One of the more curious aspects of the Starz sitcom Party Down was how such a tiny show managed to attract major star power within its first two seasons. There’s the fun of Kristen Bell returning to a Rob Thomas show after their collaboration on Veronica Mars, the reliable comedic talent of Thomas Lennon, June Diane Raphael, Rob Huebel, and so many more, and stars in the making like Kaitlyn Dever and Kevin Hart – seconds before he was famous. With its triumphant — or rather, pitiful, crawling — return to television this month, here are some of the best cameos from the first two seasons of Party Down.
George Takei
This was a show where stars were able to have fun with their celebrity personas, and in the first season finale, George Takei plays the role he was arguably born for: George Takei, absolutely exhausted by a Star Trek fan. Of stage, screen, and video game, Takei is certainly best known as Hikaru Sulu from the original Star Trek television series, and much of his pursuant career lived, however gleefully, in that shadow. He might turn up in a movie or a commercial doing his signature lines, but in Party Down, he’s being assailed by sci-fi nerd Roman (Martin Starr), who even follows him into the bathroom for lore questions. “Little trouble? Can’t go?” Roman asks, attending the adjacent urinal. “It’s the talking,” Takei grumbles in response.
Stormy Daniels
Long before “Stormy Daniels” became a household name, shouted over countless ruined Thanksgiving dinners, it was the pseudonym of Stephanie Gregory Clifford, an award-winning pornographic film actress and director. As Macy in Party Down, she’s a pornographic film actress at a porno awards show, yet another industry rife with conflict. As catering lead Ron (Ken Marino) is being scouted as potential talent in a back room, Macy busts in and a fight breaks out with a rival. She goes to smash her with a statuette, but ends up catching Ron’s exposed penis on the backswing. Despite being occupied with presidential scandal and endless litigation, apparently Daniels hadn’t forgotten this little show over 10 years later:
Rick Fox
Stormy Daniels actually played opposite Rick Fox on the FX show Dirt in 2007, which makes Hollywood feel like a weird and small place all of a sudden. The pro basketball player appears in an early episode of Party Down as the guest speaker for a corporate retreat. As a famous — and tall — athlete, he stokes male anxiety for Roman and Henry (Adam Scott). Fox mostly plays off Lizzy Caplan’s character Casey, where he turns up the charm, but also shares a memorable scene with Henry. Assuming that Casey ran off to sleep with Rick Fox, he knocks on the athlete’s hotel room door and is mistaken, reasonably, for staff. Ouch, bro.
J.K. Simmons
One doesn’t generate a filmography like J.K. Simmons without appearing in true odds and ends like Party Down. On a cable sitcom, he’s able to let fly with his characteristic profane monologues: “Tell that motherfucker I’m gonna rip his dick off and use it to fuck his fucking dog in the ass,” he says into a phone. “To death.” And as Leonard Stiltskin, Simmons would seem to be tapping into inevitable experience with the abusive Hollywood producers who’d see their reckoning only in that aforementioned era of Trump. Not the predator Weinstein but the yelling, Mafia-like Scott Rudin, whose tantrums were probably far less poetic. The same year as his first of two appearances on Party Down, Simmons costarred in an independent film with Adam Scott, The Vicious Kind, just one of 10 movies he worked on in 2009. No wonder he’s so stressed out.
Steve Guttenberg
From the comedic menace of J.K. Simmons to the affable but equally prolific Steve Guttenberg, Party Down devotes an entire episode to the ’80s star. In Season 2, Party Down shows up to the actor’s mansion to cater his birthday party, only to learn that his friends surprised him with a celebration earlier, and he forgot to cancel. Guttenberg works out the problem and smiles, tells the caterers to invite some friends over so that the food doesn’t go to waste. He’s a nice reprieve from the gangsters and delusional aspirants of Hollywood, a wise but eccentric screen veteran who actually used to work as a caterer. “Those days working gigs, making squat, just a bunch of struggling actors goofing around,” he reminisces, “best time of my life.” A skeptical Henry asks him, “Better than when you were one of the biggest stars in America?” and the “Gute” thinks about that one. “Well, maybe not the best time.”
Andre Royo
Television viewers who catch The Wire after its initial broadcast do two things stereotypically: become evangelists for the HBO crime thriller, and wonder what the heck happened to the cast? Yes, there was Idris Elba and the rise of Michael B. Jordan — owed more to Friday Night Lights — but the errant glimpses of Seth Gilliam in Homeland or Michael K. Williams at the end of The Road were almost uncanny encounters. Chances are, one has seen Andre Royo since his memorable turn as Bubbles, because he went on to do just about everything. Genre films, cartoons, Key & Peele. Included among those is a brief spot in Party Down. Hey, that’s great. Bubbles made it off the killing streets. Now he’s a Hollywood producer accidentally drinking pee.
Alex Rocco
Who talked to Barzini? In the Season 2 finale, Jane Lynch’s character Constance returns, hiring Party Down to cater her wedding to the aging film mogul Howard Greengold, played by Alex Rocco, perhaps best known as Moe Green out of Las Vegas. Apparently, Rocco was pulling from his own experiences mixed up with organized crime for his performance in The Godfather, as his acting career was an escape from Whitey Bulger’s Boston. After a prison stint, he crossed the country to Hollywood, and a legend was born. For Party Down, he puts his gangster persona well behind him as an obnoxious groom-to-be given over to womanizing and morbid practical jokes. Henry and Casey are both suspicious that he’s taking advantage of their spacey friend Constance, but may discover that there’s more to a man than meets the eye.
Jennifer Coolidge
Less of a cameo than a guest role as Constance’s replacement on the Party Down payroll, it’s nevertheless cool to look back and see how far the acclaimed actress has come. In just two episodes, Coolidge’s character Bobbie St. Brown gets high on mushrooms and says of Kristen Bell, “Oh, look, I found a little elf in the woods,” before cackling.
The Cast of ‘Veronica Mars’
That brings us to the other half of the casting philosophy behind Party Down. Where it wasn’t celebrity cameos or actors who’d soon become celebrities, it was the cast of Veronica Mars. Kristen Bell makes two appearances, playing wonderfully against type as the authoritarian Uda Bengt, rival catering lead. The first episode of Party Down features Enrico Colantoni as a repressed suburbanite, and later, Logan Echolls himself (Jason Dohring) shows up as a member of a Conservative student union, dating Alona Tal. Later, it’s Daran Norris, applying his dulcet tones to a remarkable evil laugh.
The cast of the Party Down revival is already shaping up to the original, punching way above its weight with Jennifer Garner, James Marsden, and guests like Quinta Brunson and Nick Offerman. Well, in 2009 and 2010, Starz was hosting the biggest party in Hollywood, and now, over a decade later, everyone else is invited.
Party Down airs on Fridays at 10 p.m. on Starz.
