Special Guest

"Special but unknown guest star!"^note "How can you have a guest star in a movie?"

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Mister Burt Bacharach!"

— Austin Powers

A star brought into a series, to star as himself or a character very similar to one he is famous for playing. In American television, this is common during Sweeps. Especially likely on a Very Special Episode. The technical term is "Stunt Casting." In a sitcom, always accompanied by canned cheering and applause. Pioneered on I Love Lucy.

See also: The Cameo, Celebrity Star, As Himself, Character as Himself, Celebrity Edition. Guest Fighter is a special version of this that only applies to video games (especially Fighting Games), and "Sesame Street" Cred is for celebrities who guest star in shows aimed at children.

May lead to Gushing About Guest Stars if they play themselves in their appearance.

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Examples:

Advertising

• The Air New Zealand Safety Videos have had such guests as Betty White, Richard Simmons, Bear Grylls, the New Zealand All Blacks and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models.
• Trix Rabbit: One two part commercial had Bugs Bunny helping the rabbit try to get Trix. Unfortunately, even with Bugs' disguise, the rabbit couldn't get any.

Anime & Manga

• Lucky Star had several voice actors who were involved in Haruhi Suzumiya guest star as themselves. Minoru Shiraishi and Daisuke Ono were co-hosts on the "Lucky Channel" section of the show. Aya Hirano (sort of) and Yūko Gotō guest starred in the show itself. Interestingly, in the English dub, they were voiced by the actors that portrayed their characters in the English Haruhi Suzumiya dub. It's kind of funny hearing Johnny Yong Bosch introduce himself as Daisuke Ono on Lucky Channel.
• Case Closed had the Detective League meet the Music-Duo Two-Mix, who sing the Opening Theme and Ending Theme of the series, and the female member of the group is the voice actor for Conan. Naturally, all the characters did some Lampshade Hanging on this similarity. The only difference between the two vocally is that Conan can't sing even if his life depended on it. This fact is especially evident when he has to fill in at a concert for her later on (Behind the scenes, of course).
• Marginal #4 had Yokoo Lui, the series' choreographer (who is also a stage play actor known for portraying Tsukiuta's Koi, and other roles), appear in episode 10 as the dance teacher at the idols' training camp.
• Seiyu's Life! has an in-universe example where Yukari Tamura takes part in a radio show. Naturally, she doesn't look a day over 17.
• Yuri!!! on Ice has two former professional figure skaters guest star as themselves in the last two episodes; Nobunari Oda appears as a commentator for the Grand Prix Finals in Episode 11, and Stéphane Lambiel appears in Episode 12 as a reporter for the same event.
• Tamagotchi: The Japanese musician Hitomi appears in episode 10 of GO-GO Tamagotchi! as an idol singer Tamagotchi named hitomitchi whom Lovelitchi likes. (hitomi performed the opening and ending themes for the first season of GO-GO Tamagotchi!.)

Comic Books

• In Angel: After the Fall, Gwen goes on a date with an actor named 'Nate', who bears a striking resemblance to actor (and comic book fan) Nathan Fillion — who starred in the Joss Whedon-created TV series Firefly (and the last few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Fan Works

• Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
  • Kyle Hebert reprised his role as the narrator for the second movie (in the Abridged Series itself, LittleKuriboh narrates).
  • Chris Sabat appears in minor roles like the Lemony Narrator in the Bastion parody in the Super Android 13 movie as DJ Sexdillionare.
• Chuck Huber made an appearance in the Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged movie as one of the villains (and provided an Actor Allusion — he was Hiei in the dub).
• Kyle Hebert once more provided the voice of a narrator in an episode of Ranma ½: The Abridged Chronicles, in which he complains about his cameo being wasted and how everyone wants him to do the narrator voice.
• Austin St. John cameo'd in Kämpfer Abridged by MasakoX.

Films — Live-Action

• The Blue Lamp: Comedy singer Tessie O'Shea appears performing on stage and is credited as herself. The two villains briefly visit the show in an attempt to set up an alibi for themselves.
• For Kaamelott: Premier Volet, Alexandre Astier wanted someone who speaks French with an English accent "a la Sting" to play Horsa. He then simply decided to cast the musician himself, and the character has his swagger as a result.
• Ocean's Twelve: Tess pretends to be Julia Roberts at one point, but is found out when Bruce Willis appears, and receives a call from the "real" Julia Roberts.

Literature

• Tiana, host of a YouTube channel called ToysAndMe, guest starred in a Rainbow Magic book aptly titled Tiana the Toy Fairy. To date, she is the only fairy in the series whose book has a direct sequel (Tiana the Toy Fairy: The Lands of Sweets).

