Easter eggs make any film a holiday, from Hitchcock classics to 'Star Wars'

• One famous easter egg: a carved representation of C-3P0 and R2-D2 among other Egyptian hieroglyphics in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
• In "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), Humphrey Bogart, as detective Sam Spade, walks past a poster advertising a Humphrey Bogart film.
• How many viewers of "The 39 Steps" (1935) have noticed the poster in the railway station for Hitchcock's previous picture, "The Man Who Knew Too Much"?

Easter eggs are good.

Fabergé easter eggs, jeweled and gold-inlaid and made for the Czarina, are better.

But the very best easter eggs, this time of year or any other time, are not found in a basket. They're found in your favorites movies — if you know where to look.

"A lot of people do look for them," said Corry Brown, co-owner of Zapp! Comics, based in Wayne. As such, he's very much tuned in to what the fans — whether of comics, the billion-dollar movies spun from them, or pop culture franchises generally — are obsessing over.

What's an easter egg? Basically, it's an in-joke. A sly little reference, stuck unobtrusively in the middle of a (usually blockbuster) film that 95 percent of the audience can be expected not to pick up on, but that you do.

You do because you are an uber-fan who watches and re-watches every George Lucas, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, J.J. Abrams or Sam Raimi movie, keeps up with all the latest online news about them, and converses endlessly on social media with other uber-fans. The easter egg is your reward.

"I think it's kind of cool," Brown said. "It takes thought and effort."

They're called easter eggs because, of course, you hunt for them. The term originated in the video game world: Atari executive Steve Wright coined it to describe the secret message hidden in the 1979 game "Adventure." When players positioned themselves over a particular pixel, they got a message: "created by Warren Robinett."

It had been snuck in by the programmer as a joke — but Atari discovered that gamers liked it, so they began burying other treasures in their games for players to dig up.

The practice spread to film: a wink and a nod, from the director of the film to the 5 percent of fans who are in-the-know.

"It's like a little treat for the fans who are real fans," Brown said. "If you watch a movie multiple times, a lot of times you're not watching the movie, you're looking in the background to see if you notice something."

Like what?

Like the carved representations of C-3P0 and R2-D2, that appear, unobtrusively, among the other Egyptian hieroglyphics in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Or E.T. — who can be fleetingly glimpsed among the many alien species appearing at the galactic U.N. council in "Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace."

"It's put there for a reason," Brown said. "A true fan will notice."

Easter eggs are not new. In the Orson Welles film "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942), Joseph Cotten is seen reading a newspaper. It is The Inquirer — the paper for which Cotten's character, in Welles' "Citizen Kane" (1941), was a star columnist. There on the page, next to the column, is Cotten's picture.

In "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), Humphrey Bogart, as detective Sam Spade, walks past a poster advertising a Humphrey Bogart film.

Probably the most famous of all easter eggs are the little cameos Alfred Hitchcock used to do in all his own movies — as a train passenger, a litterbug, a man crossing the street. He came to regret them later in his career — precisely because he didn't want audiences to spend the whole movie looking for him.

"By now it's a rather troublesome gag, and I'm very careful to show up in the first five minutes so as to let the people look at the rest of the movie with no further distraction," he told Francois Truffaut in 1966.

And there are other kinds of easter eggs in Hitchcock films, too. How many viewers of "The 39 Steps" (1935) have noticed the poster in the railway station for Hitchcock's previous picture, "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934)?

About the only kind of easter egg Hitchcock wouldn't have liked is a real one. He was scared of eggs. He was scared of a lot of things, which is why he was so good at scaring others. "I'm frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me," he said.

Here, in honor of coming holiday, on Sunday April 20, are some of our favorite easter eggs.

'A Clockwork Orange' (1971)

Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is sauntering through a record shop, in Stanley Kubrick's dystopian London of the near future. Among the albums for sale: the soundtrack of "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), Kubrick's previous film.

'Grease' (1978)

The characters in this retro-'50s musical go to "Rydell High." Mark Rydell played the high school hero of "Bye Bye Birdie," (1963), the movie musical that in many ways inspired "Grease."

'Raiders of the Lost Ark' (1981)

Indy (Harrison Ford) is investigating the Well of Souls. Around him are ancient hieroglyphics. Among which are two familiar figures: C-3P0 and R2-D2, "Star Wars" characters created by George Lucas, who also co-created and executive-produced this film.

'Tron' (1982)

Kevin (Jeff Bridges) is a software programmer who is sucked into a virtual world and forced to play a deadly game of survival. At one point, he's looking at a schematic image of the game. In one corner of the grid: Pac-man. An easter egg for videogame fans.

'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' (1984)

The first Indy sequel begins with a bang in Shanghai, where chorus girls in sequined costumes are belting out "Anything Goes." The name of venue? Club Obi Wan. As in Kenobi. As in "Star Wars," which also starred Harrison Ford — and was also the brainchild of George Lucas.

'Predator 2' (1990)

When we visit the Predator's trophy room, we see among the heads a Xenomorph — the hammer-headed alien from "Alien" (1979). A foreshadowing, as it turned out: the two franchises would later be combined in  "Alien vs. Predator" (2004).

'Toy Story' (1995)

Sid, the mean kid, takes toys apart instead of loving them — even toys as lovable as Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen). On Sid's toolbox are the words "Binford Tools." The name of Allen's sponsor in the TV show "Home Improvement."

'Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1996)

Quasimodo (voice of Tom Hulce) sings of being "Out There," as he looks longingly down from his bell tower on the bustling streets of Paris. And who should be on those streets? None other than Belle, the winsome French lass from Disney's earlier "Beauty and the Beast" (1991).

'Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace' (1999)

Among the alien races seen in the senate chamber of The Republic are three E.T.'s — the adorable aliens from Steven Spielberg's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982).

'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' (2014)

Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is buried beneath a tombstone reading: "The path of the righteous man... Ezekiel 25:17". This was the line hitman Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), the Bible-spouting hitman in "Pulp Fiction" (1994) used to recite before plugging his victims.