Contest Winner Cameo: Difference between revisions

** Professor Ladislav Pelc in ''Going Postal''.

** Dr John Hix in ''[[Discworld/Making Money|Making Money]]'' and ''Unseen Academicals''.

* In 2002, chuckpalahniuk.net held a raffle to raise money. The six winners had characters in "Diary" named for them. (Nora Adams and Will Tupper are two of them.)

* Ray Huizenga, a minor character in [[Stephen King]]'s novel ''[[Cell]]'', was named via charity auction.

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' and ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' have done this for several seasons now on Sci Fi. The contest winner has a walk-on cameo appearance in one episode of each show. One winner was the wife of the Ori religious zealot in the Season 9 premiere three-parter.

** The DVD Commentaries for the episode usually reveal the identity of the winner. In "Lost City", it's the woman who enters the Oval Office and shakes Hayes' hand after his meeting with Weird. Later, in "Camelot", director Martin Wood specifically made the contest winner John Noble's wife so "she wouldn't get cut," seeming to imply that other contest winners have had their scenes cut.

** Similarly, the online animated spoof ''[[wikipedia:Stone Trek|Stone Trek]]'' has a feature where fans can submit photos of themselves so that they can be drawn and featured as the show's [[Red Shirt]]s.

* In 1977, ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' held a contest for the [[Guest Host]] spot on that year's Christmas episode called the "Anyone Can Host" contest. The winner was Miskel Spillman, an 80-year-old grandmother from New Orleans who happened to be a fan of the show (and still was until she died in the early 1990s). After learning that an old lady won the contest, the ''SNL'' production team tried to get the [[Sex Pistols]] on as the musical guest (as it would drum up more publicity and it would be hilarious to have a controversial punk band as the musical guest for a show hosted by a random old lady), but visa problems caused them to pick [[Elvis Costello]] and the Attractions instead. Costello's infamous performance where he stops his planned performance of "Less than Zero" to play "Radio Radio" (who was considered too "anti-media" to play on mainstream television at the time) instead has become one of the most iconic in the show's history. Barely anyone cares about the old lady whose winning of the contest actually had a (minor at best) [[Overshadowed by Awesome|role at his being there in the first place]]. Even though Miskel Spillman lives on as ''SNL'''s only non-celebrity to host an episode, her place as the oldest host was usurped years later by another old lady host: [[Betty White]].

* FOX held a [[King of the Hill|Hank Hill]] look alike contest on their network at one point. The winner appeared on a [[Mad TV]] sketch. Said show also held a few contests that allowed fans walk on bits as well.

* Spoofed in an episode of ''Yes, Dear'' where the actors talk about how they could not find a place to fit him in, so they just had the winner standing there in the last scene, then asked him to move over into HD.

* A while back, around 2003, [[Nickelodeon]] had an "America's Funniest Kid" contest. The winner, Christina Kirkman, remained in the cast of ''[[All That]]'' for the rest of the show's run.

* ''[[Family Matters]]'' held a contest for young Urkel impersonators. The best four impersonators appeared in an episode where Carl dreams that Laura and Steve got married and had children (with another on the way). Some of the runner-up entries were shown as the credits rolled in the same episode.

* Back when ''Remember WENN'' was [[AMC]]'s only original programming, they ran a contest to win a walk-on role in the following season. AMC ended up futzing with the contest (apparently editing out a scene that was supposed to answer a question), and cancelling the show, thus precluding the prize altogether. [http://www.post-gazette.com/magazine/19980929owen3.asp This article mentions (among others) the walk-on contest.]

** A similar offer for ''[[Mad Men]]'' went by without any problems.

* German TV Quiz ''Wer hat's gesehen?'' (''Who watched it?'') has the top price of winning a cameo on a ''Tatort'' (German police procedural) of the candidate's choice.

 

* Konami held contests for various versions of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'' and ''[[Video Game Remake|The Twin Snakes]]'' where the (numerous) winners would have mooks named after them. For ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]'', they held a camouflage designing contest, with winning designs appearing in the game.

