Neil Gaiman has the perfect cameo in Good Omens – with a special place for Terry Pratchett's hat
Look out for a hat, a scarf, a passed-out drunkard and a murderous bunny rabbit
Neil Gaiman's Good Omens cameo is just as strange as we were hoping – but frankly, we weren't prepared for the amount of blood and rabbit-killing involved.
The Good Omens co-author and showrunner makes his appearance (SPOILER ALERT!) in an almost-empty cinema, playing every single character except for the demon Crowley (David Tennant).
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Gaiman had previously revealed details of the cameo, saying: "Episode four, look out for a scene in a small movie theatre where Crowley is watching a cartoon about bunnies. Not only will you see me passed out dead drunk in the audience, but all of the voices of the bunnies are me."
He wasn't kidding, but the way it plays out is decidedly gruesome.
Gaiman can be seen to Crowley's right, slumped in front of a kiddie film starring three rabbits. Take a look:
As we know by this point, whenever Crowley listens to the radio or turns on the TV or watches a movie, his colleagues from (literal) Hell will use this as a handy way of communicating with him. That makes it pretty tricky for poor Crowley to take his mind off the End Times.
This cinema trip is no exception, because – soon enough – the pink bunny pulls his head off to reveal a familiarly grimy head topped with a toad: it's the demon Hastur! While Hastur is played by Ned Dennehy, Gaiman voices him in bunny-form, and he wants a word with Crowley.
But having made himself a part of the cartoon, Hastur then takes the opportunity to murder the blue bunny – splashing blood everywhere while the green bunny watches and screams with horror. This children's film has taken a very dark turn.
Good Omens also gives an extremely meaningful nod to Gaiman's late, great co-author Terry Pratchett, who died in 2015.
"Terry’s hat is hanging in the [Aziraphale’s] book shop along with Terry’s scarf,” Gaiman had promised. “We hung it in the bookshop so that Terry would always be there.”
Sure enough, here is Pratchett's iconic hat along with his stripy scarf:
Pratchett's hat and scarf were also present at the Good Omens world premiere in London, where they had their own seat in the front row – along with a large bag of popcorn.
Gaiman told the audience that Pratchett had often doubted if Good Omens could make it to the screen, saying: "I will only believe it, whatever happens, if I’m sitting next to you at the premiere with a big bag of popcorn – and I don’t promise I’ll believe it then."
He added: "And I like to think, if he were here, right now, he might believe, as we made it for him. So just so everybody knows, right here, right at the front, is Terry Pratchett’s hat, and an enormous bag of popcorn."
Good Omens is available on Amazon Prime Video and is airing weekly on BBC Two at 9pm on Wednesdays