Identity Thefts

They (whoever the proverbial "they" are) say that each one of us has a double, a twin, somewhere in the world. Does everybody really have a double? According to some learned sources, there is a fairly decent chance, thanks to the limited number of genes that influence facial features. "There's only so much genetic diversity to go around." So said Michael Sheehan, an assistant professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. As a result of studying appearance variations and genetics in such species as paper wasps and house mice, Sheehan concluded, "If you shuffle that deck of cards so many  times, at some point, you get the same hand dealt to you twice."

The concept of a person's twin, popularly known as a doppelgänger in European legends and in literature, has its roots in ancient myths. Egyptians believed that the Ka was a tangible spirit double who shared a person's feelings and memories. In Norse folklore, the vardøger is a ghostly double who could be seen performing an individual's actions in advance as a "spirit predecessor," in essence, a manifestation of déjà vu.


I. Doppel Plays

The word doppelgänger, a combination of German for "double" and "goer," meaning "double walker," was invented by Jean Paul, a German Romantic writer (born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter) who coined the term in his comic 1796 novel Siebenkäs, in which an unhappily married man is convinced by his friend and lookalike-alter ego to fake his own death in order to begin a new life. The protagonist is then free to meet a beautiful woman and enjoy a "wedding after death."

A 19th century steel engraving illustrates an episode from Siebenkäs.

The subject of the doppelgänger, modernly defined as a ghostly counterpart, apparition, or double of a living person, fascinated such painters as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who, in the mid-1800s, co-founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of English painters, an exclusive school of artists extolled for their attentive study of nature and a return to the rich details, intense colors, and complex compositions of 15th century Italian art. Painted in several versions from 1860 - 1864, Rossetti's haunting watercolor "How They Met Themselves" depicts a medieval couple in a gloomy forest confronted by their exact doubles, outlined by an eerie aura in the twilight. In the assessment of an appreciative blogger, the man has drawn his sword in astonishment while "his lover collapses in a deathly swoon, her arms outstretched mournfully towards her onlooking twin."

Doppelgängers were traditionally deemed to be omens of ill luck. It was a commonly held belief that a face-to-face encounter with one's double often resulted in death. The paranormal phenomenon influenced much supernatural and psychological fiction, including Edgar Allan Poe's 1839 short story "William Wilson" (which itself inspired the 1913 German Expressionist silent horror film "The Student of Prague") and Dostoyevsky's 1846 novella The Double, in which a mousy government clerk is driven mad by his confident, extroverted dvoynik (doppelgänger). Beloved children's storyteller Hans Christian Andersen revealed his dark side in a grim fairy tale published in 1847 as "The Shadow," about a well-intentioned scholar whose detached shadow-turned-flesh becomes the hedonistic master over the once learned man, the latter ruined, imprisoned, and ultimately executed, while the shadow has grown rich, fat, and wed to a princess.

This depiction of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Shadow" was
drawn by Royal Danish Navy officer-turned-artist Vilhelm Pedersen,
who became Andersen's premier illustrator.

Doubles provided political intrigue in 19th century literary adventures like Alexandre Dumas' conclusion of the Musketeers saga, The Man in the Iron Mask; Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper; and Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda.

Boston-area artist Frank Thayer Merrill was
hired to illustrate the 1881 first edition of
Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper.

Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda, set in the fictitious realm of Ruritania in central Europe, concerned an Englishman on holiday asked to impersonate the soon-to-be crowned king, who happens to be his identical cousin (you know, like the old "Patty Duke Show"). The 1854 novel has been adapted for the screen several times.

Peter Sellers, looking far older than his 53 years, stars in an
umpteenth remake of "The Prisoner of Zenda" in 1978, reuniting,
14 years later, with Elke Sommer, his beloved costar from the classic
"Pink Panther" sequel "A Shot in the Dark." Confessing to not having
seen the film, the Moviehouse expresses confusion over the Sellers
character's resemblance to Inspector Clouseau.

