Christopher Walken as McBain!

No, Christopher Walken has not been cast to play a live-action version of McBain from The Simpsons. However, there really is an action movie out there named McBain even though it doesn’t seem quite as entertaining as the Simpsons version. The film was made in 1991 by schlock action director James Glickenhaus, starring Christopher Walken as the title character and featuring a pretty cool B-movie cast that includes Maria Conchita Alonso, Michael Ironside, Steve James and an early role for one of my “That Guys”, Luis Guzman. While the McBain character on The Simpsons actually made his initial appearance a few months before this film came out, there were still some legal issues as the producers of McBain did not want The Simpsons using the name of their character. While Rainier Wolfcastle became a full-time character on the show, they could no longer get clearance to show him playing “McBain”. From all accounts, McBain is pretty terrible, but it does have its entertainment value. The film’s highlight is probably this scene where McBain is sitting in a cockpit and somehow manages to shoot down a fighter jet with his pistol without breaking either plane’s window!