Saturday Night Live (TV) - SNL did a skit with Nancy Kerrigan in a car in a St. Patrick's Day Parade. The car and Nancy were actually in the studio with the parade footage projected on a screen behind. The pipe band in the parade was the Cu'Chullain Pipe Band performing in Morristown, NJ.
Scarlet Letter - 199? PBS mini-series? Apparently pipers appear in a parade.
Scooby Doo (TV cartoon series) - Scooby Doo (a cowardly dog) and the gang are touring Scotland and, at one point, are to stay at a highland castle. As Scrappy, Shaggy and Scooby ride bikes towards the castle, they spot a piper up the road playing Scotland the Brave. Scooby being his usual clumsy self, ends up not only crashing into the piper but replacing his pipes. The piper, unfazed, keeps on marching with Scooby in the place of the pipes while Scooby attempts to make pipe noises. Further, the castle is haunted by a large black knight who adds to the adventure. The piper for this cartoon was Seumas Coyne, who runs a highand import shop in New York. There is another episode in which Scooby plays the pipes to attract or repel a Nessie which turns out to be a submarine.
Scott's Play - 2000 - This is a short film written by Tom Sheppard which won 1st Place, Short Comedy, 2000, in the Always Online Film Festival. Cato scored it and wrote an original bagpipe tune for it called Scott's Play. The pipes are not seen, but their music is heard in the final scene of the movie and over the end credits. The movie is about an illfated attempt to stage Macbeth on a New York stage. It can be viewed on line at the link, above.
Search and Rescue - American TV drama. The star, Robert Conrad, plays the bagpipes on the premier program.
The Secret of Roan Inish -1994 This is a movie about silkies, ancestors and children - a marvelous story. The pipe tune played may be O'Sullivan's March.
September (TV) -1996 There is a bit of piping during a party scene in this movie which tells of an attractive exile's (Jacqueline Bisset) return to a Scottish village.
The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao -1994 There is pipe music playing when the loch ness monster grows and starts chasing one of the charactors in the movie.
The Shanty Where Santa Claus Lives 1933 (cartoon) A Christmas tree accidentally catches fire and Santa connects a fire hose to a set of bagpipes, playing a tune while he sprays water through the pipes and puts out the fire.
Sharon, Lois and Bram - Candles, Snow and Mistletoe - 1995? - (a CBC Christmas children's special) - The show takes place on board a train, with one character passing through several times, playing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" on various instruments. One of the instruments is the bagpipes - held under the right arm. The pipes are, mercifully, only visible for a few seconds. Why mercifully: If you look closely it's quite clear that the props person who assembled the pipes had NO clue how to put them together - the player seems to be blowing on the lower part of the bass drone, there is a tenor drone (or possibly the upper half of the bass drone) in the blowpipe stock, and it looks like they put the blowpipe in the chanter stock. Looks very weird and uncomfortable. As the piper passes through, the train comes to a screeching halt, everyone falls over and the pipes come to a wailing end.
Sharpes Rifles - 1990s. This is a British series (carried in the U.S.A. by P.B.S.) set in Spain during the Nepolianic Wars. In the episode, Sharpes Honour, a group of Highlanders led by a piper attack a French fort.
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The Simpsons - 1995 Halloween Special. In an apparent parody on the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Groundskeeper Willie, the school's Scottish custodian, is seen sitting next to the furnace playing the Highland bagpipes. Homer Simpson, who is at school for a parents' meeting, turns up the heat, and Willie is burned to death, vowing revenge on the children of Springfield. Willie begins invading the children's dreams, causing terror and even death. Finally, in Bart's dream, Willie is reincarnated as an arachnidan set of bagpipes which grabs Bart with one of its legs cum drones. When he is finally killed, he deflates with bagpipe-like squeals.
There are a couple of other Simpsons episodes featuring Willy's torturous piping. In one (title?), Willy is hosting, what is billed as a Scotchtoberfest, and piping away mercilessly while Bart conspires to lift his kilt. It turns out that the whole event was orchestrated as an entrapment scheme by principal Skinner to catch Bart doing exactly what he did. Tag Line? Willy: "Ach! There's noo such thing as Scotchtoberfest, is therrrrr? Ya Used Me, Skinnerrr! Ya Used Me!"
- 1998 - 99 season - An episode where Homer and Mr. Burnes travel to Scotland to capture the Lochness Monster. The Simpsons closing theme is played with the bagpipes.
Sinful Davey - 1969 95 minutes - The Duke of Argyll (Robert Morley) takes a liking to Davey (John Hunt). In one scene, Davey is writing his memoirs in his cell while waiting to be hanged for his crimes while the Duke consoles him by (doing an atrocious job of faking the) playing of the great highland bagpipes. There is also a ballroom scene where pipers play and kilted guests dance and mill about.