A major portion of the 1965 epic slapstick spectacle "The Great Race" was devoted to an elaborate parody of The Prisoner of Zenda. Director Blake Edwards, the filmmaker responsible for Peter Sellers' "Pink Panther" movies, intended "The Great Race" to be the comedy to end all comedies, dedicating it to "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy." Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, and a scene-stealing Peter Falk starred in a sprawling depiction of a raucous New York-to-Paris automobile race at the turn of the 20th century. The extended takeoff on Anthony Hope's swashbuckler is set in the mythical kingdom of Pottsdorf, where the snidely Professor Fate (Lemmon) is lured into impersonating the lookalike crown prince, a mincing, alcoholic fop, also played by Lemmon (pictured below).

The Prisoner of Zenda was given a uniquely 20th-century spin in the charming 1993 comedy "Dave," directed by Ivan Reitman ("Ghostbusters") and featuring Kevin Kline as the average Joe manager of a temp agency with an uncanny resemblance to the philandering President of the U.S. who has fortuitously suffered a coma-inducing stroke.

A portrait of the cast of "Dave" includes Kevin Dunn, Faith Prince,
Ben Kingsley, Kevin Kline, Ving Rhames, Sigourney Weaver,
Charles Grodin, and Frank Langella.

Similarly, 1988's "Moon Over Parador" (pictured below) cast Richard Dreyfuss as a second-rate actor forced to take the place of the recently deceased president of a fictional South American country.

Directed by Paul Mazursky ("Moscow on the Hudson"), the romantic comedy, costarring Sonia Braga, Raul Julia, Jonathan Winters, Sammy Davis Jr., and Charo, was a remake of an obscure black-and-white quickie from 1949 titled "The Magnificent Fraud," featuring Russian-born character actor Akim Tamiroff and '40s movie-wisecracker Lloyd Nolan.

The concept of the doppelgänger has been explored or touched upon in several motion pictures. Among the most notable are "Vertigo" (1958), Hitchcock's classic tale of obsession, featuring James Stewart and Kim Novak; "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun," a 1969 sci-fi cult favorite (originally titled "Doppelgänger") starring Roy Thinnes; 1970's "The Man Who Haunted Himself," a psychological thriller starring Roger Moore; "Doppelgänger: The Evil Within" (1993), a supernatural mystery with Drew Barrymore; 1999's "Fight Club," featuring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt; and director Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" (2010), starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis (pictured below).

Historically, wars and politics have prompted the "manufacture" of doppelgängers. There were widespread, often contradictory accounts of a German named Gustav Weler who may or may not have been used as a decoy for Adolf Hitler. Very little is known of Weler, except that he resembled Hitler and was often harassed, then arrested, for allegedly making fun of Der Führer. Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary, brought the man before Adolf, who became enraged and insisted he never wanted to see Weler again, ordering his imprisonment. Bormann, however, believed that Weler could be useful to the Third Reich and secreted him in Berlin.

One source maintains that Weler was found alive after the war and interviewed by Allied intelligence. Another story is that Russian troops who had occupied Berlin after Hitler's suicide discovered the corpse of Weler stuffed in a water tower of the Führerbunker (Berlin's air raid shelter). He had been shot in the head, perhaps by the Reich security service. The Soviets believed the body to be that of Adolf Hitler and photographed themselves with it (pictured below). However, other Red troops had discovered the charred remains of Hitler and his newlywed bride, Eva Braun, supposedly doused with petrol and burned by retreating Nazis.

Allied forces likewise found uses for doubles during World War II. M.E. Clifton James was an Australian-born World War I veteran and fledgling actor who bore a strong resemblance to Britain's Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (depicted in the movie "Patton" as George C. Scott's wartime archrival). When he was serving as an officer in the British Army's financial administration in the Second World War, James was recruited by British intelligence to pose as Montgomery as part of Operation Copperhead, a deception campaign leading up to D-Day. Purportedly, James was initially contacted for the ruse by actor David Niven, then a lieutenant-colonel in the British Army.

That's Field Marshal Montgomery on the left, and
Second Lieutenant M.E. Clifton James on the right.

In 1958, 13 years after the end of the war, James portrayed himself in "I Was Monty's Double," a somewhat fictionalized film version of his autobiography, directed by John Guillermin ("The Towering Inferno"). The story was spoofed in the 1961 comedy "On the Double" (pictured below), starring Danny Kaye as a cowardly, hypochondriacal American private in 1944 England who reluctantly impersonates a lookalike British general.

