Creator Cameo

"Hey, is it time for the cameo yet? Mine, I mean."

— Stan Lee, Bad Days teaser

One popular form of The Cameo is to have a franchise's creator, or a film's director or producer, appear in the franchise itself.

Similar to Author Avatar, but an Author Avatar is a creator appearing as more or less themselves, as opposed to a cameo as someone else. Many comics will have either their original creators or the artists of the current Comic Book Run drawn in as background characters, although they rarely have dialogue. In video games, very likely to appear in any Developer's Room.

May lead to Death by Cameo. When the creator plays the part of an actual character rather than a simple cameo, they're a Descended Creator. See also Insert Cameo and Company Cameo.

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Examples:

Advertising

• One of the Air New Zealand Safety Videos, "An Unexpected Briefing", has an appearance from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit director Peter Jackson.
• The Christmas 2015 Sainsbury advert featuring Judith Kerr's Mog the Forgetful Cat has Kerr appear as one of the neighbours.

Anime & Manga

• Osamu Tezuka does this a lot in his works. He appears as a museum tourist in Kimba the White Lion.
• Tezuka makes appearances in several chapters of Black Jack.
  • In "Legs of an Ant", Tezuka draws himself as a passer-by warning Mitsuo about a forest fire on the road ahead. Amusingly, he has "Why am I here anyway?" written on the back of his shirt.
  • In "U-18 Knew", Tezuka appears as a patient suffering from "chronic deadlinitis".
  • He also cameos as the doctor in "Tenacity" who helps cancer-ridden medical student Yamanobe to treat another cancer patient before he dies.
• Go Nagai has appeared in many of his manga adaptations, including the live-action Cutey Honey (the movie saw Honey smashing the window of his car giving Nagai a nice Panty Shot, while in Cutie Honey the Live, he appears in the DVD exclusive 26th episode) and Devilman productions.
• Akira Toriyama makes several cameos throughout his works, whether they're in the manga he draws or the anime based on them, usually to poke fun at himself or provide a throwaway quip. On at least one occasion he even lent his voice to a guest appearance during an interlude in the anime adaptation of Dr. Slump.
• Shinichi "Nabeshin" Watanabe has made this his signature, most prominently in Excel♡Saga. ES also heavily features Koshi Rikdo, the creator of the original comic, and many of the episode openings revolve around the two butting heads about what direction the story should go.
• Hiroaki Samura appears in the anime version of Blade of the Immortal as a pinwheel salesman.
• Fujiki Shun also appears on several occasions in his manga Hajimete no Aku.
• A blink-and-you'll-miss-it example: In episode 13 of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Roy and Ed are having an alchemy duel and Roy sends one of his flame attacks into the crowd, causing them to fly into the air. One of the soldiers flies past the screen in such a way that his face takes up most of the screen at one point, and looks suspiciously Japanese, considering Ed's country is apparently supposed to be European of sorts. If you compare the man to a picture of the director of the anime, you'll see they're one and the same.
  • The bovine self-caricature of original creator Hiromu Arakawa makes stealth appearances in several episodes as well, including the scene in which Winry is yelling at a hospitalized Ed to drink his milk, and again much later on when Sheska is describing her UFO-related conspiracy theories to Winry.
• Director Kenji Kamiyama:
  • He appears briefly in one scene of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex — he's driving a car in some security feed footage pulled up by Section 9 while they try to track down Hideo Kuze.
  • And his name is called in the airport during the final Eden of the East film.
• Stan Lee is seen quite a lot in Hero Man. And in Karakuridouji Ultimo. In fact, the Stan Lee cameo (Dunstan) kicked off the plot by creating the mechanical boys.
• Ken Akamatsu:
  • He appears to help out a couple of the residents of the Hinata Inn in the Love Hina Christmas Special.
  • Motoko & Kitsune hijacked his boat in the New Years' special. He is always overtly called by his name in these situations, though... likely because no one would be able to tell who he was since he is drawn pretty much identically to Keitaro (to the surprise of no-one).
• Masashi Kishimoto appears on a billboard in the third chapter of Naruto.
• One Piece:
  • In a movie short based on a soccer competition, the author of the manga, going by his nickname Odacchi, makes an appearance as the "world's best soccer player." His shot is the only one the goalie successfully catches and blocks. His team is not happy.
  • Eiichiro Oda later appears in the Platform Fighter One Piece: Gigant Battle 2 as an assist character. He can weaponize objects he's drawn. (He has no collaboration on the game itself though.)
• Yoshiyuki Tomino appears in Ideon: Be Invoked. Not even he was spared.
• Series Director Yasuhiro Imagawa appears in Mobile Fighter G Gundam's second opening, in the sequence showing Argo in a crowded Hong Kong street; Imagawa's the guy in the Federation uniform.
• Daft Punk, who helped create Interstella 5555, show up briefly at an award show the Crescendolls are attending. They didn't win any awards, by the way.
• The manga writer and voice actress Masumi Asano makes an appearance in each episode of Seiyu's Life! posing as some background character or As Herself. Doubles as a Celebrity Paradox since Seiyu's Life! takes place in the same universe as Hayate the Combat Butler (where she voices Risa).
• Carl Macek often took small parts in the anime movies whose dubs he produced, such as Fox in Fist of the North Star.
• Played with in Romeo × Juliet, a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's play, in which an Expy of Shakespeare himself is a supporting character.
• This happened with The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. where its creator Shuuichi Asou voices his Author Avatar god persona in the last segment of the 20th episode of the anime adaptation, telling Saiki that it's the 100th episode and it's airing on its 100th week. Except that Saiki tells him it’s the 20th week. He does it again in the last segment of the season 2 finale.
• In episode 7 of the Monster Musume anime, one of the unseen bystanders that the TV reporter is talking to is named Mr. Okayado.
• Daicon III: Producers Toshio Okada and Yasuhiro Takeda cameo at the helm of the Daicon near the end of the short.
• Moonlight Act: In the final chapter after Gekko Iwasaki made his Heroic Sacrifice sealing the Big Bad along with himself from destroying both the fairy tale world and our world, his friends quickly rush to the mangaka studio of Kazuhiro Fujita begging him to create a new series to bring their friend back into our world.
  • Fujita almost made an appearance at the end of his short story “Shall we go out by walking into the night” where its revealed that he was the great grandson of the main protagonist and his love interest a Damsel in Distress.
• One of the crewmembers of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within put himself on a billboard in the abandoned Times Square.
• In the Turning Red spinoff 4★Town 4★Real, the director of the film, Domee Shi, makes a cameo as a fan of 4*Town.
• UrumaDelvi's segment in Winter Days stars their two Author Avatars, who appeared in several more of their animations.

Art

• Sandro Botticelli: In his "Adoration of the Magi", the main focus is on the Three Magi kings arriving at Jesus' birthplace to shower him with royal gifts and worship him. One of the minor characters is Botticelli himself.
• Raphael Rooms: Raphael Sanzio's self-portrait is hidden in the crowd of Greek philosophers in "The School of Athens"; he's set apart from the others by the Aside Glance he gives to the audience.
• Rembrandt van Rijn did many self-portraits, but one of his best-known is a mostly-obscured figure in The Night Watch, looking directly at the viewer.
  • This was parodied in Paul Kidby's cover of the Discworld book Night Watch, where he put Josh Kirby, who did most of the cover art for the previous books, in Rembrandt's place.
• French author and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was responsible for the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris, including the addition of the famous spire at the crossing (which was destroyed in a fire in 2019). The spire was decorated with statues of the Twelve Apostles, and the statue of Thomas was given Viollet-le-Duc's face.
• Velázquez painted himself into Las Meninas; he's the leftmost figure at the easel. This gives the impression that he was about to paint a royal portrait, but then painted himself painting it instead. Notably, he is bearing the honor of the Santiago Cross, which he did not yet have at the time this was made; it may have been added in at a later date.
• Venus and Cupid (Gentileschi): Venus' face bears Gentislechi's features. Since this painting was part of a bigger commission by a rich patron (there were more artists hired), it counts as a cameo.

Comic Books

• Blue Beetle creative team Len Wein and Paris Cullins appear in the fourth issue of Ted Kord's first DC solo series.
• Grant Morrison has a door in the 4th wall. They even appear in comics that they didn't write (Suicide Squad #58, Tales of the Unexpected v2 #7, and Harley Quinn/Power Girl #3).
• Hergé, the author of Tintin, was quite fond of making cameos in his own comics, and later the cartoon series. Full list here. He shows up in a very heartwarming cameo in the very beginning of the Spielberg/Jackson film, as well. As the film opens, Tintin is in a flea market getting a caricature of his face drawn (in the style of the comic, naturally), and when we get a glimpse of the artist, it's Hergé! He remarks that Tintin's face is very familiar, and wonders if he's drawn him before.
• Stan Lee had cameos in Marvel Comics from the beginning; he and Jack Kirby were denied access to Sue and Reed's wedding. One more memorable (and more recent cameo) casts him as the priest who marries James Hudson and Heather McNeil (Guardian and Vindicator of Alpha Flight.)
• X-Men: A Stan Lee and Jack Kirby cameo appears in an early issue of Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men run; in it the two spot Cyclops and Jean Grey growing as a couple and comment on how far the two have come since they originally worked on the book.
• Paul Jenkins, the writer who created The Sentry, appeared as himself in a New Avengers story that revolved around the character's origin.
• Cary Bates appears in The Flash #228.
• Artist Kurt Schaffenberger drew himself into many stories he illustrated. (Look for a tall, thin, dark haired man with a mustache and wearing glasses.)
• Astro City creators Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, and Alex Ross appear as three bank robbers hiding in a sewer in the "Confession" story arc.
• The co-creators of Atomic Robo, writer Brian Clevinger and artist Scott Wegener, appear in Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time #5 as Louis and Martin, respectively, the two bumbling Action Scientists who almost accidentally end the universe.
• In Dirty Pair: Fatal but Not Serious, a picture of author/illustrator Adam Warren appears on the label of "Adam's Cranberry Lambic" beer.
• Creator Fred Perry of Gold Digger often loves doing these in his comics. He's usually the bald black person meandering around in the background or doing news reports.
• Albert Uderzo frequently drew himself and René Goscinny into Asterix as background characters. In Asterix and the Black Gold, the second book after Goscinny's death, Uderzo gives him a greater role as the Gauls' Judean ally Saul ben Ephishul. There is a list of appearances here.
• Iznogoud: Goscinny and especially Tabary made occasional cameo appearances in the series.
  • In "The Time Machine", the time-travelling scientist who suddenly appears in the palace is drawn to look like Jean Tabary.
  • The title object in "The Magic Calendar" transports Iznogoud forward through time when he tears off pages; he tears off too many and ends up in Tabary's studio in the 20th century.
  • In "Dark Designs", when Iznogoud's art skills are not good enough to trigger a magic pencil and paper that makes anyone drawn with it disappear when the paper is torn in half, he takes art lessons from Tahbari al-Tardi (Tabary being noted for his inability to keep to a schedule).
  • Jean Tabary is one of the unfortunate victims of the title object in "The Box of Souvenirs", a camera that traps people and objects in its photographs, as we discover when Wa'at Alahf presents an exhibition of the camera's output after his boss inevitably gets himself trapped in a photograph.
• The Incredible Hulk: Writer Peter David cameos as the priest who officiates the wedding of the Hulk's friend Rick Jones to Marlo Chandler.
• In an issue of Transmetropolitan, Spider Jerusalem is accosted in a bar by a man who wants his son mentioned in Spider's column. He bears a striking physical resemblance to the comic's writer, Warren Ellis, while the man accompanying him looks just like its artist, Darick Robertson.
  • Both Ellis and Robertson show up several issues later, drawn much more like themselves, as people attending the election night party in Spider's apartment.
• In The Batman Adventures, the comic book adaptation of Batman: The Animated Series, the Terrible Trio of the Perfessor, the Mastermind, and Mr Nice are based on the then DC Comics group editors: Denny O'Neil, Mike Carlin, and Archie Goodwin.
• Chris Claremont appears a few times over the course of his fifteen years writing the X-Men series, and when he does, something awful usually happens to him. In an early appearance, he's nearly crushed by falling debris during a fight between Phoenix and Firelord. Later, he has his car stolen by Kitty Pryde in the Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem one-shot and ends up marooned in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, and an employee of Mojo's who acts a lot like him gets killed.
• In Fantastic Four #511, the Fantastic Four go to meet God, and find Jack Kirby at his drawing board.
• John Byrne:
  • During his run on Fantastic Four, appeared in the comic as the guy who wrote and drew the in-universe Fantastic Four comic. The Watcher actually picked him up and brought him into space so both he and Byrne could watch the trial of Reed Richards.
  • He also appeared in a She-Hulk story and in Star Brand, during a Comic-con.
• Mark Gruenwald and Tom DeFalco both appear in Marvel Comics.
• John Wagner appeared in a Judge Dredd strip called Old Pals Act, where he runs amok around the Big Meg in a bathtub.
• Ponies resembling both Katie Cook and Andy Price appear in the first issue, page 3 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW). Pony!Katie briefly appears later to laugh at a mule joke, who happens to represent her husband (he hates Fluttershy, so this was revenge). This also counts as an indirect example of Interspecies Romance. Andy has drawn himself along with his wife as pony characters at least twice (Issue #1, and the Rarity Micro-comic).
  • Wild Fire, the pony avatar of series storyboard artist Sabrina "Sibsy" Alberghetti, appears in issue #1.
  • The troll in issue #2, named Jim in story, is based on Jim Miller.
  • An early panel of #7 shows OCs of Sibsy (Wild Fire) and fan musician Mando Pony and a later panel has an appearance from Holly Giesbrech (Holly Dash) among other background ponies in Ponyville.
• The ponies based on Katie Cook, Andy Price, and his wife from Issue #1 of the ongoing return in My Little Pony Micro Series Issue #3. Katie can be seen playing cards during the after-party, while Andy and his wife are at the second fashion show.
  • Sleepy Skies, the OC of Cat Whitney who is a close friend of storyboardist Sabrina Alberghetti, appears in one shot.
  • Tara Strong's fan-made OC (the one with the toga and heart-on-microphone cutie mark) appears during the second fashion show. An odd cameo, seeing as this issue doesn't focus on Twilight.
• The current director of Marvel's Project: Pegasus organization is a "Dr. Gruenwald," who's there to honor the late Mark Gruenwald, the Project's original creator.
• Superman: The Wedding Album has Jerry Siegel as the priest, plus several artists who worked on the Superman titles, including all the then current creative teams, as attendants.
• Josie and the Pussycats #38 has an teenaged Dan De Carlo running into Josie with the usual results when he meets Melody.
• Too Much Coffee Man: Shannon Wheeler is an independent comic author mistakenly referred to as "some girl", who haphazardly staples comic pages together and tries to sell them at a local comic shop.
• In What If Jessica Jones Had Joined the Avengers?, Brian Michael Bendis is in the story, at a bar, narrating the story.
• The third issue of the second DuckTales comic features Ducks Comics writer and artist and Uncle Scrooge creator Carl Barks appear as Scrooge's banker who ends up assisting Glomgold. Barks was notably drawn in a cartoonish human style rather than designed as a duck or a dogfaced figure.
• Ultimate X Men's first writer was Mark Millar. A scene in an airport had a guy with a sign for "Millar".
• J.H. Williams III drew himself as a bar patron in issue #2 of Batwoman.
• Writer Tom King and artist Mitch Gerads appear as audience members in issue #12 of Mister Miracle, as do publishers Dan Didio and Jim Lee.
• Star Trek: Untold Voyages: The writer Glenn Greenburg and the editor Tim Tuohy are depicted as Starfleet officers on the third page of the fifth and final issue "Odyssey's End".
• The second Commander of Strikeforce: Morituri, Yuri Pogorelich, is modeled after writer Peter Gillis.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: When working on a retool Robert Kanigher drew himself in the comic, and had his avatar personally "fire" a bunch of characters from the book.
• The cover of Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat! #1 has writer◊ Kate Leth (tattoed blonde) and artist Brittney Williams (bespectacled black). In the comic itself, issue #7 has both getting autographs from the heroine, and the following one features them in a bar.
• The Unbelievable Gwenpool: Gwenpool Strikes Again has both an intermission from the character's creator, Christopher Hastings, and a scene where Gwen's exploitation of the fourth wall has her scaring artist David Baldeon to drop coffee on the page.
• Grandville: Force Majure by Bryan Talbot, has a brief appearance by a true-crime writer named Byron Turbot, who offers to write up Inspector LeBrock's adventures. LeBrock is not impressed.
• Mortadelo y Filemón: Francisco Ibáñez is a semi-regular presence in his stories, some of them even plot-important. Usually in a Self-Deprecating Humor manner.
• Giraffes On Horseback Salad: In flashbacks, the Surrealist Woman's father resembles Salvador Dalí.
• Alex Ross included Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Bob Kane, Bill Finger, William Moulton Marston, H.G. Peters, and Martin Nodell in the background of Kingdom Come, behind their respective creations; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern

Comic Strips

• Luann: Creator Greg Evans and his daughter/co-writer Karen showed up in their strip to wish the title character a happy 18th birthday. They could also be seen (along with Greg's wife Betty) among the guests at Brad and Toni's wedding.

Fan Works

• In The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan, the author Rytex inserted his ponysona Quantum Bit into a few chapters in Neighton, and then had him show up in the finale chapter Brainwashed and Crazy to get the shit beat out of him by Aegis. In the noncanon interlude chapter, Q-Bit even interacts with Aegis a bit more directly as the author, and not as a character.
• In one Mansionverse story, the Hatbox Ghost complains about the fact that one of the authors of the comics never draws his hatbox well. The name of the comics author in question is not cited, but the Hatbox Ghost gives enough clues to conclude that it is supposed to be user Benthehyena, one of the primary members of the team that developed the Fan Verse.
• In The Numbershots, there are occasionally cameo appearances by the author or some of his friends who created the characters:
  • Taylor Gorrel, the author of the Fanfiction, appears as himself in Deckshibition Chapter 10. He is an Armor Monster duelist who ends up dueling Yuma.
  • Yin-Yang Yoh (the original creator of Mia, the love interest for Astral in this Fanfiction) appears in Chapter 3 of Numbershot 1 as a competitor of the tournament with an Alien Deck, where he duels Yamoto.
• In the April Fools' Day chapter of The Parselmouth of Gryffindor, the Man in the Top Hat is quite obviously the author of the story, who appears to to his characters in a body resembling his avatar pic.
• In We Are All Pokémon Trainers, in order to convey the correct amount of surprise in this post, Jacob's author made a gif of himself doing Jacob's expressions.
• In the Doctor Who steampunk AU series A Society of Academics, in which all the Doctors are particularly eccentric professors at a generally eccentric university (under the names of their actors), the university board comprises showrunners (Miss Lambert, Mr Letts, Mr Turner, Mr Davies and Mr Moffat are mentioned in their first appearance). The Baker brothers, Dr Thomas and Dr Colin, have had their father named as "Old Pip".
• In Those Lacking Spines, all six members of Organization VI show up in some capacity only to be killed off in some way, but Gexegee deserves special mention for showing up out of no were on the G.S.S. Existentialist, calling for Xaldin from the bedroom, asking him to bring whipped cream, and then being ejected into space.
• The author of Twice Upon an Age appears in the epilogue of the first story, discussing the events with her "editor," Varric Tethras. She also returns for the prologue of the sequel, and is mentioned repeatedly in the editor's notes which pepper the entire series.
• The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: The story's writer FlowerPrincess11 occasionally makes an appearance, as she is the one who runs the dating service.
• While by its very nature of being an SI fic Chaos Effect has the writer in it the Creator Cameos instead come in the form of the second Christmas Filler Arc, as Mr. Chaos has nearly a dozen of his author friends cameo as guests at his SI's birthday party.
• In the latter half of Chapter 10 of I've Got Your Back, the author's Inkling persona briefly appears after they almost hit a spectating Pearl in the head with a Power Clam.
• In Beyond The Storm, Meshakhad states that Ms. Angelo (Max's history teacher) is a self insert for herself.
• Naru-Hina Chronicles features a few cameos from its creator, mattwilson83:
  • On page 471, from Chapter 25, he has drawn himself in the second panel, standing next to Sasuke.
  • He makes another cameo on page 1519, from Chapter 78. On that page, he appears as a cashier working at the movie theater.
• The Mandela Magazine: Video creator Sr. Pelo appears as both a photograph and an illustration in the section comparing people with their Alternates. The real-life photo of Pelo is used to represent the Alternate.

