Stan Lee Got Roped Into A Hilarious Disney Cameo Years Before The Studio Bought Marvel

Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stan Lee was known as a Marvel Comics writer and editorial director. He was instrumental in creating some of the company's most prominent characters and oversaw the entire comic book universe's direction. Lee went from the voice of Marvel to its cameo king over the course of his illustrious career, and even fans who weren't familiar with him before soon got to know the guy, thanks to Lee's frequent MCU appearances. However, he was stealthily starting his cameo career well before the MCU, and unbeknownst to many, his résumé includes a truly offbeat appearance in Disney's "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement."

In this 2004 romantic comedy that depicts the further adventures of Princess of Genovia Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway), Lee has a brief but fun turn as a foreign wedding guest who does his best to greet Queen Clarisse (Julie Andrews) with language skills that, unfortunately, come straight from "The Three Stooges." 

Lee's "The Princess Diaries 2" appearance came well before Marvel and Disney officially became bosom buddies. "Iron Man" jump-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008, and in 2009, Disney famously bought Marvel for a cool $4 billion. This particular cameo doesn't appear to have been an early sign of things to come. Instead, Lee simply happened to be friends with the movie's director, Garry Marshall, who offered the cameo opportunity to the Marvel bigwig.

The appearance in "The Princess Diaries 2" was far from the first cameo in Lee's surprisingly illustrious acting career. He already narrated Marvel cartoons in the early 1980s, and was known to have voice cameos as himself in various animated shows for years before the MCU made him an obligatory presence in film projects under its vast umbrella.

Lee's live-action cameos also started before "The Princess Bride 2." He made his first Marvel-adjacent on-screen appearance as a jury foreman in 1989's "The Trial of the Incredible Hulk," and appeared in many other non-MCU Marvel films. You can spot him in Bryan Singer's 2000 movie "X-Men," Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" from 2002, and both Ang Lee's "Hulk" and Mark Steven Johnson's "Daredevil" from 2003, to name but a few. Outside Marvel, Lee has appeared in films that range from the 1990 horror comedy "The Ambulance" to Kevin Smith's seminal 1995 slacker comedy "Mallrats."

While Lee's MCU cameos are no doubt his most enduring on-screen legacy, his grand total of 134 screen and voice acting credits mean that a devoted Lee-spotter may want to take a few days off to truly dig into his sizable cameo catalog. In fact, completionists will have their work cut out for them since the MCU has continued to pay homage to Lee even after he passed away in 2018, which means that respectful nods to the Marvel legend continue to appear in movies like "Deadpool and Wolverine."