miscellaneous
[Meta Trope] The Media makes a reference to one of the Cast Members’ past controversies
The Naked Gun (2025) had a scene where Frank, Ed and everyone in Police Squad cried over their Fathers, mocking the whole “Passing the Torch” trope. But when it got to Nordberg who was previously played by OJ Simpson, Nordberg looked to the camera and shook his head.
One of the Guest Stars on Clone High S1 was musician Marylin Manson, but by the time Clone High S2 came around (which sucks, don’t watch it) Marylin had some pretty serious allegations against him, so the crew behind Clone High S2 put him in the Cancelled Corner with John Wayne and the Sheep Teacher.
There was talk about amending the constitution around the time he was considering a run. He was for a (relatively brief) period of time, a popular Republican governer of the largest Democratic state, if things hadn't gone south for him there would have been a major push for it.
There was also a movie where he is president as a throwaway gag. Demolition man. Set in 2032. It was a news broadcast on the radio referencing a constitutional amendment that allowed it.
At the time Schwarzenegger was vocal about his desire to run for president, and also basically thought it was bullshit he can’t because he wasn’t born in the US.
If it weren’t for that, though, I think he’d have been considered a serious candidate, yes. It wouldn’t have been the first time an actor ran for president, or even won, and Arnold was already a governor, which iirc is more political experience than Reagan had (could be was wrong here, but still it wasn’t as ridiculous an idea as it sounds).
I'd say even the first movie is kinda meh from a story perspective but for this series, we all knew what we signed up for and for the most part, they delivered. Haven't seen the 4th one yet though.
I would say they're good at being what they were meant to be. They're not cinema, they're not stories, they're not narratives. They're an old action star doing what a LOT of us would do in that same situation.
You're too old to be a mainstream action star anymore, but you have money and friends in the industry. Why not just make a bunch of completely ridiculous action movies staring you and all of your equally old, geriatric, action movie co-workers?
The only reason I give the Expendables movies a pass is because it's very obvious that they weren't trying to be anything more than some old actors getting together to relive the glory days, both in-universe and in real life.
The second one is the best one, it’s the only one that seems aware of what it’s meant to be, a ridiculous action movie. The entire cast seems like they’re having fun in that one and Van Damme is easily the best villain in the series.
The third one dropped to a PG rating and sidelined the cast to set up a new team. Antonio Banderas steals that film though.
My favorite is from the first one, where Stallone’s crew are bidding for a job against Arnold’s crew. Arnold is kind of a dick the whole time, and obviously Stallone gets the job. When he leaves Willis asks “what’s his problem?” To which Stallone replies “he wants to be president.”
Arnold was in his last term as governor of California at the time and had expressed his interest in running for president, and had been pretty vocal about how he thought it was bullshit he couldn’t run because he wasn’t born in the US.
I was quite surprised by how much they kept using his character. Even if it was Claymation, or a guy with a shark atop his head, it's weird that they turned him into a plot point instead of just saying "he's dead/cheated on his wife, forget about him"
Not a shark atop his head, his head and a good chunk of upper body is missing with a tiny fountain of blood when he talks, I think given the reason why he wasn't called back it's much funnier and deserving to have him die in such a horrific way and have his ghost in the state that it's in
That's the reason though. If he just died like normal, they would have to use his actual likeness the whole time. Or explain why he isn't a ghost or otherwise active.
Making him be dead through disfiguration does two things. Keeps the internal logic of the universe intact. Gives him no screentime or lines. This allows them to use the character without having to support the actor in any way.
And adds the extra comedy of seeing him wandering around as a headless corpse bumping into things, with his wife later comparing the two tiny snake bites on her neck and saying they’re worse
Not the biggest controversy in the world, but Wesley Snipes and Ryan Reynolds did not get along during the filming of Blade: Trinity. Apparently it just came down to Snipes wanting to maintain a serious tone but Reynolds did his usual improv schtick. There are also accusations of Snipes only referring to Reynolds as "cracker" but he denies it.
They settled their differences, though, and the beef is referenced when Blade appears in Deadpool & Wolverine when Blade tells Deadpool "I don't like you" and he responds with "You never did".
In The Expendables 3, Doc (Snipes) says he was in prison for not paying his taxes, referencing Snipes’s real life stint in prison for failing to pay federal income tax.
