Bizarre Brendan Fraser Roles You Forgot Ever Existed

'90s Hollywood golden boy Brendan Fraser may be one of the last true boy scouts, an actor who's never had a scandal or controversy. He was a star who for years had always seemed to play the lovable goofball, the upstanding hero, and honest and intrepid adventurer. Best known for his role as Rick O'Connell in "The Mummy" and its sequels, he started his career in a string of comedies that included "Blast from the Past," "Encino Man," and "Airheads," all of which have become iconic in their own way.

Sadly, after a career downturn in the early 2000s, Fraser seemed to disappear from major studio movies, instead focusing on voicing roles in kids cartoons and popping up now and then in quirky indie films. His roles have run the gamut from action hero to abusive father, from lawman to lazy slacker, but some performances have slipped through the cracks over the years and been almost entirely forgotten. We're here now to bring those oddball parts back to the surface and highlight the bizarre Brendan Fraser roles that you forgot ever existed.

Canadian comedians The Kids in the Hall were given their own sketch comedy show courtesy of "Saturday Night Live" head honcho Lorne Michaels in 1989 (per The Hollywood Reporter). By the early '90s their show had become a cult classic after airing on Comedy Central in the United States, and once it had come to a close, the crew went the "Monty Python" route and took to the big screen. The result was the comedy "Brain Candy," which while not a big hit in theaters, has become a classic in some circles, and has since become a comedy relic of the era. But what many forget is that Brendan Fraser — then a hot young rising star thanks to hits like "Airheads" and "Encino Man" — popped up in the film in a celebrity cameo.

The film is centered on a scientist (Kevin McDonald) who develops an antidepressant that works by triggering the recipient's most happy memories. But as the movie shows, it has a terrible side effect, eventually driving patients insane and sending many of them into endless comas. In one amusing moment, Fraser turns up as a placebo patient who is convinced he's being given sugar pills due to the awful skin reaction he has to the pill. For his part, Fraser went entirely uncredited.

Most would agree that Brendan Fraser's biggest and most signature role was as Rick O'Connell, the "Indiana Jones"-like adventurer from the 1999 film "The Mummy" and its two sequels. The first two entries in the trilogy were helmed by director Stephen Sommers, who also counts the films among his career-defining work. But in the wake of their success, Sommers was given the director's chair for Paramount's big screen blockbuster adaptation of the action adventure toy line "G.I. Joe." The sequel, "The Rise of Cobra," added Bruce Willis and The Rock to the cast, but it also found Brendan Fraser in a blink-and-miss-it walk-on role.

What's most odd about this one isn't just the nature of the role, being a toy come to life, but that Fraser himself didn't even know who he was playing. According to the actor, as revealed in an interview with Larry Carrol of MTV News, he was initially supposed to be playing the character of Gung Ho, until the studio's lawyers learned they didn't hold the rights to the character. Appearing in just one scene, it really didn't wind up mattering, as his character's name is never uttered on-screen. In the credits, though, he's listed as "Sgt. Stone," a fact that Fraser only learned after seeing the movie for the first time.

"Who exactly was I? I did not know until I saw the credit crawl," Fraser told MTV. "I think they might have picked [the character's name] out of a hat."

Two years after starring as the vine-swinging, bare-chested cartoon hero, Brendan Fraser was called upon a second time in an effort to adapt another classic Jay Ward cartoon, "Dudley Do-Right." The oddball Canadian Mountie was a boy scout-like figure, a by-the-book lawman always getting into silly scrapes and off-the-wall adventures, and for some reason Fraser was the go-to star. This time an even better cast was assembled around him, with Sarah Jessica Parker and Alfred Molina joining him on screen, along with another "Monty Python" star, this time Eric Idle.

In a pretty faithful translation from the 'toon to the big screen, Molina plays the mustache-twirling villain, top hat-wearing Snidely Whiplash, a well-known bank robber. In the film he hatches a complicated scheme to seize control of Frostbite Falls by filling lakes with gold and prompting a gold rush. It's a ridiculous plot populated by goofy characters — not the least of which is Fraser's title hero — doing some seriously silly stuff. Once again, the film did not become an ongoing series, and this time it was a total bomb at the box office to boot.