Films — Animation

• In the film Paprika, director Satoshi Kon and original author Yasutaka Tsutsui provide the voices for the spectral bartenders at Paprika's bar. In one cast interview, actor Tōru Furuya revealed that even he didn't know this until he looked at the back of the film's bill at the premier.
• Disney Animated Canon:
  • Shortly after Aladdin gives his bread to starving children, two men discuss the prince who is passing on the street. They are modeled and voiced by the film's directors, John Musker and Ron Clements (other characters are drawn like crew members — for example, fertilizer salesman Crazy Hakeem is based off of story artist/Genie animator Tom Sito). Musker and Clements are also victims of Hercules' cart-pulling equivalent of Drives Like Crazy, appear as an alien/droid pair that give Jim Hawkins directions to the RLS Legacy, and toss beads during the Mardi Gras parade in The Princess and the Frog. While they don't "physically" appear in Moana, caricatures of them can be seen on a tapestry in Motunui.
  • Mulan: Mushu scares co-directors Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft out of the fireworks tower.
  • Besides Chris Sanders's role as the latter title character, Lilo & Stitch has him and co-director/co-writer Dean DeBlois appearing in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as two tourists running past Cobra Bubbles after being scared by Stitch angered by camera flashes at Lahui Beach.
  • In Wreck-It Ralph, instead of having Zangief voiced by Peter Beckman, his English voice actor at the time in the video games, he's voiced here by the film's director Rich Moore.
  • In Moana, the English lyrics of "We Know The Way" are sung by co-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, while the Samoan/Tokelauan lyrics are sung by co-composer/lyricist Opetaia Foa'i in-character as Matai Vasa.
• Pixar does this all the time, usually because the director does a placeholder voice for a minor character and it ends up good enough to be kept in.
  • The most prominent is Brad Bird as Edna "E" Mode in The Incredibles films (as Lily Tomlin said the voice he demonstrated for her was good enough) - he would also cameo in Ratatouille.
  • The Incredibles: After the Omnidroid is defeated, two elderly men comment on the Parr family’s good work. They’re voiced by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, the last two surviving members (at the time) of Disney's Nine Old Men.
  • In Finding Nemo, head sea-turtle Crush is director Andrew Stanton (he also voiced the lobster with the New England accent as well as the seagulls); he would later board the Axiom in WALL•E.
  • Toy Story 3 has Lee Unkrich as the jack-in-the-box who yells "New toys!" when the gang arrive at Sunnyside; Unkrich did half the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots (along with John Lassetter) in Toy Story 2.
  • Up's co-writer Bob Peterson voices both Dug and Alpha. He also did Roz and Mr. Ray.
  • Up director Pete Docter does the campmaster who commends Russell in the end, and later voices Dad's Anger in Inside Out.
  • In Cars 2, John Lasseter appears as pit chief John Lassetire. He previously did a bug that hits a zapper in A Bug's Life (his friend who tries to convince him otherwise is Andrew Stanton).
  • In Turning Red, Jesse is voiced by Finneas O'Connell, who co-composed 4*Town's music.
• The LEGO Movie directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller both make appearances in the film as mini-figures: Phil as one of the Master Builders celebrating during the ending, and Chris as the TV presenter for the Show Within a Show "Where Are My Pants?"
• According to the film's tumblr blog, Nosey Smurf in Smurfs: The Lost Village is voiced by the film's director, Kelly Asbury.
• Fantastic Mr. Fox director Wes Anderson voices the Weasel who sells the tree home to Mr. Fox.
• In Yellow Submarine, the figure in the "Eleanor Rigby" segment smoking a cigar is producer Al Brodax.
• The Adventures of Tintin (2011) gives us a particularly heartwarming example at that. The late Hergé appears at the beginning of the film as a caricaturist who Tintin pays to draw his likeness. While drawing him, Hergé comments that Tintin looks familiar and then reveals his finished work: a portrait of the comic book version of Tintin.
• Batman: Under the Red Hood: Voice director Andrea Romano appears as a reporter.
• The feature film adaptation of Horton Hears a Who! features a Who-ified portrait of Dr. Seuss.
• NIMONA (2023): ND Stevenson, author of the original webcomic, voices an in-universe cereal mascot named Kwispy Dragon.
• The War to End All Wars – The Movie: The members of Sabaton, who co-created the film in addition to recording the album used for its soundtrack, appear as Ink-Suit Actor versions of themselves several times playing rank-and-file soldiers of various armies. They also provide some of the voice work, and frontman Joakim Brodén appears As Himself in the live-action epilogue.
• The Adventures of Mark Twain: Will Vinton provided the masculine half of the Mysterious Stranger's voice, though he went by the pseudonym "Wilbur Vincent" in the credits (while Becky's voice actress Michele Mariana did the feminine half).

