Stephen King is a titan of pop culture. He makes up about 60 percent of your local Barnes & Noble, and has covered so many horror topics that most films are legally required to carry the message "Based On A Whatever By Stephen King." As a kid who grew up gawky and un-talked-to, King novels were both a source of respite and joy for me. And with the new trailers for IT and The Dark Tower, it's nice to see people come together to say "DAMMMNNNNN, STEPHEN KING. DUDE. IS. KILLING. IT." Or something like that.

However, we should approach these adaptations with at least a little bit of wariness, because with Stephen King movies come the threat of Stephen King cameos. As tremendous as King's writing career has been, his onscreen ventures are usually confusing, frequently terrible, and always unnecessary. And because of that, I feel that it's time to document all the times that movie producers decided to remind you that Stephen King is a flesh person and not a being of pure energy that drops a book about haunted objects from the sky twice a year.

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Knightriders

United Film Distribution Company

In George Romero's Knightriders, a movie about motorcycle jousting that I have to constantly remind myself is real, Stephen King shows up as "Hoagie Man." He's in the crowd, viciously eating a hoagie and commenting on the size of his own balls. If you want to wake the audience up, inserting a prolific horror author into your movie to talk about his genitalia and then leave forever is certainly a way to do it.