Danny Kaye's weak-kneed GI, impersonating Hitler in a scene from
 "On the Double," comes face-to-face with Der Führer himself, played
by onetime vaudevillian Bobby Watson, whose resemblance to Adolf
found him cast in the role in several movies.

There are of those of us in the Moviehouse who were convinced that the 1961 action picture "The Guns of Navarone" was based on an actual World War II operation that destroyed a pair of Nazi super artillery guns on a Greek island called Navarone near Turkey. There is, in fact, no such island, and the fictitious plot for the literal cliffhanger was cooked up by Alistair MacLean, a Scottish novelist who topped the improbability of The Guns of Navarone with Where Eagles Dare, likewise made into a film, in which two Allied commandos, a British major (Richard Burton) and an American lieutenant (Clint Eastwood), seemingly take on the entire German army in a mission to rescue an American general held captive in a mountaintop fortress in the Bavarian Alps and win World War II in the process.

The 1968 movie, directed by Brian G. Hutton ("Kelly's Heroes") is a delightfully bonehead boys- matinee adventure that The New York Times found "both absurd and entertaining." Like a delirious midway ride, Burton runs a head-spinning game of double-crosses and triple-crosses on a roomful of slack-jawed, really not-all-too-bright Nazi brass (one of whom, sharing the audience's astonishment, blurts, "This is incredible!") and reveals that the general (pictured below) is actually a lookalike corporal enlisted to masquerade as the abducted officer. The whole shell game turned out to be a convoluted ploy to find out the names of Axis agents in England.

In the slam-bang WWII action flick "The Eagle Has Landed" (1976), based on Jack Higgins' novel about a fictionalized Nazi plot to kidnap Winston Churchill at the height of World War II, the British prime minister, who meets an untimely onscreen demise, is revealed to be an English actor hired to impersonate the right honorable statesman, who was, at the time, according to the plot, attending the Tehran Conference with FDR and Stalin.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill in "The Eagle Has Landed"
was the sole acting credit for an unknown named Leigh Dilley.

Josef Stalin, not unlike other infamous despots, had a cadre of doubles employed as political decoys, but probably not as multitudinous as Saddam Hussein. In fact, Middle East strongmen like Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi were surrounded by so many lookalikes that rumors still persist that it was their doppelgängers who were, respectively, hanged and shot to death, while the genuine articles presumably escaped.

"The Devil's Double" (2011) was a Belgian-Dutch co-production, directed by Lee Tamahori ("Die Another Day"), dramatizing how Iraqi writer and former soldier in the Iran-Iraq War Latif Yahia was allegedly coerced into working as a body double for Saddam's son, Uday Hussein. Dominic Cooper (best known as the star of the DC Comics series "Preacher" on AMC) played both Latif and Uday. Several journalists have since deemed much of Yahia's account dubious and his claims far-fetched.

Uday Hussein is pictured on the left, Latif Yahia on the right.

II. Seeing Double

There is, as well, another, subtler kind of double in show business we would like to recognize in the Moviehouse. We're talking about those inadvertent occasions when we're sure one actor is another actor because the two just look so gosh-darned alike, how the heck are we supposed to tell them apart? They're not textbook doppelgängers, but they stir confusion.

Let's start with "Popeye the Sailor" cartoons, since throughout childhood, one nagging constant remained: What's the @#%&ing difference between Bluto and Brutus? The grotesquely muscle-bound, thickheaded Bluto (pictured below) made his screen debut for Fleischer Studios as Popeye's arch antagonist in 1933, one year after he first appeared in Elzie Segar's newspaper comic strip.

After the Popeye cartoons ceased production as theatrical short subjects in 1957, Bluto's name was changed to Brutus as the result of a misinformed decision to skirt copyright infringement, when, in fact, no such conflict would have been an issue. Nevertheless, the newly dubbed Brutus, who started appearing in "Popeye the Sailor" cartoons for television in 1960, also underwent a physical change, being depicted as more obese than muscular (pictured below).