Films — Live-Action

• Alfred Hitchcock might be the Trope Maker. He has a cameo in almost every film he ever directed. He likened these cameos to an artist adding their signature to a painting. Hitchcock eventually started making these cameos near the beginning of the film so audiences wouldn't be distracted by looking for him. (His cameo in Rebecca is by far the latest, coming after the two-hour mark; he walks past George Sanders as Favell as the latter is being questioned by a policeman.)
  • His first cameo was in his third film, The Lodger. Reportedly Hitchcock, who can be seen from behind answering a phone at police headquarters, only did it because the extra who was supposed to appear onscreen didn't show up.
  • In most cases, he carries an item, like musical instrument cases (a violin in Spellbound, a cello in The Paradine Case, a double bass in Strangers on a Train, a bugle in Vertigo) or dogs on a leash (The Birds; the dogs were his own Sealyham terriers, Geoffrey and Stanley), to symbolize his control of the film (his cameo winding the songwriter's clock in Rear Window is similarly themed). In other cases, he depicts that control by ignoring the other actors, as when he is engrossed in a newspaper while standing near Joel McCrea in Foreign Correspondent, when he stares straight ahead while sitting next to Cary Grant on a bus in To Catch a Thief, and when he conspicuously does not applaud the speaker in the opening scene of Frenzy. (His cameo in Stage Fright inverts this as he turns to look at a disguised Jane Wyman.)
  • Other cameos were more self-deprecating; he plays a litterbug outside a theatre in The 39 Steps (1935), and he runs up to a bus only for the doors to slam in his face in North By Northwest (fittingly, just as his director credit slides off the screen).
  • Sometimes they had to work hard to get the cameo in. In Lifeboat, the entirety of which takes place in the eponymous lifeboat, he's depicted in a newspaper advertisement. In Dial M for Murder, a stage play adaptation most of which takes place in a single apartment set, he's a face in a class reunion photo. In Rope, all of which takes place in one apartment, his famous profile is shown in neon lights as part of an advertisement.
  • In Psycho, Hitchcock is seen standing outside the office when Marion Crane returns from lunch. In the 1998 shot-for-shot remake, a Hitchcock lookalike is seen in the same place, talking to Gus Van Sant, director of the new version.
  • Lampshaded in the Murder, She Wrote episode "Incident at Lot 7". Jessica Fletcher visits Hollywood to speak with a movie producer who's adapting one of her books to the screen, and ends up investigating a murder that took place on the Universal lots, specifically the Bates Motel set from Psycho. At the beginning of the episode, a portly balding man, vaguely resembling Hitchcock, is seen crossing the street, complete with a few bars of "Funeral March of the Marionette".
• In Danger Diva, writer/director Robert McGinley plays bit parts as one of the brain cattle and a Grey Zone extra.
• Ever since Stan Lee appeared as a hot dog salesman in X-Men (and over a decade prior, as a juror in The Trial of The Incredible Hulk), almost every Marvel Comics adaptation of his characters (and some that weren't even his creations!) features him, including all the Marvel Cinematic Universe films until Avengers: Endgame. The Tim Story Fantastic Four movies are the cheekiest: in the first, he's downright one of his characters, mailman Willie Lumpkin; and the sequel has him barred at the door of Sue and Reed's wedding, as the guard doesn't believe his claims of being Stan Lee (which is itself a reference to a Creator Cameo he and Jack Kirby made in the Fantastic Four comics for the same wedding).
• In Hold Back the Dawn, director Mitchell Leisen plays film director Dwight Saxon, on the set of another, real Mitchell Leisen movie, I Wanted Wings.
• King Vidor plays himself in the last scene of Show People, a film about the movie business. In Our Daily Bread, he appears briefly as one of the workers on the collective farm.
• In Ella Cinders, director Alfred Green appears onscreen as...a motion picture director.
• In A Woman of Paris, director Charlie Chaplin, who was stretching himself by directing a drama that he didn't star in, appears briefly as a railway porter.
• Martin Scorsese appears in almost all of his films, usually in a small but symbolic role.
  • The passenger who fantasizes about killing his wife in Taxi Driver.
  • A photographer in both The Age of Innocence and Hugo.
  • The TV director in The King of Comedy who says to Tony Randall, "I can't do anything. I'm just the director."
  • The head of the wealthy household burglarized by Jenny in Gangs of New York.
  • A guy with the spotlight in the punk club in After Hours.
  • The club stagehand in the final scene of Raging Bull.
  • The voice of the male radio dispatcher in Bringing Out the Dead.
  • The voice of John, the first cilent to whom Jordan Belfort sells penny stocks to over the phone in The Wolfof Wall Street
  • Jimmy Shorts, the shooter in Mean Streets.
  • A radio show producer reading the epilogue of Killers of the Flower Moon.
• Besides Stan Lee's cameo (a young Matt Murdock stops him from crossing the street right into traffic), Daredevil (2003) also has Frank Miller, who created Elektra and wrote the run the movie was inspired by, appear as one of Bullseye's victims. Kevin Smith, who wrote the well-regarded Marvel Knights ''Daredevil' relaunch, shows up as well.
  • Frank Miller also plays the priest killed in the confessional in Sin City.
• Spider-Man Trilogy:
  • Stan Lee appears in all movies, in the first two saving someone from falling rubble, and in the third talking to Peter Parker about heroism, before saying one of his catch phrases ("Nuff said!")
  • Sam Raimi has a couple of cameos in the movies; as the outtakes from Spider-Man 2 point out, he plays the student whose backpack smacks Peter in the head during a montage.
  • Christopher Young, who scored Spider-Man 3, can be seen as the pianist next to Kirsten Dunst in the rehearsal scene.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • Stan Lee sells hot dog in the first movie, sees Jean Grey manifest his powers in X-Men: The Last Stand, and witnesses the launch of nuclear warheads (while next to his wife) in X-Men: Apocalypse.
  • David Hayter, one of the scriptwriters for the first two X-Men movies, appears in the first one as a security guard whom Sabretooth attacks at the Statue of Liberty.
  • Chris Claremont appears in X-Men: The Last Stand (right before Stan Lee's appearance), X-Men: Days of Future Past and Dark Phoenix (inspired by his works; Days of Future Past also has Wolverine creator Len Wein next to Claremont in a government committee).
  • In X2: X-Men United, director Bryan Singer and cinematographer Newton Thomas Siegel appear as guards in Magneto's prison. Singer gets his own pic, uniform and all, while the rest are given stock male photos. He also wheels the professor into the cell. The other security guards for Magneto's prison are all named after production staff. Additionally, screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris appear as surgeons on Wolverine's flashback.
  • Singer and Siegel appear again in X-Men: Days of Future Past — during the Paris scene, Singer films Magneto and Mystique disguises herself as Siegel.
  • In Deadpool (2016), Deadpool's creator Rob Liefeld can be seen leaning up against the bar several times in "Sister Margaret's Home for Wayward Girls". And Wade says hello to him, too!
• Marvel Cinematic Universe (not including the Stan Lee cameos):
  • J. Michael Straczynski and Walt Simonson are in Thor.
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier:
    • Winter Soldier creator Ed Brubaker is one of the scientists in the character's flashback.
    • Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely appear as S.H.I.E.L.D. interrogators.
    • Co-director Joe Russo appears as a doctor treating Nick Fury.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): Composer Tyler Bates appears as a Ravager pilot.
  • In Captain America: Civil War, co-director Joe Russo is the dead ambassador killed and impersonated by Zemo.
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, Kenneth Branagh - director of the first Thor movie - voices the Asgardian distress signal in the beginning of the film.
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp has one of the effects supervisors appearing in front of a store as a miniaturized car drives by.
  • In Captain Marvel (2019), Kelly Sue DeConnick appears as a bystander on the train station who walks past Carol while giving her a very confused look.
  • Thanos's creator, Jim Starlin, is in the support group Cap leads in the first act of Avengers: Endgame. Joe Russo is also in this scene and has a bit speaking part.
• The Perfect Weapon (1991): The director, Mark DiSalle, makes a brief cameo as the football coach who checks on Erickson's condition after Jeff injures him.
• Quentin Tarantino also has minor walk-ons in his own films, sometimes more. He plays Mr Brown in Reservoir Dogs and Jimmie in Pulp Fiction. He wrote out his own part in Kill Bill to give the role to an actor he respected and admired. He has two cameos in Inglourious Basterds: he is the first German soldier we see being scalped up close, and his hands replace those of Christopher Waltz hands during the shots not showing his face as Landa is choking Diane Kruger's character to death. Most of his cameo appearances fall into Death by Cameo.
  • Also in Pulp Fiction, producer Lawrence Bender appears as a long-haired yuppie in a coffee shop.
• Lupin III creator Monkey Punch appears in the 2014 live-action film as an airplane passenger.
• The author of the novel Holes, Louis Sachar, makes a cameo in the film version as Mr. Collingwood, a bald man who Sam the onion picker gives a supposed "Hair tonic".
• The Disaster Artist, a film based on the making of The Room (2003), features a post-credits scene in which The Room creator Tommy Wiseau (played by James Franco) is approached at a party by a stranger who wants to talk with him. Said stranger is played by none other than the real Tommy Wiseau.
  Franco!Wiseau: I stop you- I stop you right there. What is this accent? It sound familiar.
• Hideaki Anno makes an appearance in the 2004 live-action movie of Cutey Honey, as does manga author Go Nagai.
• Hideaki Anno makes a cameo in Welcome to the Quiet Room as a doctor. He gets horribly injured and is then insulted by a nurse.
• The Black Hole features its director, Gary Nelson, as the zombified crew member unmasked by Durant.
• Francis Ford Coppola shows up briefly in Apocalypse Now, playing a documentary-maker, and is aided by prominent crew members Dean Tavoularis and Vittorio Storaro.
• Mike White shows up in the movies he writes, some of them cameos such as Orange County, others in a more major role such as School of Rock.
  • During School of Rock, Jack Black's character shows White's a photograph of them from their days in a goth band called "Maggot Death". The third member of the band, who only appears in that picture, is the film's director Richard Linklater.
• James Bond:
  • Ian Fleming allegedly has a cameo in From Russia with Love.
  • Director Martin Campbell is one of the cyclists who fall over in GoldenEye, and the driver of the hijacked tanker truck in Casino Royale (2006).
  • Producer Michael G. Wilson has made cameos in most of the films since Goldfinger.
    • In Octopussy, he is a member of the Soviet Politburo.
    • In Casino Royale (2006), he is the Montenegro police chief who gets arrested. In Quantum of Solace, he reads a newspaper in Haiti.
    • In Die Another Day and Tomorrow Never Dies, he actually got lines.
• Peter Jackson films:
  • He put a cameo of himself in each one of The Lord of the Rings movies: as a human eating a carrot in The Fellowship of the Ring, as a Rohirric soldier throwing a spear at an Orc in The Two Towers, and he was actually killed by Legolas and Gimli in The Return of the King.^note In the director's cut, that is. Jackson is captain of the pirate ship that is sailing downriver to support the orcs assaulting Minas Tirith. In the theatrical version he is seen only briefly, walking the deck. His children show up in several of the crowd scenes, too.
  • And in The Return of the King scene, all the other pirates are played by the production team as well.
  • Jackson's sword arm doubles for Sean Astin's, in the first shot of the scene where Sam confronts Shelob.
  • The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug starts with a flashback of Thorin meeting Gandalf at the Prancing Pony in Bree. Jackson took the opportunity to reprise his carrot-chewing Fellowship cameo. The substantial amount of weight he'd lost makes him surprisingly believable as a younger version of the same guy.
  • Jackson actually cut out his own cameo in The Frighteners, because he was unsatisfied with his own American accent. However, in the extended version of the movie, Michael J. Fox bumps into him shortly after noticing who will be the next victim.
  • King Kong (2005):
    • Jackson appears as a biplane gunner in the climax. This is an homage to a similar cameo made by Merian C. Cooper in the original King Kong (1933).
    • Howard Shore plays the orchestra conductor during Kong's intro in New York... despite the fact he eventually left the movie score and was replaced by James Newton Howard.
  • In Braindead, Jackson plays the giggly assistant to the mortician tending to Vera's body before her memorial service. Meanwhile his wife, who co-wrote the film, appears as a mom in a park.
  • In The Lovely Bones: When Susie's dad is dropping off rolls of film to be developed, Jackson's in the store trying out a film camera.
• Star Wars:
  • George Lucas made a cameo in Revenge of the Sith, as a Rubber-Forehead Alien in the lobby of the opera house when Anakin goes to see Palpatine. The woman he's talking to is his daughter.
  • Makeup artist Rick Baker played the Modal Nodes band's leader Figrin D'an in A New Hope.
  • Return of the Jedi director Richard Marquand voices the sadistic droid in Jabba's palace and portrays a rebel fighter. He and co-producer Robert Watts play the AT-ST pilots who get pulled out of their vehicle's cockpit by Chewbacca.
  • Sound designer Ben Burtt (now best known as the voice of WALL•E) appears in Jedi as the Imperial soldier who finds Han in the shield generator and shouts "Freeze," only to promptly be killed. He even tries to imitate the Wilhelm Scream he popularized!
  • The Force Awakens director J. J. Abrams sings a song in the background of the first scene at Maz Kanata's cantina, along with Lin-Manuel Miranda. Abrams would have another creator cameo in The Rise of Skywalker as the voice of droid D-O.
  • Gareth Edwards made a cameo in Rogue One as the rebel soldier who disabled Tantive IV's docking mechanism, allowing the ship to escape. The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, as well as that film's producer Ram Bergman, cameo as two of the technicians operating the Death Star laser, and in return Edwards also got a cameo in Last Jedi as one of the soldiers in Crait (where his clothes even have "R1" in Aurabesh).
  • Longtime composer John Williams made a cameo in The Rise of Skywalker (which he has confirmed will be his final film for the series) as Oma Tres (an anagram of 'Maestro').
• Stephen King frequently appears in very minor roles in film adaptations of his books/stories (e.g. the grocery store clerk in Maximum Overdrive, the pizza delivery person in Rose Red... and in a very meta sense, It: Chapter Two, as a pawn shop owner who complains to an Author Avatar about his writing), with the exception of the Creepshow segment "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", where he plays the title character.^note "Meteor shit!" This goes the opposite way in his own literature: his appearance in The Dark Tower series becomes important.
• Abandoned Mine: Jeff Chamberlain, the director of the movie, appears at the end as the reverend presiding over Brad's funeral.
• The directors of Airplane! (Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker) all appear, with Abrahams as a religious zealot and the Zuckers as airport ground crew.
• Wing Commander series creator Chris Roberts, who also directed the movie, had a brief appearance as the rescue pilot from the end of the movie, welcoming Blair to Sol System.
• Uwe Boll had a cameo in the Postal film.
• George Romero appeared in Diary of the Dead in a news broadcast. He was wearing a covering hat at the time so it's quite hard to recognize him.
  • He also appears as a news director in the original Dawn of the Dead (1978).
• Mel Brooks was a comedic performer in addition to a writer and director, so he usually appears as a Descended Creator. In the films where he has only a cameo:
  • He has his voice in one line of the "Springtime for Hitler" production number in the original version of The Producers. This remained in the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation, where Brooks' prerecorded voice was also used for That Poor Cat (and in the film of the play, Mel himself appears in The Stinger).
  • He voices the Cat Hit By Dart and Frankenstein's grandfather in Young Frankenstein. And one of the castle gargoyles is modeled to look like him.
  • Blazing Saddles: Brooks shows up as a Yiddish-speaking Indian chief, the governor who appointed Bart, an aviation pilot among the villains hired by Lamarr, and a couple voice cameos in Lili von Shtupp's musical number.
• In the film adaption of Requiem for a Dream, Hubert Selby Jr, the author of the book, played the yelling, racist Southern guard.
• James Dickey appears as a cop in Deliverance, adaptation of his book.
• In 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Arthur C. Clarke is seen feeding pigeons on a bench near the White House. Later in the film, Clarke and Stanley Kubrick also appear as the US President and Soviet Premier, respectively, on a Time magazine cover.
• John Woo appears as a jazz bartender in Hard Boiled.
• Harry Warren and Al Dubin appear in 42nd Street as writers of a bad song. They wrote the movie's better songs, too.
• Joss Whedon appears in "The R. Tam Sessions" filmed as a tie-in to Serenity as the Alliance operative interviewing River.
• Jonathan Safran Foer can be seen holding a leaf blower at the beginning of Everything Is Illuminated.
• Amy Tan appears as a party guest in the first few minutes of The Joy Luck Club.
• Terry Gilliam made an uncredited appearance in Brazil as a sinister man smoking on the stairs of Shangri-La Towers.
• In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg watches a CNN report about the dinosaurs, and screenwriter David Koepp is eaten by the T. rex. Spielberg also "appears" in Jaws (his voice is heard), and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (at the airport, along with producers George Lucas and Frank Marshall).
• Michael Bay:
  • He's is a NASA scientist in Armageddon (1998)
  • He nearly has his car taken in Bad Boys II. In the third movie, which he doesn't direct, he's a priest.
  • In Transformers (2007) he's the guy Megatron flicks into a taxi cab. "Disgusting."
• Richard Donner is one of the sheriffs on ATVs near the end of The Goonies.
• Peter Collinson was briefly seen in The Italian Job (1969) when the Minis drove onto the coach.
• Ted Turner, producer, is Col. Waller Tazewell Patton in Gettysburg, and plays the same character in the prequel Gods and Generals.
  • Amusingly, he was credited in the latter as "R.E. Turner."
• Men in Black
  • In Men in Black, among the celebrities-who-are-actually-aliens are both director Barry Sonnenfeld (and his daughter) and executive producer Steven Spielberg. Lowell Cunningham, the creator of the original Men in Black comic, had a cameo as an MiB HQ employee.
  • Men in Black II: Sonnenfeld appears (along with his wife and daughter) when K raids his old apartment for weapons to use against Serleena. Make-up artist Rick Baker appears as an MIB agent putting a wig in an alien.
  • Men in Black 3: Sonnenfeld and his wife appear as a couple at home watching the moon launch. His daughter Chloe appears as the flower child who tells Boris "Make love, not war."
• Jim Henson shows up in a ton of Muppet stuff. A Muppet Family Christmas cleaning up after everyone, The Great Muppet Caper as a photo subject of Gonzo's, The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years...
  • The Muppets (2011) features a particularly nice tribute, with a picture of Henson and Kermit prominently displayed in Kermit's home.
• In the 1971 film The Andromeda Strain, one of the doctors who does not speak in the operating room where Mark Hall gets called up by the army is played by Michael Crichton, author of the book.
• Trainspotting had a cameo from Irvine Welsh as drug dealer Mikey Forrester.
• Precious the author Sapphire has a cameo in the very beginning, in one of Precious' fantasy sequences.
• In the Twilight film series, Stephenie Meyer appears as a patron in the diner, and later in Breaking Dawn Part 1 as a guest at Bella's wedding. This might actually be a case of being an Author Avatar, because she's actually addressed as "Stephenie" by the waitress.
• Roman Polański had a cameo in Chinatown cutting Jake Gillis' nose.
• James O'Barr appears in The Crow (1994) as a man who steals a TV from the burning pawn shop.
• In Angels Revenge, writer/director Greydon Clark makes a cameo as the director of Terry's film shoot.
• Denis Johnson, author of the book Jesus' Son appeared in the film adaptation as a guy with a knife in his eye.
• Jonathan Ames is a patron at Sally's in The Film of the Book The Extra Man.
• Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, had a brief role as a TV reporter in the film.
  • Also Steven Spielberg is the voice of the coast guard on the radio.
• John Waters has these fairly often. Mostly he'll be heard rather than seen - he's the uncredited narrator of Pink Flamingos, the voice of Ted Bundy in Serial Mom, and a prank-calling pervert in Pecker for example. He also has cameos in both the original Hairspray and the film version of The Musical: In the former he has a couple of brief scenes as Penny Pingleton's psychiatrist, and in the latter he's a flasher.
• Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, the authors of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, can be seen in the background of a diner in the movie version.
• Terrence Malick has a cameo an hour into Badlands, as the architect who knocks on the door of the fancy house, looking to see the rich man that Villain Protagonist Kit is holding captive inside. This is a particularly interesting one in that Malick has avoided publicity throughout his career and is rarely photographed.
• Spoofed in What's Up, Tiger Lily? - a couple walk by the hero, who mutters to his partner "Don't look now, honey, this is the obligatory scene where the director always has to walk through with his wife... Egomaniac."
• In Plan 9 from Outer Space, Ed Wood plays a bum who decides No More for Me after seeing the flying saucers.
• David Lynch:
  • He appears in his Dune (1984) as the foreman of the spice mine that's destroyed by a sandworm.
  • In Inland Empire, he voices a sound engineer that gets bossed around by the film director character (played by Jeremy Irons), which inverts his own role as the actual director.
• King Kong (1933) directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack are fighter pilots in the climax, after Cooper off-handedly suggested in real life "We should kill the son of a bitch ourselves." Peter Jackson copied this in his remake.
• A couple of examples in The Flintstones: William Hanna and Joseph Barbera of the original series appear as an executive at the meeting and a man driving a Mersandes respectively, and director Brian Levant is the voice of the prehistoric pig at the bowling alley.
  • William Hanna and Joseph Barbera are guests at Fred's wedding in the sequel.
• In Gremlins 2: The New Batch director Joe Dante plays the director of The Grandpa Fred show and he voiced the gremlin that was shot by Brain Gremlin and the one in the witch costume.
  • In his earlier film Piranha he was one of the scuba divers near the middle that was presumably eaten off screen.
• The Live-Action Adaptation of Vampirella has a short, full screen shot of Vampirella creator Forrest J. Ackerman as a music club patron.
• The punk on bus with the ghetto blaster in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was played by associate producer Kirk R. Thatcher. The scene wasn't his idea, but he did insist on writing the song "I Hate You" for use in it. He also does the Vulcan computer's voice.
• Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin briefly appears as an ad executive in The Social Network.
• Screenwriter and producer James Vanderbilt appears in David Fincher's Zodiac.
• Dead Air: Director Corbin Bernson appears briefly as DJ "Doc F" in the beginning of the film to deliver a single line while the protagonist DJ Logan Burnhardt is walking in late to the studio.
  Logan: Hey Doc!
  Doc: Ah, he arrives... Megan! Hold the door!
• Mike Judge plays a small character role in his movies Office Space and Extract. He also voices two announcers in Idiocracy, the one for the Masturbating Channel and the stadium one for Rehabilitation.
• Surprisingly, famed recluse Stanley Kubrick is the voice over the radio when Joker's platoon calls for support in Full Metal Jacket. He also sits in a table next to Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut, is in a mansion in Lolita, watches a fight on his very first movie◊, Day of the Fight, and in a weird case, Bowman's hyperventilating in 2001: A Space Odyssey is actually Kubrick's own breathing!
• Nikita Mikhalkov plays Tsar Alexander III in The Barber of Siberia.
• In Inspector Gadget (1999), Andy Heyward (head of DIC Entertainment, the creators of the original cartoon series) is seen at the party as a guest named "Mr. D.I.C."
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World:
  • Comic author Bryan Lee O'Malley and his wife Hope Larson are seen in the bar before The Clash at Demonhead perform at Lee's Palace. Additionally, O'Malley's sister Stacey appears as a customer using her laptop at Second Cup.
  • Co-writer Michael Bacall is seen talking to Comeau in the opening party.
• In TRON: Legacy, series creator Steven Lisberger is the bartender at the End of Line Club. The credits and supplemental material list his character's name as Shaddix. The Club also has Daft Punk, who wrote the score, as DJ programs.
• Oh, God! director Carl Reiner appears in the movie as a guest on the Dinah Shore Show (before Jerry's segment).
• In The Jerk Reiner plays himself, heading a mass lawsuit against Navin Johnson.
• Although Howard Shore's score for Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) was thrown out, Shore himself appears in the movie as the conductor of the pit orchestra for the Kong stage show.
• In addition to scoring both Gremlins movies, Jerry Goldsmith appears in them as well (looking directly at the camera in the convention scene in the first one and as a disgruntled cinema patron in the second).
• A sideways example — in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Larry Hama (the most influential writer of the Joe comics) appears as a general at the M.A.R.S. presentation.
• Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, the writers of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, appear as the annoying waiters serving ice cream to Napoleon. They also appear in the sequel as guests at Missy's seance.
• In Matilda the picture of Magnus which contributes to Miss Trunchbull's downfall is actually a portrait of Roald Dahl, author of the original book.
• In Yes-Man, Danny Wallace, the author of the original book appears in one scene.
• Spawn (1997) has the character's creator Todd Mc Farlane as a homeless man.
• Noel Clarke, writer and co-director of 4.3.2.1, has an entire supporting role as the manager of the store Emma Roberts works at (and he not only has Emma and another cast member discuss his sex appeal - and gives himself "AND" billing in the closing credits to boot - but actually appears on the poster!).
• In The Cannonball Run, screenwriter Brock Yates appears as the race organizer and director Hal Needham appears as the ambulance EMT who inspires J.J. and Victor to use an ambulance as their vehicle.
• Hunter S. Thompson has a cameo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas during a flashback to 1966. Raoul Duke actually recognizes him and reacts with surprise, but then it's that kind of movie.
  Raoul Duke: There I was... (sees Hunter S. Thompson sitting at a table) Mother of God, there I am! Holy fuck–?!
• Creator Dave Stevens shows up in The Rocketeer as a prototype rocket pilot appearing in a top secret Luftwaffe documentary smuggled out of Germany.
• John Carpenter:
  • In the original Halloween (1978), he is the voice of Annie's boyfriend Paul.
  • He was also a gang member in Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Bennett the carpenter in The Fog (1980), a Norwegian in The Thing (1982), and a Gas Station Attendant in Village of the Damned (1995) among others.
• The Graduate features Buck Henry, who co-wrote the screenplay, as the hotel desk clerk ("Are you here for an affair, sir?").
• In Dragonheart, director Rob Cohen is Draco's singing voice. He also makes an appearance in the second con scene (the one where the water is too shallow): he is the villager that walks out and says "Meat!" first.
  • Cohen also has a cameo in The Fast and the Furious (2001) as the pizza delivery guy who has to take a detour because of a street race. In the DVD Commentary, Cohen refers to himself as a terrible actor who he should have fired.
• James Cameron appears in Titanic (1997) at the start of the movie: he is the third-class passenger getting his beard checked. He makes other appearances throughout the film, up to and including the sinking. Also, when it shows "Jack's" hands sketching Rose, they are actually Cameron's hands; you'll notice that they look too old to be Jack's.
• Due to a lack of extras, when Richard is escaping from the facility in Clonus, the guard he punches out is the director, Robert S. Fiveson.
• The 2008 film Choke features author Chuck Palahniuk sitting next to Victor Mancini on a plane.
• In the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies, Jeff Kinney, the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, appears as Holly Hills' father.
• The film of Damn Yankees has choreographer Bob Fosse as Lola (Gwen Verdon)'s nameless dance partner in "Who's Got the Pain?"
• In the film of Doctor in theHouse Richard Gordon, who wrote the book series, has a cameo as an anesthetist.
• Lucio Fulci is fond of doing this.
  • The newspaper editor in Zombi 2.
  • Appears with an SMG◊ in Contraband (1980).
  • The librarian in The Beyond.
  • The chief of police in The New York Ripper.
  • In Murder-Rock: Dancing Death, he appears as the talent agent who phones Candice.
  • Though uncredited, as Inspector Carter in Demonia.
  • He's the protagonist of Cat in the Brain.
• In The Fly (1986), Geena Davis' character has a nightmare where she gives birth to a giant maggot. The doctor who delivers it is director David Cronenberg.
• Rosemary's Baby gives its executive producer, William Castle, a cameo as the man waiting outside a phone booth while Rosemary makes a call.
• Bryan Singer has two in The Usual Suspects. The most traditional is that his hands double as the hands of Keyser Soze in one scene. The less obvious is also a case of Throw It In!: during the line-up scene, after Benicio del Toro mumbles one of his lines in a bizarre voice, Singer can be heard, presumably as one of the cops, shouting "In English, please!" That was actually Singer-as-director shouting, because he had no idea what del Toro was doing with the character, but he decided to leave that take in the movie. The other cop giving orders to the characters is played by screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie.
• Bob Kane was supposed to cameo in the original Batman (1989) film as the newspaper cartoonist who gives Knox a mocking drawing of Batman. He didn't end up playing the character in the final cut, but the drawing is signed in his name with his very distinct box-shaped signature. His widow, Elizabeth Sanders Kane, appears in all three sequels. She shows up in Batman Returns as a woman talking about the Penguin's new celebrity status, and in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin as a gossip columnist named "Gossip Gerty."
• Douglas Adams's face is all over The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)—his head is a planet on the Magrathean factory floor and the last thing the Heart of Gold turns into before disappearing, and Humma Kavula's church is in the shape of his nose. Adams' 2001 death prevented him from making a personal appearance in the film.
• The director of Rockabilly Zombie Weekend appears as the helicopter pilot in the last scene.
• Ender's Game: Orson Scott Card, the author of this adapted book, appears in a voice cameo as a pilot making an announcement to his passengers.
• Oliver Stone has appeared in numerous uncredited roles in his own films, including the UCLA instructor in The Doors, the bum who is the first victim of The Hand, a soldier in Alexander, and a trader on Wall Street.
• V. C. Andrews appears very briefly washing a window in Flowers in the Attic.
• Pink Floyd bassist and songwriter Roger Waters appears in the film version of The Wall, as the best man during the wedding scene.
• Star Trek: First Contact writer Brannon Braga makes an uncredited appearance in the holodeck nightclub scene.
• Wes Craven appears in Scream (1996) as Fred the Janitor, who is named after and dressed like Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street.
• As well as scoring The Monuments Men, Alexandre Desplat plays a member of the Resistance.
• Willie Mosconi, 15-time winner of the World Straight Pool Championship, was the technical advisor for The Hustler (1961). He trained Paul Newman on pool techniques, and has a cameo during the first match as the bystander who holds the stake money.
• Monkey Punch, the creator of the original Lupin III manga, appears in the 2014 live-action Lupin III movie as an airline passenger.
• In Paddington (2014), Paddington Bear's author, Michael Bond is seen outside a café as they drive through London in a taxi. He smiles at Paddington and raises his glass of wine to him. In return, Paddington doffs his hat. Bond's character is credited as "Kindly Gentleman".
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter ends with a potential new hunter being approached by a would-be recruiter. That prospective hunter is played by Seth Grahame-Smith, author of both the novel the movie is based on and the screenplay.
• For The Fault in Our Stars, John Green was supposed to play the father (it was a mother in the book) whose child wanted to try on Hazel's cannula, but the scene was cut.
• Director Fatih Akin appears as a Romanian border guard in Im Juli.
• Screenwriter Erika Mann appears as a governess in the 1957 screen adaptation of Confessions of Felix Krull.
• The Laurel and Hardy short "Pardon Us" has cameos from producer Hal Roach and director James Parrott.
• In A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, the writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour plays a small role as a girl in skull make-up at a Halloween party. She also acted as a body double for the lead actor Sheila Vand during skateboarding scenes, as Vand couldn't skate.
• Judge Minty: Greg Staples, one of Dredd's artists, appears as Joe Dredd himself when Minty is decommissioned in the hospital.
• The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water:
  • Series Creator Stephen Hillenburg has a vocal cameo in the film as the voice of a live-action baby who says, "SpongeBob!"
  • Showrunner Paul Tibbitt voices Kyle the seagull.
• Like Alexandre Desplat and Jerry Goldsmith, David Newman is one of the few composers to make a non-musical appearance in a movie he scored - he appears briefly in 1992's The Runestone as one of the cops who faces the monster. It doesn't end well for him.
• Author of the book series Veronica Roth has a cameo in Divergent during the zipline scene. She's the first person to come through the door onto the roof.
• James Dashner, author of the book, has a cameo in the end scene of The Maze Runner - sitting to the right of Ava Paige.
• The real R. L. Stine appears near the end of Goosebumps (2015) as Mr. Black the drama teacher.
• Director Uwe Boll has a small role in Rampage: Capital Punishment as the head of the news company.
• In Ghostbusters (1984), director Ivan Reitman voices both Slimer and Zuul (yes, it's him doing "there is no Dana, only Zuul"), while producer producer Joe Medjuck crosses in front of the camera in the library.
• Ghostbusters (2016):
  • Ivan Reitman, who directed the first two movies, walks behind the mayor on one of the last scenes.
  • Katie Dippold, the film's writer, plays the rental agent who finds the Ghostbusters their base of operations.
  • Director Paul Feig has two voice cameos, the "Ghost Hunters" announcer, and the boss mistreating Rowan through the radio (his on-screen appearance at the concert scene was eventually cut).
• Deepwater Horizon: Director Peter Berg plays Mr. Skip, the person Jimmy speaks to just after getting off the helicopter.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street: New Line Cinema head and Nightmare producer Robert Shaye has cameos in many of the films, including a newscaster in the first movie, a bartender at a gay club in the second movie, a high school teacher in the fourth movie, and a creepy ticket salesman in the sixth movie.
• Mamma Mia!: Executive producers Rita Wilson and Björn Ulvaeus both appear as Greek gods, and fellow executive producer Benny Andersson appears as a piano player during "Dancing Queen". The latter two also wrote and performed the songs in the 1970s.
• Pee-wee's Big Adventure: director Tim Burton plays the thug in the alley way.
• Mythica: The Darkspore: Co-writer and producer Kynan Griffin appears as "Frozen Wizard".
• Vagabond (1985): Agnès Varda takes the voice-only role of the police investigator.
• In a rare case of Clint Eastwood doing this in a movie he only directs, in Breezy he walks by the two protagonists in a pier.
• The dead guy in the opening scene of Se7en is screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker.
• Rampage (2018) has the designer of the original arcade (who also has an entry in the video games folder below) running from George in the Chicago streets.
• Permanent Midnight: The real Jerry Stahl, upon whose memoirs the film is based, appears as Dr. Murphy.
• Dumplin' has Julie Murphy, author of the original novel, as a patron at a drag bar.
• In the live-action adaptation of Hogfather, Terry Pratchett appears in one of the movie's final scenes as the Toymaker.
• Zack Snyder:
  • Appeared as a soldier/mercenary protecting the evacuation of the Capitol in the opening of Dawn of the Dead.
  • Appeared as an American soldier accompanying the Comedian in the Vietnam War scene of Watchmen.
  • Voiced Truck ("Yeah, we got it") in the Knightmare scene of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and appeared as a World War I British soldier holding a Lewis Gun in the background of the 1918 group photo featuring Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor's team.
  • He can be seen inside a Metropolis café near Superman's memorial site as Lois Lane goes to mourn the Man of Steel in Zack Snyder's Justice League.
• SHAZAM! (2019) director David F. Sandberg portrays one of the Crocodile Men the kids briefly encounter during the film's final act and also voices Mister Mind in The Stinger.
• In The Spirit of '76, director Lucas Reiner appears briefly as a fireworks salesman.
• Live Forever As You Are Now with Alan Resnick: Wham City member Ben O'Brien appears as the man who shot Alan in his dream.
• The Gravedancers:
  • The slim man talking to Kira at the wake is the film's writer, Brad Keene.
  • Director of Photography David Armstrong has a cameo as a policeman in the flashback where Emma is discovered playing the piano.
• Dobermann: Director Jan Kounen is the man trapped in the bank doors.
• Similar to the anime version from above, Shuuichi Asou does a cameo for the live action movie adaptation of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. but as a student for PK Academy.
• In addition to doing the narration, Jean Shepherd (the author of the book on which the story is based) appears in A Christmas Story as the angry father who tells Ralphie where the end of the line to see Santa is.
• In Jane Wants a Boyfriend, scriptwriter Jarret Kerr plays Bottom in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
• Clickbait has co-director Sophia Cacciola in a full-fledged (if minor) role as Mrs. Wilson. The other co-director, Michael J. Epstein, has more of a cameo: A man who arrives at a costume party in a Donald Trump mask, who quickly throws his mask off in frustration and leaves when no one wants to talk to him. The cameo ends up providing a plot point - protagonist Bailey soon finds herself stalked by someone else in a Trump mask painted solid white, so it's a small clue that the stalker was also at the party (where they either swiped the mask or just saw it being discarded and got a good idea for a disguise).
• In Long Weekend, director Colin Eggleston provides the voice of Marcia's lover on the phone. Additionally, producer Richard Brennan appears as the dugong. The scene where the black walrus like sea creature is seen swimming in the ocean is actually the film's producer in a marine mammal water-costume-rig.
• In Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain, the maggot-covered head found by Gary the caretaker is actually the head of the director, Christian Viel.
• In Necronomicon, director Brian Yuzna appears as the cabbie who drives Lovecraft to the library at the start of the film and picks him again at the end.
• In The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, writer and director Jess Franco appears briefly as Dr. Frankenstein's ill-fated assistant Morpho.
• Drive, He Said features director Jack Nicholson as a bearded guy wearing sunglasses during the military draft scene.
• Sorry, Wrong Number: Where Henry is having lunch with Sally, he asks his waiter if he knows who the gentleman is in the dark glasses at the table behind him. The man is director Anatole Litvak.
• A Bridge Too Far: Director Richard Attenborough briefly appears in a scene where the British paratroopers are observed by lunatics who escaped when an insane asylum was bombed; he's wearing glasses and has a beard. This was his only acting role in one of the films that he directed.
• Clown Motel: Director Joseph Kelly makes an appearance at the beginning of the movie as Brooke's fiance, having a video chat with her.
• Godzilla (1954): Ishir⁠ō Honda is the guy who flips the switch that electrocutes Godzilla.
• Mad Max: Co-writer James McCausland appears as a bearded man watching police cyclists drive away from a diner.
• The Departed: Producer Graham King appears in a photograph as Costigan's deceased father.
• Schindler's List:
  • Liam Neeson appears As Himself in the final scene to place flowers on Oskar Schindler's grave. Steven Spielberg appears in the scene of the Schindler Jews walking across the fields slightly earlier.
  • In Schindler's introduction, the maitre'd is producer Branko Lustig, a Holocaust survivor himself.
• Bronx Warriors series: Director Enzo G. Castellari appears as a corporate flunky in Bronx Warriors and the mustachioed radio operator in Escape 2000.
• Monty Python's Life of Brian: The man who rents out the mountain for sermons is George Harrison, as a reward for funding the film.
• The Last House on the Left: Production assistant Steve Miner appears as a hippie taunting the bumbling cops.
• The Hitcher: Screenwriter Eric Red can be seen in a cameo role toward the end of the film as a sheriff's deputy escorting the prisoner to the transfer bus.
• The Princess Bride: Rob Reiner voices the Rodents of Unusual Size.
• Raiders of the Lost Ark:
  • Producer Frank Marshall is a pilot knocked out by Marion.
  • Harrison Ford's stunt double Terry Leonard appears as a Nazi truck driver.
  • Stunt coordinator Glenn Randall, Jr., appears as a mechanic.
• Predator: Right after the alien blows himself up, the helicopter pilot commenting on the explosion is Kevin Peter Hall, the man who wore the Predator suit.
• The Terminator:
  • James Cameron is the guy who calls Sarah Connor to cancel their date.
  • Co-writer William Wisher is the cop who tries to help the T-800 and gets knocked out for his efforts.
• The Pumpkin Karver: Director Robert Mann voices a radio DJ in the opening.
• Misery: Rob Reiner appears in the film as a helicopter pilot.
• All the Boys Love Mandy Lane:
  • The film's producers appear as football coaches.
  • Later, the film's writer and production designer appear as fireworks salesmen.
• The Adventures of Robin Hood: Howard Hill, the archer who fired all the arrows in the film, plays the man in the archery contest who scores a bullseye only to have Robin split his arrow (of course, he really fired that shot too).
• Jack-O: Director Steve Latshaw appears as a cable installer.
• The Anthropophagus Beast: Joe D'Amato is seen exiting a cable car.
• Graduation Day: Director Herb Freed plays the killer when he's chasing Linnea Quigley.
• Shaft: Director Gordon Parks briefly appears as a landlord.
• Transylvania 6-5000: The animal discovered in the bushes is actually the writer/director Rudy De Luca. He filmed that scene with his pants down and bare butt showing, but it was edited out to get a PG-13 rating.
• The Godfather: Associate producer Gray Frederickson appears as an actor in Woltz's studio in the first film.
• Little Evil: Eli Craig appears as a guy with a clipboard at a soapbox derby.
• Scary Movie: Keenen Ivory Wayans appears as a slave in the Amistad 2 trailer.
• Hellboy (2004): Both original comic author Mike Mignola and director Guillermo del Toro appear, dressed as a knight and a dragon respectively, in the scene where a costume party is attacked.
• President's Day: Director Chris LaMartina appears as a student smoking pot beneath the bleachers.
• In The Prowler (1951), the uncredited voice of radio announcer John Gilvray heard throughout the film is actually that of uncredited screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Trumbo being blacklisted in Hollywood at the time).
• Cannibal Holocaust: Director Ruggero Deodato appears sitting on a blanket in front of NYU.
• Caddyshack: Writer-producer Douglas Kenney appears as a guest in the dining room scene.
• Jennifer's Body: Diablo Cody appears as the Melody Lane's bartender.
• Waar: Director Bilal Lashari appears as a sniper.
• Cinematographer and co-writer/director Matthew Campagna appears as Milton Joyce, the pilgrim killed by The Nomad in the opening scene of Six Reasonswhy. When the bullet rigging was first being done for the various gunshot effects, he volunteered to be the first to be squibbed, saying that the only way to direct an actor with explosives strapped to him, is to get blown up first.
• Midnight Run: Director Martin Brest appears as a ticket clerk.
• Batman Begins: Producer Larry Franco appears as a cop during a chase scene.
• The Howling (1981): Co-producer John Sayles appears as a morgue attendant.
• Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters: Director Tommy Wirkola appears as one of Berringer's deputies.
• High Heels and Low Lifes: Director Mel Smith appears pushing past Mason at the train station while he is trying to explain to the ticket collector why he doesn't have a ticket.
• In I Think I Do (1997), producer Lane Janger appears as a bartender at a gay nightclub.
• Hereditary: Director Ari Aster is the voice calling about Annie's art exhibit.
• John R.Cherry, who directed and wrote many of the Ernest P. Worrell films, makes cameos in the last few films, including Slam Dunk Ernest and Ernest Goes to Africa, and has a more feautured role as Ernest's best friend Ben in Ernest in the Army.
• The Exorcist: William Peter Blatty, author of the original book and screenwriter of the film, appears on Burke Dennings' film set.
• The Lair of the White Worm: Director Ken Russell is seen walking past the farm in the beginning.
• From Dusk Till Dawn:
  • Director Robert Rodriguez cameos as the lead singer of the bar band, played by his real-life band Chingon.
  • Makeup supervisor Howard Berger appears as the vampire who turns Sex Machine.
  • Executive producer Lawrence Bender is seen sitting in a dining booth.
• Both Live-Action Adaptation movies of Monica's Gang have creator Mauricio de Sousa briefly appearing. In the first, adequate to a comic book adaptation, he's running a newsstand. In the second, he's running a school cafeteria, and when Big Eater Maggy asks to be served everything in the menu, he comments "who created this monster?"
• Kevin Grevioux:
  • In addition to playing Raze in Underworld (2003), Grevioux co-wrote the film.
  • Likewise, he wrote the original graphic novel I, Frankenstein was based on and in the film, he plays Dekar.
• The Big Night: Director Joseph Losey' assistant, future director Robert Aldrich, appears as the spectator at the boxing match who shares his whiskey with George.
• Todd Phillips appears in most of his movies, mostly as a sleazy guy.
• Edward Bunker appeared in minor roles in Straight Time and Animal Factory, which were both adaptations of his novels.
• Jon Favreau appears as a general practitioner in Elf, to confirm to Walter Hobbes that Buddy is his son.
• Director Jess Franco appears uncredited as the cabaret pianist in The Awful Dr. Orloff.
• In Ready or Not (2019), director Matt Bettinelli-Olpin is the voice of the driver of the sports car, and writers Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy are the crossbow experts in the YouTube video.
• Tromeo and Juliet: Screenwriter James Gunn appears as the father of the family whose car crashes, and director Lloyd Kaufman is credited as "Shocked Onlooker".
• In the film adaptation of Take That! Jukebox Musical Greatest Days, band members Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald briefly appear as buskers on a train in Athens, performing an acoustic version of their song "Shine".
• In Starred Up, Nurse Bankford, the only female role in the film, is played by casting director Aisha Bywaters.
• Jagged Mind: The director, Kelley Kali, has a cameo as a hostess who brings Billie to the private veranda with Alex.
• Edgar Wright has appeared in most of his own films, beginning with his student film Dead Right, where he gave himself the small (meta) role of the film's director who gets killed by the serial killer villain, and his first feature, Film/{{A Fistful of Fingers}], where he walks into a support beam.
  • In Shaun of the Dead he can be seen as a zombie collapsing in the distance.
  • In Hot Fuzz he can be seen as a stockboy pushing a rolling shelf of trays.
  • In The World's End he has an audio-only cameo, as one of the construction workers yelling at Gary.
  • His cameo in Baby Driver was unplanned; he was reflected in a shop window during the title sequence as he walked along following the shot in a portable monitor. He was originally going to remove himself in post but decided to leave it in.
• In Freddy vs. Jason, Robert Shaye, who was a producer on every Elm Street film (as well as Freddy vs. Jason), appears as high school principal Mr. Shaye.
• Doctor... Series: The author of the original Doctor novels, Richard Gordon, appears in three of the films as Stubbins, an anesthetist. He also played a doctor in Doctor in Love.
• Raising the Wind's writer, Bruce Montgomery, appears briefly as a conductor (just as he was in Real Life).
• In Mystic River, the novel's author Dennis Lehane can be seen waving from the back of a convertible in the parade sequence.