Snipes was also being such a dickhead throughout the production they had to CG his eyeballs on at one point because he refused to open his eyes for a shot
That's just a stupid rumor which came from people misinterpeting what the director said in the DVD commentary, he didn't open his eyes because originally he wasn't meant to do it and they filmed the scene
Most of the stories is just Snipes slander, he was clashing with the director regarding the quality of the movie and once you see the movie it's understandable. It would have been much better had they listened to Snipes
When Henry Cavil is so difficult to work with he leaves a project over creative differences he’s a based chad (The Witcher), but when Wesley Snipes is difficult to work with on a project over creative differences he’s a dickhead. Lmao.
The finale of Two and a Half Men. After Charlie Sheen had left the show a few years prior for *gestures broadly\*, the finale shows a stand-in actor playing him from behind approaching the house in the final moments, only for his character's signature piano to fall and crush him. It then cuts to show creator Chuck Lorre in his director's chair, who says "Winning!", a phrase Sheen used a lot during his big meltdown...before another piano falls on him too.
This whole episode is a fascinating example of bafflingly disasterous finales
Its a 2 parter so its effectively double length. And the entire thing is 50% "remember all those things charlie sheen said years ago? Wasn't thst crazy" and 50% "this show sucked shit why do you people watch us?"
It legit felt like Chuck Lorre had begun to loathe the very show he was working on, and the finale was his way of getting back at everyone for enjoying the show and making it popular
I think he notice that charlie sheen leaving decreased popularity and quality and well he hated that the guy who was a horrible person to work with and that he hated was so essencial for his project.
It's an interesting struggle for a creative. Knowing that a person you hated who made everyone miserable was also such a vital part of your success on a project. I can only imagine the kind of dissonance and internal torment that would create.
For some reason they replace charlie for a tech billionaire that was basically a alan but with more sucess that bought the mansion and invented some shit reason for alan stay living there
All of the later seasons read like a fever dream, and it should've been canned when Charlie Sheen went off the deep end:
Ashton Kutcher joins the cast, Angus Jones grows fully up and stops being a kid, so now the show is "three men," then he finds religion and trashes the show, so his character joins the army. Charlie's daughter joins the cast. Ashton Kutcher wants to adopt a child, but you have to be married to do that, so he and Jon Cryer get gay married and immediately divorced, Charlie's daughter leaves the cast, and finally Ashton Kutcher's adopted son joins the cast, returning to the "two and a half" dynamic.
And then Charlie Sheen dies from a falling piano like he's in a Looney Tunes movie.
It’s crazy that anyone could ever watch that show and come away with any other idea than “this is the Charlie Sheen show.” Did Chuck really think people were tuning in every week because they couldn’t get enough of Jon Cryer’s scintillating stage presence 😂
To be fair the secundary characters were also interesting and probably without them the show would also suffer a decrease in quality (not at the same level)
I was in middle school when this aired and didn't fully understand what went down with Charlie Sheen, so I was very confused by this ending.
All this time I thought that it didn't actually happen and it was just part of my imagination/memory issues from that time. This is the first time since it aired that I have gotten confirmation that it actually did exist.
The Two and a Half Men finale is like if a creator chose to write a creepypasta version of his own show and make it the finale solely out of spite for the star. I find it legitimately unnerving at some parts. I think the fake Charlie is what freaks me out.
I remember watching this live. The whole finale waa about Charlie secretly being alive and all of the characters remembering their past with him. I thought maybe Chuck and Charlie maybe matured and they were able to get him to come back for a final goodbye. Nope, they literally drop a piano on him.
Yup. He also caused Farley to relapse. I saw a doc on what he's up to now, and he's clearly hit rock bottom(living with a 24/7 live-streamer who beats him up), but even that's not low enough IMO.
Besides what someone already said about Phil Hartman, he's also a known sexual predator and I've read multiple stories of people being groped by him in public.
There's that famous Kimmel show from waaaaaaay back, when he was so aggressive with groping Ivanka Trump that the crew literally carried him off the set. They played it off as a joke but turns out it wasn't and they literally had to get him away from her.
The movie came out a few months after TJ Miller's SA allegations. He's still in the movie, but at one point during a TV news scene the chyron at the bottom says TJ Miller will be replaced with Christopher Plummer.
Christopher Plummer famously replaced Kevin Spacey in a movie after the accusations came out.
