Jalen Hurts, Jason Kelce, and Brandon Graham make surprise cameo on ‘Abbott Elementary’
The Eagles quarterback was the star of Abbott Elementary’s career day.
The characters on hit comedy ‘Abbott Elementary’ have been Eagles fans since the pilot episode, when teacher Melissa Schemmenti secures each of the teachers an Eagles rug for their classroom.
With how successful the show has become, hosting famous guest stars like Andre Iguodala, it felt like only a matter of time before an Eagles player made a cameo on the show.
During Wednesday’s season three premiere, a few Birds finally made an appearance — and it was perfect.
On the episode, Janine Teagues, played by Quinta Brunson, hosts a career day for the students at Abbott, and Melissa, played by Lisa Ann Walter, brings in an Eagles marketing employee. That employee brings Jalen Hurts — coined by principal Ava Coleman (Janelle James) as the “world’s finest starting quarterback” — into the classroom on a livestream, causing mass chaos as all of the students try to get a glimpse of him.
Janine “called an audible” and projected Hurts into every room at Abbott so all the kids could meet him and stay in their classrooms.
But it turned out, Hurts wasn’t just there to talk to the kids. Melissa’s boyfriend, Gary, had Hurts spring a surprise proposal on Melissa — who didn’t want to get married — leading to a breakup.
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At the end of the episode, Hurts was joined by Brandon Graham and Jason Kelce on the livestream, who call him out for being late for practice and for helping with the proposal.
Abbott Elementary showrunner Justin Halpern told The Hollywood Reporter that Hurts reached out to them with interest in being on the show last year.
“Hurts’ people actually emailed us in the middle of Season 2 to say that he was a big fan of the show, and if there was ever an opportunity he’d be interested in being on it,” Halpern said. “Sports are a big part of Philadelphia. It’s in the DNA of the city. Our characters talk about it.
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“Quinta said before, ‘You can’t do a Philly show and not have them talking about sports.’ So we’re doing this career day episode, and we want a fun, exciting guest star for our premiere — but not just a famous person because they’re famous. So we were like, ‘oh, it’d be so great if what [messes] up her career day is the fact that she ends up getting somebody who’s too famous in terms of Philly.’
“So we reached out and they were preparing for the playoffs, so we knew we couldn’t fly him out here. So we said, ‘Let’s just have it happen via Zoom and that’ll be how we do it.’ And then it just all kind of worked out. We have an amazing crew and they made it happen.”