Literature

• In Thomas Mann's novel Confessions of Felix Krull, the main character successfully cons a Scottish lord who is physically identical to Mann.
• Kim Newman's short story "Pitbull Brittan", in the Temps anthology edited by Alex Stewart, features a brief mention of a bullied schoolboy named Sandy Stewart asking the title character for help. Later in the story, Sandy's pleas having been ignored, a news report reveals he has committed suicide.
• Martin Amis in the novel Money - he beats his protagonist at chess.
• Clive Cussler loved this trope. Cussler's character will usually give the protagonists his current vehicle to aid them in their mission. He can also be a Mr. Exposition to relay some information on a historical event. Even if he doesn't appear, he is still likely to be mentioned in passing, at one point even being referred to "that author," referencing his novels within his novels.
  • Often, the character will be identified by some nickname for a while and only when making his farewell will reveal he's Cussler. Notable is that he's never the same occupation in each cameo. Every time, Dirk Pitt or other characters find something oddly familiar about him but then shrug it off while noting what an odd name it is.
  • The whole thing started by accident. When writing Dragon, Cussler, on a lark, had himself as a guy competing with Dirk Pitt at a race. Cussler figured his editor would get a chuckle out of it and then change the character's name. He was astounded it ended up in the published version and readers loved it.
• Discworld:
  • Jan Kantůrek, the Czech translator of Terry Pratchett's books, managed to include himself in his translation of Jingo. At one point, a character says that Carrot talked like "a little schoolteacher"; naturally, he translated the word as "kantůrek" ("little teacher"), and italicized it for good measure.
  • Amongst the various references to Fandom VIPs and friends of Terry in the business directory of The Compleat Ankh-Morpork City Guide (credited as being "aided and abetted by the Discworld Emporium") are Mitchell and Pearson, mapmakers. This is a reference to Ian Mitchell and Bernard Pearson of the aforementioned Emporium. Similarly, Mrs Bradshaw's Handbook mentions the Mitchell Inn Guide to Quirmian eateries.
  • In Where's My Cow?, there's a portrait of Terry hanging in Young Sam's room.
  • For Night Watch Discworld, the first book to have a cover by Paul Kidby, he did a pastiche of Rembrandt's The Night Watch. In the place where Rembrandt painted himself, Kidby put the late Josh Kirby, the original Discworld cover artist.
• Ayn Rand shows up in Atlas Shrugged as one of the denizens of Galt's Gulch, a fishwife who's also one of the best authors there. She notably also pines for John's affection.
• Don Quixote features a few characters discussing Cervantes' work at a Book Burning. It's massive Self-Deprecation, with the characters offering some pretty sharp criticisms.
• East of Eden being partly about the author's family, obviously has him there a few times, mainly in one intercalary chapter explaining one of his Uncles. But it's most notable that he has a scene where Adam Trask shows up to his mother's house to speak with his Grandma, and they meet as John Steinbeck and his sister stand behind their mother.
• The authors of Star Wars guide book The Essential Atlas, Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry, appear in an illustration as two hyperspace scouts in the book's section on galactic navigation. Chris Trevas, the illustrator who supplied that image, among others in the book, is also seen as participating in a holochess game in another picture.
• John Carter of Mars is Edgar Rice Burroughs's uncle.
• Midnight's Children is written by Salman Rushdie. He disguises his cameo by placing it in the middle of a long list of irrelevant names:
  Naturally, the prefects had the pick of the ladies; I watched them with passionate envy. Guzder and Joshi and Stevenson and Rushdie and Talyarkhan and Tayabali and Jussawalla and Waglé and King...
• Larry Correia makes two appearances in Tom Stranger: Interdimensional Insurance Agent. First as Larry the writer at a sci-fi convention, who was covered under the comprehensive policy of the other Larry Correia, Interdimensional Lord of Hate and CEO of Correia-Tech.
• Roger Zelazny makes a brief appearance in The Hand of Oberon, as a palace guard who chats with Corwin about the "philosophical romance shot through with elements of horror and morbidity" that he's currently writing.
• Douglas Coupland wrote an exaggerated version of himself into jPod referred to as the "Anti-Doug".
• The Doctor Who Expanded Universe novella The Pit of Death by A.L. Kennedy, later expanded into the novel The Drosten's Curse, is set in 1978, both literally and in terms of Doctor Who continuity, and is written very much in the Adamsesque style of the period. It also happens to feature a character named David Agnew, the Alan Smithee name under which the late seventies production team wrote The Invasion of Time and the extremely Adamsesque City of Death.
• In Twilight Watch, Anton enters Gesar's office and sees his boss berating two human contractors for their poor performance and ordering them to work separately. Based on the humans' descriptions, an astute reader might recognize Sergey Lukyanenko (the author of the whole series) and Vladimir Vasilyev (his Day Watch co-author and author of The Face of the Dark Palmira spin-off).
• The Wheel of Time: Robert Jordan wrote himself into the series as a small bronze statue that's enchanted to contain a library.
• The opening scene of Digging to America takes place at Baltimore/Washington International Airport (BWI), and Anne Tyler, who wrote the novel, has said she and her daughter are the mother and daughter being described in the arrivals lounge.
• Aino Havukainen and Sami Toivonen, creators of Tatu and Patu, appear in many of the books on one page, most commonly in crowd scenes.

