I am constantly seeing familiar faces in real, actual movies of actors that appear in movies I see on MST3K.? Today I watched the 1956 serious movie “Julius Caeser” and one of the Roman senator-type guys was the sort of German scientist from “LOST CONTINENT.”
Oh, yeah, this is happening all the time. It even happens on the show. On several occasions we got riffs like “Oh goody! This guy!” or “Hey, it’s THAT guy!”
According to Daddy-O, there are more than 7,000 credited performances in 200 or so MST3K movies, so you’re bound to run across some of them doing other stuff.
Recently I was watching “The Baroness and the Butler” on TCM and a very familiar face came on the screen.
It was actor Maurice Cass (I learned after looking him up) better known to us as Professor Newton on the “Rocky Jones” episodes.
So, Tim Servo wanted to get into a whole “seven degrees of connection” thing, but I think that’d be too complicated.
But I DID want to get into the “that guy” phenomenon. Have you had a “that guy” (or gal) moment with somebody in an MSTed movie? Who’s your favorite “that guy”?
Me, I’d have to go with George Cisar:
who was in the movie in episode 406- ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES and is best remembered as “the doughy guy” in the movie in episode 522- TEEN-AGE CRIME WAVE.
What about you?
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My list of “It’s that guy/gal!” for Star Trek and Babylon 5 can be found in Ward E. *grin*
My favorite recognition moment outside those spheres, though, is definitely seeing Frank Finlay (the evil Manfred from ‘The Deadly Bees’ ) in the 1965 movie version of ‘Othello.’ (The one starring Laurence Olivier.) Mr. Finlay was absolutely incredible as Iago–far and away the best portrayal I’ve seen.
I’ll have to go check out that list of Star Trek appearances; I’ve only noticed two on my own: Dr. Man-Bat from It Lives By Night, and Ava, the adult baby from Agent For HARM, were in two different episodes. It’s always fun when that happens, especially watching with my bf who’s seen just as many episodes of MST3K as I have– usually we’ll notice it around the same time :-)
I was watching an episode of Criminal Minds, when the name John Allen N(R)elson flashed on the screen, causing me to scream out “Deathstalker’s in this episode! Awesome!” (Shade of Gray, Ep 4.21)
Ditto for when Duane “Road Rash” Whitaker showed up in an episode of Cold Case. (The Brush Man, Ep 6.14)
Within the show itself, I was surprised to notice Nello Pazzafini, the frog-faced henchman from Danger!! Death Ray, as one of the guards at the royal wedding in Colossus and the Headhunters. There’s no mistaking that face.
There was this lab assistant in REVENGE OF THE CREATURE…he looks familiar…but, nah…he probably never worked in movies again!
In terms of “Star Trek”-related “That Guy” moments, “It Lives by Night” is a good choice. You’ve got Korax the Klingon from “Trouble with Tribbles”, suicidal Joe Thormolen from “The Naked Time” and ill-fated Lee Kelso from the second pilot.
And for 007 “That Guy” moments, it’s “Operation Double 007” all the way. Emilio Largo, Professor Dent, Tatiana Romanova, Moneypenny, the first M…have I missed anyone?
So this is just second tier actors; Not Pia Zadora or everyone in “The Magic Sword”.I wish I had one to say but I would have to watch every MST3K episode to remember ones I saw.
But my favorite familiar face riff is William Sylvester in “Devil Doll”:
“Kubrick saw this scene and said ‘We’ve found our Heywood Floyd’.
I missed the second (“), sorry
I did not ask for a smiley face. What key-combo did that?
Not so much a face but a voice. In many of the dubbed Japanese monster movies MST3K covered, I could hear the distinctive voice of Peter Fernandez, AKA the voice of the original Speed Racer.
I recognized Stewart Moss (It Lives by Night) too, but I admit (with lots of embarrassment) that I saw him in Hogan’s Heroes.
On a slightly higher note, I had a “Hey!” moment watching It Came from Outer Space. I saw Richard Carlson and thought, “Ooh, Tom Stewart!”
