THE AMATEUR WORD NERD: ‘Easter eggs’ can be found on silver screen

By Barbara McAllister

Word of the Day: Easter eggs

Do you know where Easter eggs can be found year round? Besides the colorful eggs we hide at Easter, there is the surprise Easter egg directors hide in movies and TV shows as inside jokes. They can also be concealed features in computer software but most of us will never see that.
Movie directors have been sneaking them in for years. Alfred Hitchcock began making fleeting appearances in his movies where his distinctive profile can be seen in a crowd walking dogs or carrying a musical instrument onto a bus. His movie “Lifeboat” takes place entirely in a small boat at sea, so Hitchcock’s image appears in a newspaper floating by. He’s the “before” picture in an ad for a weight loss product. Blink and you’ll miss him.
The term Easter egg seems obvious given its associations with a hidden surprise, but there is a story that the expression may have a more literal origin, thanks to the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” movie. After the cast had an Easter egg hunt on set, unfound eggs are visible in at least three movie scenes.
Spielberg has a recurring theme of shooting stars. Martin Scorcese placed X’s in scenes of doomed characters in “The Departed,” a nod to the original 1932 version of “Scarface” that used the same theme.
Pixar is known for hidden references to other Pixar movies, but the director of “Toy Story 3” was a fan of “The Shining.” He worked references into that movie that include using the distinctive carpet pattern from “The Shining”‘s Overlook hotel and the number 237, referring to the haunted hotel’s room number. “Star Wars” robot R2D2 is a running joke found in “Indiana Jones,” “Star Trek,” “Close Encounters” and “Transformer” movies in various forms, from hieroglyphics on a building to floating space debris.
Google the term “Easter eggs in movies” and you might be surprised how much you are missing.