Live-Action TV

• Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace: Liu Lian Zi, author of the novel the series is based on, has a very minor role as the duchess of Xianqin.
• Whedonverse:
  • Angel:
    • In "Through the Looking Glass" and "There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb" Joss Whedon gets to play Lorne's brother Numfar, who does both the Dance of Joy, the Dance of Honor, and the Dance of Shame.
    • David Fury later played the Jim Henson Expy in "Smile Time" and appears as an audience member in the front row along with script supervisor Petra Jorgensen during Lorne's performance in "The House Always Wins".
    • Marti Noxon sang the theme song for Cordy! in "Birthday".
    • David Fury appeared as a demon worshiper in one episode.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • In "Once More, With Feeling", writers Marti Noxon and David Fury both have small singing parts - bemoaning a parking ticket and celebrating successful dry cleaning, respectively.
    • In "Lie to Me", the fake vampire lying in a coffin who greets Willow enters a club ("Hi" Vampire in the credits) is played by Todd McIntosh, the show's makeup supervisor.
    • Joss Whedon was the voice of a newscaster in "I Robot, You Jane".
  • Firefly:
    • Joss had planned to perform the theme song (the "Ballad of Serenity"), which he wrote; before Sonny Rhodes was chosen to record it. A recording of Joss singing the theme song is included as a special feature in the DVD box set.
    • Joss Whedon appears, though just in the background, at the end of "The Message".
    • He also played the scientist interviewing River in "The R. Tam Sessions". She kills him.
  • In a cross between Whedon and Marvel, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has the obligatory Stan Lee cameo, as a train passenger who berates an undercover Coulson (Lee also appears in Agent Carter).
• Cougar Town: In episode 2 series creator Bill Lawrence plays one of the cops who first reprimand then party with Jules.
• Game of Thrones: Subverted. George R.R. Martin was a guest at Daenerys' wedding in the unaired pilot, but scheduling conflicts have prevented him from making another despite his prominent involvement in the production.
  • Played straight in Season 8, where writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss play two wildlings after the Battle of Winterfell.
• Terry Pratchett plays the toymaker in the Sky One miniseries based on the Discworld book Hogfather.
  • And the Arch-Astronomer of Krull in The Colour of Magic.
  • And a postman in Going Postal.
    • And gets the literal last word of dialogue in all three!
• Neil Gaiman appears in the background in one scene in the TV version of Neverwhere. On the commentary for the film version of Stardust, he laments not doing a cameo in the film, but the only scene he was on set for (the scene at the fake inn) was one where an extra's presence would make no sense.
• J. Michael Straczynski shows up to switch off the lights before the station gets demolished in the Grand Finale of Babylon 5.
  • Fans swear he's the one who starts the Slow Clap when Sheridan comes back from the dead, but he denies it.
  • Before this final episode, he was fond of saying "I don't make cameos, my initials do."
  • The entire production crew shows up right before the credits, with group photos in rapid fire freeze-frame style.
  • Creative consultant Harlan Ellison also makes a brief cameo in one episode as a Psi Cop.
  • In the season 5 intro, Straczynski's creator credit is actually written on the back end of the station.
  • Executive producer Douglas Netter appeared as President Luis Santiago in the first season.
  • Most of the cast, crew and even their children were mobilized for mass scenes such as those in the Casino, both in the pilot movie and during the series.
• Jeff Lindsay, author of the Dexter novels, appeared as a police officer in the third season of the TV series.
• Executive producer/showrunner Carlton Cuse has done multiple voice cameos on Lost, including a newscast in "Through the Looking Glass" and Jacob's call for help in "The Man Behind the Curtain." Co-creator/showrunner Damon Lindelof voices the pilot of the plane Jack is on in "Through the Looking Glass" and claims to have "played" Locke's hand when Locke flips the Pearl's lightswitch in "?"
• Longtime Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont shows up in an episode of The Gifted (2017) as a conspiracy theorist obsessed with mutants.
• Doctor Who:
  • In "Spearhead From Space", producer Derrick Sherwin appears uncredited as the UNIT commissionaire.
  • In "The Brain of Morbius", the faces seen during the mind-bending contest are production unit manager George Gallaccio, Robert Holmes, production assistant Graeme Harper, director Douglas Camfield, Philip Hinchcliffe, production assistant Christopher Baker, writer Robert Banks Stewart, and director Christopher Barry.
  • In "Arc of Infinity", producer John Nathan-Turner is seen briefly on a street in Amsterdam. He was (in real life) keeping Amsterdam people out of the frame, and a lot of people think he was filmed by accident, and since they were in a hurry, they decided to keep it.
  • The 25th-anniversary story "Silver Nemesis" featured a number of current and previous crew and cast as extras in the Windsor Castle scenes.
  • Mark Gatiss appeared, uncredited, as a Spitfire pilot in "Victory of the Daleks", a role which he reprises in "A Good Man Goes to War" (also cameoing in "The Wedding of River Song" under heavy make-up and a pseudonym in the credits). Downplayed as Gatiss is a writer-actor who previously appeared in a major credited role as the villain in the episode "The Lazarus Experiment", and later as Captain Lethbridge-Stewart in "Twice Upon a Time".
• Gatiss' appearances in Sherlock, which he co-created, as Mycroft Holmes were initially intended to be only brief cameos, but he ended up gradually becoming more and more important to the series in later seasons (hence why he is uncredited in the first series, but credited in all others).
• Tony Kushner has a cameo as a rabbi in the Angels in America miniseries.
• In the series finale of Battlestar Galactica, Ron Moore appears as a bystander reading a magazine article on robotics as Head Six and Head Gaius read over his shoulder.
• Kathy Reichs, the author of the Temperance Brennan books, gets a cameo in season 2 of Bones.
• Douglas Adams appeared a couple of times in the televised version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981). Most notably, he walks into the ocean stark naked after the actor who was hired didn't show up.
  • He can be seen enjoying a beer in Arthur's local when Ford and Arthur take their six pints to a table.
  • His likeness also appears in animated sequences as a director of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation ("a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes"), and in a dress and hair-bunches as Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings.
• jPod has a cameo by Douglas Coupland, who wrote the novel that inspired the series.
• Susan Nickson had a small role on Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.
• Bryan Singer appears in at least one, possibly two, episodes of House
• Ed Bye, director of Red Dwarf, appeared as the Grim Reaper in Only The Good...
  • And Rob Grant, one of the writers, appeared in Backwards as a man unsmoking a cigarette.
  • Andrew Ellard, the script editor of Back to Earth and Series X, has a blink and you'll miss him appearance in a chase scene in Back to Earth Part 3.
  • Richard Naylor, co-producer of Series X and son of co-creator Doug Naylor, has a background role as a student in the classroom scene at the start of The Beginning.
• Colin Dexter, writer of the Inspector Morse novels, has appeared in nearly every single episode of the TV series. He also turns up, though less frequently, in the spin-offs Lewis and Endeavour.
• Series creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas appear in a late first-season episode of How I Met Your Mother as fake paramedics who take part in Barney's "greatest pickup line of all time."
• Mark Wahlberg appeared as himself on Entourage, playing with Vince and Drama at a charity golf tournament.
• Robert J. Sawyer, author of the novel Flash Forward, has a brief, no lines cameo in the pilot of the TV series
• Stephen King, as with his films, tends to make cameos in his TV works. These include a bus driver in episode 5 of Golden Years, a pizza delivery guy in the TV adaptation of "Rose Red", and the finale of Kingdom Hospital, in which the Running Gag of their janitor Jonathan B. Goode never being around finally ends, as Goode is played by King himself.
• Grahman Linehan can be seen in The IT Crowd, as a scientist who runs across the screen during the Fight Scene between Reynholm Junior and his girlfriend who was from Iran used to be a man.
  • He's a bit of a fan of this one. He's turned up in The IT Crowd 4 times, Black Books twice and a fair number of times in Father Ted. In the script book for the latter, he expresses particular satisfaction that the final image of series two is a lingering close-up of his face.
• "Two Cathedrals," the second season finale of The West Wing, has flashbacks to the president's teenage years, where we meet his abusive father. He's played by Lawrence O'Donnell, who was a producer on the show. The cameo wasn't planned, but O'Donnell read the part at a read-through before it had been cast and it was decided that he was very convincing in the role. In "The Debate" a heckler during the titular debate by played by director and executive producer Christopher Misiano. In the series finale, Aaron Sorkin also appears briefly and silently in the inauguration scene.
• Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, is seen in Merlotte's talking to Sam in the final episode of the second season of True Blood. She reappears as a camerawoman on the set of Eric and Pam's commercial in the series finale.
• In the first season The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode "The Giuoco Piano Affair", series co-creator/executive producer Norman Felton, series co-creator/producer Sam Rolfe, associate producer Joseph Calvelli, and episode director Richard Donner all have cameos as guests at a party hosted by episode guest star Jill Ireland (then-wife of series co-star David McCallum).
  • And in an episode ("The Little John Doe Affair") of the Distaff Counterpart Spinoff The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., episode co-writer Joseph Calvelli also has a part as a police chief.
• Stargate SG-1 episode 200 had a number of spoof concepts of how the series might look if it were based on another popular series. In the case of the Star Trek: The Original Series spoof, the Scottish engineer was one of the producers.
  • Also, writer/directors Peter DeLuise and Martin Wood had a habit of appearing briefly in their own (and each other's) episodes.
• Donald P. Bellisario:
  • Appeared very briefly in a few episodes of NCIS. The episode "SWAK" has him in a walk in role [1] at a hospital and in "Cover Story" where his portrait is sitting next to McGee's as authors in a book publishers office [2].
  • He also appears, along with his son, as a man and child being evacuated from the island of Boragora when its volcano is erupting in the Tales of the Gold Monkey episode "A Distant Shout of Thunder."
  • And in Quantum Leap's "A Portrait For Troian," he plays the man who Scott Bakula's leaped into that episode.
    • In a strange subversion, Bellisario appears in "Lee Harvey Oswald" although played by a different actor.
  • Also appears in JAG: First As Himself at a Quantum Leap fan convention in season 3, as Hugh Blackadder in "To Russia With Love", and later on in the ninth season, his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is directly shown.
• In Monk:
  • Andy Breckman makes an appearance in "Mr. Monk and the TV Star" as the guy that walks past the golf cart Monk and Sharona are riding on at the studio
  • Executive Anthony Santa Croce is in "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan" where he is one of the guys sitting down in the background when Marci Maven begins bidding
  • In the start of "Mr. Monk and the Actor", when Monk and Natalie meet Randy at the crime scene, they see Stottlemeyer chatting with the show's producer David Hoberman and looking at a TV script.
  • And on a series-long version, Tony Shalhoub is not just Monk, he is also one of the executive producers.
• In a season 2 episode of NUMB3RS, two guys from the Russian mafia come and threaten Charlie by sitting in the back of the room while he's teaching. One of them is Nicolas Falacci, one of the show's creators.
• Simon Nye cast himself in two minor, non-speaking role in Men Behaving Badly - as "Catatonic Man" in 'Gary and Tony', and as Gary's Only Other Friend, Clive (previously The Ghost) in 'Wedding'.
• Sons of Anarchy: Increasingly blind Big Otto is played by Series Creator Kurt Sutter.
• In the first episode of Wire in the Blood, Val McDermid can be seen in the crowd outside the police station as a suspect is being transferred.
• Chris Carter appeared in two episodes of The X-Files: in the final episode of season 2 he has a brief role as "Another Agent" questioning Scully in one scene, and has a non-speaking cameo as a cinema audience member at the beginning of season 7 episode "Hollywood A.D." He also appears in the background of a hospital scene in the second movie.
• Most of Stephen J. Cannell's on-camera appearances were in other people's productions, but he also appeared in Tenspeed and Brown Shoe and Silk Stalkings, and had a recurring role on Renegade (as the Big Bad, no less).
• In Charmed the costume designer Eilish appears in season 4's "A Knight To Remember" seen in a picture with Paige from one of her work parties.
• Frequent Farscape director Rowan Woods plays an acting role (rather more than a cameo) in the episode "John Quixote" as the fat male Zhaan-impersonator. Woods also had a cameo in "A Human Reaction" alongside production designer Ricky Eyres and actor Anthony Simcoe (who normally plays D'Argo but appeared without his extensive prosthetics) in a scene where Crichton steps into the men's room at a bar.
• Homicide: Life on the Street: Barry Levinson, one of the show's producers and directors, makes a cameo As Himself in "The Documentary" when Lewis, Kellerman, and Brodie chase a suspect into his movie set.
• In Slings & Arrows, creators Susan Coyne and Mark McKinney play supporting roles as Anna Conroy and Richard Smith-Jones. The final member of the creative team, Bob Martin, makes his cameo as accountant Terry and gets a chance to deliver the "brief candle" monologue from Macbeth.
• Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, in addition to having an Author Avatar as a main character (George), appears in extra and bit roles, sometimes thinly disguised but just as often clearly recognizable. In spite of the frequency, this is never lampshaded, and he never develops into a consistent character as in Curb Your Enthusiasm.
  • Writer Larry Charles, easily recognizable by his huge beard, had a few cameos too, most memorably the guy who stinks up the airplane bathroom before Elaine uses it in "The Airport."
• Dan Harmon appears as English Memorial in the Community episode "Pillows and Blankets", and may also be seen on some admissions posters at Greendale.
• Pretty Little Liars had Sara Shepard, the author of the original books the show is based from, as a substitute teacher.
  • Ditto showrunner I. Marlene King showing up in the last episode as one of the guests at Ezra and Aria's wedding.
• Mark Goodson turned up on the panel of Match Game when panelist Charles Nelson Reilly was late.
• The Price Is Right was created way back in 1956 by Bob Stewart, who infrequently turned up, notably on the nighttime show, to assist in staging merchandise the contestants were bidding on.
• The Kids in the Hall was told to hold a contest to add interest to the show. Not wanting to give away standard prizes like a free ticket to attend a taping, they decided the prize for their contest was going to be the right to poke Paul Bellini with a stick, one of the shows writers. The fact that Paul Bellini appeared in his skits wearing only a towel, never spoke, and the contest was called "Touch Paul Bellini," increased the absurdity of it. Before long, the Paul Bellini fan club had a larger membership than the Kids In The Hall fan club. He had a few more cameos (including a second contest where the prize was to have breakfast with him) before one speaking line during the final scene of series.
  Paul Bellini: Thank God that's finally over. [dances on their graves]
• In the last episode of Perry Mason, Erle Stanley Gardner appeared as a judge. (Members of the crew also guested as — the crew of a television show.)
• Cecily von Ziegesar, author of the Gossip Girl books, has a cameo as herself in "The Wrong Goodbye" meeting Serena van der Woodsen.
• On the first season of Twin Peaks, David Lynch voices an FBI (ahem) director that Agent Cooper talks to over the phone. By the second season, that character, Gordon Cole, became an Ascended Extra, and in The Return (the renewed series, made over twenty years later) he's now one of the leads.
  • Mark Frost, who co-created the show with Lynch, had a cameo in one episode as a news reporter on TV. He appears again in The Return walking his dog in the woods. It's meant to be the same character, named Cyril Pons, but you could be forgiven for not recognizing him.
• Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence appears as bohemian Justice of the Peace "Van" (stretch it out - Vaaan[3]) in season 8 "My Soul on Fire: Part 1" and "My Soul on Fire: Part 2". He marries the Janitor and Lady with the line "It is now time to join these two, as only the creator can."
  • Later, in the show's finale (My Finale: Part 2), he appears as a janitor and he and J.D. deliver the final goodbye of the show.
• Terry Deary, author of the Horrible Histories book series, has frequent cameos on the show, including one singing role as the bishop in the Funky Monks song. Historical consultant Greg Jenner appears occasionally in nonspeaking roles, and producer Caroline Norris makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in the "Stupid Deaths" introduction.
• Person of Interest: In the second season finale, "God Mode," Jonathan Nolan, Greg Plageman, and Richard J. Lewis all make a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo appearance near the end.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus: Douglas Adams, who co-authored several sketches in the fourth series, had brief on-screen appearances in two episodes: near the beginning of "The Light Entertainment War" as a surgeon, and in "Mr. Neutron" as a Pepperpot loading a missile.
• Reacher: Author Lee Child is the very tall, older gentleman passing Reacher as he leaves the diner in the final minutes of the first season's last episode.
• Reading Rainbow: Laurence and Cecily Lancit, as well as other real-life crew members, are seen in the third episode, Bea and Mr. Jones, making an episode of the show.
• On Soap, creator Susan Harris appears in a few episodes as Babette, the prostitute.
• Power Rangers
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Writer/Director/Producer Doug Sloan appeared as Kimberly's uncle Steve, Kimberly's mom's date for Parents Day, and had two separate stints as a reporter before becoming a Descended Creator in the latter half of Zeo as the voice of Prince Gasket.
  • Power Rangers Zeo: Director Koichi Sakamoto guest starred as the alien warrior, Tritor in the episode "King for a Day." And his stuntwoman wife later played A-Squad Pink in Power Rangers S.P.D. and a mother in Power Rangers RPM.
  • Power Rangers Turbo:
    • Writer/Director/Producer Judd "Chip" Lynn appeared as a floating head in the two part finale.
    • Writer Jackie Marchand appeared as a bongo player in "The Song of Confusion" and later voiced Monster of the Week Mamamite in "Grandma Matchmaker" the following season.
• In the Masters of Horror episode "Imprint", watch for Shimako Iwai, writer of the original novel. She plays the torturer.
• In "Charlie X" of Star Trek: The Original Series, Gene Roddenberry himself voiced the ship's cook.
• In an episode of True Detective, creator Nic Pizzolatto makes a cameo appearance as a bartender. Possibly lampshaded as well. Woody Harrelson's character is interogatting the bartender. He then asks the bartender, "why are you making me say this shit?"
• In "Endless", the Series Finale of Warehouse 13, Jack, the equivalent of Artie at the future version of the Warehouse, is played by executive producer Jack Kenny, who also directed the episode.
• In an episode of The Incredible Hulk (1977), Jack Kirby played a police sketch artist.
• Judd Apatow, executive producer of The Ben Stiller Show, played the pseudo-network mascot Foxy the Fox, and also did a Jay Leno impersonation that he reprised on one episode of The Critic, on which he worked as a consultant.
• Sledge Hammer!! creator Alan Spencer can be seen in the backgrounds of several episodes, usually at the precinct.
• Unusual for the Game Show genre, but 1000 Heartbeats creator Paul Farrer conducts the live string quartet that plays to the beat of the contestant's heart. (He also wrote all the music for the show.)
• In Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, series co-creator Tina Fey plays Marcia, an incompetent prosecutor in the case against Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne.
• Madam Secretary executive producer Morgan Freeman guest-stars as the chief justice of the US Supreme Court in the season two premiere "The Show Must Go On".
• Scott Gimple, Executive Producer ofThe Walking Dead (2010), has appeared in the show five times as a zombie, as of the beginning of the sixth season.
• In one episode of Sunes Jul, the titular protagonist is watching a parody of the julekalender series Vilse i pannkakan. The hosts in this parody are played by Anders Jacobsson and Sören Olsson, the authors of the original Sune books.
• On episode 14 of The Ministry of Time, series co-creator Javier Olivares and director Marc Vigil appear in portaits as two former Ministry undersecretaries.
• Round the Twist:
  • Paul Jennings, the script writer, had several non-speaking cameos in the first series: he appears as a hospital patient in "Birdsdo", Ben Byron's ghost in "Without My Pants", and among a crowd in the finale "Lighthouse Blues".
  • One of the series directors Steve Jodrell also appears in "Birdsdo" (which he didn't direct) as a doctor.
• The Pilot Episode of The Kicks features an appearance by Alex Morgan, the author of the books.
• The Young Ones: Series creator Ben Elton appears in the episode "Bambi" as Mr. Kendall Mintcake, part of the opposing team on "University Challenge".
  • In the first episode ("Demolition") he also played Baz, the presenter of "Nozin' Aroun'", a program for young adults, by young adults, focusing on issues that affect young adults, that Rik was interested in watching.
• The Welsh radio newsreader in episode 9 of Torchwood: Miracle Day is Russell T Davies.
• Kamen Rider Double: The writers of the direct-to-DVD sequel movies each appear in their respective movies: Keiichi Hasegawa in the Kamen Rider Accel movie as a bar patron who almost gets pick-pocketed, and Riku Sanjo in Kamen Rider Eternal as the Sweets Dopant fought by Double at the start of the movie.
• The original M.A.N.T.I.S. TV movie saw Sam Raimi, who co-created it, as a loon interviewed by the police who claims to know M.A.N.T.I.S.
• Neil Gaiman is the voice of God in the Lucifer episode "Once Upon a Time". Gaiman created the Lucifer comic which the show is based on.
• Gaiman cameoed in two episodes of Neil Gaiman's Likely Stories: in "Foreign Parts" he's the Voice on the Radio and "Looking for the Girl" ends with TV show the main character was being interviewed for continuing with an interview with Gaiman As Himself, with the result that he's discussing how his stories work as the credits run.
• In The Sandman, Gaiman has a voice cameo in "A Dream of a Thousand Cats", as the Skull Bird that the central character meets in her dream.
• Starsky & Hutch:
  • In "Silence," assistant director Eldon Burke can be seen polishing the Torino. He later appears in "The Action" as a gambler and in "Photo Finish" as a patrolman.
  • Makeup artist Layne "Shotgun" Britton appears in "Murder on Stage 17" as a crew member named Shotgun.
• The 4400: In the Series Finale "The Great Leap Forward", the series' executive producer Ira Steven Behr makes a cameo appearance in a crowd scene.
• The Boys (2019):
  • A tweet by Eric Kripke shows up in episode 6.
  • Seth Rogen appears as himself in the same episode.
• A Running Gag in Frontline is writer/producer/director Tom Gleisner appearing in one episode per season as photocopier repairman Colin Konika, who gets no lines.
• The Twilight Zone (1959): In "Person or Persons Unknown", the patient who believes himself to be Winston Churchill is played by the director John Brahm.
• In Good Omens (2019), Neil Gaiman is a cinema patron in the scene where Hastur takes control of a film about cute bunnies to contact Crowley, and is also the voice artist in the film. Several creative methods are used to give Terry Pratchett cameos despite his death, including his hat being left in Aziraphale's bookshop, and Paul Kaye, who played him in the Docudrama Terry Pratchett: Back in Black, as the Electricity Board spokesman on the radio (referencing Sir Terry's early job as a press officer for three nuclear power stations). (According to Gaiman, when Sir Terry was alive, he proposed that their cameo should be in the background of the scene in the sushi bar, so they could spend it eating sushi.)
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • Robert Downey, Sr., who directed "Children's Zoo", "Teacher's Aide" and "Tooth and Consequences", played Mr. Miller in "Wordplay".
  • Wes Craven, who directed seven episodes, played Edgar, one of the imprisoned parents, in "Children's Zoo".
  • In "Opening Day", the director John Milius plays a party guest who tries to sexually harass Sally Wilkerson.
• In the Season Finale of Season Three of Black Lightning (2018), when the heroes are giving evidence at an inquiry into the ASA's actions, the judical panel includes Judge Isabella, played by Tony Isabella, and Judge von Eeden, played by Trevor von Eeden; the original Black Lightning creative team.
• All the masks used on King of Mask Singer are designed by Hwang Jaegeun. He eventually appeared as a contestant in episode 219.
• Crazy Like a Fox: Director Paul Krasny appears in an episode he directed, "Fox in Hollywood", in a cameo as a director whose shot is interrupted by Harry chasing the bad guy across the movie set.
• For Life: 50 Cent, the producer, appears as scary prison gang leader Cassius Dawkins.
• Philip Martin, writer of The BBC series Gangsters appears as a gang leader in the original Play for Today pilot, who gets killed by the main character, Kline. He also appears as another character in the Grand Finale, where he kills Kline.
• In a variant, the director of the original The Princess Bride, Rob Reiner, makes an appearance in Home Movie: The Princess Bride first playing the Grandfather, and later playing the Grandson.
• She's Gotta Have It: Spike Lee, who had created the original film it's based on and executive producer here, briefly shows up as a waiter in one episode.
• HEX: In the first episode, writer Julian Jones and producer Julian Murphy both get cameos, respectively as a cop and as the owner of a parked car.
• CSI-verse:
  • Franchise creator Anthony E. Zuiker appears in three episodes of the original series; first as a casino cashier, then as a heckler at at stand-up comedy joint, and finally as a security guard.
  • CSI: NY: Writer/producer/editor John Dove appears as Det. John Scagnetti in three episodes of Season 2.
• A few examples from Mike Schur series The Good Place include a food worker who calls the police on Pillboi in a flashback, one of Eleanor's soulmates during the reboot sequence, and a violin street performer in season 3, much of which is discussed during the podcast series. Perhaps the most notable example would be Glenn, the lovable Bad Place demon played by writer Josh Siegal, who would go on to be an occasional guest star throughout the four-season run of the show.
• Las Vegas: Gary Scott Thompson turns up as the psychiatrist's patient Sam interrupts in "3 Babes, 100 Guns and a Fat Chick".
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2023): Executive producers Rick Riordan, the author of the original books, and his wife Becky have cameos in the series:
  • In the first episode, Rick appears as a Yancy Academy staff member who is present during Percy's expulsion.
  • In the third episode, statues of Rick and Becky are present in Medusa's collection.
• Writer Jimmy Perry played a plaster bust of Napoléon Bonaparte in the final episode of The Gnomes of Dulwich.
• At this point, Lorne Michaels, the producer/creator of Saturday Night Live has made so many cameos over the show’s nearly 50 years on the air, you could practically consider him a recurring character of the show as well. A full archive of all his appearances can be found here.