Live-Action TV

• The Love Boat: Every episode included a new set of passengers, and a new set of celebrities playing those people. A comprehensive montage of their credits in the opening takes over 45 minutes. It probably would be easier to count the living people in early 1980s Hollywood who did not appear in the show.
• The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: Especially during its heyday, the show was able to draw a lot of high-powered talent as guest stars. Among those who made guest appearances included Eve Arden, Joan Blondell, Ted Cassidy, Joan Collins, Yvonne Craig, Joan Crawford, Robert Culp, Ivan Dixon, James Doohan, Harold Gould, James Hong, Allen Jenkins, Patsy Kelly, Richard Kiel, Martin Landau, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh, Herbert Lom, Jack Lord, Ricardo Montalbán, Leslie Nielsen, Leonard Nimoy, Carroll O'Connor, Jack Palance, Eleanor Parker, Vincent Price, Cesar Romero, Charles Ruggles, Kurt Russell, Telly Savalas, William Shatner, Nancy Sinatra, Sonny & Cher, Terry-Thomas, Rip Torn and Fritz Weaver.
• V.I.P. Had Lit guest star as themselves in the episode VI P2x 16 Hard Vals Night hiring Val to protect them from jewel thieves and recover A.J.'s stolen belt buckle. This led to them asking her to star in of their videos, which happened both In-Universe and in Real Life (see below in the music videos section).
• Bonanza would have the opening credits show the main four actors on screen and then the major guest star appear in a special on-screen credit.
• Hee Haw:
  • While there were "special guests" every week, the one guest that producer/creator Sam Louvillo wanted more than anybody came during the early 1970s ... but he never got him because Col. Tom Parker found out and quashed the idea immediately. That special guest that never was, of course, was Elvis Presley. Additionally, Elvis wanted to be on the show and the negotiations were underway until Parker found out.
  • Incidentally, in 1978, just months after Elvis' death, a Tear Jerker moment came when Elvis' father, Vernon Presley, make a guest appearance on the show to talk about his son's musical influences and how Hee Haw was one of his favorite programs.
• Full House:
  • Michelle's friend Denise has a famous musician-uncle who turns out to be Little Richard.
  • The Beach Boys also made frequent appearances as themselves throughout the series.
• Friends has more than you can shake a stick at. Particularly in later series, when it was hugely popular, though it's interesting to spot occasional guest appearances early on by actors who would later become famous.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Seems to have gotten its most fame ever from having Britney Spears on twice. Definitely the most infamous.
  • And Katy Perry.
  • And Bob Barker was supposedly Barney Stinson's father for a while.
• Just Shoot Me! featured guest appearances from various supermodels (most notably Rebecca Romijn, not as herself but as Finch's wife). Also, performers such as Robert Goulet and George Lucas have also appeared as one of Jack's old friends. Woody Allen appeared in an episode that featured a man who passed himself off as Woody Allen (the real Allen was only heard over the phone at the end), and Ray Liotta played himself as the cousin of Recurring Character Kevin.
• Las Vegas brought Jean-Claude Van Damme on to the show playing himself — and then killed him off! In general, it had a star/celebrity every other episode it seemed.
• The Nanny did this roughly every other episode. Once resulted in Fran Drescher meeting herself, this only shattered the fabric of reality a little bit.
• NewsRadio: Subverted this by finding obscure people as writer in-jokes: Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert), Defender creator Eugene Jarvis and George "Goober" Lindsay (because they liked his autobiography). Then again, they did have their share of genuine guest stars (Jerry Seinfeld, James Caan, Bob Costas etc.), most of whose appearances went pretty awkwardly. (Interestingly, Seinfeld's own sitcom usually avoided such things, although even that had a few - Bette Midler, Marisa Tomei
• Night Court had crooner Mel Torme show up and spend most of the episode just barely being missed by Judge Harry, who of course is a fanatical fan. This avoids being a Celebrity Star by virtue of the fact that this fandom had been long-established from the first episode of the series. Later episodes would have Torme reappear and become subject to various mishaps and shenanigans related to the eccentric cast of characters in the courthouse orbit, so much so that he would begin to see Harry as his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis, much to Harry's dismay.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "Descent", Data is playing poker with holographic depictions of Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. Hawking portrayed his own hologram for this episode. Apparently, he was just touring the set when the writers decided to put him in an episode and a few days later they filmed him. Giving Hawking the honor of being the only person to appear As Himself in any Star Trek show.
• Who's the Boss?, "Hit The Road Chad": Ray Charles comes to the Bauers' to play a few songs.
• The 1970s Toho-produced series Meteor Man Zone (known in the United States as Zone Fighter) had Gigan, King Ghidorah, and even Godzilla as guest stars.
• EXTRAS: Ricky Gervais plays a professional film extra and meets at least one massive star each episode, always playing themselves. Lampshaded by the fact that every episode of the series was actually named after the main guest star of that episode ("Samuel L. Jackson", "David Bowie", "Daniel Radcliffe") and the fact that one episode revolved around the protagonist's disdain for Chris Martin having a far-fetched guest appearance on his Show Within a Show.
• Arli$$: Arliss is a sports agent that has many big name sports clients.
• Entourage: follows the posse of a budding A-list movie star, who naturally shmoozes with some real-life A-list movie stars.
• Will & Grace was quite annoying with this; it featured special guests almost every week and seemed like a vehicle for celebrities to proclaim their gay-friendly status.
  • Arguably the least egregious was Taye Diggs' extended stint as Will's boyfriend, since it was a surprisingly complex story arc and gave Will his first onscreen kiss (albeit in the final season). Extra points since it was both a gay and interracial romance on primetime TV.
  • One episode suggests the show is set in an Alternate Universe, where George Takei was still in the closet until publicly outed on TV by Jack.
• Moonlighting:
  • One episode features Judd Nelson and Whoopi Goldberg as the special guest stars.
  • Ray Charles also guested on an episode.
  • As did Orson Welles (introducing "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice," which aired after he passed away and was dedicated to him).
• Stargate SG-1 is quite popular amongst the actual USAF, and not just because it is Backed by the Pentagon. Two consecutive Air Force chiefs of staff have appeared in the series, playing themselves. One episode featured O'Neill barging into General Hammond's office, loudly complaining (as usual) only to be introduced to General Michael E. Ryan, then-current Chief of Staff of the Air Force, whereupon O'Neill promptly quiets down. After filming was completed, Richard Dean Anderson asked General Ryan if he had any real Colonels as bad as Jack O'Neill, and Ryan responded that he had worse. In the later episode "Lost City", the second half featured General John P. Jumper (again, the then-current Air Force Chief of Staff) as himself during the Goa'uld attack, speaking with the President and coordiating the counter-atack. Apparently, when General Jumper first became the Chief of Staff, the first question he asked his staff was "When do I get to be on Stargate?"
