10 Weird Early Appearances By Iconic Film Characters

5. Child-Friendly Machete

So where exactly did Machete, the Mexican love letter to exploitation cinema played to a tee by Danny Trejo and directed by his long-lost cousin Robert Rodriguez, originate? Conventional wisdom puts the former federale-turned-mercenary's first appearance in one of the fake trailers which padded out Grindhouse, Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's double feature of old-school genre flicks which included similar teasers for non-existent films helmed by Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright. From there Rodriguez and Trejo expanded Machete to a full-length film, with many scenes from the fake trailer recreated, and have since spun it off into a sequel (Machete Kills) and an upcoming third in the trilogy. Except Grindhouse wasn't, in fact, the first time we were introduced to the charming Machete Cortez. Nope, years before that he played a key role in another Rodriguez film. Not From Dusk Till Dawn, not El Mariachi, not Once Upon A Time In Mexico: Spy Kids. Trejo plays "Uncle" Machete in the series of children's films about a couple of pint-sized secret agents trying to save the world (and their parents), furnishing them with the gadgets and gizmos they needed to complete their task in all four films of the series so far. Trejo has confirmed the Spy Kids Machete and the €œgrown up€ are one and the same, with the Machete films documenting what Cortez gets up to when the youngsters aren't around. So, that's pretty weird. Next you'll be telling us that's Machete in the El Paso adverts, too...