Television of the late '60s-into-'70s presented viewers with the double dilemma of dueling Darrins and duplicate Dicks, when, without pomp and circumstance, the ABC network summarily supplanted a seriously ill Dick York with actor Dick Sargent as Madison Avenue adman Darrin Stephens, the hapless hubby of the nose-twitching witch Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery), in the supernatural sitcom "Bewitched."

Animators at the Hanna-Barbera studio created the memorable
opening cartoon sequences for both the Dick York and Dick Sargent
tenures on "Bewitched."

Several years ago, there was an amusing little feature in a Sunday magazine or something such-like cleverly titled "Brooke Adams Is Not Karen Allen," or maybe it was "Karen Allen Is Not Brooke Adams." Regardless, during the late 1970s and early '80s, both actresses starred in a number of popular motion pictures and were frequently mistaken for the other by undiscerning audiences.

Brooke Adams perked up such films as "Days of Heaven" (1978),
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978), and 1983's "The Dead Zone"
(pictured above), featuring a rarely ebullient Christopher Walken. 

Karen Allen made her screen acting debut in 1978's"National
Lampoon's Animal House" (pictured above, with Peter Riegert),
followed by memorable roles in Woody Allen's "Manhattan,"
"Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Starman," and "Scrooged."

Since the 1990s, Brooke Adams has remained selective about her film roles. In 1992, she married actor Tony Shalhoub and made a number of guest appearances on his series "Monk." Following the 1992 birth of her son, Nicholas (who has since become an acclaimed personal chef), Karen Allen concentrated more on raising him than acting, although she did have a small but memorable role in "The Perfect Storm" in 2000 and reprised her star-making role as Marion Ravenwood in 2008's "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull." Having discovered an affinity for knitting, Allen started her own textile company and in 2003 was awarded an honorary master's degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2009. She teaches acting at a private liberal arts college in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where she also instructs yoga.

In a rare photo from 1987, Brooke Adams poses beside
Karen Allen at a celebrity bowling event to benefit
Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre's artistic and
educational programs in New York City.

Let's see, was it Tobey Maguire (picture below, left) or Jake Gyllenhaal (pictured below, right) who starred as rocket-boy Homer Hickam in "October Sky" (1999)? Did Jake Gyllenhaal or Tobey Maguire play the web-spinner in the first "Spider-Man" trilogy of the early 2000s? Which one herded more than sheep on "Brokeback Mountain" (2005)?

To add to the confusion, the two soulful-eyed McDreamies were cast as siblings in 2009's "Brothers," directed by Jim Sheridan, the lauded director of "My Left Foot" and "In the Name of the Father." Tobey Maguire portrayed a married combat veteran and former prisoner of the Taliban, and Jake Gyllenhaal played his ne'er-do-well ex-con brother in a psychological drama that touches on a number of moral crises, including post-traumatic stress disorder, suspicions of adultery, and the familial legacy of alcoholism (particularly displayed by the boys'  Vietnam War vet pop, portrayed by Sam Shepard).

Tobey Maguire shares a scene with Jake Gyllenhaal in "Brothers,"
a faithful remake of the 2004 Danish drama "Brødre" ("Brothers").

Speaking of director Jim Sheridan and "My Left Foot," the Best Actor Oscar winner from that film, London-born Daniel Day-Lewis (likewise nominated for his role in Sheridan's "In the Name of the Father"), has often been confused with Isle of Wight's Jeremy Irons, who garnered the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as accused murderer Claus von Bülow in "Reversal of Fortune."

Daniel Day-Lewis (pictured above, right) made his screen debut at age 14 in an uncredited role as vandal in the 1971 drama "Sunday Bloody Sunday," directed by John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy"). Painstakingly particular about his film appearances, he delivered consummate performances in such movies as "A Room with a View," "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," "The Last of the Mohicans," "Gangs of New York," and "There Will Be Blood," the latter earning him a second Best Actor Oscar. His flawless interpretation of the 16th President of the United States in director Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" (2012) garnered yet another Academy Award, making him the first three-time Best Actor Oscar winner.