Music

• Round Trip, writer of "Alternate Realities", voices Shining Armor's only line in the song.
• Derek Riggs, creator of Iron Maiden mascot Eddie, inserted himself on a piece of art (left on the front row - he's even wearing his signature on a jacket) and had Eddie throw him out of an airplane in another ("did you think that was an accident or a co-incidence? it was a comment"). He also put the band in the back cover of Somewhere in Time, and the singers who were being expelled in two singles (Eddie holds the head of Paul Di'Anno in the rejected cover for the EP Maiden Japan, and impales Bruce Dickinson in "Hallowed Be Thy Name").
• Klaus Voormann, a friend of The Beatles who did the cover of Revolver, hid his face in George's hair, right below John's mouth (he even wrote his name right above). When he was brought back for a collage in The Beatles Anthology, that piece of the cover was reused with a contemporary picture of Voorman.
• Nelly's song "Dilemma" samples Patti LaBelle's "Love, Need and Want You", and Patti LaBelle guest stars in the music video.
• Van Halen's "Unchained" famously has producer Ted Templeman cutting out David Lee Roth's banter with "Come on Dave, give us a break!" ("One break, coming uuuuup!").
• The video for George Harrison's 1988 song "When We Was Fab" features a cameo from the song's producer and co-writer Jeff Lynne.
• Arin Hanson tends to cameo in the music videos he directs for Ninja Sex Party (given that he's friends with both members). His cameos range from being a backup dancer in "Attitude City" and "Road Trip", the DJ killed by Ninja Brian in "Party of Three", and the homeless man Danny hires to dress as a dragon in "Dragon Slayer".
  • Arin also animated and provided grunts for the dinosaur segments in the NSP video "Dinosaur Laser Fight".
• The 1984 video for The Doors' song, "Strange Days" features a cameo from keyboardist Ray Manzarek.
• Destiny's Child's video for "Bootylicious" features a few brief shots of Stevie Nicks playing a guitar, as the song samples her song, "Edge Of Seventeen".
• Stevie Ray Vaughan's video for "Superstition" ends with the black cat getting picked up by Stevie Wonder, who walks off singing the chorus.

Pinball

• According to the artist, the driver shown on the backglass of The Getaway: High Speed II is designer Steve Ritchie.
• In Capt. Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, Bally artist Paul Faris and Marketing Vice-President Tom Nieman can be seen in the backglass crowd.
• Paul Faris likes to insert himself or his family members in his pinball art:
  • Faris and his wife are the Barbarian Hero and Damsel in Distress featured in Lost World and Paragon.
  • In Data East Pinball's Back to the Future, Faris and Brian Schmidt (music) are on the right side of the playfield.
• On the backglass of Red & Ted's Road Show, creator Pat Lawlor is driving a red Corvette, while Country singer Carlene Carter (who voices Red) appears on a billboard.
• White Water has a surprised man on the backglass that was modeled after the artist, John Youssi. Also, Bigfoot is modeled after the designer, Dennis Nordman.
• Lots of them on the backglass in Fish Tales:
  • The fishermen are artist Pat McMahon and designer Mark Ritchie.
  • The fisherman in the water filled waders (wearing a baseball hat) is Carl.
  • The worm is Jim Patla. According to Brian Eddy, "it kind of fit his personality at the time."
• The crowd for Gottlieb's Rocky pinball includes designer John Trudeau and artist David Moore.
• The Joker playing cards in Stern Pinball's High Roller Casino have the face of company president Gary Stern on them. This might have also been intended as a stealth Take That!, due to designer Jon Norris' relationship with Stern at the time.
• For Medieval Madness, artist Greg Freres did the voice of the jousting announcer.
• Pat Lawlor is the man driving the "Storm Blasters" weather van in Whirlwind.
• Cirqus Voltaire shows designer John Popadiuk as a high-wire artist on the backglass. Also, some members of the design team appear as the score judges at the end of each ball.
• According to John Trudeau, the backglass for Black Rose shows himself, Greg Freres, and Pat McMahon among the pirates.
• The Champion Pub uses programmer Duncan Brown as the model for the boxing man.
• Dennis Nordman can be seen on the sides of The Party Zone's cabinet.
• In Time Machine (Data East), artist Margaret Hudson is the Granola Girl hippie in the time machine.
• The truck driver in Truck Stop is Joe Dillon, who was Williams' Sales Vice President at the time.
• Baywatch:
  • Gregory J. Bonann, producer of the television show and a Real Life lifeguard, appears on the far playfield panel as the man carrying a surfboard.
  • Producer Douglas Schwartz is the man with the mustache near the bumpers, while across from him is executive producer Michael Berk and Jolly Backer, Sega's Director of National and International Sales.
  • Artist Markus Rothkranz' girlfriend appears as the surfboard-carrying blonde in the corner of the backglass.
• For The Phantom of the Opera, artist Paul Faris' daughter was the model for Christine Dae on the backglass.
• The Director's assistant in Lights... Camera... Action! (a woman wearing a tank-top with the name "Jeanine") is artist Constantino Mitchell's wife.
• Two of the buildings in Fire! (1987) include "Oursler's Arcade" (for designer Barry Oursler) and "Sprenger 1st National Bank" (for artist Mark Sprenger).
• Keith Elwin's games tend to have him appear in out of the way places:
  • An Easter Egg in Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast occasionally depicts him running through the woods during "Fear of the Dark" (which was originally a placeholder animation that was later replaced with a different one, before being re-added even later).
  • Jurassic Park (Stern) has a picture of him smoking a pipe taped to a computer screen◊.
• Dialed In! shows designer Pat Lawlor whenever you tilt (saying "Hey, it's only pinball!", no less).

Professional Wrestling

• Ron Feinstein, who owned Ring of Honor's first distributor, RF Video, served as the Christopher Street Connection's manager, Fun Athletic Guy. The other man who got the idea to start the promotion, Gabe Sapolski, served as commentator Jimmy Bower.

Puppet Shows

• During the Club Dubonet scene in The Great Muppet Caper, Gonzo starts going around the tables taking pictures of people. His first subject is none other than Jim Henson himself.
• At the end of A Muppet Family Christmas, Jim Henson is shown at the kitchen door, looking approvingly at the Muppets enjoying themselves, before deciding that he's going to have to wash the dishes.
• Similarly, at the end of The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years, Grover gives Jim the bill for the evening.

Radio

• In the Audio Adaptation of Neverwhere, the security guard at Richard's work and the Fop With No Name are played by Neil Gaiman. He also plays the Ferrymen in the adaptation of How the Marquis Got His Coat Back.
• In the Tertiary Phase of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978) Agrajag is voiced by the late Douglas Adams, who recorded his bit before his death. In the Quandary Phase, Arthur's producer at The BBC is played by the original Hitchhiker's producer, Geoffrey Perkins.
• In the Audio Adaptation of Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman are the cops who try to stop Crowley's Bentley (and named as Terry and Neil). Available as a trailer (with Ink-Suit Actor comic-panels) here.
• Lux Radio Theatre: Noël Coward was interviewed on the air during the December 28, 1936 broadcast of Cavalcade.
• In the Audio Adaptation of Stardust, Gaiman plays Seth, the villager who discovers baby Tristran.

Theatre

• William Shakespeare was an actor (or "player", as they were called back then) as well as a playwright and was known to act in the plays of others (particularly those of his longtime friend/rival Ben Jonson) and tradition holds that he originated several of the roles in his own plays, particularly the Ghost in Hamlet and Adam in As You Like It.
• On the 1960 Columbia recording of On the Town, composer Leonard Bernstein not only conducts but also sings the part of the barker at Coney Island ("Rajah Bimmy"). When the recording was first issued, the singer was credited as Randel Striboneen. (It also had Betty Comden and Adolph Green in their original roles, which are hardly cameos.)

Theme Parks

• At Universal's Islands of Adventure, Stan Lee makes not one, not two, but six cameo appearances in The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man.
• Mary Blair, the art director for "it's a small world" at the Disney Theme Parks, makes a hidden appearance in doll-form in the ride's Western Europe scene.
• Several of the windows on Main Street, USA contain references to various Imagineers and others who worked on the parks. These include Marc Davis, an animator, Ken Anderson, an art director, Blaine Gibson, an animator and master sculptor, Fred Joerger, a miniature and model builder, Wathel Rogers, a pioneer of the Audio-Animatronic technology that is now synonymous with the parks, and Elias Disney, Walt's father.
  • In the same vein, Fess Parker's name appears in Frontierland as the proprietor of a Coonskin cap company. In the Magic Kingdom's version of Tom Sawyer Island, Harper Goff, one of the major designers and planners of the parks, is immortalized in Harper's Mill.
  • Although Walt Disney's face is hard to miss in the parks, the Magic Kingdom features a smaller statue in the Hub of Walt's brother Roy and Mickey Mouse reclining on a bench. Roy spearheaded much of "the Florida project" after Walt's death, and was the one to suggest the name change from "Disneyworld" to "Walt Disney World" in his honor.
• Both versions of the "pre-flight" video in Star Tours feature Imagineers and their families acting as space travelers.

Toys

• The head sculpt for the G.I. Joe action figure "Tunnel Rat" is based on Larry Hama, the longtime writer of the Joe Comic Book. This was done by the toy developers as a tribute.

