Last night, metal god Rob Halford from Judas Priest made a guest voice appearance on an episode of The Simpsons called "Steal This Episode." In a nutshell, Homer became annoyed with movie theaters, so Bart taught him how to download movies illegally. Of course, Homer thinks this revelation kicks ass until he's caught.
The Simpsons has had some great musical cameos, which got me think about other great heavy metal movie appearances. And I'm not just talking about the regular metal-inspired films that we all know and love. I'm talking about the weird ones.
That is, of course we could talk about Rock Star, which is loosely based about how Tom "Ripper" Owens went from fronting a Judas Priest tribute band to replacing Rob Halford. It may not be the most impressive movie, but where else will you find Zakk Wylde, Marky Mark, Jason Bonham, and Jeff Pilson of Dokken all hanging out in a movie band together?
Or maybe you're more of a Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny type of stoner metalhead. Although it wasn't received well commercially, Ronnie James Dio and Dave Grohl both have awesome cameos.
And of course, the beloved Wayne's World, which derived from an SNL skit about a pair of metalheads with a cable access show. The Alice Cooper cameo alone makes this worth it -- and as an expert in the history of Milwaukee, he made us realize that we are all "not worthy."
But below are nine more movies and television shows that feature some obscure and kick-ass heavy metal cameos.
Rammstein in xXx
German industrial metallers Rammstein put up a pretty unforgettable performance of the song "Feur Frei!" in the opening scene of xXx. An NSA agent is running through the streets of Prague and takes refuge in a church, only to find it has become a house of worship for Rammstein in all its pyrotechnical glory.
Marilyn Manson in Party Monster
The movie Party Monster, starring Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green as drag queens, is messed up enough already. But add Marilyn Manson to the mix? Marilyn Manson as Christina Superstar, a real-life famous drag queen? All hell breaks lose.
Ozzy Osbourne in Little Nicky
The Prince of Darkness himself is summoned by Adam Sandler a.k.a. Little Nicky, from Hell to re-create the infamous bat-biting incident in order to save the world from a hellish fate. I've never been a huge fan of this flick -- mostly because Sandler's voice annoys the hell out of me -- but there's some hilarious heavy metal happening here.Cannibal Corpse in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
This has to be one of the funniest scenes in death metal history. As Jim Carrey moves through a crowded rock bar to get to his scientist friend behind the "New England . . . Clam . . . Chowder" door, familiar grunts and shouts that come from the stage.Carrey jumps straight into the air and bobs amongst the other metal heads, most of whom are hidden behind massive manes of headbanging hair. Carrey would later, jokingly, name Cannibal Corpse as his favorite band whenever asked.
KISS on Family Guy
The band members of KISS make appearances in two different Family Guy episodes. The first is "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas," in which they must rescue Santa from dinosaurs in a television special. The second one is "Road to Europe," in which they meet up with Peter and Lois at a diner after a concert. Lois was apparently a groupie in her earlier days, as Gene Simmons' tongue creeps into her bathroom stall and she giggles, "Gene! Oh my! I didn't know you were here!"
Lemmy Kilmister on Airheads
This 1994 comedy is a classic. When Brendan Fraser's character, "Chazz" Chester Darvey, was talking to an undercover cop pretending to be a record executive, and he asked, "Who'd win in a wrestling match, Lemmy or God?" it set the stage for a punch line that has never gotten old in my world of heavy metal.The cop: "Lemmy." Rex, played by Steve Buscemi, imitates a game show buzzer. The cop quickly changes his answer. "God!" Rex: "Wrong, dickhead, trick question. Lemmy IS God!"
When Lemmy does show up in the film (he's also credited as "Lemmy von Motorhead"), he joins in with the crowd admitting geeky pastimes and admits that he edited his school magazine in his youth -- which is actually true.
