Chance the Rapper was brought on board The Lion King by Donald Glover as a “nostalgia consultant” – mostly, it seems, because he has been obsessed with the original cartoon since he was a kid. (Plus it got him a small speaking role in the film.) As Hollywood job titles go, nostalgia consultant is pretty impressive. Here are a few more.

Roach wrangler

Ray Mendez provided 5,000 cockroaches for the 1996 comedy Joe’s Apartment and 20,000 of the insects for the Death by Roaches scene in the 1982 horror film Creepshow. (He also did moths for The Silence of the Lambs.) But the guru of insect wrangling is probably Steven Kutcher, normally credited as entomology consultant, who has worked on everything from Jurassic Park and Spider-Man to James and the Giant Peach. His habit of taking his insect chums with him on TV talk shows led to an appearance on The Larry Sanders Show when his tarantulas “escaped”.

Worst boy

Oh, those Zuckers, David and Jerry (and Jim Abrahams). As students of film credits know, the best boy is the assistant to the head electrician (gaffer) or head rigger (key grip). Well, those funny guys had themselves a time with the credits on Airplane!, their 1979 debut: there’s no best boy credit but there is one for “worst boy” … Adolf Hitler.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld in the 2010 Coen brothers’ film True Grit. Photograph: Allstar/Paramount Pictures/Sportsphoto

The last of the just

The Coen brothers also get creative with their credits, and producer Drew Houpt, who was head of operations at the Coens’ production company for several years, gets some interesting job descriptions. On True Grit he was credited as “the new duke”; on Burn After Reading as “the walrus”; and on No Country for Old Men “the one right tool”. His credit on A Serious Man is best: The last of the just. This is the title of a novel by André Schwarz-Bart about victimisation of Jews across the centuries.

Orgy sequence advisor

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

No such credit exists on the 1959 biblical epic Solomon and Sheba (“Behold! The love story of the ages!”), but a scene with Gina Lollobrigida leading a pagan love fest did get everyone hot under the collar. An orgy sequence adviser was named in Michael and Harry Medved’s 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards as one Granville Heathway – who, strangely, has not been heard of before or since.

Additional dialogue by …

Although not an especially rare credit, one in particular has gone down in infamy. The 1929 version of The Taming of the Shrew, starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, was reportedly adorned with the ludicrous: “By William Shakespeare, with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor.” But, like orgy sequence adviser, this may only be an industry urban myth as popularised (again) by The Golden Turkey Awards: existing copies of the film credit Taylor for “adaptation and direction”.