History GeniusBonus / LiveActionTV

** When Jan announces that she's pregnant, Mike immediately asks in a panicked voice whether she's touched any of his Propecia. Hair growth medication such as Propecia and Rogain can cause birth defects.

** The human/demon cyborg hybrid created by the Initiative named Adam. One could be forgiven for thinking the name is a reference to the first man in the Bible, given that the human/demon cyborg hybrid was meant to be the first of its kind, until you start to research another story with a creature created from bits and pieces of dead people by a mad scientist playing God and realise that said creature was also named Adam (or at least refers to himself as Adam when speaking to Victor Frankenstein as an allusion to the Adam of the Bible).

** And in a sort of combination of this trope and FunnyBackgroundEvent, the Salvatores' house is full of famous paintings that a viewer with both keen eyesight and a knowledge of art will spot. This includes a Manet that shows up in almost every living room scene.

** In "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E16BewitchedBotheredAndBewildered}} Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered]] " there's an example that's either this or CriticalResearchFailure on the writers' part. Amy casts her love spell by invoking "Diana, goddess of love and the hunt". Anyone who's savvy on their Roman mythology knows the spell is going to backfire because Diana was '''NOT''' the goddess of love, Venus was. It's probably why the spell had the opposite effect and enchanted every woman except the intended target (Cordelia).

* In ''Series/{{Community}}'', an evil German man says, "I wish there were a word to describe the pleasure I feel in seeing misfortune!" In fact, the German word "''schadenfreude''" has this exact definition. It's sometimes used as a loanword in English. Made even funnier if you know how German works: Even if there hadn't been such a word, he could have simply made up a compound word with that meaning on the spot.

*** In one scene, the Doctor rambles about his new face, insisting that he's seen it somewhere before and asking "why did I choose this face? Who frowned me this face?" Though this could easily be dismissed as typical post-regeneration rambling/confusion (8 had amnesia, 10 fell into a coma, and 11 looted Amelia's fridge), it's actually a reference to Caecilius, the Roman marble merchant whom the Tenth Doctor saved from Mt. Vesuvius. Caecilius was portrayed by Capaldi. [[spoiler:It was later explained that the Doctor chose Caecilius's face to remind him who he is: even if it "violates the rules of time," he is the Doctor and he saves people.]]

** "What Happened To Frederick" features an EnthrallingSiren guarding the water of Lake Nostos. If you analyse the themes of the episode, the use of a Siren is rather apt. 'Siren Song' is an expression to describe something that seems attractive but will ultimately lead to ruin - in this case the Siren's seduction of Charming will lead to him being drowned if he gives in. In the Storybrooke portions, the proverbial Siren Song is him lying to Kathryn about why they're breaking up rather than confessing his affair with Mary Margaret. The {{Irony}} is underlined by Charming resisting the Siren Song in the Enchanted Forest, but giving into it in Storybrooke.

* ''{{Series/Smallville}}'' had the episode "Slumber" where the plot focused on a comatose girl who was pulling people into shared dreams for help. All the songs featured in the episode were by [=REM=] who took their name from the acronym for "rapid eye movement", a sign of dreaming.

** Ironically, Sheridan is probably the real Garibaldi {{Expy}}: a CrazyIsCool general who specializes in coming BackFromTheBrink and wins battles even when his side has ''already'' lost the war? Check, check and re-check. Plus the events described in Severed Dreams resemble the events of the siege of Montevideo.

** Ironically, Sheridan is probably the real Garibaldi {{Expy}}: a CrazyAwesome general who specializes in coming BackFromTheBrink and wins battles even when his side has ''already'' lost the war? Check, check and re-check. Plus the events described in Severed Dreams resemble the events of the siege of Montevideo.

