Top "surprise cameos" in TV history

[Liut]

Nixon on 'Laugh-In.'

Good pull

 

[da man]

Does Keith Hernandez on Seinfeld count as a surprise?

 

[swingline]

I spit on that reference.

 

[dixiehack]

I know there are a few from SNL

Janet Reno showing up for the last Janet Reno Dance Party was a nice touch.

 

[garrow]

Val Kilmer on Psych.

 

[BTExpress]

The series could have ended there really - Hathaway's final scene. She died in the pilot - but producers decided to bring her back. It went on for nine more years. Never got better than this though.

They also had a cameo in a very late episode of ER when Sam and Neela flew to Seattle to obtain an organ for transport back to Chicago.

 

[MisterCreosote]

When William Zabka showed up at the end of "How I Met Your Mother" it was ..... wait for it ...... awesome.

For as terribly as that show ended, they did awesome cameos.

Zabka, Alan Thicke and Winnie Cooper are at the top. J-Lo and Regis were really good, too.

Then there was the Wedding Bride stuff with Chris Kattan and Malin Ackerman, and the Robin Daggers stuff with just about every prominent Canadian entertainer of the last 50 years.

 

[DanOregon]

Mike Myers, Madonna and Roseanne flipping out when Barbra Streisand walks onto their sketch at the end - fantastic.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

Carson on Letterman is one I vaguely remember.

I'd love to know what Jay Leno really thinks--as much as he can really think--about making millions he'll never spend and becoming the king of a late-night landscape foreign to anyone under 40 (or 50?) when he realizes that the only thing that anyone in that era really wanted, Carson's approval, went in spades to Letterman.

As for surprise cameos, Paul Newman walking into Letterman's first show, yelling "Where the hell are the singing cats?" and walking out is right up there.

 

[da man]

I'd love to know what Jay Leno really thinks--as much as he can really think--about making millions he'll never spend and becoming the king of a late-night landscape foreign to anyone under 40 (or 50?) when he realizes that the only thing that anyone in that era really wanted, Carson's approval, went in spades to Letterman.

As for surprise cameos, Paul Newman walking into Letterman's first show, yelling "Where the hell are the singing cats?" and walking out is right up there.

And they used that Newman cameo over and over again. It was never not funny.

 

[sgreenwell]

This stretches the definition of "cameo" quite a bit, but Ron Howard appearing as himself is one of the few good things about the Netflix seasons of Arrested Development.

He actually showed up at the end of the original Fox run - I think someone from the family is pitching him on it as a show, and he says he thinks it could be more of a movie.

 

[MTM]

I know there are a few from SNL

A lot of people popped up when the cast was impersonating them. Palin, Hillary and Trebek come to mind. Bob Dole and George Bush Sr., too, IIRC.