Jeremy Irons (pictured above, left) was very active in the British theater and on the telly from 1969 through the 1970s before his breakout screen role in 1981's "The French Lieutenant's Woman," a romantic drama that resulted in Meryl Streep's first Best Actress Oscar nomination. Irons' movie career has not been as discriminating as Day-Lewis', as he interspersed roles in prestigious offerings like "The Mission," "Reversal of Fortune," "Damage," "M. Butterfly," and "Lolita" with such mainstream parts as an East German mercenary in "Die Hard with a Vengeance," the voice of the fratricidal Scar in "The Lion King," an aging Musketeer in "The Man in the Iron Mask," a dragon-rider in "Eragon," a black marketeer in Steve Martin's second "Pink Panther" comedy, a modern-day Knights Templar in the video game-based film "Assassin's Creed," and Bruce Wayne/Batman's butler, Alfred, in the DC Extended Universe pictures. Interestingly, Irons received critical accolades for playing his own double, so to speak, in 1988's "Dead Ringers," director David Cronenberg's thriller about identical twin gynecologists.

Jeremy Irons, Genevieve Bujold, and - er - Jeremy Irons
star in "Dead Ringers."

Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg have been confused for one another so many times that they laugh it off and have fun with the mistaken identity. In a recent interview on the entertainment news program "Extra," Wahlberg told host Mario Lopez about being approached by people who say they loved him in "The Bourne Identity." He related, "And I just say, 'Thank you.' I never correct anybody." Likewise, Wahlberg added, Matt Damon has met fans who say how much they enjoyed him in "Ted."

The two actors (who, to muddy the waters, were costars in "The Departed") go so far as to sign autographs as their alter ego. According to Damon, "Mark and I have a deal. If we're mistaken for one another, we have to be as polite as possible...If they keep the thing going, you have to keep it going." Wahlberg said, "Now people just do it to bust my chops."

Was it Mark Wahlberg who shot Matt Damon in
"The Departed" or was it the other way around?

The long-running mix-up in moviegoers' minds between Dylan McDermott and Dermot Mulroney probably has more to do with the similarity of their names than physical resemblance. As a matter of fact, early in his career, Dermot Mulroney played a character named Kit McDermott in the 1989 comedy-drama "Staying Together."

Dylan McDermott (pictured above), born October 26, 1961, is best known for his role as Bobby Donnell, the lead attorney of the law firm in the 1997 - 2004 ABC series "The Practice."

Dermot Mulroney (pictured above), born October 31, 1963, made a memorable impression on the big screen as real-life Lincoln County War outlaw "Dirty" Steve Stephens in 1988's "Young Guns," a fictionalized biopic of Billy the Kid starring Emilio Estevez; despite being dispatched in a blaze of glory as depicted in Hollywood's Old West lore, Dirty Steve purportedly outlived the New Mexico feud and was believed to have succumbed to old age in Denver. In the universally panned comedy "Dirty Grandpa," Mulroney played Robert De Niro's son and Zac Efron's father.

In an amusing 2012 "Saturday Night Live" Game Show Network parody called "Dylan McDermott Or Dermot Mulroney," emcee Bill Hader warned, "Just as a reminder to you at home, no one has ever won this game." Eyeing the trio of black contestants - Jamie Foxx, Keenan Thompson, Jay Pharoah - Hader added, "It looks like today is going to be worse than usual," In a cameo appearance on the game show, even Dermot Mulroney mistook himself for Dylan McDermott (pictured below).

"This is a picture of my face." Informed of his blunder, a puzzled
Mulroney says, "I've been sleeping with another man's wife!"

In similar circumstances, Bill Pullman and the late Bill Paxton, who didn't particularly don't look anything alike, were frequently mistaken for each other by moviegoers because of the similarity of their names.

Know your Bills: Bill Pullman is the President in "Independence Day."

Bill Paxton is a storm chaser in "Twister" (with Helen Hunt).

In 1990's "Brain Dead," Bill Paxton portrayed a corporate bigwig who calls on his old school chum, a top neurosurgeon played by Bill Pullman, to help extract data from the mind of a genius mathematician (Bud Cort) committed to an insane asylum as a paranoid psychotic. Produced by B-movie auteur Roger Corman's wife, Julie Corman, the low-budget psychological thriller costarred George Kennedy and featured, in a small role, Bill Paxton's father, actor John Paxton, best known as butler Bernard Houseman in director Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" trilogy.