** From the same company, during the popularity peak of the ''[[Tokimeki Memorial]]'' series, Konami organized the "Tokimeki Teens" marketing program. In there, they selected one idol among a bunch of candidates, and this idol would get [[As Himself|her fictionalized version of herself]] in the ''Drama Series'' games of the series, as well as being able to produce various songs. The winner of this contest was Mie Kuribayashi. Let's just say she quickly fell back in the shadows after the ''Drama Series'' were done.

* A few [[NPC]]s in ''[[Breath of Fire]] III'' are named after contest winners. These same people also named some in-game items and a few fish.

* ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'': in the room were you find Clayface there are a set of stairs that lead to a cell where a creepy prisoner with one arm is being held; this prisoner was the winner of a contest.

** The Spiral of Death weapon was the (publicly-voted) winner of a weapon design contest.

** The Bancho Ratchet [[And Your Reward Is Clothes|skin]] was the winning design for a Japanese skin contest.

* Lucas and Cameron, two characters in the starting village of Fallout2 are named after Cameron Rapmund and Łukasz Kawarski, the winners of the official Fallout trivia challenge.

* [[Konami]] held a contest for [[Beatmania]] for a fan to get their music into IIDX RED. Fortunately, the [http://vjarmy.com/wiki/index.php/Inside_Jokes#Kyle_Snyder_.2F_Mirror_Force_.2F_Engulfed_Beam_.2F_You_Can.27t_Escape_Me winner's] music didn't get in.

* ''[[Quest for Glory V]]'' also did this—Wolfie was a fan who sent cartoon sketches of his character to the game's creators, the Coles. They used those sketches to create a full-fledged character without whom the game is unwinnable! How's that for a cameo?

* Dan Emmerson won a contest for his [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_AexmWZZL4&feature=player_embedded Meat Cello] entry and wound up in the second level of ''[[Dead Space 2]]''. The name of the contest, [[Death by Cameo|"Get Dismembered in Dead Space 2"]], gives away what would happen to him.

* ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]]'': Lizink's Wig of Foppery, {{spoiler|which Bailiff Killick Hardtack is compelled to wear after losing his case against Guybrush}} in Chapter 4, is named after the [http://www.telltalegames.com/community/blogs/id-498 screen name of Liz Johnston], [http://pc.ign.com/articles/102/1027699p1.html a native of British Columbia], [[Canada, Eh?]], and Telltale Games' winner of the "How Has Guybrush Wronged You Competition" in the "Game Designer for a Day" contest ([http://www.telltalegames.com/community/blogs/id-474 which started on July 14, 2009, a week after the release of Chapter 1]); her winning line, "He dug up my perfectly good X!", appears in Hardtack's accusation against Guybrush. Not only that, but her name also appears on the list of "Designer for a Day Finalists" in the end credits of Chapter 4.

* Irrational Games ''[[BioShock Infinite]]'' held a contest to get a fan's name in the game. The winner was a fellow named Payton Lane Easter who is now the proud owner of a [http://irrationalgames.com/files/2011/05/paytonlaneeaster_finalasset.jpg robot horse company].

* Toward the end of ''[[Its Walky]]'', many of the die-hard message board fans were made into members of the army, and were, naturally, horribly killed.

* [[The Cyantian Chronicles]]: There's several instances, but the most notable is the fan scripted bonus comic at the end of Akaelae # 5. Although, The Scripting Game only let me cameo as the writer. It didn't get a character included.

* ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'' has had a number of these.

* ''[[Least I Could Do]]'' holds a contest every [[Valentine's Day]] where the winner gets to go on a date with a character of their choosing (which means, yes, they get to live out their [[Perverse Sexual Lust]]). Interestingly, [[Butt Monkey]] John has had the most luck so far with two dates; protagonist Rayne has also had two, but one was with a [[Ho Yay|gay man]] and the other was with a beautiful blonde, but the rest of the cast did their best to sabotage it.

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[[Category:Show Business]]