A great place to find these character actors is the old “Lone Ranger” series with Clayton Moore (who appeared in the “Commander Cody” series in Season One). I’ve seen Gene Roth (not Merrit Stone), Douglas Kennedy (“The Amazing Transparent Man” ), Wanda McKay (“Jungle Goddess” ), George Lloyd (Al in “I Accuse My Parents” ) and even Will B. Goode (“Teenagers From Outer Space,” “Bride of the Monster” ) on this not PC, but still entertaining series.
Hillary Brooks from The Abbot and Costello Show/Lost Continent, Monkey Boy Dick Van Dyke Show/LC, Cesar Romero Batman/LC, Hugh Beaumont Leave It to Beaver/LC.
A Leech Woman sighting on an old rerun of Mr. Ed – Coleen Gray. She apparently did a lot of TV like Mannix, Perry Mason and My Three Sons, but not the Beverly Hillbillies despite inspiring the cry “JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!”
Puma Man’s boss plays the permanent secratary of the treasury on Yes Minister, and he’s also in Barry Lyndon.
There’s also the very familiar voice of Paul Frees cropping up in films such as Beginning of the End and The Sword and the Dragon.
I was just thinkinh this would make a great topic yesterday when I saw 2 different MST riffed actors from Incredible Melting Man on 2 different shows in one day. Fist was Burr DeBenning playing a reformed criminal on a rerun of Cannon, The actor that played the military guy, Myron Healey, had a bit part in True Grit. Both were on yesterday, and I just laughed at the choices of shows I watched that day.
I was just thinking this would make a great topic yesterday when I saw 2 different MST riffed actors from Incredible Melting Man on 2 different shows in one day. Fist was Burr De Benning playing a reformed criminal on a rerun of Cannon, The actor that played the military guy, Myron Healey, had a bit part in True Grit. Both were on yesterday, and I just laughed at the choices of shows I watched that day.
Edit: typos
I guess for me, the moments I remember are when this works in reverse. While watching Puma Man, I recognized Vedino (are you an onion?) from Fitzcaraldo. Same goes for Roadrash in Hobgoblins. I’m a pretty big Tarantino fan, so it really made me chuckle to see Hobgoblin’s Road Rash as the Maynard, the pervy gunshop owner in Pulp Fiction.
Fun topic. I’ll enjoy reading everyone’s posts.
This happens to me all the time. Probably the biggest “It’s that guy!” moment for me came in “All the King’s Men” when I recoginized John Ireland (in an Oscar-nominated role) from “Gunslinger”. Who knew the guy who lived in a hallway could act?
Also, the beat boat driver (Joe Turkel) shows up in tons of great movies. And about every “Mitchell” cast member (the desk sergeant in particular) has done guest spots in 1970s cop and crime shows like “The Rockford Files”.
I remember seeing George ‘Shug’ Fisher, the drunk from Giant Gila Monster, in a Beverly Hillbillies episode and thought it was pretty funny. Turns out he was the voice of Uncle Pecos in a Tom and Jerry cartoon as well, and a friend of Ken Curtis of Gunsmoke fame, who produced of Killer Shrews and Giant Gila Monster.
I remember not long after I starting watching MST in syndication in about 1995, I saw Captain Torcha in a low budget 50s crime drama. He was a member of a biker gang or something similar. Any body know what movie that was? The real shock to me though was finding out that Torcha went on to play Ronald McDonald in the 70s.
In the other direction of seeing a familar face in a MSTed movie was James Franciscus in Space Travelers. He was the Finder of Lost Loves you know.
Torgo’s Pajamas just reminded me about Joe Turkel. After seeing Tormented, it drove me nuts that I couldn’t figure out why he seemed so familiar, until I was rewatching Blade Runner Then it also clicked that he played Lloyd, the creepy bartender in the Shining.
The Deadly Bees. Guy Doleman who played Hargrove was the first Number Two on the original The Prisoner series. Recently I was watching Mr. Destiny and I really liked one character and was trying to place him. I looked him up and it turns out it was Droppo!
Practically any of the TV movies they did are a gold mine for “That Guy” moments, especially the KTMA eps “SST: Death Flight” and “Superdome”. If you grew up watching TV in the 70’s, practically everyone in these eps is a familiar face.
