Weapons Is Hiding a Hilarious Easter Egg for a Cult Comedy Show

Zach Cregger’s Weapons includes an Easter egg to his career in comedy that is as moving as it is funny. The second horror movie written and directed by Cregger, following 2022’s Barbarian, Weapons centers on the unexplained disappearance of 17 children at 2:17 am in the town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania. The children were all students in the class of local elementary school teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), with her student Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher) the only one turning up in her classroom the following day. The kids’ disappearance shakes the entire town to its core, with Weapons telling a non-linear story from the perspective of characters like Justine, Alex, one of the missing kids’ father Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), and others as the mystery unfolds.

While Weapons is not packed with a huge amount of comic relief, the movie does have its moments of dry humor. One such moment is found in a scene in which Maybrook Elementary School’s principal Marcus Miller (Benedict Wong) meets a student’s family member, with the scene also involving a collection of seven hot dogs prepared for Marcus’s lunch. While that might seem like an arbitrary detail to zero in on, it turns out the scene is actually an in-joke to Zach Cregger’s history in sketch comedy and specifically a tribute to one of his dearly departed colleagues from that era of his career.

WARNING: Spoilers below for Weapons

The Hot Dog Scene in Weapons Pays Tribute to the Show The Whitest Kids U’Know

The hot dog scene in Weapons takes place when Gladys (Amy Madigan), who is responsible for the children vanishing, visits Marcus Miller’s home, with Marcus’s husband Terry (Clayton Farris) in the midst of preparing lunch. Specifically, Terry has prepared a collection of seven hot dogs topped with mustard, along with a few side items like chips, carrots, and cookies. The specific count of seven hot dogs will likely go right over the heads of many moviegoers, but it is a clever reference to a skit on the sketch comedy series The Whitest Kids U’Know called “Hot Dog Timmy.”

In “Hot Dog Timmy,” Trevor Moore portrays a doctor who asks his patient, Timmy (Timmy Williams), what his average daily intake of hot dogs is. Timmy replies that he usually eats seven hot dogs per day. Zach Cregger overtly including the specific count of seven hot dogs in the scene in Marcus’s home in Weapons is a sly tribute to this scene, which becomes especially clear when looking back on Cregger’s own pre-directorial history and working relationship with Trevor Moore.

Zach Cregger’s Comedy History Was Part of the Genesis of Weapons

The Whitest Kids U’Know originally began as a comedy troupe consisting of Zach Cregger, Trevor Moore, and Sam Brown, with the group originally forming in the year 2000, with other members like Darren Trumeter and Timmy Williams joining. The group’s growing popularity eventually led to the development of the The Whitest Kids U’Know sketch comedy show on the network Fuse (later moving to the channel IFC), with the show airing for five seasons between 2007 and 2011.

While The Whitest Kids U’Know troupe continued in the entertainment world after the end of the show, Trevor Moore tragically died on August 7th, 2021, at the age of 42 after falling from his home’s balcony. The untimely death of Moore deeply affected his co-stars from The Whitest Kids U’Know, including Cregger, and this played directly into Cregger’s development of Weapons.

Speaking to the Rolling Stone, Cregger revealed that he had been in post-production on Barbarian when Moore died, and he began writing the script for Weapons as an outlet while dealing with the loss of his friend and colleague. As Cregger puts it in the Rolling Stone interview, “The town is dealing with a loss. And so was I. It was the biggest direct hit I’d ever taken,” which illuminates the subtle importance of the Easter egg to The Whitest Kids U’Know in Weapons.

The Hot Dog Scene in Weapons Is Both Funny & Moving in Its Tribute to Trevor Moore

At face value, Terry’s carefully prepared lunch of seven hot dogs might seem like a throwaway moment, but it plays on the same kind of humor as the original “Hot Dog Timmy” sketch on The Whitest Kids U’Know. Many people can relate to the concept of having very specific and seemingly peculiar culinary practices, such as a very precise number of hot dogs whenever one is preparing lunch. Like Timmy before him, Marcus and Terry seem to have the idea that no fewer than seven hot dogs make a full meal, which adds a touch of humor to the horror story of Weapons.

On a deeper level, Cregger, like the population of Maybrook, was experiencing a period of tremendous personal grief and tragedy when he penned the spine-tingling screenplay for Weapons. With the movie focusing heavily upon how the townspeople, and especially the parents of the missing kids, do their best to cope and go about their daily lives while trying to locate the kids, the story itself reflects Cregger penning Weapons as a healing mechanism for his own real-life loss. The hot dog scene in Weapons adds some sly humor to the movie, but in the end, it is also a loving Easter egg and tribute to Cregger and Moore’s comedy collaboration and friendship on The Whitest Kids U’Know.

Weapons is now playing in theaters.

Did you catch this Easter egg in Weapons? Let us know in the comments below!

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