10 Hilariously Meta Moments From The Muppets Franchise

Cameos are a Muppet staple, and just about every Muppet movie features celebrities popping in for random lines. Along with mocking tropes of other films, sometimes the Muppets poke fun at their own tropes, in this case, the whole idea of the quick cameo.

In The Great Muppet Caper, actor Peter Ustinov appears in a cameo, one of many that was cool at the time but is pretty dated now. He's playing a driver whose truck Ms. Piggy steals, and she throws him out of the driver's seat into a bunch of trash cans. Out of nowhere, freaking Oscar the Grouch shows up in one of the occasional Muppets/Sesame Street crossover moments. Ustinov asks what Oscar's doing there, and he says, "A very brief cameo." Ustinov looks into the camera and says, "Me too." By that point, the Muppets' own formula of throwing known actors into random roles had become so commonly used, they couldn't help but make fun of it.

There's a similar gag in Muppets Most Wanted when the opening song promises Hollywood stars "and their one-liner cameos." That line happens to be delivered by Lady Gaga in a one-liner cameo. From the looks of the trailers, the cameos will play a big part in the new ABC series, and it'd be great if they could get this meta with them again.