• Law & Order and its spinoffs do this occasionally.
  • For example, Lewis Black once played a Howard Stern-esque radio host.
  • And Candice Bergen guest starred in Law & Order: Trial by Jury as Judge Amanda Anderlee.
  • The show also loves to cast comedians as the criminals, usually of the highly intelligent variety, including Martin Short, Robin Williams, and Stephen Colbert.
• Most USA Network originals do it all the time. Take a look at the list of guest stars through the seasons of Monk, including Willie Nelson and Alice Cooper.
• Occasionally, a show will have a regular character's actor playing him- or herself (as the Special Guest) as well as the normal character. Usually this is accompanied by jokes about how similar they look.
  • Mork & Mindy had Mork meet Robin Williams in one episode.
  • Sanford and Son had an episode where Fred Sanford enters a Redd Foxx lookalike contest; his son Lamont doesn't see the resemblance.
  • Lynda Carter met Lucille Ball in an episode of Here's Lucy.
• Bones has an episode about dog fights featuring professional Fluffy Tamer Cesar Millan.
• Castle:
  • Joe Torre, a baseball player and manager. Castle is fairly nonchalant, having met Joe before and not being overly interested in the game anyway, but Beckett can barely keep from Squeeing and immediately rushes off to call her dad to gloat.
  • The tables are turned when the pair meet Gene Simmons in one episode, with Beckett blase about it but Castle absolutely star struck
  • Chef Rocco Dispirito appeared in "Food to Die For" during Castle's date with Beckett's high school BFF.
  • Richard Castle's poker game features real authors such as James Patterson and Stephen J. Cannell; the latter's chair was left unoccupied after his passing ("No one sits there for at least a year").
• Lou Ferrigno moved next door to the Heffernans in The King of Queens.
• Every episode of Police Squad! features a special guest... who would be killed before the opening credits were over. William Shatner lasted the longest, dodging a hail of bullets before finally succumbing to a poisoned drink.
• One episode of Silver Spoons had Menudo attending the protagonist's birthday party as the entertainment.
• CSI-verse:
  • CSI has quite a few over its 15-year run. For example:
    • Rascal Flatts appear As Themselves in an episode where one of the trio gets (non-fatally) electrocuted during a concert sound-check and the other two naturally become suspects.
    • Justin Bieber appears in two episodes and his character gets killed off in the second. Viewers who weren't even fans of the show tuned in just for that scene.
    • Tim Conway appears as a stand-up comedian in an episode where his character is the prime suspect in the murder of his comedy-routine partner.
    • Marlee Matlin plays a professor at a school for the deaf in "The Two Mrs. Grissoms."
    • Deanne Bray appears in "Sounds of Silence" which features a deaf hit-and-run victim.
    • Danny Bonaduce portrays the first victim in the Miniature Killer arc.
  • Subverted in one episode of CSI: Miami: the suspect was a famous skateboarder who retired and made software games starring himself... but the Special Guest, Tony Hawk, instead played the Body of the Week. Also invoked, since Tony Hawk's character is also the CEO's Stunt Double for doing Motion Capture in the game, so he does skateboard in a flashback.
  • CSI: NY. To name a few:
    • Marlee Matlin appears as the mother of a deaf murder victim in "Silent Night".
    • Kim Kardashian, Pat Monahan from Train and La La Anthony all appear in the series' only Christmas-themed episode, "Second Chances".
    • Edward James Olmos portrays the founder of a Puerto Rican gang who's fresh out of prison in "Sangre por Sangre".
    • John Larroquette appears in three consecutive episodes in Season 7.
    • David James Elliott shows up twice in Season 7 as Jo's ex-husband, Russ.
    • Peter Fonda portrays Mac's training officer/first partner, "Wild Bill" Hunt, in two episodes at the end of Season 7.
    • Lee Majors appears as a retired detective who shows up to help with a current case very similar to an unsolved one of his own in "Flash Pop".
• Chuck has taken stunt-casting to a whole new level, often having more than one guest star an episode.
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was built around the concept of special guest stars who were actually historical figures. There are also several real stars who show up, several before the height of their fame. One episode features both Catherine Zeta-Jones and Daniel Craig before they peaked in popularity and movie star status.
• Every episode of Batman (1966) had at least one "Special Guest Villain." While some, like Cesar Romero's Joker, Burgess Meredith's Penguin, and Frank Gorshin's Riddler, appeared often enough to almost be regular cast members, a great many were one-shot stunt castings of big-name stars (e.g., Milton Berle as Louie the Lilac, Art Carney as The Archer, Rudy Vallee as Lord Ffogg.)
  • Also, celebrities would pop out of the window when Batman and Robin were climbing the building to talk to them.
  • In January 1967, teen pop star Lesley Gore (of "It's My Party" fame) would appear in two consecutive episodes ("That Darn Catwoman" and "Scat! Darn Catwoman") as Pussycat, a minion of Catwoman; she would also lip-sync one of her then-current hit singles in each episode ("California Nights" and "Maybe Now", respectively).
• American Dreams seemed to exist solely for this trope. Many episodes had a famous current musician appear as a famous 60's musician (often having nothing to do with the plot)^note and some of them better known for things other than singing, like Hilary Duff (as one of The Shangri-La's), Jennifer Love Hewitt (as Nancy Sinatra - the future Ghost Whisperer was one of the few to appear more than once) and TYRA FREAKING BANKS (as one of the Marvelettes) and NBC would often make this the focal point of the advertising. One probably wouldn't even know the show had a plot unless they watched it.
• Hannah Montana: About one in every six episodes of features a special guest or two - Hannah's "aunt" is Dolly Parton^note Miley Cyrus's godmother in real life, Mama is Miley's Mammaw. Lilly's mother turns out to be Heather Locklear, and as for Lilly's dad... as Lorelai Gilmore once put it, "And yes, that is the guy from Two and a Half Men." Their next door neighbor in season 4 is the half man from previous said show.
  • Funny enough that Miley Cyrus and Emily Osment later guest starred on Two and a Half Men another show set in a Malibu Beach House.
• Doctor Who has done this a few times, with the likes of Sharon Osbourne and Richard Dawkins appearing in cameos as themselves, and even including stock footage of Barack Obama in one episode, then bringing in a body double to make him part of the story ("The End of Time"). Several attempts at having members of the Royal Family appear as themselves have been unsuccessful. Back in 1965, the episode "The Chase" featured a guest appearance by The Beatles (via stock footage), as well.