So I Married an Axe Murderer - 1993 92 minutes - starring Mike Meyers of Saturday Night Live fame. The piper, Jack Cunningham (of San Francisco), played Scotland the Brave at the wedding and at the reception he played that Rod Stewart song, If you want my body . . ., as Mike Myers sang along in a rich Scottish accent. The best part is when the piper (whose bag cover is leopard skin print) collapses during the solo and Mike Myers is yelling "We have a piper down! I repeat, we have a piper down!" According to one un-named source, "The bagpipe symbolizes social criminality and pathological eccentricity". Huh??
Some Mother's Son - A piper plays The Mistrel Boy at Bobby Sands's funeral.
Something Big - c. 1965 A western starring Dean Martin. He had a sidekick named, Scotty, of course, a bearded red-haired man who played the bagpipe on horseback in a couple of scenes. The pipes, of course, were out of tune. Used only when the pair were attacking somebody as I recall. Not a very good movie.
Speed - a CD ROM disk - starts with a video of Kirkpatrick MacMillan building a bicycle in Scotland and riding it past a quartet of pipers in full dress playing through a wooden bridge.
Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan - 1982 113 minutes. Director Nicholas Meyer, starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, Richardo Montalban, James Doohan and Walter Koenig. The starship Reliant arrives at the wrong planet allowing the evil Khan to take over the starship and vow revenge on Captain Kirk. As Scotty plays Amazing Grace on the great highland bagpipes at the funeral of Mr. Spock the sound track enigmatically offers an electronic version of the tune. Further, Scotty's fingering is not even a close approximation to how one actually plays the tune.
Star Trek III - The Search for Spock - Spock, the recently deceased Vulcan, gets rescued and revived by his intrepid buddies. At the beginning, the end of the previous movie is re-hashed, with a few excerpts from the piping.
State of Grace - 1990 134 minutes. Directed by Phil Joanou and starring Seann Penn, Ed Harris, etc. this is the story of the Irish gangsters in New York and there is extensive gun fire during a St. Patick's Day parade. The music was provided by Don McNear, Bill Merriman, Liz Steuber, John Steuber, Derek Richie and Ron McGlastien of the Prince Charles Pipe Band of San Francisco, taped and over-dubbed to give the sound of a full band. One of the bands which appears on the screen is NYC Dept of Correction pipe band. Another is the IBEW Local #25 Pipe and Drums from Long Island.
Straw Dogs - In this Sam Peckinpah film, the sound of bagpipes is a significant dramatic factor in the action of the film. Although there are no scenes in which anyone actually plays the pipes, there are two scenes in which a recording of a pipe band plays a role. Dustin Hoffman plays a American mathematician visiting in Cornwall. When he entertains the local sheriff and village deacon for the first time in his house, he goes to the stereo and puts on, rather loudly, a pipe band record, presumably because he feels it is British in nature and may enliven the mood. It is a faux-pas of sorts and his wife immediately takes it off. The second, more significant, occasion occurs when the house comes under siege from several local lads. Dustin is inside with his wife trying to keep them out, as he knows they would be killed. As the battle rages, he goes to the stereo and plays the same pipe band tune very loudly, and it is playing as one of the intruders enters and is killed by Dustin with the fire poker. Outside, another exclaims "He's playing music!" rather incredulously while two of the boys imitate marching pipers in a derisive manner, marching with thumbs in the mouth or nose.
South Park - (Canadian TV cartoon series) One episode featured a piper playing Hava Nagilla at a cemetary at a funeral for someone who isn't actually dead.
Super Dave (TV series) In one episode of this comedy, the producer of the show decides to come out and show off his piping skills - only thing is the sound of the pipes is cut out and all you hear is Super Dave mumbling about something insignificant while they show this guy huffing and puffing on the pipes.Sigh....
The Swordsman - c1950s, 60s (?) This film has perhaps more anachronisms than any other Scottish movie to date. Not entertaining either! The actors are no names: Larry Parks, Ellen Drew, George Macready and Edgar Buchanan. It's about clan feuds on the late 17th century, and about what it claims was the "fiercest in all the Highlands" feuds between the MacArdens and the Glowans. As the Glowans hold a day of athletic events at their castle, a pipe band emerges from their castle in full military dress! playing something like Killiecrankie or Atholl Highlanders on modern pipes. It's a movie where everyone wears plaid, the men wear oversized bonnets with diced headbands and red poms on top, decorated by clan badges full of eagle feathers. Tartan trews and modern buckled kilts are the standard dress for the men as well. This movie has nothing to recommend it, so it is offered as one to avoid (which probably means that it will develop a cult following)!