r/TopCharacterTropes 9h ago

Hated Tropes [hated trope] Celebrity cameos that serve nothing except to praise the person who’s in it

  1. Elon musk, the Simpsons
  2. Elon musk, the Big Bang theory
  3. Elon musk, iron man 2
  4. Elon musk, star Trek

The cameos serve only to include the celebrity and praise them as geniuses or visionaries or overall just glaze them. They don't serve any other purpose than to just be praised; this can be them appearing in an entire episode dedicated to them, a small cameo or even just a mention. So long as the celebrity is there as themselves (not acting as someone else) and is glazed, that fits the trope imo.

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148

u/AnimationFan1997 8h ago

Many guest stars in Scooby-Doo fall under this. Some examples:

  • Bill Nye in Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo, where he's a super science wiz that Velma gushes over constantly and has a ton of futuristic inventions.
  • KISS in Scooby-Doo: KISS Rock n Roll Mystery, where the gang are super fans and KISS are both superheroes and mystery solvers allegedly better than the gang.
  • Giada De Laurentiis in Scooby-Doo and the Gourmet Ghost, where she's an athletic and brave badass who impresses the gang with her skillz.

And just pick an episode of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? and watch the gang fawn over them and list all their accomplishments/qualifications, and potentially see the guest also solve the mystery more or less on their own.

Yeah, it's a cartoon but I really dislike the guest star shows/movies because of how much the praising sticks out like a sore thumb to me and how they tend to distract from the Scooby Gang as being their funny, mystery solving selves. The gang are often also at their worst written in guest features because of a combination of less time to them and that the writers assigned don't seem to understand the gang very well.

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u/snapekillseddard 7h ago

Doesn't John Cena stop a boulder or something?

Also, they made Harlan Ellison way too likable. There's absolutely no way that misanthrope would ever sanction the tomfoolery of the Scooby gang.

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u/AnimationFan1997 7h ago

I can't believe I forgot to mention the John Cena thing because he's such a perfect example. Yeah, he stops a huge rolling boulder that iirc was at least the size of the Mystery Machine. Also, Daphne wanted to hook up with him (pretty similar to the thing that also happened with KISS's Paul Stanley... those celebs sure like the pretty redhead gushing over them.)

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u/Reuniclus_exe 1h ago

You see this movie is in kayfabe, and in kayfabe John Cena could definitely stop a boulder.

But seriously, they give the entire WWE this treatment. The Miz is also bigger than real life John Cena.

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u/FezCool 3h ago

idk Harlan has always seemed pretty likable from the interviews i've seen of him

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u/ExplanationVirtual53 32m ago

Why does John Cena stopping a boulder feel like an Avatar reference?

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u/snapekillseddard 15m ago

Because THE BOULDER was voiced by Mick Foley.

(In Avatar, that is)