• On Home Improvement, several sports stars appeared as themselves as guests on the Show Within a Show Tool Time, including George Foreman, Evander Holyfield, and Michael and Mario Andretti. Real life home improvement pioneer Bob Vila showed up several times. In one episode after Penn & Teller guest on Tool Time, Tim is called out on this in-show, being told by fans that his show is relying too much on Stunt Casting. Also, a few celebrities appeared as themselves outside of Tool Time, including The Beach Boys (they're Wilson's cousins) and Rodney Dangerfield.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus: The ill-fated talk show called "It's" with singer Lulu ("To Sir With Love") and Ringo Starr as guests with the tattered and bedraggled "It's" man as host. (Neither guest said anything.)
• The Muppet Show had a guest star in every episode. Justified, as the show is set in a theatre and revolves around a weekly presentation.
• Typically at least one per episode on the Colgate Comedy Hour.
• Martha Stewart in the first-season finale of 2 Broke Girls.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Subverted in "The Gang Gets Invincible," where Donovan McNabb is promised to appear at the the Eagles football tryouts, but instead an obvious impostor played by Geoffrey Owens arrives and delivers a sales pitch for McDonald's. The gang realizes the fraud and vaguely recognizes the impostor as that guy from The Cosby Show.
• The Big Bang Theory often has guest stars playing themselves, which are either actors from shows popular amongst nerds (e.g. Wil Wheaton, LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner from Star Trek: The Next Generation; Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica (2003), or Summer Glau from Firefly and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), or popular Real Life scientists (e.g. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking or Bill Nye). In most cases, though, it doesn't amount to more than The Cameo, while Wil Wheaton is more or less a Recurring Character.
• King of the Nerds often has nerdy-fandom-related celebrity guests, usually to judge a competition. These have included George Takei, Tara Strong, and Bill Nye the Science Guy.
• QI usually draws from a rather shallow pool of British comedians, but will also on occasion have a special guest who is somehow related to the topic of that episode. For example, Daniel Radcliffe was a guest on "Magic" and Dr. Brian Cox appeared in "Incomprehensible".
• Mission: Impossible did this from time to time, such as in the third-season episode "The Contender" with former middleweight boxing champion Sugar Ray Robinson.
• Mimpi Metropolitan: Yayan Ruhian guest stars as himself in episode 50. In the middle of the episode, he shows up and uses his martial arts skill to save Pipin from premans. Then it turns out he is also an in-universe example, as he later films a scene for Ada Azab Dalam Cerita where he shows up and uses his martial arts skill to save an ustad from premans.
• The Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule special "Bagboy", a pilot created by Dr. Steve Brule, features Mickey Dolenz from The Monkees. He shows up for one scene near the beginning of the episode and never shows up again.
  Mickey Dolenz: Excuse me, can you tell me where the bananas are?
  Steve Brule: Who are you, some kinda monkey?
  Mickey Dolenz: Actually, I am. [laugh track]
  Steve Brule: I know. He's, uh, one of the Monkees. From the show, Monkees. Hnhn. But the bananas are over there.
  Mickey Dolenz: Ah, thanks. [leaves]
  Steve Brule: That's it. That's the scene with Mickey Dolenz... Next scene.
• That '70s Show has many guest stars who used to act in 1970s sitcoms, such as Marion Ross and Tom Bosley (from Happy Days), Betty White, Valerie Harper, Gavin MacLeod and Mary Tyler Moore from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Don Knotts and Richard Kline from Three's Company, Tom Poston and Jack Riley from The Bob Newhart Show and Eve Plumb, Barry Williams and Christopher Knight from The Brady Bunch.
• The Shoestring episode "Find the Lady" has Toyah Willcox as New Wave singer Toola.
• Midnight Caller: Roger Daltrey guest stars in "Can't Say N-N-No" as a drug-addicted rock singer who used to be in a relationship with Nicky.
• Starsky & Hutch: Lynn Anderson, best known for her 1970 hit "Rose Garden," plays country singer Sue Ann Grainer in "A Long Walk Down a Short Dirt Road."
• Great News: Ray Liotta appears as himself in the final episode of the show for a brief gag.
• In the Broad City episode "Twaining Day," Shania Twain finally shows up at Soulstice after years of Abbi claiming she's training there.
• Schitt's Creek has Paul Schaeffer playing himself as the entertainment at the Roses' lavish Christmas Party.
• Whose Line Is It Anyway? would occasionally bring out a special guest, but the CW revival has a special guest (usually from one of the CW's other shows) nearly every week and participating in multiple games.
• American TV seemed to go through a phase that suggested Congress had enacted a law decreeing it was mandatory for every sitcom to have John Cleese as a guest star. Cheers, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Will & Grace....
• The number of guest stars on Sesame Street is practically incalculable, but Wikipedia has tried.
• Andy Gibb, boxer Marvin Hagler, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Marilyn McCoo and pop/rap group DeBarge have all guest starred on Punky Brewster.
• On Resident Alien, Linda Hamilton receives this credit for her role as General McCallister. Later, Terry O'Quinn gets a special guest billing for his role as Peter Bach.
• Would I Lie to You? is a low-budget Panel Game whose guests are largely comedians, television presenters and personalities. Just occasionally, there will be an unexpectedly very famous celebrity, usually an actor (who will often admit to appearing because they're a big fan of the show). Examples include Samantha Morton, John Simm, Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone, Charles Dance and Jim Carter.
• Dave, being about the music industry, has a musician guest star almost every episode including Justin Bieber, Macklemore, YG, Marshmello, Benny Blanco, Kourtney Kardashian and more.
• On The Orville, Dolly Parton is credited as a special guest star in "Midnight Blue" for her appearance as her holographic self.
• The Cosby Show had many of these. The most famous example was an episode where Denise has a minor car accident and the driver of the other car is Stevie Wonder, who invites the family to visit his studio. Lena Horne, Miriam Makeba, B.B. King, Dizzy Gillespie, Sammy Davis Jr., Placido Domingo and tap dancer Howard Simms also either played themselves or thinly disguised versions of themselves in various other episodes.
• Battlestar Galactica (1978) had a fair few special guest stars in various episodes. Hollywood legends Ray Milland and Lew Ayres guested in the pilot (Ayres as the ill-fated Colonial President, and Milland as a smarmy member of the Council of 12 who was an Obstructive Bureaucrat intended to oppose Adama), as did Rick Springfield (as Adama's youngest son, Zac, who gets killed off in the first ten minutes). Other episodes had Jamie Lee Curtis, fresh from her Star-Making Role in Halloween, and Fred Astaire playing Starbuck's real father.

