Casting In-Joke

The bespectacled audition judge who tells Marty's band, the Pinheads, that they're 'just too darn loud' is Huey Lewis — and the song the Pinheads are butchering is a hard-rock…

When the Narrator puts Marla on a bus out of town, the theater marquee behind her advertises Seven Years in Tibet — Brad Pitt's 1997 film. Per Fincher, the gag went further…

When the crew lands on the giant 20th-century garbage ball threatening Earth in "A Big Piece of Garbage," Bender digs up a Bart Simpson doll that squawks "Eat my shorts!" — and…

Psych's vampire episode is wall-to-wall genre stunt casting. Kristy Swanson — the original big-screen Buffy from 1992's Buffy the Vampire Slayer — debuts as Marlowe, the…

Emmy-winning actress Margo Martindale voices a fictionalized version of herself — introduced by BoJack as "esteemed character actress Margo Martindale" — who moonlights as a…

Zach Braff voices a fictional version of himself whose sole purpose seems to be getting destroyed. In Season 4's "Underground," he's burned and cannibalized by earthquake…

During a flashback in Wade and Vanessa's apartment, Wade fiddles with an actual retail action figure of "Deadpool" as he appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) — mouth sewn…

In the Workshop, the dialogue winks directly at the Merc with a Mouth's infamous first film appearance: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) sewed Deadpool's mouth shut, deleted his…

Agreeing to the program that will cure his cancer, Wade begs that his eventual superhero suit be neither green nor animated — a double-barreled shot at Green Lantern (2011), where…

Casting horror legend Robert Englund as Victor Creel was already a wink — Season 4's villain owes his dream-stalking playbook to Englund's Freddy Krueger. But executive producer…

Early in Season 2, a background resident strolls through the neighborhood in Elsa's signature icy-blue gown and side braid from Frozen — a wink at Kristen Bell, who voices Anna in…

Young Hugh Crain is played by Henry Thomas — Elliott from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial — and the props team winked at his most famous role by planting an E.T. lunchbox among the…

Before Marvel, the Russos directed Community — and they smuggle former cast members into every MCU film they make. In Endgame it's a double: Ken Jeong (Chang) plays the…

Giancarlo Esposito's unflappable Vought executive Stan Edgar muses about one day getting out and moving to Belize. For anyone who watched Breaking Bad, that's a loaded…

When the Boys dig through Russian footage of the experiments performed on Soldier Boy, a scientist notes a procedure 'dated January 24.' That's Dean Winchester's canonical…

Supernatural's real co-star was Dean's black 1967 Chevy Impala, and The Boys keeps sneaking it in — including an animated gag in Season 2 where Stormfront gets flattened by…

In Season 5, prepping for a TV hit alongside Firecracker, Soldier Boy proudly calls his sidearm an 'All-American Colt 1911.' For Supernatural fans it lands as another Ackles wink…

Mark's school is Reginald VelJohnson High School, its name visible on the building exterior — a nod to the Die Hard and Family Matters actor. The joke pays itself off later: the…

Art Rosenbaum, the grumpy tailor who stitches and repairs the heroes' costumes out of his Tailor Shoppe, is voiced by Mark Hamill — Luke Skywalker himself and one of animation's…

During the Season 2 finale's dimension-hopping, Mark crashes into Agent Spider — a web-slinging hero mid-fight with a tentacled villain named Omnipotus — an obvious…

In Season 4, when Nolan and Allen are handed a Coalition of Planets vessel, the whole setup parodies Star Trek: The Next Generation — a bald captain, an android, a gruff warrior…

Season 4's Viltrumite flashbacks stage a hidden voice-acting reunion: Peter Cullen, the eternal voice of Optimus Prime, voices Coalition leader Thaedus, while Frank Welker, the…

Season 4 sends the story somewhere the comics never did — Hell — where Bruce Campbell voices Satan and can't resist channeling his Evil Dead hero Ash Williams, dropping "Yeah…

The prologue is narrated by Ian McShane, and the casting is a sly wink: McShane played Blackbeard in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. One Piece has its own Blackbeard…

The Mr. Handy robots in the show — including the organ-harvesting unit Lucy meets in the wasteland — are all voiced by comedy legend Matt Berry (What We Do in the Shadows). The…

Marvel Animation quietly stacked Season 2's most powerful roles with the Enterprise-D crew. Gates McFadden — Dr. Beverly Crusher — voices Mother Askani. Michael Dorn, TNG's Worf…

The numbered Superman Robots staffing the Fortress of Solitude — designed after their look in All-Star Superman — hide a full cast of James Gunn regulars. Alan Tudyk voices Robot…

Michael Rosenbaum — who played Lex Luthor for seven seasons of Smallville — is in this movie, but you will never see his face: he voices one of Lex's armored Raptor guards. It's a…

When Archer canvasses the neighborhood for Ring-camera footage, the couple who answer — chilly wife Erica and accommodating husband Gary — are Sara Paxton and Justin Long, both…

In the prison sequence, a fox inmate raps on another animal's head and asks Nick, "What are you looking at, butthead?" The inmate is "Michael J.," voiced by Michael J. Fox — his…

Marvin Jones III plays Lonnie Lincoln, a.k.a. Tombstone — the same character he voiced in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). Live-action and animation casting almost never…