Note to John F. Hanna (#10), I’m pretty sure Peter Fernandez also did one of the dubbed voices (Ulysses, I believe) in “Hercules” and ‘Hercules Unchained”.
I just recently purchased the first season of “Car 54, Where are You?” on DVD. While watching an episode titled “No More Pickpockets”, up pops that Jamie Farr look-alike guy from “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”! His name was Al Nesor, and he played one of Voldar’s henchmen. I said to myself, “Hey! It’s that guy from ‘Santa Claus Conquers the Martians’!”
John Hoyt played the Russian Rostov in The Lost Continent but was in a lot of other junk, perhaps most notably, Dr. Phillip Boyce in the pilot episode of Star Trek TOS (“The Cage”). When the show went to series, he was replaced by DeForrest Kelly.
I had this occur, back in ’99 to be specific. I was watching Dragnet on TV Land, The Crimson Crusader episode, and I kinda sorta thought I recognized the guy playing said Crusader. When it came time for the credits, I got it: Tim Donnelly, from Parts: The Clonus Horror! It didn’t end there, either. I started noticing him not only in other eps of Dragnet (playing different characters), but also an episode of Adam-12. And of course, he was a regular on Emergency. I guess Jack Webb REALLY liked Tim Donnelly!
Oh, Alan Hale, for sure! Were both Sr. and Jr. both? They look very, very much alike. Sr. was in some of the very best movies, like Errol Flynn’s *Robin Hood* – he must have been in some MSTd movies, too, later on. (Kids, I’m working right now and can’t get to the IMDB!)
On “I Love Lucy”:
Barney “People bug me, too!” Phillips from “I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF” played the District Attorney about to bust Lucy and Ethel for a fraudulent raffle they were running to go to Europe.
Frank Gerstle, the evil doctor from “THE ATOMIC BRAIN”, plays a helicopter pilot hired to deposit Lucy on the deck of a cruise ship after she misses it. (And he’s hard to recognize, because he’s more laid back in that episode than the stiff, melodramatic performance he gave on TAB.)
Sam Edwards, “Red the Geek-nik” from “THE BEATNIKS”, plays an English bellhop at Lucy and Ricky’s London hotel. (Nancy Kulp is in the same episode, playing a maid. Were there no actual English people they could have hired? Sam and Nancy’s accents are atrocious.)
Also, I find it funny that in “THE DEADLY BEES,” Mike and the bots recognize “Lord Melbury” from Fawlty Towers (Michael Gwynn) but they miss another Fawlty Towers guest actor, James Cossins, who played Mr. Walt (“I’ve got nothing to do with any hotel guide!”) in Fawlty Towers and the chief at the inquest in “The Deadly Bees.”
Sorry, I meant “Were both Sr. and Jr. in MSTd movies? I know at least one of them was, usually as an XXL sheriff.”
Michael Forest plays the bad guy who gets killed by Todd on the beach in ‘Viking Women…’, he played Apollo in the Star Trek episode: ‘Who mourns for Adonais’ and had parts in many TV shows in the 50s and 60s.
The best case of “hey, it’s that guy” for me was noticing R.C. Bates (Sam the keeper in “Werewolf”) as one of the characters in Soundgarden’s music video for Black Hole Sun.
@smirkboy
You did ” followed by ) which gave you the smiley face. I got the same result without trying to insert a smiley. “) that one was on purpose though.
Perfect timimg for this thread, because last weekend I had a moment bigtime. I was watching part of the movie “Taps” (released in 1980 or 1981, and featuring the first roles, or close to it, of now
A-list actors Tom Cruise and Sean Penn, and also featuring George C. Scott). Anyway, the scene was after the students had taken over the military school, and their leader (played by another then-young big-time actor, whose name escapes me at the moment), meets with his father, an army sergeant, and a delegation of parents. As I was watching the scene, the sergeant’s voice was oddly familiar; then I took a closer look at his face, and it dawned on me: “Hey! It’s one of the two drunk guys who get killed by the monsters in “Horrors of Party Beach”! The one who looks in the truck where a dead guy is sitting, and he says “Hey Buddy….” and laughs maniacally. It was great! And actually, the guy did a pretty good job playing the sergeant.