Music

• Carlos Santana resurrected his career through liberal use of this trope on the Supernatural and Shaman albums.

• Nelly's album Brass Knuckles had a guest star on every song. Fans who had waited four years for a worthy follow-up to Sweat/Suit weren't pleased.

• Steve Miller regularly has his opening act join him onstage during his concerts.
• Captain Beefheart was the special guest on Frank Zappa's Hot Rats where he sang the only track with lyrics, "Willie the Pimp."
• Radio entertainer Stanley Unwin narrates the tale of Happiness Stan in his own brand of idiosyncratic English on The Small Faces' Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake.
• Almost every DJ ever uses a guest vocalist on a song-to-song basis.
• New Orleans' Trombone Shorty often features as one, as many acts these days don't have a horn player at all. His first two albums, Backatown and For True, relied fairly heavily on guest spots.
• Sabaton vocalist Joakim Brodén has made a number of guest appearances with other metal bands, including a Cover Version of his own song "Primo Victoria" by van Canto, and the Sabaton Affectionate Parody "Pasadena 1994" by Nanowar of Steel.
• Æther Realm: Christopher Bowes of Alestorm does guest vocals on "King of Cups".

Music Videos

• Æther Realm: Logan Lawson of South Carolina-based Death Metal band As Oceans plays the title character in the music video for "The Magician". The band often gets him onstage with him for that song when they play live in the Carolinas.
• After Lit guest starred in her show Pamela Anderson followed it up by guest starring in their video for Miserable, which premiered at the end of the episode Lit appeared in, as she had been asked to guest star in it both in the shows universe and in real life. Pamela Anderson was even credited with: "And starring Pamela Anderson as Vallery Irons." Behind the scenes Lit had said they would only do the video if they could get Pam herself to star in it, since they had enjoyed working with her so much. The video features Pamela Anderson/Vallery Irons as a giantess, with the band using various areas of her body as a stage while they perform their song.

Pinballs

• One of the passengers in Williams Electronics' Taxi is Pin Bot, the star of Williams' top-selling game.
• Necronomicon features John Petrucci, guitarist for Dream Theater, who contributed the music for the game's prologue and epilogue videos.
• Stern Pinball's Mustang has voice callouts from professional racing driver Tanner Foust.