Video Games

• The first Ace Attorney has a cameo by Shu Takumi's dog Missile, as an enthusiastic (but not very useful) police dog.
  • A different Missile becomes a full-on cast member in Takumi's later game Ghost Trick. This time he's a Pomeranian, which is the same breed as Takumi's Missile.
  • Jacques Portsman's design is based on his voice actor, Yuuki Furukawa.
  • Buddy Faith was originally based on another member of the design team, who later asked them to make Buddy look less like him. Apparently he wasn't comfortable seeing himself as a corpse.
  • In a more minor example, the characters' voices are provided by members of the dev team (the localization team for the English versions) rather than dedicated voice actors - for instance, Manfred von Karma is voiced by the first game's composer, Masakazu Sugimori, in the Japanese version, while his daughter Franziska is played by localizer Janet Hsu in the English version.
  • In the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney film adaptation, Shu is seen in the gallery celebrating with Larry Butz after Edgeworth's trial.
• ANNO: Mutationem: Shuhei Yoshida, the head of PlayStation Indies, appears as a resident of Skopp City discussing his love of video games.
• Mothense, the composer of APICO's music, can be found on the upper-left island. They sell the game's OST as CDs that can be played in the jukebox.
• Aquaria has a Developer's Room^note located (spoilered in case you wanna find it yourself) in The Abyss with two unattractive (according to Naija humorous narration) fish that happen to have hair, one short and blonde, the other long and black. Now, in case you didn't know before, one of the amazing features of this game was that it was made just about entirely by two men.
• Jeff Vogel is a fourth-wall breaking Easter Egg near the end of Avernum 3.
• In Bayonetta, as Bayonetta and Jeanne are fighting on top of the missile, the missile flies by the Platinum Games building at one point. The P+ logo is also seen at the bottom of the screen during the Angel Attack mini-game.
• The last level of the freeware Binary Boy has the game's creator, Jared Johnson, standing in your path halfway through. Walking into him results in a trippy Interface Screw.
• The Binding of Isaac features the Mini-Boss Ultra Pride, which is a Dual Boss modelled after Edmund McMillen and lead programmer Florian Himsl. Edmund's attacks are based on Sloth.
• The BioShock series has Ken Levine as the uncredited voice for the Circus of Value machines as well as the Dollar Bill ones from BioShock Infinite...using the exact same voice. He also appears (still uncredited) in the original game as Martin Finnegan, one of Sander Cohen's pupils. Concept artist Mauricio Tejerina voices the El Ammo Bandito machine.
• In Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, IGA himself appears as an Optional Boss as part of the Kickstarter stretch goal. His attacks are very remnescent of Dracula, and he even opens the fight by tossing his wine glass.
• The Borderlands series has Gearbox president Randy Pitchford voicing Crazy Earl, a minor character who serves as a questgiver in the first game and the Black Market vendor in the second.
• Brütal Legend has (as of its second piece of downloadable content) a bust of some guy available to put up on Mount Rockmore. The Guardian of Metal thinks he knows him from somewhere.
• Sonic Team's Saturn firefighting game Burning Rangers has you rescue civilians, who email you with letters of thanks after each mission. Several of the civilians are Sonic Team members, who include cheat codes, production sketches and the like with their emails. (There's also a real-life Japanese poet who sends you a couple of poems - she's a friend of then-Team head Yuji Naka.)
• Chrono Trigger famously based its most elusive ending around this trope. Should the player manage to access the fight against Lavos without checking the bucket in the End of Time or by using the Epoch and then defeat him (this can be done using a gate that appears in Lucca's teleportation device at the start of a New Game Plus or by being strong enough to defeat Lavos during the normally-Unwinnable by Design encounter with him in the Ocean Palace), they'll gain access to a special version of the End of Time where they can travel around and speak with the game's development staff, who all share their own thoughts and feelings on the game and its development process. In Spekkio's room, they can even speak with the game's higher-ups (who Gaspar calls "The Dream Team"), who are all given their own custom sprites for the game (save for Nobuo Uematsu). Afterwards, the credits will zoom by in the span of five seconds as a way of acknowledging how quickly the game was beaten. Chrono Cross did the same thing if the player beats the Time Devourer right at the start of a New Game Plus, though this time everyone is just depicted with regular enemy sprites.
• Sid Meier has served as an advisor to the player throughout the Civilization series; in later games, his digital avatar even runs the tutorial.
• Clive Barker's Undying: Ambrose Covenant's voiced by none other than Clive Barker himself.
• Dominic Lockhart in Crysis 2 is modeled after Cevat Yerli, Crytek's CEO.
• Death Road to Canada has K*E*P*A mode, a game mode where you try and keep designer Kepa Auwae alive for the entire run.
• Divekick has creator Adam Heart voicing the character Kenny.
• Doom:
  • To win Doom II, you must defeat the Icon of Sin, whose inner core takes the form of oremoR nhoJ.
  • In Doom³, one of the guards is voiced by John Carmack. "Welcome to the Dungeon, Marine" indeed.
• A hard-to-find Easter Egg Random Encounter in Dragon Age: Origins features a "Gaider" (i.e. David Gaider, the lead writer for the series) fleeing from a crew of bratty kids yelling at him about what they want to hear in a story (including "zombie kittens!"). (Oddly, he's not voiced by Gaider, making it sort of a half-cameo.)
• In EarthBound (1994) and Mother 3, the voice that says "OK desu ka?" ^note which translates to "Is this OK?" in English when a player names a character is actually a recording of creator Shigesato Itoi. He was recorded without his knowledge while speaking to one of the game's sound designers.
• Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong-Nou lets you get inside its creator's head in more ways than one. The green-tinted face of Osamu Sato represents the island of Tong-Nou, and you'll have to crawl into one of its orifices to retrieve your soul from the Acid-Trip Dimension within.
• Epic Battle Fantasy composer Phyrnna has cameoed twice in the series:
  • Bullet Heaven 2 features her as a playable character, unlocked in the Shop for 10,000 coins.
  • Epic Battle Fantasy 5 gives Phyrnna a cameo in the video game Matt plays in the opening cutscene. She also appears in the Battle Arena as an NPC, giving the aptly-named Phyrnna's Blessing skill once all five solo challenges there are finished.
• Escape Velocity has various Ambrosia Software employees as NPCs.
• Fahrenheit, David Cage is modeled for and voices the intro/tutorial of Indigo Prophecy.
• In Fallout 4, Parker Quinn is voiced by and modeled after Emil Pagliarulo, the game's lead designer.
• Final Fantasy XIV has Naoki Yoshida appearing as himself during every Rising event, usually to thank the player for sticking by the dev team by playing their game.
• Scott Cawthon, creator of Five Nights at Freddy's, is the voice of the "Phone Guy" who leaves voice-mail messages for you throughout the game. He reprises his role as Phone Guy in Five Nights at Freddy's 2 because it's a Stealth Prequel, and Five Nights at Freddy's 3 in what is basically archival recording, and also as "Phone Dude", the employee of Fazbear's Fright.
• The author of the fanmod Five Nights at Vault 5 voices the robots and Nicolaus Ainsworth (aka the mod's Phone Guy).
• Football Manager occasionally creates new players that take the name, birthday, birthplace and a few other traits (such as favourite teams or personnel) from Sports Interactive staff members, or voluntary nation researchers. You can find them all by searching for "faceinthegame".
• Jane Jensen appears in Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within, on the cover of a German newspaper Gabriel picks up at the Hunt Club, and in Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, when Gabriel looks through the bookstore's window in Rennes-le-Château.
• In Glider PRO, the four creators of "Slumberland," john calhoun, Paul Finn, Ward Hartenstein and Steve Sullivan, each have their portrait on the wall of a room named for them.
• Goat Simulator allows you to visit an in-game version of Coffee Stain Studios' offices, where you can encounter various employees and play Flappy Goat.
• In God of War Ragnarök, part of the main quest has you meeting a dwarf named Raeb in his tavern. He's voiced by his Ink-Suit Actor and one of the game's composer, Bear McCreary.
• In Going Under, Jackie has a poster of Aggro Crab, the game's developer-company, in her bedroom, and the opening cutscene displays Aggro Crab's logo among those companies' logos who were acquired by Cubicle.
• In Goodbye Volcano High, several background dinosaurs seen throughout the game are based on members of the game's development team.
• Gwent: The Witcher Card Game:
  • One of the Scoia'tael units, Pavko Gale, is based on and voiced by community manager Pawel Burza. He sometimes cosplays as Pavko for various media outings such as this Studio Tour.
  • Walter Veritas, a Syndicate unit, is based on game director Jason Slama.
• Half-Life:
  • Gabe Newell has an office in Black Mesa's administration center.
  • Earlier than that, the lockers of the employees of Sector C all have the names of Valve team members. Same goes for the lockers in the Security Facilities in Half-Life: Blue Shift, which feature the names of Gearbox Software employees.
  • The names mentioned by the Black Mesa Announcement System are also those of Valve developers.
• In The Jackbox Party Pack, various Jackbox Games employees make cameos, especially as incidental characters or background voices during sign-in.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The 7th Stand User: Hirohiko Araki, the mangaka of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure appears as the Super Boss representing the hardest fight of the game.
• In Katawa Shoujo, the convenience store "Aura Mart" is named after one of the lead writers of the game.
• Keiji Inafune:
  • In Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, say hello to a weaponized Keiji Inafune.
  • The third game of the series introduces him as a freaking battleship! Oh and he brings former Xbox Mission Division spokesman Izawa along for the ride.
• In Killing Floor, the characters of Masterson and Briar are voiced by Tripwire Studios executives Alan Wilson and Mark Hayler. The roles were recast for Killing Floor 2, but "classic" versions were still available, this time with the Classic characters actually modeled after their actors.
• In both King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages, some of the portraits of the randomized nobles are based on various members of the creative teams. As a result, a few Six Ages nobles have an uncanny resemblance to those in King of Dragon Pass. Distant ancestors, perhaps?
• Many of the newer LEGO Adaptation Games feature cameos from the creators of their source material:
  • Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow appear as playable characters in LEGO Jurassic World, unlocked after beating all the story missions.
  • Peter Jackson's aforementioned carrot-chewing cameo in Fellowship of the Ring is recreated in LEGO The Lord of the Rings.
  • LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, LEGO Marvel's Avengers, and LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 all have Stan Lee as a civilian who must be rescued in every level and in multiple parts of the hub world. Avengers also has him filling the role of various one-liner characters, such as the old man who stands up to Loki in Stuttgart. In all three games, rescuing him every possible time rewards you with the ability to play as him, and in all three games he has the powers and abilities of almost all the main heroes combined.
  • LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham has Kevin Smith and Geoff Johns as Quest Givers in the hub world, who can eventually be unlocked as playable characters. Adam West also appears as the "In Peril" character, with the game featuring several references to the campy Batman series he starred in, culminating in a bonus level that plays out like an episode of it.
  • LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens has J. J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy as unlockable characters.
  • While technically not part of the LEGO Adaptation Game series, the Ghostbusters (2016) Story Pack of LEGO Dimensions features Paul Feig as the "In Peril" character.
• Stan Lee continues his trend of Marvel cameos in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, appearing in-game as Senator Lieber, whom you rescue from Titanium Man. Deadpool, per his Fourth Wall breaking antics, claims he knows him from "somewhere".
• Mercenary Kings has six of its top Kickstarter backers appear as abducted hostages. This includes Pendleton Ward.
• Metal Gear:
  • Hideo Kojima lends his voice to Psycho Mantis' passing-on scene in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
  • He also acted as the motion-capture actor for the sailor aboard the Missouri.
  • He is also recruitable in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, found inside a truck at the Crater Base before fighting the Pupa. The console versions give you a trophy/achievement for finding him.
  • Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes expands this cameo as having Kojima go undercover at Camp Omega and Snake having to rescue him during one of the Side Ops. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain turns him into a recruitable soldier like in Peace Walker, complete with a Side Op involving rescuing him if you didn't in Ground Zeroes.
  • He also appears briefly in the prologue of Death Stranding as one of the BTs that tries to drag Igor into the tar.
• Naming a mob either "Grumm" or "Dinnerbone" in Minecraft flips it upside-down. Naming a sheep jeb_ makes it cycle through all possible wool colors in a loop, though it will still give wool in its original color when sheared. These are the screen names of a few of Minecraft's developers.
• Mortal Kombat sound and music designer Dan Forden appears in a few of the games (II 3, and all since 9) popping up in the corner of the screen to say "TOASTY!" when one of the fighters performed an uppercut. The falsetto soundbite also shows up after Scorpion's Kill It with Fire Fatality in 4 (it's even "TOASTY, 3D!"), as a minigame defeat taunt in Deadly Alliance, and during combo chains in Shaolin Monks''.
• The Mummy Demastered seems like it keeps Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll from the movie, but the director said that it's actually him with Crowe's hair given the actor denied to license his likeness.
• In Never Gives Up Her Dead, you can read graffiti written on the walls of the Stonehenge area. The tags listed are the (usually first) names of people who helped beta test the game.
• One title in the NHL Hockey series allows you to basically create members of the EA development team if you input their names in the Create-A-Player option.
• The news anchor who appears in the opening sequence of Ninth Rock is in fact the lead programmer.
• Wolf in PAYDAY: The Heist and its sequel was modeled after and voiced by Overkill Software's then-CEO, Ulf Andersson. The two also share a similar backstory (software designers whose companies went bankrupt in the recession) and name ("Ulf" is Swedish for "Wolf").
• The writer of Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh has a cameo as the female patient in the mental asylum who tells Curtis that he's "Sick and Wrong!"
• Pokémon has one in every single one of its main games. They are in the developers room. They also usually give you a certificate if you fully complete your Pokédex.
  • In Pokémon Black and White, you actually get to battle one of the employees. Shigeki Morimoto to be specific. Too bad he doesn't have Mew on his team...
• Postal 2 developers Running With Scissors have an office in the game's town of Paradise. The game's first day has the Postal Dude pick up his paycheck from the RWS offices for being a part of the game.
• Rabi-Ribi features CreSpirit's office as a location you can visit in-game, but only during one particular point as it is in a one-time arva. Defeating each member of the development team will make them tell you about the secret techniques that are required to perform a Minimalist Run.
• The opening cutscene of Rampage reports on three humans mutated into the playable monsters. The people pictured are designer Brian Colin as George, his wife Rae as Lizzie, and programmer Jeff Nauman as Ralph.
• Rescue on Fractalus!: The programmers posed in costume as pilots for the packaging and manual.
• Rise of the Triad's cast of enemies consist of some members of the Developers of Incredible Power, such as George Broussard as the Triad Enforcer, Joe Siegler as Sebastian "Doyle" Krist, and Tom Hall as the Final Boss El Oscuro.
• In Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, in Lucas Lee's stage, twice a guy jumps into the action with one of those things you use to yell "Cut!" or "Action!" and begin an encounter. The guy is Edgar Wright, the director of the film. Wright can even be seen within the pile of dead bodies in the Stage 2 end cutscene.
• Monkey Island:
  • George Lucas makes a brief cameo in The Secret of Monkey Island as a man in a troll suit.
  • In Tales of Monkey Island, there is a mention of a "Nor Treblig" (Ron Gilbert backwards) through the series, and Murray mentions many staff members of LucasArts and Telltale Games in the end credits of Chapter 3, including Dan Connors and Kevin Bruner (whose portrayals in two picture frames as "D.C. Grosscup" and "K.B. Popnecker" appear in the Courthouse in Chapter 4).
• Yuji Naka is referenced in dialogue as a civilian in Shadow the Hedgehog.
• Sierra is found within their own games. Staff are found in Leisure Suit Larry 3, King's Quest IV and Space Quest III, a programmer is in The Hoyle Book of Games, and future versions of Sierra are referenced in Space Quest IV. Magazines and hint books establish a Direct Line to the Author. Al Lowe is found in the Leisure Suit Larry VGA remake. The Two Guys from Andromeda, Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, appear or are mentioned in Space Quest III, IV, V, VI, and Quest for Glory I. Ken and Roberta Williams are inside Daventry castle in Space Quest I; Ken Williams appears in some versions when typing Ken in the opening screen. Other characters resembling Ken Williams appear in Space Quest I and III, and the manual for V.
• Due to budget limitations members of Cryptic Studios often do their own voice-acting for Star Trek Online. A particular case is Jeremy "Borticus" Randall, a programmer who voiced Captain James Kurland, the CO of Deep Space 9. After one of his lines in "Boldly They Rode" went memetic, he commented that it wasn't his best work and even added the line to his forum signature.
• While not technically the game's creators, the band Steam Powered Giraffe shows up as performers in bars in SteamWorld Heist, while one of their songs is playing.
• Current Super Robot Wars series producter Takenobu Terada states he's part of the chorus for the new song from Jam Project for Super Robot Wars X, "The Steel Warriors".
  • Also, Tomino's character from Gundam: Reconguista in G appears in one stage as a secret. If you land on a certain square with a UC Gundam main character, he'll give you some special items. Amuro even remarks that he "almost feels like father".
• Masahiro Sakurai lent his voice to King Dedede in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
• The PSP visual novel Sweet Fuse: At Your Side features the afformentioned Keiji Inafune as the manager of an amusement park, with the player assuming the role of Saki Inafune, Keiji's (fictional) niece.
• In The Talos Principle, you can pass through a fake wall and end up in a secret area where androids with the devs' names and faces are running around. There's also another one if you manage to ascend the tower without releasing Shepherd.
• Katsuhiro Harada, creator of the Tekken series, appears as an opponent in Soul Calibur V (which he helped work on as part of the Project Soul team) using the "Soul of Devil Jin" fighting style.
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 allows you to play as staff members of the game's developer Neversoft. After entering a cheat at the main menu, you can go to Create Skater and enter one of several names (such as Joel Jewett and Mick West, two of the company's founders), and your character will change into them.
• Ultima: Richard Garriott is on Neptune in Ultima II, and in prison in Ultima IX. In Ultima V, Christopher the farmer is Chris Roberts, a game designer at Origin. Dr. Cat in Ultima V and Ultima VI is writer David Shapiro. Denys in Savage Empire is artist Denis Loubet. Warren Spector is referenced as Dr. Spector in Savage Empire and Martian Dreams, and "a spectre named Warren" in Ultima Underworld. In Ultima IX, the stove in the Avatar's house shows the stove designer's reflection.
• In Vanquish, Shinji Mikami appears as an NPC ally.
• Welcome to the Game: Adam, the protagonist's friend who teaches the player how to play via Skype, is both voiced and named after the creator.
• Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts:
  • He provided the voice for the Communications Officer for the TCS Coventry, one of the destroyers escorting your carrier later in Wing Commander III.
  • Roberts also has a cameo in the big trial scene at the end of Wing Commander IV when you win the game, as the Black Lance member who proclaimed "...and I couldn't go on!"
• The Wonderful 101 has Hideki Kamiya as one of the unlockable secret characters. He is very much a Lethal Joke Character, with a variant of Unite Goggles that is different from Wonder-Goggles', but take so much as a scratch with him as the leader, and it's a one-way ticket to the continue screen.
• In Wreckfest, a large balloon in the shape of Bugbear Entertainment's bedsheet-ghost logo flies over Drytown Desert Circuit.
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown lets you get super-units when you use the names of certain members of the staff on your troops. Sid Meier and Ken Levine are among them.
• In Xenonauts, you can get its creator's, Chris England, face on one of your poor redshirts.

Web Animation

• Bad Days sticks its animators and writers into a number of scenes, such as one in which they get squished by Godzilla. As seen in the page quote, sponsor Stan Lee also frequently shows up, and almost always becomes the only person to deliver spoken dialogue.
• Broken Saints writer/director Brooke Burgess (a bit reluctantly) agreed to be the voice actor for Gabriel when voices were recorded for the DVD. Like with Shayamalan's cameos, this is actually a meaty role and more than just a regular cameo.
• At least once an episode of Etra chan saw it!, the name 'Etra' will be mentioned as a company or as a brand.
  • Etra herself appears in the one-year anniversary video and as the announcer of the short film festival in this video.
  • Etra appears in a restaurant named after her in this video.
• Helluva Boss: In the pilot, I.M.P accidentally enters a church when using a portal to the living world. Everyone in the church is a crew member of the series.
• Inanimate Insanity creator Adam Katz calls MePhone from time to time letting him know about an aspect of the show that needs changing, usually regarding fan favourite Bow. In addition, Baseball, Nickel and Test Tube are all voiced by Adam Katz. Taco was also voiced by Adam, but upon her appearance in season 2, she got a new voice actor due to Adam being too old to play the part.
  • In episode 9 of Inanimate Insanity Invitational, the cartoons created by the teams feature Adam himself playing the main character.
• In Battle for Dream Island, all of the characters were voiced by the creators Cary and Michael Huang (except for the Announcer, for obvious reasons). In Battle for BFDI they still voice nearly half of the characters, with Cary voicing Ruby, Match, Pin, Marker, 8-Ball, Bracelety, Grassy, Spongy and X, and Michael voicing Woody, Donut, Eraser, Firey, Yellow Face, Flower, Blocky, Coiny, Snow Ball, Cloudy, Robot Flower, Pencil, Pen, Loser, Leafy, Golf Ball and Four.
• In one of the episodes of If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, upon hearing about the Second Founding and the current state of Space Marines, the God-Emperor proceeds to rant how now there could be Space Marines Chapters the teachings and acceptance standards of which go against what the Imperium stands for, and that some of them might even be so bad that they look like something "out of disgustingly horrible and shitty fanfiction." And then the camera cuts to a scene of the show's creator Alfabusa's own Alfa Legion, featuring Alfabusa himself along a couple of other real-life members of Alfa Legion. This is Played for Laughs, of course.
• Rooster Teeth tends to have its employees doing small roles - for instance, composer Nico Audy-Rowland as an informant in the miniseries MIA, Monty Oum as a waiter in the miniseries Holiday Plans and a soldier in a season 12 episode, and machinimator\director Josh Ornelas does the closing narration in one season 14 episode.
• Spooky Month:
  • Sr. Pelo himself appears down the street in "It's spooky month", screaming as he gets abducted by Frank.
  • In "The Stars", one of the various ice creams advertised on Frank's van is based on Pelo's Author Avatar.
  • One of the background artists for "Deadly Smiles", Sifyro, snuck a plush of her author avatar◊^note More specifically, the "imp" version◊ of her into one of the backgrounds she did.

Webcomics

• Cirque Royale has the author and artist, atomicbritt, as a minor character based on herself named Java Chip who's the owner of the Clowny Island comic shop, Atomic Comics. She's in multiple background shots and during the town meeting during Lantern Day, she hangs a lampshade on various comic issues under the guise of complaining about an unnamed in-universe comic to Quinn and Kingston.
• Close To You Heart: The comic artist Afrothunder briefly appears in a Fourth Wall break in Blixer's Travel Montage where he's traversing multiple settings to get home.
• Commander Kitty has its author, Scotty Arsenault (or at least a Funny Animal version thereof) show up in a stasis chamber.
• Tagalong, the writer, and Tria, the artist, make occasional appearances during Breaking the Fourth Wall moments of Dubious Company. This usually ends with Tiren chasing them off. Tria also appears as a random student in the High School AU arc giving Elly Valentines Day chocolate before bolting out the door.
• This El Goonish Shive strip (panel 6) has Dan Shive in a comic shop. Note that this is different from the Author Avatar character that appears in some non-canon strips.
• Girl Genius authors performed "radio dramas". Note how their colorist Cheyenne Wright voices ham-tastic Othar Tryggvassen (Gentleman Adventurer!).
• Sarah Ellerton puts herself in Inverloch as a mage who takes Acheron to see the Archmage of Aydensfell.
• Two differently aged Shaenon Garritys appear in the Li'l Mell story "Homeschool Joe Goes To School" accompanied by versions of Jeffrey Wells, co-creator of Skin Horse. The younger pair are Mell and Sergio's classmates (back row, behind half the Skin Horse cast), the older pair are teachers.
• In Strip 864 of The Order of the Stick, the thumb of Rich "The Giant" Burlew appears as "Sir Thumb the Digit Knight".
• Jeph Jacques appears as an extra in this Questionable Content strip.
• Schlock Mercenary webcomic sometimes have own author appear, most notable one being one where he complained about many new characters being difficult to draw!
  • Also contains a meta example. The storyteller is more or less identical to Phil from What's New? with Phil and Dixie.
• Sleepless Domain: When Tessa changes schools, series author Mary Cagle makes a cameo as her homeroom teacher, Miss Cable. If the name doesn't tip you off, she's almost identical to Mary as she appears in Let's Speak English, her autobiographical comic about teaching in Japan. She's described by her students as being "kinda goofy," and apparently wastes time during class talking about "life or dogs or something."
• An interesting take on this is that Tom, one of Stjepan Sejic's major characters in Sunstone looks identical to Sejic's drawings of himself, but Tom is a fleshed out character in his own right.
• TwoKinds: The creator appears as the pizzaman who joins the main cast as they awkwardly walk in on Trace and Flora. He appears again as caricature letting the readers know about about the scene along with a break occuring.
• Ashley Jane is checking out the view on the first page of Uncommon Animals.
• David Willis occasionally appeared in the Walkyverse, mainly in the more comedic comic Shortpacked!, in which he is apparently Ethan's 'rival' on the Transformers Wiki. Willis states his 'character' does exist in Dumbing of Age as the creator of Dexter and Monkey Master and Ultra Car, but won't make a physical appearance in the comic.
• Occasionally, a stick figure addressed or referred to as "Randall" will show up in xkcd.

Web Original

• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog has quite a few:
  • All three Whedon brothers lend their voices to the Bad Horse Chorus.
  • Jed Whedon also plays both Chorus member #2 onscreen, and ELE member Dead Bowie.
  • Zack Whedon gets a bit part as a paramedic during the ending.
  • Maurissa Tancharoen is one of Captain Hammer's groupies.
  • And it's actually Joss Whedon's fist that smashes Dr. Horrible's van-controlling device.
• Gameboys - Director Ivan Payawal drives the brown Innova fake-out in Episode 4. You can also see the names of various people involved in production sprinkled around as social media accounts.
• On the LEGO Indiana Jones website, there is a short cartoon that ends with minifigs of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg watching the short itself, complete with a E.T baseball cap and a plaid T-shirt.
• "Nightfall": As typical for a college film, writer/co-producer Demi Jong appears in the film with a bit part; the news anchor giving Exposition in the background.
• Sam & Mickey have dolls that look and sound like them sometimes appear in their videos.
• In Super Academy, director Ben Lifson appears as "Blifson the Clown", whose sole role in the film is to fall victim to Dark Cop's Establishing Character Moment.
• In Welcome to Night Vale, Carlos the Scientist is first voiced by series writer and co-creater Jeffrey Cranor.

