During the opening teaser, a patient (whose face is obscured) is being placed into an MRI machine. Shortly after, the machine begins to smoke, and the crew hurriedly pulls the patient from the machine. The man, who is revealed to be played by Richard Pryor, says, "Oh man, I thought I was on fire!" - a reference to a well-publicized 1980 incident where Pryor set himself on fire (claimed at the time to have been an accident, although Pryor later admitted it was a suicide attempt induced by his cocaine freebasing addiction).