Bill Pullman probes Bud Cort's gray matter in "Brain Dead"
while George Kennedy and Bill Paxton watch.

Having mentioned Helen Hunt, frankly, we don't see it in the Moviehouse, but apparently, she has often been mistaken for Jodie Foster.

In 1994, Helen Hunt (pictured above) regaled David Letterman with a story about buying a huge turkey for the family Thanksgiving dinner when the guy at the checkout counter said, "You're Jodie Foster." Hunt told Letterman, "I said, 'I'm actually not.' 'No you are, I know you're Jodie Foster." He even offered to give her the turkey for free. "I'm begging you, I'm not," Hunt insisted, "I'm really not." She showed him her ID, and he withdrew his offer for a free turkey. As she told Letterman, "I'm not Jodie Foster, so pay up."

At the May 2016 premiere of "Money Monster," directed by Jodie Foster and starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, Foster remarked, "I've been mistaken for Helen so many times and she for me. We talk about it every time we see each other. It's strange because she's at least five inches taller than me, and the only similarity is that we part our hair on the same side." Incidentally, in 1988, Helen Hunt portrayed Mark Harmon's sister in "Stealing Home," a teary-eyed drama featuring Jodie Foster.

It has to be the piercing blue eyes. Starting with the heyday of the simultaneously launched "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" film franchises, fans of both phenomena have confused the Middle Earth Hobbit portrayed by Elijah Wood (pictured above, top) with the Hogswarts student wizard played by Daniel Radcliffe (pictured above, bottom).When a Japanese fan handed Radcliffe a photograph of Wood to autograph, the London-born actor sidestepped language barriers by signing, "I am not Elijah Wood. Love, Daniel Radcliffe."

As a recent guest on "Conan," Iowa native son Elijah Wood said he thought "the joke was over" once both film series had played out but admitted the thing has "long legs." He alluded to an intended bout of fisticuffs between Radcliffe and himself as an attraction at Austin, Texas' Fantastic Fest, but Wood told O'Brien, "I don't want to fight this guy. I don't want the culmination of the fact that we look alike to be us together in a boxing ring."

Not just a little bit eerie, the seeming culmination of the two actors' similarity is a sensationally popular viral GIF that creepily morphs a closeup of Daniel Radcliffe into that of Elijah Wood and back again (pictured above). According to Wood, the dueling eyebrows video has drawn over 15 million hits.

Finally, our favorite case of mistaken identity has to involve comedic actor Will Ferrell and bucket-banger Chad Smith, the longtime drummer for Red Hot Chili Peppers, the funk rock band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.

Will Ferrell bangs the skins in the 2008 comedy "Step Brothers."
Ferrell has displayed a musical aptitude vocally with a moving
performance of the Italian ballad "Con te partirò" (revamped as
"Time to Say Goodbye" for tenor Andrea Bocelli) in "Step Brothers,"
as well as spot-on parodies of Robert Goulet, besides showing off
his prowess with the cowbell, on "Saturday Night Live."

The resemblance to Will Ferrell is hard to see here,
but that's because Chad Smith is wearing a hat.

When they first encountered each other at the 2000 premiere of "The Ladies Man," yet another big-screen disappointment flimsily draped over a "Saturday Night Live" sketch character, in which Ferrell played a gay Greco-Roman wrestling fanatic, Smith recalled, "I'm looking at Will and thinking. 'People really think I look like him? I don't f---ing look like that.' He looks me up and down and says, 'You're very handsome,' and walks away." The two subsequently engaged in a mock feud that saw Smith wearing a T-shirt reading "I Am Not Will Ferrell" in live performances by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Will Ferrell and Chad Smith appear together on
"The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon."

The faux feud came to a head with a one-on-one drum-off May 22, 2014, on Jimmy Fallon's "Tonight Show, climaxing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers performing the Blue Öyster Cult song "Don't Fear the Reaper," with Will Ferrell on cowbell. Although Smith clearly bested Ferrell on drums, the latter was declared the winner and was awarded a giant gold cowbell.

Postscript


A last word by Bob the Dinosaur from cartoonist Scott Adams in "Dilbert"...