An anthology film of sorts, "The Pawn Shop Chronicles" is a quirky 2013 black comedy that tells three interconnected but separate stories. The movie features a roster of talented veterans in its ensemble cast, with Matt Dillon, Vincent D'Onofrio, Paul Walker, Elijah Wood, Ashlee Simpson, Thomas Jane, and DJ Qualls all appearing alongside Brendan Fraser. While the other two stories have their bizarre moments, Fraser's role is truly a wild one. He plays Ricky, a beleaguered Elvis impersonator on the verge of an important performance at a town fair.

But to get back into shape he needs money, so Ricky hawks a valuable medallion to the titular pawn shop, and sets out cleaning himself up. But standing in his way — at a more literal crossroad than you might expect — is an enigmatic figure who claims he can grant all of Ricky's wishes in exchange for his soul.

Decked out in late-career Elvis get-up, Fraser is seen with a spangly white outfit, big gold-rimmed sunglasses, and some massive mutton chops. Nearly unrecognizable, it's no wonder most people have forgotten this one ... assuming they ever even heard about it in the first place.

It's not just live action movie roles that have been among the more bizarre parts for Brendan Fraser. In fact, quite a few animated performances have landed in this category, not the least of which is his one-off appearance on the mid '90s cartoon sitcom "Duckman." The cynical and satirical comedy was headlined by "Seinfeld" star Jason Alexander as the voice of a crude and long-suffering private detective and anthropomorphic duck that gives the show its name. In the show's fourth and final season, Fraser guest starred in the episode "Dammit, Hollywood," which saw Duckman take over a major movie studio.

The episode begins with Duckman heading to the home of Paradox Studios, demanding a refund for his ticket to one of their movies. He winds up in front of Fraser, or rather studio President Sammons Cagle, voiced by the future "Mummy" star. But Cagle is in trouble with his bosses and gets canned just before Duckman waltzes into his oversized office. With just minutes to go before being thrown off the studio lot, Cagle signs Duckman to an ironclad contract that puts him in charge.

It's a small role but a good one, and one that most fans of the star have likely long since buried in their collective consciousnesses.

If you're looking for a bizarre Brendan Fraser role and also one of his worst films ever, look no further than the talking animal comedy "Furry Vengeance" — and we use the term "comedy" loosely. A deeply unfunny, pathetic big screen outing, the film sees Fraser in the role of real estate developer Dan Sanders, who's been forced to quickly strike a residential development deal that would level a large swath of forest. But when the deal threatens to displace the local wildlife, the angry animals rise up to fight back, leading to all kinds of mishaps and capers that embarrass Sanders in various ways.

All in all, the movie is simply astoundingly awful, so cheaply made that it would make a sketch from the last five minutes of a "Saturday Night Live" episode look polished by comparison. Fraser's role — as the real estate agent besieged by talking animals — turned out so head-scratchingly bizarre that it prompted the actor to switch talent agencies, after which his movie prospects began to improve (via The Toronto Sun). If you haven't in fact forgotten this one, it's probably because it was just so bad that it was seared into your brain. But make no mistake — this is one Fraser wishes you'd forget.

Thanks to a swap of talent agents (per The Toronto Sun), Brendan Fraser started to take more serious roles in the late 2000s, in smaller dramas with parts that allowed him to flex his acting chops. In 2007, he starred as part of an ensemble cast in the anthology film "The Air I Breathe." A crime drama of sorts, the film is also a bizarre esoteric tale inspired by an ancient Chinese proverb. Fraser stars as Pleasure, one of the four main human emotions, with Sarah Michelle Gellar as Sorrow, Forrest Whitaker as Happiness, and Kevin Bacon as Love.

In Fraser's main segment, his character is a troubled man haunted by a childhood incident in which his brother was killed in a brawl with some local teens. But that's not what makes his character so bizarre — Pleasure also has the supernatural ability to literally see the future of those people he comes into physical contact with. As a result, nothing ever surprises him, and he's left bored with life. Eventually, his disillusionment leads him to join a gang run by Fingers (Andy Garcia), another literal embodiment of the an element in the original proverb.

There's a lot of deep meaning and serious themes at play in this one, which might be hard to wrap your head around if you're unfamiliar with the ins and outs of the story. Suffice to say, if you go into this one thinking it's a straight-forward crime drama, you'll be very confused.