Podcasts

• Muggle Cast has had several with people from the Harry Potter film franchise. Oh, and Rubeus Hagrid. Not Robbie Coltrane, but Rubeus Hagrid. The other Harry Potter podcast, PotterCast, has also had plenty. Including J. K. Rowling herself.
• Top Down Perspective: More are promised to be in the podcast, but so far the following people have been a guest, in order:
  • Paul aka Exfauxure, before he become a permanent host, after Nathan decided to bow out from the podcast for various reasons.
  • The guy who directs the Hot Pepper Game Reviews channel.
  • Nathan aka Kraznor when he decided to pop in once after stepping down as a co-host.
  • Hank, a speedrunner, who regularly co-hosts with Paul on thier own podcast, Burning Barrel, when Sean was away in Europe.
• In-universe in The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) the eponymous fictional radio Variety Show has "Guest vocalist Romica, the extraordinary singing saw!" Romica appears to be the Circus' blatant in-show promotion of its sponsor, Samuel Saws, who are reaping the benefits of the Circus' popularity.
• Canceled Too Soon:
  • Rebekah McKendry from Blumhouse appeared on the episode reviewing Darknet
  • Film critic Alonso Duralde appeared on the episodes reviewing The Muppets (2015) and My Mother the Car, as well as the crossovers with his own podcast LKTV.
  • Drew McWeeney, host of the podcast 80s All Over, appeared on the episode reviewing Police Squad!.
  • Scott Mantz of Access Hollywood appeared on the episode reviewing Battlestar Galactica.
  • Jenna Busch, founder of the website Legion of Leia, appears on the Wonder Woman episode.
  • Brianne Drouhard, who created the series Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, appeared on the episode reviewing that series.
  • Deadpool (2016) screenwriter Rhett Reese guest stars on the Monthly Movie episode reviewing Lonesome Dove.
  • Actor Samm Levine, who appeared in the shows Selfie and Freaks and Geeks, appeared on the episodes covering them.
• Life In The World To Come has had the Youtuber Andy King join for a special filmed episode.

Radio

• That Gosh Darn Hippie Show: Vince Martell of Vanilla Fudge and "Weird Al" Yankovic have both been interviewed on the show.

Theater

• The 1973 Broadway musical Seesaw brought on Mayor John Lindsay of New York City during the "My City" number for one performance in its first week.

Video Games

• Fight Club: The Video Game: Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit is a bonus character.
• Michael Jackson in Space Channel 5.
• The third-person shooter, Infected for the PSP has Mark Hunter, lead singer of Chimaira, and the members of Slipknot.
• Deus Ex: Invisible War has the lead singer of Kidneythieves as a 2070s popstar.
• Denise Crosby as Star Trek: The Next Generation security chief Lt. Natasha Yar in Star Trek Online's 3rd Aniversary mission: Temporal Ambassador
• Spec Ops: The Line gives the player's profile name a Special Guest credit at the end of the opening credits.
• Saints Row IV gives players the option to use Nolan North 's voice. The option for his voice is even listed as "Nolan North".
  • Saints Row IV also features appearances by Keith David As Himself and Roddy Piper.
• PAYDAY 2 has the Alesso Heist, set during a concert by the artist of the same name.
• The opening credits for Kingdom Come: Deliverance has a special guest credit for BRIAN BLESSED.
• Kick Man has Pac-Man appear in the game to eat balloons. Justified as both Pacman and Kick Man were made by Midway Games.
• Star Gagnant features Takahashi Meijin (also known as Master Takahashi), a former Hudson Soft executive as the Player Character's commander. The real-life Takahashi supervised development of this game, which itself is a Creator-Driven Successor to Hudson's Star Soldier series (as well as Terarin's (the lead developer) previous game Raging Blasters, another game inspired by Star Soldier).

Web Animation

• In Taco-Man: The Game Master, video game characters make appearences, This includes Dirk form Dragon's Lair.
• Homestar Runner:
  • Parodied by the rapper Peacey P, who guest stars on his own albums.
  • Played straight in the Strong Bad Email "email thunder", where the Poopsmith breaks his vow of silence to perform an email song for the 200th episode, and is voiced by John Linnell of They Might Be Giants.
• Red vs. Blue: "Grey vs. Gray" stars (and was partially written by) the Game Grumps. Arin Hanson, Suzy Hanson, Ross O'Donovan, and Barry Kramer provide the voices for Cobb, Reg, Deuce, and Squatch, while Barry and Brain Wecht helped write.
• In The Grossery Gang webseries' 2016 Christmas episode, special voice appearances by various toy reviewers that have reviewed the toyline are featured, including CookieSwirlC, DisneyCarToys, PSToyReviews and Chad Alan. CookieSwirlC returned in the 2017 Christmas special as a guest role, voicing PukieHurlC, a parody of her mascot.
• asdfmovie: Has its own page.

Webcomics

• The band of Infinite appearing in Welcome to the Convenience Store.
• Ménage à 3: It’s a throwaway gag and surely not in any way authorized, but one flashback in a bonus strip shows Zii and Yuki’s old band guesting with the Red Hot Chili Peppers — who were probably chosen mostly because of their well-known penchant for playing naked. The psychotic and phallophobic Yuki gets to kick at least one of them in the junk.
• In El Goonish Shive, an In-Universe celebrity special guest shows up during the "Detective Block" storyline.