House of Cards did this obliquely: after Kevin Spacey’s sexual assault allegations, he was fired from the show and Frank Underwood was revealed to have died between Seasons 5 and 6. In the series finale, Doug Stamper admits to Claire he killed Frank since he was about to murder her and claims he did it to “protect the legacy from the man”, which feels like the writers trying to explain why they bothered to continue the show.
I was always good with how they handled it because literally the last episode Kevin Spacey was in (the season 5 finale) had them explicitly discussing poisoning Frank.
Although "protecting the legacy from the man" is exactly how the original British series ended.
It was a trilogy of miniseries, House of Cards, To Play the King and The Final Cut. In The Final Cut Francis Urquhart (played magnificently by the late Ian Richardson) is about to celebrate becoming the longest serving British Prime Minister of the 20th Century. Although he has spent the previous three series scheming and murdering his way through politics it's all about to catch up with him.
In the final moments, Urquhart is shot by a sniper on the orders of his wife, and the assassination is blamed on a man in the crowd who was carrying a gun, intending to assassinate Urquhart anyway, and who is also shot. Urquhart's legacy remains intact, and he becomes a martyr.
Arguably the most famous scene of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody is Mr. Moseby (played by Phill Lewis) instructing London Tipton how to drive a car, being very serious about her adhering to safety standards, but she crashes the car the moment it starts moving anyway.
Phill Lewis killed a woman while drunk driving in 1991.
"Who the hell put bouillon cubes in the shower head?! If it happens again, I will wait in my SUV. Blast me some speed metal, 5.1 surround sound, HEAVY on the bass...
I read a couple of articles on it. He served prison time and some probation. Also did outreach to spread messages of drunk driving and all that.
The judge was apparently satisfied that he felt appropriately terrible about it and was putting in good faith effort to change. That's saying a lot coming from judges who hear fatal drunk driving cases all the time.
Or he got off light cause he was famous. Who knows
Movie wasn’t perfect but a worthy successor to the Naked Gun. Just a dumb comedy that throws out so many jokes that even if not all land, you’ll be laughing at something.
Dang. He killed someone and served one year in prison. Got some probation and community service but did some work with a "prison-based theater troupe that warned others about the dangers of drugs and alcohol."
There’s no way Disney would allow the intention for that to be a direct reference to a real life murder, but i definitely wouldn’t put it past the writers
I know that I need to watch 30 Rock, but this bit is really the only part of it I've ever seen, but it stuck with me enough that "Smash cut to" has become part of my daily vocabulary
https://giphy.com/gifs/gEBf7AboBgcKs
In Ugly Betty, Wilhelmina has Betty obtain a tiara for her, only to say she wouldn’t be caught dead in one. This was a reference to Vanessa Williams resigning the Miss America title.
Pepe Le Pew is a Looney Tunes character whose whole shtick was attempting to woo a woman that wasn't interested in him. Most consider that to have not aged all that well.
In Coyote VS ACME, he has a scene where he appears out of nowhere just to get sprayed with "Predator Repellent." He never appears in the movie again.
Aside from the ickiness and assault vibes, my main gripe with Pepe LePew sketches is that THEY'RE ALL THE SAME!! He sees an attractive cat painted to look like a skunk, harrasses her, then when the paint comes off and she's revealed as a cat, she starts harrassing him while he runs away in fear.
Yep, as a kid I didn't like Pepe LePew, and I was too young to understand the harassment aspect. I just thought they were too samey.
The core concept, a love-struck skunk who's romantic dreams are dashed due to the unfortunate fact he was born a skunk, is actually pretty good. But the lack of decent story ideas and the era's shorthand for "romance" really turned him into a bad joke.
My tipping point with Pepe was remembering the bit where he faked his suicide to get the cat out of a glass box. She even told him the reason why she didn’t like him (not that she was actually a cat, but that he smells like wet skunk) and instead of taking that very clear “no”, he guilt-trips her into thinking he offed himself. His line after the reveal rubbed me the wrong way too: “I missed, luckily for you.”
No, he absolutely deserved to be bear-maced in that scene; it was also the scene that got the biggest laugh in my theatre when I watched it, so it was worth it.
I know exactly which short you're talking about. The mental image of that cartoon skunk solemly holding a gun to his head has been burned into my brain since childhood.
Oh, I agree he deserved it. I guffawed at that scene, myself. I was just pointing out that Pepe could be a good character, but has never had the fortune of being written as one.
