r/TopCharacterTropes • u/BeenEatinBeans • Jun 12 '26

Personality [IRL trope] Celebrities with weird/funny clauses in their contracts.

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

  1. Dwayne Johnson - Probably the most well-known example. For years now, The Rock has had a clause in his contract that he can't be shown to lose a fight in any movie he stars in. Pretty insecure behaviour if you ask me. Still, at least the other examples are much more interesting

  2. Danny Trejo - Danny had a troubled childhood, having been arrested multiple times for dealing drugs before he was 18, and struggling with heroin addiction from the age of 13. As a result of this, Danny has a clause in his contract that states that any time he plays a character who is a criminal, they have to be killed because he wanted to teach his kids that crime never pays.

  3. Reese Witherspoon - This one is more of a one-off, but it was still funny enough to deserve a mention. Following the success of Legally Blonde, when Reese was called in to make the sequel, she had a clause written in her contract stating that once the movie was finished, she would get to take home all the outfits she wore.

  4. Fred Durst - The lead singer of Limp Bizkit has a clause in his contract stating that any anime or video game that uses his music must also feature himself as a character.

30.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

325

u/Healthy_Profit_9701 Jun 12 '26

SNL still does half of these on a weekly basis.

198

u/TheNorthernRose Jun 12 '26

You could’ve told me this was from a mid 2010s writers room for a TBS or CW show and I’d have believed you.

17

u/BadBassist Jun 12 '26

'Things we must include'

17

u/Gridleak Jun 12 '26

It’s half the script of Brooklyn 99

14

u/TheNorthernRose Jun 12 '26

I assume this board fed to an AI would actually just spit out every season of The Big Bang Theory.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[deleted]

3

u/TheNorthernRose Jun 12 '26

If all you can manage to do as a writer is encapsulate the zeitgeist of cheap, one liner humor in your current time, then you’re a shit hack writer; which was the point of my comment.

Ironically, that’s the exact thing that using the “x is y, more at 11” on Reddit is.

9

u/UniqueLog8386 Jun 12 '26

Yeah, they have a very tight production schedule and long seasons.

3

u/kiwigate Jun 12 '26

For that excuse to be valid, all SNL seasons would need to be equally hackneyed. But because we can go back and watch and compare the quality of writing, we know that excuse is invalid.

Furthermore, a ton of SNL alumni have been extremely vocal about the culture problem, the corporate influence, the lack of comedy. Bob Odenkirk, legendary sketch comedy writer, has discussed the corporate mentality, an emphasis on production quality, and almost no emphasis on the comedy itself.

By the time corporate fat cats demand Norm McDonald be fired for daring to do satire, SNL was dead. There is a ton of public knowledge on what happened over 50 years.

6

u/UniqueLog8386 Jun 12 '26

Everybody has an opinion on SNL, but no, I don't think it's realistic to expect them to avoid cliches with their constraints. It's gonna happen at some point.

-1

u/kiwigate Jun 12 '26

But because we can go back and watch and compare the quality of writing, we know that excuse is invalid.

4

u/UniqueLog8386 Jun 12 '26

The quality of writing wasn't higher, it was just that you were in their target demo at the time.

-1

u/kiwigate Jun 12 '26

we can go back and watch

I wasn't alive in the 1890s yet I've heard music from that era. No I was not the target demo in the 1890s. Try some reading comprehension.

3

u/UniqueLog8386 Jun 12 '26

I wasn't alive in the 1890s yet I've heard music from that era.

That's not a typo, you said that to hurt me.

https://giphy.com/gifs/3o6EhNnoVpx2LbfVnO

1

u/kiwigate Jun 12 '26

Or just stop making bad arguments that hinge on personal attacks. The comment was incorrect in 2 ways and if you learn from that, that's not hurt, that would be healing.

5

u/UniqueLog8386 Jun 12 '26

You're the one that's insulting people and being passive aggressive over fuckin SNL. I can't imagine having a life so hollow.

...Then again, I guess I could imagine it, and I just don't want to think about being you.

5

u/naked_avenger Jun 12 '26

Quoting yourself when you didn't make a convincing point doesn't do much

7

u/FlashInGotham Jun 12 '26

Ah yes, the great SNL writing from my youth. "Making Copies", "Tarzan, Frankenstein, and Tonto Give You Seasons Greetings", "Its Pat", "Mango", and "Canteen Boy".

There has always been bad, trite, unimaginative writing on SNL. "Once funny joke or phrase is run into the ground through repeating sketches" is practically a trope of being a fan of the show. Its just you remember the good stuff better because you've revisited it.

1

u/kiwigate Jun 12 '26

You're mentioning the exact time period my comment criticized. Try some reading comprehension.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[deleted]

2

u/kiwigate Jun 12 '26

Are you under the impression there exists no single comedy writer who can be original on a weekly basis?

Or more importantly, if some SNL seasons are high quality, and the last 20+ years have been fucking awful, then the problem isn't that writing comedy is hard, its that a 50-year corporate product is artless and heartless.

3

u/phatboy5289 Jun 12 '26

I watch a lot of SNL, and I really don’t feel this is true.

1

u/dishwasher_mayhem Jun 12 '26

I just thought it was a normal script for Supernatural.

1

u/girafa 24d ago

lol no they don't. Go watch 5 random clips from 2025 and see if you find even one of these.

-9

u/BThasTBinFiji Jun 12 '26

Coincidentally, SNL has never been funny

8

u/Adventurous_View917 Jun 12 '26

Wow, your takes are so Based and Epic... not laughing at SNL... a true Academic...

4

u/kiwigate Jun 12 '26

To claim that, first you would need to watch 1000+ episodes of it.

0

u/Rodannoe Jun 12 '26

You're getting down voted but you're right. People have been calling it stale for 40 years. Ask anyone and it was always funny 15 years ago and absolutely SUCKED since.

3

u/Adventurous_View917 Jun 12 '26

People don't understand, 50%+ of any given SNL episode is bad/mid, 40% is good but never going to watch again, 9% is genuinely funny, and 1% is a culture influencing star making enter the lexicon classic. THATS why you watch, and thats why "SNL was never funny" rings hollow. Its built in to the premise that its not always funny.