The Story Behind Bob Odenkirk's Hilarious Halloween Kills Cameo

Michael Myers, the masked killer from the Halloween franchise, has murdered a lot of people over the years. But chances are you know one of his victims, even if you didn’t recognize him. A new book about the making of the recent Halloween trilogy of films (the first installment is now streaming on Peacock) reveals that 2021’s Halloween Kills featured a picture of a young Bob Odenkirk.

Nobody star Bob Odenkirk has a momentary cameo in Halloween Kills

Odenkirk, star of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Nobody makes an unexpected cameo appearance thanks to an old photograph of himself from his high school days in the ‘70s. In the film, a TV newscast is talking about Michael’s original Halloween rampage, mentioning that two teenagers, Lynda Van Der Klok and Bob Simms, were among his victims. However, while filmmaker David Gordon Green had access to a picture of Lynda actress P. J. Soles, there wasn’t a good era-appropriate picture of Bob actor, John Michael Graham.

So, Green used Google to look for pictures of high school boys from the ‘70s that looked like they might work, and he found one that would. By chance, the picture was of famous celebrity comedian and actor Bob Odenkirk.

Green then had to reach out to Odenkirk’s manager to get permission to use the image of a somewhat nerdy-looking teenage Odenkirk in the movie. "I've never met him, but I think that's got to be the weirdest phone call,” Green said, according to Abbie Bernstein's new book Halloween: The Official Making of Halloween, Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends. “'Bob, we want to use your photo on a news broadcast from high school.'"

He elaborated on the matter during an interview with Cinema Blend:

"In the original Carpenter film, the Bob character, I wanted to have acknowledgement of all the deaths from the previous film, but we couldn't track [the actor] down or get the rights. Somehow we couldn't clear an image of Bob for our television news broadcast. And so I was frustrated by that because I wanted to acknowledge Bob's death, but we couldn't get footage of Bob. So I Googled 'Bob 1970s High School,' and a photo of Bob Odenkirk popped up that looked just like Bob! So I thought, 'He's probably easier to find; let's go get him!'"

Odenkirk gave the okay, and that’s why the star of Nobody can now count himself among Michael Myers’ victims. It helps that Odenkirk’s first name is Bob, just like poor Bob Simms, whom Michael stabbed with a big knife and pinned to the wall like some sort of horrible human butterfly display. RIP.

Halloween (2018) is now streaming on Peacock alongside Halloween II and Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends are now available to own from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.