Web Videos

• KateModern: A number of celebrities (of varying degrees of fame) cameo as themselves, including actor Jamie Bell; bands The Days and Scouting For Girls; film director Mike Figgis; presenters Tim Westwood, Nick Grimshaw, DJ Dre and Michael Underwood; journalist Gordon Smart; and Joanna Shields, the CEO of Bebo. None of them has significant impact on the plot.
• Lost In Google: A handful of these throughout the series, including Caparezza and Yotobi.
• The boys from Unskippable tapped Ben "Yahtzee" Crosshaw for their Star Ocean episode. And one of them appeared on Zero Punctuation to return the favor.
• The Nostalgia Critic:
  • The Critic actually got Christopher Lloyd to say, "I was frozen today."
  • Hell, Mara Wilson showed up in one of his reviews, and she then later went on to co-review Matilda with The Nostalgia Chick.
  • Don Bluth guest starred in his 6th Commercials episode and his Dragon's Lair review.
  • Corey Taylor, his son Griff, and the "cast" of Satellite City all contribute to the review of The Wall.
• Heartcore features characters created by the author's close friends. Said characters include Ryodalyn Knight (created by the author's best friend), Emerald Jaegar (created by Cory Homles, and Syranon Glaed (created by the author's husband).
• In Epic Meal Time:
  • With Freddie "freddiew" Wong in "Epic VFX Time" and "West Coast Burger Pile" (alongside Corridor Digital).
  • With DJ/producer deadmau5 in "Cheesy Grilled Cheese Tower" and "Meat Cthulhu".
  • With synthpop singer/songwriter Lights in "Fast Food Meatloaf".
  • With FPSRussia in "Russian Meal Time" and "Meat Shield".
  • With professional skateboarder Tony Hawk in "Fast Food Pizza Cake".
  • With the SMOSH duo in "Super Pastry Cake".
  • With as many as they could get in "Turbaconepicentipede", both old and new.
• The guys from The Gentleman's Rant are fond to bringing porn stars to the show. On the episode about homophobia, Brazzers stars Breanne Benson and Tasha Reign gave a shot at ranting and kissing. They also brought Epic Meal Time's Harley for another episode.
• The React series:
  • Kids React: Lauren and Dani from Cimorelli. Also, their younger brothers Joey and Christian participated in "Kids React to 'It's Thanksgiving' (Nicole Westbrook)" and "One Pound Fish" respectively.
  • Teens React: Lisa and Amy Cimorelli and their brother Alex, Lucas Cruikshank, Jake Short (twice), and Alex Steele from Degrassi.
  • YouTubers React is virtually, "Special Guest: The Series".
• Movie Fights occasionally brings in fan-requested Youtubers (such as Doug Walker and Chris Stuckmann) as their "gladiators". The show has even brought in celebrities such as Elijah Wood, Max Landis and Kevin Smith (the latter have actually appeared twice to fight in the shows).
• On Cinema has people involved in film having guest appearances as themselves during the series such as Joe Estevez, John Aprea and Payton Reed. Gregg is often billed as a guest despite appearing in just about as many episodes as Tim and serves more as a co-host.
• Queer Kid Stuff: Lindsay has occasionally invited people onto the show to help her explain certain topics.
• Chubbyemu:
  • Justin Whang, host of Tales From the Internet, has had two starring roles in the series, appearing in the reconstructions for the episodes "A Dad Drank 50 Beers Everyday For 6 Weeks. This Is What Happened To His Brain. and "A TikToker Drank 1 Liter Cough Syrup. This Is What Happened To His Brain." as Patient JW and BW, respectively.
  • Fellow YouTuber East Bound stars as Patient CE to discuss his own medical case on the horrifying side effects of the chemical 2,4-Dinitrophenol in A Man Had An Accident With A Weight Loss Chemical. This Is What Happened To His Organs.
• The Angry Video Game Nerd:
  • He got Lloyd Kaufman on board to help him slam all the various The Toxic Avenger games.
  • Nathan Barnatt shows up in one episode to help him mock the Sega Activator.
  • Macaulay Culkin dressed up as a pizza boy forces him to play a bunch of Home Alone games, desperate to get at least one good review for one of the games that star him.
  • He actually got Mike Butters (yes, that Mike Butters) to reprise his role as the TV Game Guy from ''Pepsi Man.
  • Gilbert Gottfried plays the notorious game developer Fred Fucks during the review of Life Of Black Tiger.
  • When reviewing Jurassic Park: Trespasser invoked he invites Seamus Blackley onto his show to basically explain what went wrong with the game in development.
  • Mr. Lobo of Cinema Insomnia narrates his episode about The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
  • Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie guest-stars Howard Scott Warshaw, the man who actually programmed the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial game the movie is lampooning.
• Joel Haver's "Sand Planet" features Justin Roiland as a disgruntled Uncle Owen and a suicidal droid.

