7. Star Wars & E.T.

George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg are famous friends. So when Spielberg was working on E.T. in the early 80s, Lucas asked him if he could include a Yoda cameo in the film to help promote Return of the Jedi, which came out a year after E.T.

Spielberg obliged and the cameo came in the form of a little boy in a Halloween costume that E.T. tried to follow while chanting “home, home, home.” Some people took this as an indication that E.T. recognized Yoda as a species from “home.” Lucas confirmed the speculation when he returned the favor to Spielberg by including three E.T.-looking aliens at the senate meeting in A Phantom Menace. Over time, the aliens were indeed confirmed to be of the same Asogian race as E.T.

Lucas even took his tribute one step further by naming the leader of the trio Senator Grebleips, which is Spielberg spelled backwards.

6. Trading Places & Coming to America

In the 70s and 80s, John Landis was probably the best comedy director around and one of his finest achievements was the Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd movie Trading Places. The prince to pauper comedy tells the story of an upper-class commodities broker and a homeless street hustler whose lives become intertwined when they are unknowingly made part of an elaborate bet agreed upon by the exceedingly wealthy Randolph and Mortimer Duke. Upon learning of the scheme, Murphy and Aykroyd join forces to bring down the loathsome Duke brothers in a fraud set-up which ends up costing them $394 million, ultimately ruining them.

Fast forward five years to Landis’ 1988 comedy Coming to America, and we again see Eddie Murphy, only this time he’s playing an African prince who has journeyed to America so that he might experience a more modest lifestyle rather than the royal pampering he was used to at home. A key plot piece in the movie is that Prince Akeem (Murphy) gives away the fortune in spending money that was issued to him by his father so that he might live like a “normal person.” In one scene Akeem is shown giving his money to two homeless men and then quickly continuing on his way without giving it a second thought. But as he walks away, one of the two men looks up and exclaims “Mortimer! We’re back!” Proving that the two men are actually the Duke brothers from Trading Places who have apparently been living on the streets for the past six years since their downfall.