** The two-parter "The Fisher King" has the team trying to find a kidnapped girl. We're shown her locked in a basement bedroom, coughing hard and apparently ill, having been taken some time ago by a kidnapper who acts as though he cares for her. At this point viewers who've read John Fowles' ''The Collector'' may have spotted that this plot is somewhat familiar; and then the clues the kidnapper sent to the FBI turn out to be centred around... John Fowles' ''The Collector''. It's never mentioned in the episode what the novel's about.[[note]]It should be noted that ''The Collector'' has been a favorite book of several serial killers in real life, despite [[CompletelyMissingThePoint the moral of the story being don't be a serial killer]].[[/note]]

* ''{{Series/Smallville}}'' had the episode "Slumber" where the plot focused on a comatose girl who was pulling people into shared dreams for help. All the songs featured in the episode were by [=REM=] who took their name from the acronym for "rapid eye movement', a sign of dreaming.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': When discussing how to get the murderer of a chess master to confess in "The Master in the Slop" Brennan mentions "the famous 1912 game Levitsky versus Marshall". Levitsky versus Marshall is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levitsky_versus_Marshall a very famous game]] that Marshall won with a brilliant queen sacrifice. Furthermore, bluffing your opponent in chess by playing aggressive moves in a lost position is called a "Marshall-swindle". Both factors references how Brennan, Booth and Sweets get the murderer to confess in the end: [[spoiler: They arrest his mother for the murder.]]

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': When discussing how to get the murderer of a chess master to confess in "The Master in the Slop" Brennan mentions "the famous 1912 game Levitsky versus Marshall". Levitsky versus Marshall is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levitsky_versus_Marshall a very famous game]] that Marshall won with a brilliant queen sacrifice. Furthermore, bluffing your opponent in chess by playing aggressive moves in a lost position is called a "Marshall-swindle". Both factors references how Brennan, Booth and Sweets get the murderer to confess in the end: [[Spoiler: They arrest his mother for the murder.]]

*** In one scene, the Doctor rambles about his new face, insisting that he's seen it somewhere before and asking "why did I choose this face? Who frowned me this face?" Though this could easily be dismissed as typical post-regeneration rambling/confusion (8 had amnesia, 10 fell into a coma, and 11 looted Amelia's fridge), it's actually a reference to Caecilius, the Roman marble merchant whom the Tenth Doctor saved from Mt. Vesuvius. Caecilius was portrayed by Capaldi. [[spoiler:It was later explained that the Doctor chose Caecilius's face to remind him who he is: even if it "violates the rules of time," he is the Doctor and he saves people.]]
*** The whole episode is sort of a loose sequel to [[spoiler:"[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace The Girl in the Fireplace]]."]] The writers drop hints throughout that the antagonists are similar ([[spoiler:rogue repair droids cannibalizing humans for parts]]), and finally reveal that [[spoiler: the antagonists are from the sister ship to the SS Madame de Pompadour]], but if you haven't seen the "prequel" episode, all the hints and the final reveal will totally fly under your radar, just as they fly under the Doctor's. He never gets it.
** A chalkboard in the background of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E1AnUnearthlyChild An Unearthly Child]]" episode 1 has the quadratic formula written on it.
*** Though [[WritersCannotDoMath the denominator is written as 2ab, when it should be 2a.]]

** ''[=NextGen=]'' is rife with references to Japanese anime (the Nausicaans, the ''USS Yamato'', etc.).

** In "Descent: Part I", the holographic Creator/StephenHawking's joke at the start of the episode which UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein and Data understand but UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton does not is a bit of an inside joke. [[DontExplainTheJoke Data explains that the joke is based on knowledge about the perihelion precession of the planet Mercury]], before Newton angrily cuts him off, saying "Don't patronize me, I invented physics". The perihelion precession of Mercury could not be explained by Newtonian physics alone, and was regarded as a major flaw of Newton's theory, but it later was explained by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Furthermore, Hawking's comment "Wrong again, Albert," when revealing his winning hand is a reference to the professor's life work in physics, in which he had disproved some of Einstein's theories.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Sam and Dean meet an author who has been inexplicably writing sci-fi novels about characters named "Sam and Dean" whose monster-fighting adventures are [[WhoWouldWantToWatchUs exact retellings of their own story.]] When confronted, the author has a moment of realization when he admits that his still-unfinished new novel is kind of inspired by Creator/KurtVonnegut. Dean asks "''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'' Vonnegut or ''Literature/CatsCradle'' Vonnegut?" and he replies "[[AuthorAvatar Kilgore Trout]] Vonnegut." The references are not elaborated upon, it's just assumed that the viewers understand what that means. Doubles as a HiddenDepths moment for [[BookDumb Dean]], since that kind of question would generally be in [[TheSmartGuy Sam's]] arena.