Before they take off on a full-fledged cinematic adventure in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” the team of Star-Lord, Mantis, Drax the Destroyer, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, and Nebula are taking a break to celebrate the holidays on Disney+. As a self-proclaimed fan of the infamous “Star Wars Holiday Special,” fan favorite filmmaker James Gunn has said that this project is the “greatest thing” he’s ever done. He even teased that his new favorite MCU character would be a part of the proceedings. Well, it turns out, as confirmed by Gunn himself on Twitter, that character is actually Kevin Bacon.
While this may seem like a random inclusion, the actor actually does have a history with the Guardians of the Galaxy. In their first film from 2014, Star-Lord tells Gamora of an Earth legend called “Footloose” where “a great hero named Kevin Bacon teaches an entire city full of people with sticks up their butts that dancing is the greatest thing there is.” This great hero gets name-dropped once again in “Avengers: Infinity War” when the Guardians cross paths with Thor. The Asgardian Avenger tells them of Thanos’ latest whereabouts and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ attempts at stopping him. But when Mantis asks if Bacon is one of the heroes Odinson mentioned, he says, “He may be on the team. I don’t know, I haven’t been there in a while.”
To get this cameo to happen, Gunn likely called in a favor from Bacon after they worked together on “Super,” the 2010 dark comedy starring Rainn Wilson and Elliot Page. But Bacon has gone on record saying that he was pleasantly surprised to hear his name uttered by the heroes of the MCU, so he was probably more than happy to join them on an adventure.