Western Animation

• Bojack Horseman often uses this trope; celebrities include Daniel Radcliffe, Wallace Shawn, Jessica Biel, Margo Martindale, Naomi Watts, Henry Winkler, Sir Paul McCartney, Wiz Khalifa, and Sir Mix-a-Lot. Other celebrities voiced by other actors have appeared as well, such as Beyonce, Andrew Garfield, and J.D Salinger.
• Both The Simpsons and Futurama use this all the time, with "stars" as diverse as William Shatner, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Sondheim, the Backstreet Boys, and Gary Gygax. As well as Al Gore and Tony Blair. The Simpsons even got Reclusive Artist Thomas Pynchon, which was the only time his voice has been broadcasted in the media.
  • This has resulted in some bizarre incongruities when the guest stars have been celebrities with big lips, as the yellow-skinned humanoids on the show are famously lipless. Kim Basinger kept hers, but Steven Tyler voiced a version of himself with his conspicuously missing, resulting in what looked disturbingly like Steven Tyler as a reanimated corpse.
  • Invoked in "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase", where the Simpsons had a variety show similar to the one done by The Brady Bunch in the late 1970s. Homer hides on one side of the stage, prompting this exchange:
    Homer: I'm hi-i-iding from the gho-o-ost!
    Marge: What ghost?
    Homer: You said we were having a special ghost this evening!
    Marge: I said we were having a special guest this evening — Mr. Tim Conway!
• The practice is mocked by South Park. As the opening disclaimer notes, "All celebrity voices are impersonated... poorly." Parker and Stone are generally unwilling to allow celebrities to do guest spots on the show, and have avoided them since the very early seasons.
  • George Clooney provided the dog noises for Stan's gay dog in the episode "Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride", and Jay Leno supplied the cat noises for Cartman's cat in "Cartman’s Mom is a Dirty Slut". Jerry Seinfeld contacted the show offering to do a guest spot, but his agent rejected the offer of performing as a turkey in "Helen Keller: The Musical".
  • Parker and Stone have gone on record saying that they have only ever requested two celebrities to perform on their show: Robert Smith and Natasha Henstridge. In contrast to the other guest spots, their roles actually come with a few lines, though Henstridge is billed as "That Chick from Species."
• Several episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants include a special guest, typically voicing a one-off character. Examples include Corky Carroll voicing a Goo Lagoon surfer that's on-screen for about 10 seconds, Mark Hamill voicing a supervillain moth, Bobby Cannavale voicing a sea turtle with a Brooklyn accent, and Jeff Garlin voicing a giant imaginary hamster... it's as weird as it sounds.
  • Exception: Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway were recurring special guests playing the roles of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, respectively, in a large number of episodes. After Borgnine's death in 2012, the characters became retired and have since shown up with very minor, non-speaking cameo appearances.
  • Exception: Pat Morita played the villain in one episode. This was one of his last performances before his death, and the episode was dedicated to him.
• The late Dan Wheldon, two-time winner of the Indy 500, voiced himself on the Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5 episode "Full Throttle".
• Static Shock had a number of these in the third season.
• This was basically the whole idea behind The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Some of the guests, like Dick Van Dyke, Sandy Duncan, and Sonny & Cher, played themselves; others, like Laurel and Hardy, didn't. The most recent edition, Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, continues with that premise.
• Transformers: Animated had quite a few as well, such as "Weird Al" Yankovic in the episode that introduced Wreck-Gar (a Shout-Out to the movie).
  • Also George Takei as the cyberninja Master Yoketron.
• Speaking of "Weird Al" Yankovic, he was in Batman: The Brave and the Bold in an episode where Batman and Robin team up with Scooby-Doo and Shaggy to fight against a couple of Batman rogues.
• An episode of Arthur has Mr. Fred Rogers make an animated appearance. Another episode had an appearance by Neil Gaiman, who played a famous writer in-universe.
• The Flintstones, strangely, has Stone Age versions of Darrin and Samantha Stephens (voiced by guest stars Dick York and Elizabeth Montgomery) moving in next door to Fred and Wilma.^note Both The Flintstones and Bewitched aired on ABC, and the former was distributed at the time by Screen Gems, which produced the latter. So... Samantha really is immortal, having lived from at least the Stone Age into the early 1970s.
  • Another episode had them befriending famous actress "Ann-Margrock," voiced by movie star Ann-Margret.
• In the 1980s version of Alvin and the Chipmunks, the episode "Urban Chipmunk" has the guest voice of Dolly Parton.
  • Mr. T also appeared on an episode, voicing himself.
• The Rocko's Modern Life episode "No Pain, No Gain" features Richard Simmons as an aerobics instructor at the high-end health club Rocko and Heffer are trying to join.
• In the "My Punky Valentine" episode of The Weekenders, one of the gambits Tino's friends use to get him to forget about a punky girl involves introducing him to Jennifer Love Hewitt. It doesn't work, but it does result in being one of the few episodes which doesn't end with Tino saying, "Later days!" - the Ghost Whisperer does it instead ("Hahaha!!! I feel like such a dork...").
• While Clone High had a couple of Actor Allusion characters, like Luke Perry; the most emphasized is Tom Green, who shows up as Tom Green to speak about ADHD.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: "Weird Al" Yankovic guest-stars as Cheese Sandwich (who's basically a ponified version of Al himself), a friendly rival of Pinkie Pie who became a traveling party pony after she inspired him when they were both younger, in season 4.
  • John de Lancie guest stars in the series whenever his character, Discord, is needed.
• Dexter's Laboratory: The season 3 episode "Lab on the Run" had Fred Willard and Martin Mull from Fernwood Tonight as a pair of slacker robots, F.R.E.D. and MAR-10.
• Phineas and Ferb: So, so many. It would be easier to list of the number of celebrities who didn't appear. The list of those that did appear include Clay Aiken, Chaka Khan (in the same episode), Slash (who called up Dan and Swampy and asked to be part of the show), Parry Gripp, Don LaFontaine (in his last role ever), Kevin Smith and numerous others.
  • A full list can be found here.
• Heckle and Jeckle guest star in the Filmation Mighty Mouse episode "Around the World in Eighty Ways." They're hosting a ceremony highlighting Oil Can Harry's failures.
• The Patrick Star Show has a few guest stars.
  • "Squidina's Little Helper" has Fentin Finkle, a young crab voiced by Gracen Newton who becomes Squidina's production assistant.
  • "Mid-Season Finale" ends with an appearance by Bootsy Collins.
  • "FitzPatrick" has Henry Rollins voicing the titular character, who's Patrick's Evil Twin.
  • In "A Root Galoot", Bobcat Goldthwait plays a mandrake root who bosses the Star family around and overstays his welcome.
  • In "Which Witch is Which?", Andrea Martin voices Agnes Steelhead, Patrick and Squidina's witch grandmother.
  • "Patrick's Prison Pals" revolves around a muscular prisoner voiced by Danny Trejo, who quickly realizes that being with Patrick's family is worse than being in prison. There's also a small Role Reprise by Joe Pantoliano, who voiced prisoner Stickyfins in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "The Getaway".

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