A couple weeks ago, Richard Belzer made a guest appearance on The Wire in-character as former Baltimore homicide detective turned NYC SVU member John Munch.
This appearance put Belzer-as-Munch completely over the top in a fairly esoteric category: He’s got the record for appearances as the same character on different shows:
- Homicide (original cast member)
- Law & Order (4 crossover eps)
- Law & Order: SVU (regular cast member)
- Law & Order: Trial by Jury (one episode, “Skeleton pt 2”)
- The X-Files (“Unusual Suspects”)
- Arrested Development (“Exit Strategy”)
- The Beat (“They Say It’s Your Birthday”)
- The Wire (“Took”)
Wikipedia, by the way, notes that he’s slated to appear in the French adaptation of Criminal Intent, which would take him to 9. (The character is actually one step ahead of the actor, as a Munch Muppet appears in a “Special Letters Unit” Sesame Street short, but is voiced by someone else.)
What’s particularly amusing about his appearance on the Wire? He’s in a bar that obviously references the bar in which Munch and Homicide colleague Meldrick Lewis were partners (with others) back in the Homicide days. Lewis was played by Clark Johnson, who has a major role in this season of the Wire — as someone else.
(Yes, we talked about this once before.)