‘The Walking Dead’: The Celeb Cameo You May Have Missed in ‘The Damned’

The Walking Dead isn’t a show that really does cameos, as a rule. Apart from when it comes to severed heads, that is — show boss Greg Nicotero’s head featured in zombie form in Episode 1 of Season 8. And that was only his most recent appearance; it isn’t the first time he’s been zombified in the show.

Johnny Depp, meanwhile, was the inspiration for a severed head meant to stand in for Hilltop leader Gregory’s, and Anthrax’s Scott Ian made it onto the show as a walker. As did former Pittsburgh Steelers player Hines Ward.

But for a show that’s now into its eighth season and which recently passed its 100^th episode, that’s not a lot. It’s a far cry from Game of Thrones, a show that drops in the likes of Ed Sheeran on a regular basis.

So when someone we recognized cropped up in Episode 2 of Season 8 — and the show slyly acknowledged it — we were pretty stoked. The familiar face? None other than Minkus from Boy Meets World, also known as actor Lee Norris.

Looking very different from the bespectacled smartypants who made his debut on the 1990s TV show when it first aired in 1993, Norris appeared as a character named Todd, working with the Saviors. On maintenance duty cleaning guns, he is given a roasting by leader Mara for being slow. She promptly relieves him of his task.

“Shut up. Give me your gun. How does that feel?” she says to him.

Then, as he starts to answer, she barks, “Shut up. Go inside, get the cooler. Start packing up.”

Now, here is the key moment when the script makes a nod to Minkus. “Hey, genius,” Mara calls after him before tossing him a tool, which he drops.

It’s a knowing wink aimed at attentive audiences, referencing the highly intelligent boy who discovered the secrets of time travel (then dismissed his breakthrough). Norris went on to feature in Girl Meets World, making his most recent appearance as Minkus this year.

Mara went on to meet her fate in the episode when a walker took a chunk out of her neck, but we don’t yet know what may have happened to Todd. And it seems that the internet, too, is wondering what fate befell him after the bloody siege:

The Walking Dead’s official Twitter account reacted to the cameo on Sunday, when the episode aired in the US:

Is there more to come from Minkus yet? Perhaps we’ll find out when Episode 3, titled ‘Monsters’, airs. Catch The Walking Dead on Sundays in the US and a day later in the UK.