For those of us paying attention

"Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" has a brief appearance by Clint Howard, playing a Mission Control staffer in the Air and Space Museum (I don't think a mockup of Mission Control is a real display at the museum, though). You can see part of his appearance here in a behind-the-scenes clip:

Have You Cine: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

The cleverness of this is that he played a character looking similar, but not quite as old, in "Apollo 13", directed by his brother Ron. Here's what he looked like in that:
















The real cleverness of this is that there is a piece of actual Apollo 13 memorabilia at the Smithsonian, and it's not a part of the spacecraft. It's this:



What is this?

Vest, Apollo 13

I sure hope that was intentional, because if it was, it was really clever. If it wasn't, it was a very nice coincidence. I tend to think the former. I wonder if anybody can confirm that the screenwriters or producers or directors made this connection?