Ok...when I watch movies, I really, really enjoy watching backround weirdos. Not just because I have worked as that off and on...I have been doing it since I was a kid. I think it comes from a love of Star Wars, Dark Crystal, muppets, Wizard of Oz, etc...where even the backround is a character and gets its own action figure.

Anyway, maybe I'm the only one who cares...but I thought it would be interesting and fun. If anyone else shares this hobby, a great way to spread the wealth and check out some of these truly exceptional extras!

And when listing your favs, please don't list yourself...that would be cheating!!!

Here are mine:

1) The guy who sits behind Tom Hanks on the plane in "Catch Me if You Can". Every time they cut back to that plane, I just can't take my eyes off that guy. A classic nerd, straight out of Revenge of the Nerds.

2) The guy who breakdances across the screen when they introduce the high school in the pilot episode of 'Twin Peaks". Hilarious...and adds to the dream like feel. He's about 14 years old (or maybe 18 to look younger), and I can just imagine him showing up on set and saying "look what I can do!" and then Lynch saying..."Wow! let's go for it." Exceptionally bizarre entertainment.

3) The guy with a fish mask in "Terror Firmer." For the life of me I can't figure it out. Somebody told me it was an unused creature design for one of the director's other movies. Still...a fish man is always standing around in a group of mostly contemporary punk rockers. I laugh every time I see it.

4) This goes without saying...the guy who pulls his pee pee out in "Teen Wolf." How he got away with it on set, I have no idea. How they didn't notice it in the footage when editting, I have no idea. How the movie became a very watched 80s classic, but nobody noticed for 20 years...classic.

5) While I think this is a character and not an extra...he has no lines and I'll through him out there anyway. The guy with the Mohawk who whispers to another guy at the town meeting in "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure." Pee-Wee responds with, "Do you have something you'd like to share with the entire group Amazing Larry?" Classic!!

Anyway, i love of these guys I think is a love of movies themselves. Plus, gives you something to look for when you have seen a movie a few times.

Anybody else have any favs???

thanks for noticing people like us, who make it all possible

Yeah i always notice the backround. Believe me, I have done plenty. Trying not to since I have worked as a principle performer...but ya gotta do what ya gotta due.

But I honestly believe the weirdoes I mentioned above really add a LOT to movies. I can remember all of them vividly, and they made me laugh for whatever reason.

Some of them I think might have been cast...the Breakdancer in Twin Peaks for example...but still seem to exist as backround players. Backround players that somehow stole the scene!

Anybody else have any favorites?

Oh, I just found this while Googling the infamous Teen Wolf extra...

I don't watch 30 Rock. have never even seen one show, but I have heard its good.

Anyway, if I did see it...THIS GUY would have made my top 5 list.

Prepair for awesomeness...

http://www.theapiary.org/archives/2008/12/a_brief_history.html#more

This blonde in Bewitch, I wish I know who she is, and I saw her twice. She's in this video at 1:02-1:05. She's definitely an extra, she probably be shock to see a post is even made about her. I also saw her in another Bewitch episode but I can't remember it's name so I can't get a snapshot of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlvuFw-toYE

Here's a snap shot of it, she looks a lot like Paris Hilton to me. It's better on television for better resolution.

quote:

Originally posted by harlemhippo:
5) While I think this is a character and not an extra...he has no lines and I'll through him out there anyway. The guy with the Mohawk who whispers to another guy at the town meeting in "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure." Pee-Wee responds with, "Do you have something you'd like to share with the entire group Amazing Larry?" Classic!!

HAHA! Amazing Larry! In the DVD commentary they said that he was supposed to have a bigger part. Oh well...

And since you mentioned Revenge of the Nerds, I REALLY hated that blond curly haired nerd with the black hat in the very first one! I didn't get him. Was he supposed to be a blond Harpo Marx or something? The only thing he did was make stupid faces and magically teleport from the bar to the other side of the room dancing during the frat party for U.N. Jefferson (poor continuity editing!).

Here's my favorite extra!

Eldorado...

Its been awhile since I saw revenge of The Nerds, but I know EXACTLY who you are talking about!!!

I never liked that guy either. We used to make fun of the "Harpo marx" nerd when I was in about 6th grade.

quote:

Originally posted by harlemhippo:
Eldorado...

Its been awhile since I saw revenge of The Nerds, but I know EXACTLY who you are talking about!!!

I never liked that guy either. We used to make fun of the "Harpo marx" nerd when I was in about 6th grade.

I would have left him in the gym. Since he was at the bar, he must know how to whip up a mean drink.

William Friedkin's "Cruising" might have come of the craziest extras of all time! Every frame oozes sleaze! Can't believe I forgot about that one.

And while its not an extra...it is a background detail... The armadillo walking around in the cobwebs in the original "Dracula" might be my favorite image in any movie.

Thought I would bump this back up...

How about Richard Simmons in Fellini's Satyricon?

http://pragmatic-hedonist.blog...richard-simmons.html

I remember seeing that on Simmon's A&E Behind the Scenes or something...and it was a literal jaw dropper.

And this one has been getting a lot of press latly: Eli Roth can be spotted in Barbra Streisand's "The Mirror Has Two Faces"

About 3:40 in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...ture=player_embedded

Eli Roth/Brabara Streisand...Richard Simmons/Federico Fellini...two very, very strange combinations.

Just watched a couple of movies today that had some great extras:

Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child: this is the first I have watched this one in years...and a couple scenes jumped out. The scene where a girl with an eating disorder is forced to eat herself has a bunch of oddballs at the dinner party. One guy in particular just jumps off the screen. Blue suit, kind of a mullet...leering like a complete pervert!

And the "100 maniacs" scene has the strangest cast of characters one could hope for. I wonder what it was like doing extras casting for this part...either a blast or a nightmare!

Hairspray: This is the original, John Waters version. John waters always features some crazy looking people in the backround of his movies...and his most mainstream work is no exception! One that had me laughing out loud was when Riki Lake has to go to Special Ed, one guy has on Google Googles (you know, when two fake eyeballs are attached by springs...) This guy is talking to a girl in class in one shot, and sitting in class in another. Both times, no attention is called to the fact that he is wearing those crazy glasses, as if it were completly normal to wear them all the time.