Oh, for sure, it could be done, and likely has been done for other characters already (there’s likely a post on this very subreddit with exact that topic.) My concern is that if WB ever tried to rewrite Pepe into something a bit more palatable, we’d get folks crying “they made Pepe woke!” or some garbage like that. Sounds unreasonable for anyone to think, especially if the potential rewrite is good, but this is the Internet we’re talking about; someone’s always gonna be mad.
Half his character was smelling like rank ass. They could just make that his full character. Be a ladies' man that can't understand why none of the ladies like him, instead of chasing that cat all over the place.
Hell, it could even be a redemption arc. Maybe the cat confronts him and make him reconsider his actions.
There's a bit in Mr. Deeds where Winona Ryder's character says she has money troubles because she collects shoes, referencing the whole shoplifting thing
On the show Lost, Hurley has escaped from a mental healthcare facility, and is trying to evade the cops. He tries driving away in a panic and accidentally hits a trash can, and then sees a cop pull him over. Hurley acquiesces, except the cop is actually a hallucination/vision of long-dead cast member Ana Lucia (who was a cop when she was alive), who chastises him for driving like a maniac.
This may be a sly reference to the heavily-rumored idea that Ana Lucia was killed off the show because her actress, Michelle Rodriguez, was arrested for DUI during production of Lost's second season.
It turns out that she explicitly only signed on for 1 season. Plus, Daniel Dae Kim also got a DUI during the filming of the series and was on it until the final season.
This may be a sly reference to the heavily-rumored idea that Ana Lucia was killed off the show because her actress, Michelle Rodriguez, was arrested for DUI during production of Lost's second season.
The actress that portrayed Libby (Cynthia Watros) was arrested for a DUI the same day as Michelle, she was also killed off.
Kenan Thompson also plays Cosby on SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy! in 2005 pre-allegations and later reappears on the 2015 40th anniversary episode on a Video Daily Double, causing Trebek to panic and claim the video was filmed in June of 2014 (three months before the allegations were widely known)
Secret Life of Pets 2 replaced Louis CK with Patton Oswalt after CK's MeToo allegations. They explained the main dog's new voice as a result of being neutered.
The 2005 remake of House of Wax has a sequence in which other characters mistakenly believe they're watching Paris Hilton's character give someone a blowjob when she's just trying to pick up her lipstick. A reference to her infamous sex tape that had been leaked and widely passed around the internet.
Honestly, I thought she was a hell of a good sport for being willing to join in on the joke for a mid-tier horror flick.
I remember that interview. He was talking about preconceived biases and how they make people act. He presented that story as a cautionary tale, not something he was proud of. He probably took the bit to show he felt remorse about it and was willing to atone.
My impression is that a) the comments he made were in the context of “fucked up thing younger me did when doing a shit job of processing indirect trauma” and b) he presumably learned that there are some things public figures should keep between them and their therapists and a time out was valid
Atlanta also had Chet Hanks playing a rich kid who had a Trinidad accent because he was raised by a Trini nanny. This was after he got in trouble for putting out a video of him speaking in a Jamaican Patois and saying it was "white boy summer."
In curb your enthusiasm, there’s an episode with Michael Richards (the actor for Kramer in Seinfeld) where he ends up losing his temper and yelling at a black man in front of an onlooking crowd. This is meant to poke fun at when he had an on stage breakdown and ended up yelling the n word at black audience members, which he is paranoid about getting backlash for the entire episode
What makes this bit funnier is that the original breakdown is much, much worse than people think. You hear the sentence "Kramer went bonanza on stage and yelled the n-word to an audience member" and you think "oh it must be a passing spur-of-the-moment thing" like Pewdiepie's n-word scandal.
Then you watch the video and you're like "oh this guy has a white robe with a matching hat in his closet"
It was hella fucked up but from what I've seen he actually did take a break from showbiz to look inward for a couple of decades instead of crying about cancel culture like a certain castmate of his **cough cough**
I'm not sure which cast member are your talking about bitching about cancel culture, but is it Seinfeld himself bitching that people are mad he picks his girlfriend up from highschool?
Yeah Jason seems like a cool person, though Julia said she didn't really care about Jerry dating a highschooler. I guess the royalty checks were too sweet to risk cutoff.
Jerry was my actual target. He's one credit card debt away from starting to cry about cancel culture and trans women all the fucking time. He's already crying about people calling him out for being a raging zionist AND a predator.