Western Animation

• Amphibia: In "Sprig's Birthday", showmaker Matt Braly can be seen at a hot dog vendor during the hot air balloon's flight.
• Arcane: The founders of Studio Fortiche are shown as cheery drunks celebrating Progress Day.
• Classic Disney Shorts: Ferdinand the Bull features several of the animators drawn into the parade scene, with Walt Disney himself as the matador.
  • In The Nifty Nineties, animators Fred Moore and Ward Kimball appear as a comedy duo during a vaudeville show.
• Supervising director Dave Filoni provides the voice of the bounty hunter Embo in The Clone Wars, though it can be hard to tell due to the editing. As a bonus, the character also sports a nice hat, just like his voice actor!
  • And in Star Wars Rebels, Filoni provides the voices for incidental characters and even a main character - the astromech Chopper!
• Matt Groening appears as one of the heads in the head museum in the pilot of Futurama.
  • Groening appeared in an episode of The Simpsons where they went to a sci-fi convention and everyone was excited to see the creator of Futurama. He was also a boss in The Simpsons Game.
  • Speaking of Futurama, Leela once enters an internet chat room filled with nerds, all of whom are drawn after members of the production crew.
  • And the animators also sometimes inserted themselves into episodes, such as "The Last Temptation of Krust", where stepping through the zip-pan from Krusty and the marketers to the Canyonero waiting outside reveals a hidden scene with several staffers (and Jay Leno).
  • The Itchy & Scratchy production crew seen in the "Itchy and Scratchy and Poochy" episode are all based on the real-life writers and animators.
  • The tall man from The Simpsons episodes "22 Short Films About Springfield" and "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" is said to have been based on writer Ian Maxtone-Graham.
  • A case of a voice-actor cameo - in the episode "I Am Furious (Yellow)", the actor chosen to voice Angry Dad in Bart's web series of the same name (based on his father, Homer) was a caricature of Dan Castellaneta, Homer's real-life voice actor, voiced by Dan Castellaneta using his normal voice. The voice he demonstrates for Angry Dad sounds exactly like his Homer Simpson voice, naturally.
  • Subverted in the "138th Episode Spectacular" where the audience is shown a series of caricatures of producers Groening, Sam Simon, and James L. Brooks that look nothing like them. Groening in particular is portrayed as some sort of bald, quasi-fascist southerner with an eyepatch.
• The Venture Bros. :
  • The jury in the episode "The Trial of the Monarch" is entirely composed of people who work on the show, including the creators, making this exchange even better.
    The Judge: This is a trial by jury, and it's up to your peers to decide this.
    The Monarch: Peers? Peers?! How dare you! That repulsive display of humanity out there?
  • Co-creator Doc Hammer also appears in Dermott's yearbook.◊
• The creators of Teen Titans (2003) draw themselves in there all the time, In fact, it's hard to find an episode without a single reference to the creative team.
• In an episode of Rocko's Modern Life creator Joe Murray appears next to Rocko in a hospital bed after he had been in a coma and he comments on how Rocko is drawn Off-Model.
• Jhonen Vasquez makes a cameo in a couple of Invader Zim episodes. He's the guy with the red hair and sunglasses who swallowed a piranha in "The Wettening".
  • Other writers, such as Roman Dirge, Danielle Koenig, and Frank Conniff, also cameo frequently; storyboard artists and other production staff members also pop up. Executive producer Mary Harrington played a parody of herself in the "Mysterious Mysterys" episode, and—on arguably the funniest instance—Vasquez and director/producer Steve Ressel can be seen eating dinner together with a script marked "The Nightmare Begins" (the title of the first episode) on the table between them in "Germs."
• In an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, series producers Bruce Timm and Paul Dini appear as men singing "Auld Lang Syne" in a diner on New Year's Eve, when Batman and Gordon sit down for their once-a-year coffee.
  • Bruce Timm was actually the villain in the episode "The Grey Ghost Strikes!" — though this is a bit more than a cameo.
  • Dini voiced the ineffectual guard who appeared at the beginning of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
  • In Batman Beyond, Bruce Timm voiced J-Man.
  • When The Joker is looking for a new Harley, among the terrible candidates is a fat man in a Harley suit, who's a cameo (and Self-Deprecation) of Dini. Later lampshaded when Joker laments his choice of a bubble-headed woman by saying "I should've gone with the fat guy."
  • In "Harley and Ivy", three young men pull up to Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy at a stoplight and make cat calls at them. Two of the men are caricatures of Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski, but with their hair color mismatched.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
  • A couple of cops modeled after creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird would occasionally appear in the second animated series whenever the plot required policemen, making them both this and Recurring Extras.
  • Also, several background extras in Back to the Sewer and Turtles Forever are based on people who worked on the series, as well as some of their friends.
  • While Turtles Forever has appearances by the Eastman and Laird cops, they also appear in the end, in live action. While they were played by different actors, Eastman and Laird actually supplied their voices.
• Not only does The Spectacular Spider-Man executive producer Greg Weisman appear in the show's opening, Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee also made a cameo in the first episode of season 2.
  • Stan also appeared in an episode of The Incredible Hulk (1996), as She-Hulk's dad!
  • And in the final episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series as HIMSELF! His wife, Joan Lee, had a recurring role on the series, playing the voice of Madame Web.
    • He occasionally appears in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon as the janitor at Peter's school and interacts with both Pete and Spider-Man on occasion.
• The creators and writers for Robot Chicken always appear in the last episode of a season and the first episode of the next one as part of a Running Gag where the show gets cancelled every year, usually accompanied by most of the staff dying in the process only for everything to get better next season.
• Hey Arnold! creator Craig Bartlett portrayed numerous voices for the show, including Helga's asthmatic stalker, Brainy; radio station M-JAZZ deejay Nocturnal Ned; and Arnold's dad Miles in episodes "Arnold's Hat," "Parents Day," and "The Journal." Story editor Antoinette Stella portrayed Arnold's football-headed mom, Stella, in "Parents Day" and "The Journal." (Ironically, Bartlett says the character Stella is not named for her voice actress, but in honor of The Grateful Dead's song "Stella Blue.")
  • Also, Steve Viksten the show's head writer, voiced many background characters—Most notably wisecracking Lazy bum Oscar Kokoschka.
• The Interdimensional Comic Con Panel that Bat-Mite sets up in Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Legends of the Dark Mite" features animated versions of the actual show creators. The speech about how this show's Lighter and Softer Batman is no less valid that the grim avenger of the night was essentially the series' mission statement, and Executive Producer James Tucker's Take That! to the critics. As an added bonus, the two detractors of this idea are Batman: The Animated Series creators Bruce Timm and Paul Dini (Who actually wrote Legends of the Dark Mite) dressed as Joker and Harley Quinn respectively.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: In "Journey to Ba Sing Se", the fake Avatar holding the staff◊ is producer Mike DiMartino. In "The Ember Island Players", playwright Pu-on Tim is the episode's writer, Tim Hedrick.
  • In "The King of Omashu," Aang has to fight a formidable foe. He gets to choose between Mike DiMartino◊ and Bryan Konietzko◊.
  • Also, a stealthy (and possibly even unintentional example): Bryan and Mike.◊ Notice anything familiar?◊
• Outside of their two major roles, the creators of Phineas and Ferb, Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, pop up from time to time as in universe avatars. In the Mission Marvel Special Stan Lee appears as a hot dog salesman (with a stand appropiately named "Excelsior Hot Dogs").
  • In Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe, Dan and Jeff make a special live action appearance during the faster-than-light travel scene in which they are seen pitching the story board sequence of the scene that they are currently in.
• Creator and director of The Ren & Stimpy Show, John Kricfalusi is the voice of Ren, at least in the first two seasons. The minor character Mr. Horse is also confirmed to be heavily based on him, including repeatedly saying "What are ya?", which was a catchphrase of Kricfalusi's.
• Casting agent and director Mark Evanier appears in a voice cameo as himself in the Garfield and Friends episode "Mistakes Will Happen", his voice can be heard telling Garfield that he could say a line better.
  • A U.S. Acres segment in season 6 has Wade actually running out of the cartoon and onto blank paper, where he engages in a conversation with an offscreen Jim Davis.
• In The Flintstones TV special "I Yabba Dabba Do", William Hanna and Joseph Barbera appear as themselves as wedding guests saying Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm were made for each other.
  • It also serves as a bit of a Brick Joke. Their names pop up earlier when Pebbles is sending out wedding invitations.
  • Not really a cameo but in the original Tom and Jerry shorts William Hanna provided most of the vocal sounds made by the titular characters; he even voiced them in a few instances were they actually spoke.
  • Joe Barbera voiced Tom's master in "The Mansion Cat".
  • Joe Barbera turned up in cartoon form in ''Bravo Dooby Doo'' and under pseudonyms in a couple of episodes of What's New, Scooby-Doo?.
• Lots of examples in the animated adaption of The Bear. Raymond Briggs, creator of the original cartoon book, appears as the face of the moon. Composer and songwriter Howard Blake is the pianist who sees the bears go past. Executive Producer Paul Madden is the seaman who spots the bear cub on the ice floe. Director Hilary Audus is the mother at the zoo with her family. Art Director Joanna Harrison is the cashier at the zoo shop. And the baby in the cot, with the initials JC on his romper suit, is supposed to be Producer John Coates.
• In the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Tiny Toons Music Television," the music video for "Respect" features the executive producers in one shot and the writers in another.
  • And in the very first episode, "The Looney Beginning," the WB animator who's charged with thinking up the series at the risk of being fired is voiced (uncredited) by the executive producer.
  • In "Toons Take Over", the Tiny Toons attend a table read with the show's crew members, including voice director Andrea Romano (who does her own voice) and the episode's writer Peter Hastings.
  • In "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian," the two bunnies board a plane with several of the show's staff, as well as Charlie Adler, Tress Macneille, and Joe Alaskey, the respective voices of Buster, Babs, and Plucky.
  • Possibly the biggest example in show, the last sketch of K-ACME TV had the Acme tool kit commercial which featured nearly all caricatures of the writers and many artists who worked on the show. Plus 2 executive producers and Steven Spielberg.
• In the final episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Mac is handed a cardboard with signings from all the imaginary friends. If you notice closely, the author's signing is in it too.
  • Craig McCracken also made an earlier one when Eduardo wrote to the creators of the Dora the Explorer parody. He also calls out to someone named "Lauren" i.e. Lauren Faust, one of the producers of FHFIF and his wife.
  • The Powerpuff Girls Movie has a cameo of both Craig and Lauren in the office that Mojo shows the girls at the climax of the film. They're the ones that are just out of the door.
    • Also in the special The Powerpuff Girls Rule, there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo of Craig and Lauren after Mojo goes back to his evil ways. They also appear in Blossom's dystopic vision under her rule.
    • In "Collect Her" when the Mayor is doing a roll call of everyone in Townsville, he mentions "Gennedy McCracken", a reference to Craig McCracken and animation director Genndy Tartakovsky.
  • Wander over Yonder's opening title sequence features a bust of Craig McCracken caricatured as some kind of alien rabbit. Can be seen at 0:18 on the far left.
• Butch Hartman is briefly seen in The Fairly OddParents! movie "Abra-Catastrophe!"
  • Butch also makes a cameo as the maitre d' in the live-action movie.
  • Caricatures of the staff can also be seen in the title card of "Fairy Idol".
• This is found in the animated adaptation of Hergé's Tintin comic books. While Hergé himself had died long before the series was made, the producers still included him as a character. An animated likeness of Hergé can be spotted in numerous crowd scenes, although he never says or does anything besides occasionally doodling in a sketch pad. He's also apparently Tintin's neighbor, as his name can be found on the mailbox next to Tintin's.
  • This was also the case in the original comics.
• In My Life Me, the three girls always following Raffi around are based on the show's three creators.
• On Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, caricature of series producer Ralph Bakshi often turn up. In the episode "Night Of The Bat-Bat," Mighty Mouse scribbles a caricature of John Kricfalusi on the side of the phone booth in which he's talking on the phone with Bat-Bat.
  • On the Filmation Mighty Mouse series, producers Lou Schiemer and Norm Prescott were voices. Schiemer voiced Mighty Mouse and Prescott voiced Theodore Bear in the Quacula episodes.
• Near the end of Random! Cartoons short Moobeard The Cow Pirate, creator Kyle A. Carrozza walks by an establishing shot in cat Funny Animal form, alongside a female Funny Animal cat who's apparently based on a friend who also works in animation. Carrozza also provided the voices for a couple of minor characters.
• On My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, senior storyboard artist Sabrina "Sibsy" Alberghetti◊ appears as a pony◊ in the show's season 2 finale, "A Canterlot Wedding".
  • Animator Holly Giesbrecht beat Sabrina to it. She appeared◊ in episode 10, "Swarm of the Century", as a pony named "Holly Dash", who was later made a toy in the toyline◊.
  • Directors Jayson Thiessen and "Big" Jim Miller have done voice acting in the series.
    • The two voice Pinkie Pie's backup in "The Rappin' History of the Wonderbolts".
    • Jayson voiced Bulk Biceps in his first appearance on the show in "Hurricane Fluttershy" and the professor during Twilight's song in "The Crystal Empire–Part 1" as well as other bit parts.
    • Jim voiced King Sombra in "The Crystal Empire" and Troubleshoes in "Appleoosa's Most Wanted".
  • Former director James "Wootie" Wootton voiced the unoffended mule in "Applebuck Season" and "Hurricane Fluttershy"
  • Song composer Daniel Ingram has a small voice part as the pony Rarity gives her scarf to during her song in "Rarity Takes Manehatten".
• In Young Justice (2010), co-producer Greg Weisman voices Lucas "Snapper" Carr, formerly the Justice League's teen mascot and currently Miss Martian and Superboy's civics teacher. He originally auditioned for the role of Red Tornado, because he appears in way more episodes and shares a voice with his creator T.O. Morrow and brothers Red Torpedo and Red Volcano, meaning he'd get paid more. Unfortunately, 'that ogre' (and co-producer) Brandon Vietti thought Jeff Bennett did it better, and suggested Snapper as an alternative.
  • One of the show's writers, Nicole Dubuc, voices Iris West-Allen, Kid Flash's aunt and Flash's wife.
• Adventure Time's Party Pat was based on (now former) storyboard artist, writer and creative director Patrick McHale. Gingerbread Pat ("The Enchiridion" with Gingerbread Pen, based on creator Pendleton Ward) and Punsy McHale from The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack are also based on Pat.
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episode "The Halls of Time", Billy breaks Maxwell Atoms' life hourglass, causing him to die. Billy then remarks that it was probably nobody important.
• In the second episode of Sym-Bionic Titan, Lance looks out the window and sees a crying kid who fell off his bike. His father comes to comfort him, referring to him as "Jacob." The father is Genndy Tartakovsky (Jacob is his real son's name).
• In the "Funny Face" episode of Uncle Grandpa the title character makes a funny face that's a real human face that's constantly making goofy facial expressions. Said giant realistic funny face is series creator Pete Browngardt wearing a fake mustache and wig.
• In the Donald Duck short "No Hunting", the moose is voiced by the film's director, Jack Hannah, while the usher is voiced by writer Milt Schaffer.
• In the Beetlejuice episode "Quit While You're A Head," Tim Burton (creator and director of the movie) appears in caricature in a scene taking place in a Netherworld bar.
• Hal Seeger's reboot of Max Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell cartoons had the series' star, Koko The Clown, conversing with an "Uncle Max," presumably Mr. Fleischer himself. It's not clear who voiced Uncle Max, although it could have been Hal Seeger himself.
• In the Animaniacs episode "Yes, Always", producer/creator Tom Ruegger, writer Peter Hastings, voice director Andrea Romano, and recording engineer Harry Androniss all appear as themselves.
• Teen Titans Go!: In Laundry Day, the fangirls that chase Robin around? Yep, some of the production staff.
• In the Mickey Mouse cartoon "Tokyo Go" Mickey encounters a gang of punks on one of the subway cars, they are all caricatures of the animators.
• In The Book of Life, Jorge R. Gutierrez, the director of film voices the character Carmelo and his wife, Sandra Equihua, voices Scardelita. Both are the team behind their previous work El Tigre.
• ChalkZone co-creator Bill Burnett has done a few minor voices in various episodes, and has sung a few of the songs in the series ("Amazin' River", "What's My Line?", "Insect Aside"). He also served as backup vocals (alongside series regular Jess Harnell) in the music video segments.
  • Guy Moon, who composed all of seasons one and two and half of season three provided backup vocals on "Insect Aside".
  • The titular puppet in "Howdy Rudy" was voiced by storyboard artist John Fountain.
• In the Gravity Falls episode "Society of the Blind Eye", creator Alex Hirsch appears in Dipper's collection of photos of "Suspicious Townsfolk", with the written caption "Who?"
  • Hirsch also appears in a cable car during the climax of "Roadside Attraction".
  • Some of the female crowd members in "The Stanchurian Candidate" are based on storyboard artists.
  • During the chase scene in "Weirdmageddon Part 1," Dipper and Wendy's voice actors ^note Jason Ritter and Linda Cardellini briefly cameo as live-action versions of their characters.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy creator/director Danny Antonucci voices a character in Jimmy's dream sequence from "The Eds are Coming". The credits name him as "Lupo D. Butcher," a reference to Danny's earlier work Lupo the Butcher.
  • Terry Klassen, the show's voice director, provided the voice of Eddy's brother in The Movie.
• Bob Clampett shows up in the opening titles of Beany and Cecil.
  • He also shows up as a gremlin in the Merrie Melodies short "Russian Rhapsody," along with many of his other colleagues from Warner Bros.
• Steven Universe:
  • Many of the show's crewmembers are Recurring Extras, most often seen in crowd scenes.
  • In "Cheeseburger Backpack", co-developer (and storyboard artist for this episode) Ian Jones-Quartey voices Steven's Mr. Queasy doll.
• Roy E. Disney, the then-head of the Walt Disney Company, and the son of Roy/nephew of Walt Disney, appears several times throughout the show House of Mouse, often as a guest to the nightclub.
• In episode 9 of Over the Garden Wall, the song playing as Wirt sits on his bed in the modern day is sung by series creator Patrick McHale.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • Creator Thomas Astruc provided additional voices in the original French dub for the season 1 episode "Gamer"...
  • ...and then in Season 3, Thomas Astruc not only appeared in an episode as himself (as the unrespected director of an in-universe 2D-animated Ladybug and Chat Noir movie) but he also becomes the episode's villain, Animaestro, determined to show the power of 2D animation and just what a director of a cartoon can do. And yes, he voices himself in the French dub.
  • After "Animaestro"'s airing, Thomas Astruc's character has made multiple cameos, such as attending a guys-only party at the Agreste mansion, or having the head of his incomplete wax statue come to life by a statue-animating villain to attack Chat Noir.
• In Marvel's Spider-Man, Joe, the owner of Q's Cup o' Joe, is voiced by Joe Quesada. The coffee shop's name and logo is based on that of Quesada's Comic Book Resources column.
• The Amazing World of Gumball:
  • The recurring "Daniel Lennard" cosmetics brand is named after the show's executive producer (and vice-president of Cartoon Network Development Studios Europe), whose face is seen on advertising banners for the cosmetics in some episodes.
  • Series director Mic Graves' name has been seen on everything from books and logos to TV appearances (cf. "The Signal" where half of Gumball's face is cut off with a clip from a talk show called The Jack Dingle Show that has the topic "Mic Graves Ate My Hamster").
• Looney Tunes:
  • Tex Avery, director of many of the show's classic cartoons, voice acts in many of his cartoons such as "The Sneezin' Weasel," "Hamateur Night" and "The Bear's Tale."
  • The two hapless shipwrecked men in "Wackiki Wabbit" are played by and modeled after the short's writers, Tedd Pierce and Michael Maltese.
  • In "Hollywood Steps Out," producer Leon Schlesinger and financial officer Henry Binder appear briefly.
  • In the WWII cartoon "Russian Rhapsody", many, if not most, of the gremlins are caricatures of the cartoon studio personnel.
• Several episodes of Courage the Cowardly Dog feature Eustace laughing at a man on TV. It's actually series creator John Dilworth. There's also many episodes featuring a fictional company called "Dil's" or even more blatantly "Dilworth's".
• Darkwing Duck creator Tad Stones appears in the DuckTales (2017) episode "The Duck Knight Returns" , which features Darkwing Duck, as a security guard.
• In Terry Pratchetts The Abominable Snow Baby, when the narrator says Albert worked as a caretaker at Blackbury town hall, as his father and grandfather had before him, we see a photo of Sir Terry on Albert's wall.
• The Pink Panther short "Pink, Plunk, Plink" ends with the Panther acting as a conductor playing his famous theme. In contrast to the roarious applause heard earlier, by the end there is only one person in the audience. But it's composer Henry Mancini, so of course he approved the performance.
• Kaeloo: In one episode, Mr. Cat and Stumpy watch the trailer for the in-universe Mr. Coolskin movie, which is entirely in Japanese. The trailer's credits state that the movie was made by Rémi Chapotot and Tristan Michel, who are ''Kaeloo'''s creator and art director respectively.
• The Legend of Vox Machina: Various background and side characters across Tal'Dorei bear a striking resemblance to producer and Dungeon Master of the original D&D campaign, Matthew Mercer. He is usually the Butt-Monkey of the scene, and often gets killed in various gruesome ways.
• The Owl House: The credits sequence of the series finale has cameos from the entire production and animation crew, including showrunner Dana Terrace, who appear as students of Hexside and the University of Wild Magic.

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