‘Top Gun: Maverick’ ‘Rejected’ Call Signs Revealed in Parody

Top Gun: Maverick is still in theaters and blowing up the box office like it was a strategically placed nuclear lab in an unnamed enemy country. While some feared the sequel to 1986’s Top Gun would fall into the danger zone when it came to performance, it’s succeeded on every level to become one of the dominant drivers of popular culture conversation in 2022. Director Joseph Kosinski and screenplay writers Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie put together a well-crafted tale that cast members Tom Cruise and Miles Teller (among others) execute perfectly. With the success that comes with an estimated $1.1 billion at the box office, there’s gonna be some other creators capitalizing on the property, for better or worse.

On the better end of things, G4 TV’s Attack of the Show! took an absurd approach to parody one of the movie’s memorable scenes. In Top Gun: Maverick, the young crop of pilots is introduced at the bar owned by Penny (Jennifer Connelly) as Maverick (Cruise) watches from a distance. Among the pilots we meet (identified with call signs) are Rooster (Teller), Hangman (Glenn Powell), Phoenix (Monica Barbaro), Payback (Jay Ellis), Fanboy (Danny Ramirez) and Bob (Lewis Pullman). A big part of the military culture depicted in the Top Gun movies is the pilot call signs, with Iceman (Val Kilmer) and Goose (Anthony Edwards) being two of the most memorable nicknames in the 1986 flick.

The AOTS sketch that parodied these scenes focused on the odd nature of call signs and carried it to an outrageous degree, with cheesy machismo-filled entrances to match. Among to pilots in the sketch, which aired in the June 23 episode, are Hangnutz, Toilet, Fast Plane Guy, Alternate Name and, the call sign deemed “so stupid it’s dangerous,” Enemy Pilot. The list goes on and on from there, but we’ll let you discover some of the more absurd ones for yourself.

The cast of the sketch includes Will Neff, Kassem G, Gina Darling, Fiona Nova, Case Blackwell and Austin Creed (who has somewhat of a real-life call-sign of his own, being as he’s best known as WWE Superstar Xavier Woods). The bit appeared in an episode that featured several Top Gun-themed segments, including a virtual-reality-headset-based dogfighting competition dubbed “Top Goose.”

Attack of the Show!, which was rebooted when G4 relaunched in late 2021, just moved to Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. ET, with episodes streaming live on the network’s official Twitch and YouTube channels. Edited-down versions are then made available on-demand via Attack of the Show!’s YouTube channel, G4’s linear cable network and the network’s live-TV streaming homes, such as G4 Select on Pluto TV.