Of course, there have been others, but that is the most recent one. Thanks for reading- see ya!
Ah, have some fairly recent blockbusters for ya. Daniel Bernhardt (“Runaway,” or, “CHA-CHA! Guy” ) from Future War, actually has a not insignificant role in Matrix Reloaded as one of the Agents. He also did some stunt coordinating, I believe. My pick for “Most successful post-MST performance.”
Everyone’s favorite connoisseur of Schlitz and baby oil, Joe Don Baker, got to be in a Bond film or two opposite Pierce Brosnan. This even includes a line in the epic “Goldeneye” video game for the N64, though I understand they would have needed to double the game’s memory capacity to render him as a character.
The one that comes to mind was seeing Beverly Garland (The Gunslinger) as Lois Lane’s mother on Lois & Clark.
I was exited to see Beverly Garland as the guest villain in the first season of Magnum P.I.
I was watching “Gimmee a Break!” when I saw Crystal Bernard (Master Ninja 2) in her very first role as a member of an amateur disco-singing girl group. :-D
Okay, I’ll admit it–I never really recognized Estelle Winwood before “The Magic Sword”. I knew SOMEBODY was funny in “The Producers”, I just couldn’t connect a name.
I have two moments – the first was recognizing “Zap Rowsdower” in “Gettysburg”, and the second was when I finally saw “Baberella” @ age 42 and realized that “Diabolic” was the angel guy. pretty trippy stuff!
p.s. ? the weekend topics :-D
p.s LOVE the weekend topics, i do not (?) the topics. sorry.
Oh yeah! When Mitchell brings Linda Evans to be booked for possession, the desk clerk looked familiar, so I looked it up, and it’s Jerry Hardin, Deep Throat from the X-Files. :-)
The first that came to mind was the guy who played Adam Chance in Agent for Harm. He played a smarmy guy in an episode of Star Trek TNG. I think I also saw him in a Twilight Zone episode, probably also playing someone smug and ineffectual. Saw a few minutes of an old John Wayne western recently and was surprised to see Colleen Gray in the credits. Guess her career went downhill after that.
I was able to recognize The Undead’s Dorothy Neumann when Elvira played The Terror.
Frank Ashmore from Parts: The Clonus Horror. He played Richard’s friend and the old man with the eyepatch. He also played co-pilot Victor Basta in Airplane!, alongside Peter Graves. He was also in the original V.
In “A Beautiful Mind” there’s a 5 second scene where Russel Crowe is at some kind of funtion and shakes hands with The Governor of Massachusetts. During the closing credits I noticed that The Governor was played by Roy Thinnes, the star of Code name: Diamond Head.
I was recently watching “Carnival of Souls” and recognized a bunch of people from the short “Speech: Using Your Voice”: the American Flag guy (Herk Harvey himself), the “Flowers” lady, and the “Headhunters” guy. Not too surprising since they were both Centron productions.
This has happened a lot lately, partly because Netflix has been putting a lot of 70s/80s horror flicks up for streeming. Spent all of “Horror High” trying to figure out who the principal in the terrible slacks was — it was JC from Sidehackers! Same thing with “He Knows You’re Alone,” in which the scrawny guy from Squirm looks slightly less scrawny. And halfway through the original “Toolbox Murder,” my world imploded when I realized that the lead from “Parts: The Clonus Horror” and the Santa Claus-looking guy from “Space Mutiny” were in the same movie.
But the ultimate was watching the Emmy recently. When “Boardwalk Empire” took the main TV prize, they gathered all the producers and directors on stage, and one face stood out to me, but I couldn’t place him. Finally my wife told me it was Timothy Van Patten from “Master Ninja.”
I recognized Professor Newton from the Rocky Jones episodes as the third handwriting expert in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
(Vaguely Mittel-European accent): “I vould stake my tventy years’ professional experience on the fact that zis is not a forgery, but Sen. Smith’s own signature…”
:-D