes such as the 1973 classic Gravity’s Rainbow. Pynchon’s most enduring trait is his mystery, and next to no pictures of him are known to exist — which is why, in his first appearance on The Simpsons (in “Diatribe of a Mad Housewife”) he appeared with a bag on his head, then did the same in his second (“All’s Fair in Oven War”). Rumors also suggest that Pynchon asked for changes to one of the scripts he was given and refused to say a line that described Homer as “a fat-ass”. “Homer is my role model,” he is alleged to have said, “and I won’t speak ill of him.” But how can we know for sure?

4. Daniel Craig (Comic Relief, 2007)

After his first year as James Bond in Casino Royale, Daniel Craig stepped up to make fun of himself in a charity sketch starring British comedian Catherine Tate as a 36-year-old woman named Elaine Figgis living in the picturesque British town of York. Speaking to the camera, Figgis, reveals that “it all kicked off big time when I bobbed into my favorite Eurovision chat room, Diggiloodiggylay.net, and got chatting to a chap called BondBoy68. He was nuts about Celine Dion, and as I look quite a lot like her — post-surgery — I said, ‘Why don’t you come over and I can wow you with my fish-finger pie?’”

Figgis is blissfully unaware that her new beau is a world-famous action star, and Craig is perfectly happy with that (“She doesn’t know what I do, but she knows who I am”). The romance turns sour, however, after a camping trip. “He just wanted to stay in the tent all the time, canoodling,” says Figgis. “Now, I’m all for a little romantic interlude, but he wouldn’t let me come up for air.” The skit ends with Craig moodily cycling off on a tandem while Figgis puts his parting gift, a big white teddy bear, in the trash.

5. Barbra Streisand (Miami Vice, 1988)

Crime show Miami Vice (1984-89), which defined a whole decade in the space of just half of it, certainly racked up the guest stars as the fashionable duo of James “Sonny” Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) worked undercover in the Sunshine State capital. Musicians such as Frank Zappa, Little Richard, Ted Nugent and Kiss’s Gene Simmons all lined up to take part, with perhaps the strangest cameo going to soul legend James Brown, who played Pastor Lou DeLong in an episode called “Missing Hours” about alien abduction. All were eclipsed, however, by an uncredited, inexplicable, and moodily dialogue-free, walk-on by Johnson’s then-girlfriend Barbra Streisand outside the Bayside shopping center and marina. The duo later duetted on the title track of her next album Till I Loved You, released the same year.

6. Boy George (The A-Team, 1986)

From 1983-87, The A-Team was NBC’s cash cow, an action-adventure series following, basically, a mercenary unit made of former members of a fictitious United States Army Special Forces unit and led by hardman John “Hannibal” Smith (George Peppard). Like many TV staples, The A-Team had its fair share of guest stars, most of them character actors playing supporting roles. Hulk Hogan had the distinction of playing himself several times, purporting to be a close friend of B.A. Baracas, played by the flamboyant Mr. T, but a rare co-starring role went to British singer Boy George, gender-fluid leader of the New Romantic pop group Culture Club, who had a US hit in 1984 with “Karma Chameleon”.

In this episode, while investigating the disappearance of a missing sheriff, one of The A-Team has booked a band called Cowboy George and the Range Rats to play at a low-rent venue called the Floor ’Em. Instead, he gets Boy George, who’s under the impression he’s playing the Arizona Forum. The show ends with Boy George kicking down a door and delivering one of the show’s many catchphrases (“Awesome, Hannibal!”), but although he enjoyed the experience (and apparently still speaks highly of Mr. T), Boy George and his band would rather have been on Miami Vice. “I think, because of me, we were a little too camp,” he said later.

7. The Wu-Tang Clan (The Larry Sanders Show, 1998)

Running from 1992 to 1998, HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show was arguably TV’s first foray into meta-fiction, featuring real guests appearing as themselves on a made-up talkshow hosted by Garry Shandling as the aforementioned Larry Sanders. It also pioneered cringe comedy, paving the way for The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm with episodes like the one in which rap troupe The Wu-Tang Clan are booked to appear. Hank Kingsley (Jeffrey Tambor), Sanders’ announcer and sidekick, affects to be a hip-hop aficionado. “Hey, where’s Ol’ Dirty Bitch?” he asks, meaning Ol’ Dirty Bastard. “Where is she?” He just got outta jail,” explains RZA. “Oh, man. See, I know that, dig?” says a sympathetic Hank. “I got parking tickets coming right outta my ass. F*ckers, cops! Y’know?” Compounding the embarrassment is a young Jon Stewart, also playing himself, who tells the Wu-Tang, “On behalf of all my people, I just want to apologize.

8. Kate Winslet (Extras, 2005)

In just two years, Ricky Gervaise’s BBC show Extras (2005-7) took the concept of The Larry Shandling Show and turned it up to 11. Originally, the premise of the show — focused on a struggling background artist, Andy Millman (Gervaise), and his best friend Maggie (Ashley Jensen) — was to feature famous people in the background; the gag being that, in this show, the stars were literally the extras.

Early on, however, it was decided that the show would instead invite celebrities to send themselves up, ranging from the likes of Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe to Lord of the Rings’ Ian McKellen and screen legend Robert De Niro. Perhaps the most indelible, though, was Kate Winslet, guest-starring as herself playing a nun in a Holocaust drama. Overhearing Maggie bemoaning her skills at phone sex, Winslet steps in with some sage advice. “Why don’t you just start with something light?” she says. “You know, like, ‘I’d love it if you stuck your Willy Wonka between my Oompa-Loompas.’ Something a bit fun, a bit jokey.”

9. Sting (Only Murders in the Building, 2021)

Though the murder-mystery show leans heavily into in-jokes about its stars and guest stars — notably Meryl Streep, who lit up Season 3 as a failed Broadway starlet and love interest for co-star Martin Short’s Oliver Putnam — Only Murders in the Building was light on guest stars playing themselves until Season 4, in which the core team of amateur detectives (Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez) are invited to Hollywood, where they are due to be played by Zach Galifianakis, Eugene Levy and Eva Longoria respectively.

In the opening season, however, The Police frontman Sting had a role as himself, taking a bold swing by playing a murder suspect, a resident of the Arconia who is implicated in the murder of his former financial advisor, who has fallen to his death. “I was playing it straight, I was playing it like it was a serious drama,” Sting later claimed, with a straight face. “They didn’t tell me it was a comedy.”

10. Al Gore (Futurama, 2002)

When it comes to politicians, it’s hard to beat the track record of NBC’s Parks and Recreation (2009-2015), which featured a ton of heavyweight political figures, from Joe Biden to Newt Gingrich, John McCain and Michelle Obama. The Simpsons gave it a shot by having ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Hats off, though, to Futurama, which landed Bill Clinton’s Vice President Al Gore, perhaps because his daughter Kristin was a writer on the show. Showing his very charming lighter side, Gore is introduced as “the inventor of the environment, and first emperor of the moon”, and in a possible reference to sci-fi writer Frank Herbert’s Dune novels, offers the immortal line, “I have ridden the mighty moon worm!”