Why Daphne From Rick And Morty Season 5, Episode 3 Sounds So Familiar
By Rachel Davis
Jennifer Coolidge's first-ever screen credit came courtesy of the "Seinfeld" episode "The Masseuse," wherein she played the eponymous masseuse Jodi, a girlfriend of Jerry's who frustrates him when she refuses to give him a message. That role was followed by a trickle of B-movie bit parts until she got the opportunity to create one of the greatest teen comedy characters of all time.
There are a number of moments in 1999's "American Pie" that made it a major cultural touchstone (it is the movie that launched a million "This one time, at band camp" jokes), but one of the most significant is a character known as Stifler's Mom. During the climactic post-prom party, dweeby Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) encounters her in the study of his buddy Stifler's (Seann William Scott) house. After a flirtatious back and forth, she seduces him in a scene that has gone down in cinema infamy.
In lesser hands, it's a role that may have come off as smarmy and rote. However, Coolidge's pitch-perfect take made Stifler's Mom one of the most enduring characters in raunchy high school comedy history.
Although "American Pie" was a major moment in Coolidge's career, it was just one of several iconic parts she played during this period.