30 Rock had a storyline where Tracy Jordan bore a distinct resemblance to a Republican candidate for Vice President, leading to Tracy playing the guy in TGS sketches.
This is all a reference to when Tina Fey played Sarah Palin on SNL during the 2008 election.
While I wouldn’t say that Tina Fey did anything actually wrong there, the whole thing was quite controversial at the time. In her memoir Bossypants, Fey admits that some of the jokes in those sketches were “rough.” At a certain point, her own parents said the sketches were becoming “too much.”
I just started watching 30 Rock again and I can't believe how well everything holds up.
I don't remember the episode you're talking about, but I definitely remember Tina Fey as Palin. She looked EXACTLY like her, and obviously she nailed the voice and mannerisms because Fey is an absolute star.
During the 94th Academy Awards ceremony, Will Smith infamously slapped Chris Rock live on television for making an improvised joke about Smith’s now separated wife Jada Pinkett. The incident nearly destroyed Smith’s career, costing him roles, getting him banned from the Academy for 10 years and revealing a lot of inner family drama that Smith didn’t want public.
In the film Bad Boys Ride or Die, during a pivotal scene Martin Lawrence slaps Will Smith several times in a similar fashion, calling back to the infamous event.
I don't know to which demon Lil Dicky sold his soul to enact his musical terrorism upon the charts instead of spending his life as a local radio DJ in Pennsylvania like he was obviously meant to do, but I sure hope that deal gets cashed in soon.
Not controversy I guess but Michael J Fox makes light of his IRL Parkinson’s in an episode where he shakes up a soda on purpose before he gives it to Larry and blames it on his Parkinson’s
it's always sunny makes multiple references to their banned episodes. one of the best examples is the gang making Lethal Weapon 7. they say the last two they made were removed from "the local library" for their use of blackface. in their clipshow episode they remember their best moments. when Dee brings up her racist caricatures no clips play and they all belittle her.
I don't know if its always sunny did anything like this with the guy who played Dee and Dennis' biological father(can't remember actors name) but it would be funny. He was outed as a sex predator. And to point it out would be fitting their humor in the same way the Naked Gun did!
When Jeffrey Tambor was replaced by Keith David as the voice of Glossaryck in Star Vs The Forces of Evil, due to allegations of sexual misconduct, Star acknowledges this by asking if Glossaryck's voice is different.
Solar Opposites: Co-creator and voice of Korvo Justin Roiland was removed from the show after being charged with domestic abuse, so Korvo was shot in the throat with a "Voice Changer Ray" that gave him an obviously different, British voice (Dan Stevens).
Expendables 3. When they break Wesley Snipes out of prison and are escaping. One of them asks him why he was in (it was like an action movie Supermax prison type thing) and he says tax evasion, which is why he was in prison in real life.
I had to Google why the Sheep Teacher from Clone High (Mr. Sheepman) was in the Cancelled Corner. Turns out he was voiced by Andy Dick. OP could've also explained that one.
Vince Offer (AKA The ShamWow Guy) was arrested on February 7, 2009, after he had a physical altercation with a prostitute. The news of the arrest was circulated around on the internet due to his fame for the ShamWow commercial. In one of his later infomercials for a lint roller alternative called the Schticky, he makes a reference to his arrest by posing in front of a booking wall in a prison jumpsuit while holding up a mugshot placard dated February 7, the same date as his actual arrest.
The YouTube channel Cold Ones commissioned him to make a parody ad for a video and the one that Vince sent them was so offensive that they couldn't use it.
“I lived through the 70’s by the skin of my nuts, when the Colombo’s were going at it..”
is a reference to the actor's real past as a Colombo crime family associate in the 1970s. Even after becoming an actor Tony Sirico retained certain old friendships. Former Colombo Captain "Jimmy Green Eyes" Clemenza (whose crew Sirico was allegedly a member of), while under FBI surveillance, attended a Sopranos cast party in 99/00.
bonus:
I was born, grew up, spent a few years in the army, a few more in the can, and here I am, a half a wise guy
Sirico served in the US Army, as well as a short prison sentence for racketeering before eventually ending up as "half a wise guy" on the best TV show ever.
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u/Rhinocacrocapig 8d ago
in Expendables 3, after breaking Wesley Snipes out of prison, someone asks why he was imprisoned and he says "Tax evasion"