History Main / CreatorInJoke

* In the original proposal for ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' that Roddenberry submitted to MGM in 1964, the ''Enterprise'' was to be commanded by Robert ''M.'' April. The name also turned up in two episodes of ''Series/HaveGunWillTravel'' that Roddenberry wrote in TheFifties.
* The number 47 appears frequently throughout ''Franchise/StarTrek'' whenever an arbitrary number is needed. This originates with The 47 Society from Pomona College, the alma mater of one of the writers for ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''.

* Young Adult author Neal Shusterman often includes a character named Ralphy Sherman in his books, usually as a [[ButtMonkey]].

* On ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn2019'' , Creator/LakeBell , who voices Poison Ivy, also voices recurring police officer Cheryl, who has a southern accent. This is a nod to the comics where Ivy originally had a southern accent.

* Music/SystemOfADown's "I-E-A-I-A-I-O" includes the lines "Meeting John at Dale's Jr. / winked and eye and point a finger". As a child, drummer John Dolmayan had a chance meeting with Creator/DavidHasselhoff in front of a liquor store called Dale's Jr.; When John exclaimed "Series/KnightRider!", Hasselhoff said "Hey, kid", winked and pointed his finger at him. John told the story to Serj Tankian, who wrote it into the lyrics. It sort of ties into the next line, which is a reference to the premise of ''Knight Rider'' ("a former cop, undercover / just got shot, now recovered").

** David Lowery and [[{{Music/Sparklehorse}} Mark Linkous]] once had a conversation about things that an artist could do on an album that would cause listeners to think they'd gone insane- Lowery suggested mentioning monkeys in every song on an album. Subsequently, ''Forever'' by Cracker had four separate songs that mentioned monkeys in the lyrics.

* "A113" is an inside joke amongst a number of animators who graduated from the California Institute for the Arts; it's the classroom number where animation classes were held. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A113 the other Wiki]] for a listing of some of the references.

** A subtle one from ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}''--Leela is upset and tears one half of a Kleenex to wipe her tears away. On the DVD commentary, they said that everyone assumed it was a joke because of her one eye, but the writers were referencing the fact that executive producer and writer David X. Cohen would use one half of the Kleenex to save money.

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' recycles a lot of characters and themes from Andrew's more obscure work. For instance, Gamzee [[spoiler: a monster clown serial killer]] is partially based off his little known and [[OrphanedSeries orphaned]] graphic novel series, ''Whistles''. The Kids and the flavor of Homestuck, in general, comes from what Andrew described as an idea that never left the launching pad of magical kids learning how to focus their powers and taking the piss out of it. The characters on the pages on Rose's wall are the concept art from that series. Likewise, there is a poster in Dave's room of two robot rappers, they were at one point planned to be minor characters and have a rap music album based on them, but it also never came to fruition.
** A few moments in the comic are just incomprehensibly bizarre without knowing that they're in reaction to fans on the forums or social media freaking out about events in the comic. The infamous scene of the AuthorAvatar trying to kiss [[Film/{{Hook}} Rufio]] back to life was to tease fans freaking out over one character's murder of another, and the bizarre scene of a character's insane glee at being Caucasian and another character's BigNo (due to having an actual skin tone in "trickster mode" instead of the monochrome white all other human children have) is a TakeThat to fan controversy over what race the kids actually are (which has since been edited due to blowing up into ''its own'' controversy... the page in question now has the character declaring "I feel PEACHY!").

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In the ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'', more superhumans (both heroes and villains) were born on April 1 than any other date during the year. This was the date that ''GGU'' creator Jack Butler proposed to his wife.
[[/folder]]

* ''Film/BillAndTedsBogusJourney'': The character Station was an in-joke between the two screenwriters that came about during writing. After deleting a scene taking place in a police station, they noticed that they'd accidentally left the word "station" in the draft. Giddy on lack of sleep, the writers started saying "station" back and forth in funny voices. The immortalized the joke by adding an alien to the story who [[PokemonSpeak only says his name]], "Station."

* ''Film/GorillaInterrupted'': The scene where Rich Evans falls down a hillside through brambles is a reference to a nearly identical scene in another amateur film directed by cast member Jay Bauman.

* Creator/SamRaimi puts the same car - a 1973 Olds Delta Royale, referred to as "the classic", which he inherited from his father - in almost all of his films.

* Muaic/CamperVanBeethoven's "Long Plastic Hallway" includes the lines "Playing on a flying saucer/ Box O'Laffs was supporting Talking Heads". Box O' Laffs were a group David Lowery was in before Camper Van Beethoven; their guitarist had the rest of the band convinced they'd landed a gig opening up for Music/TalkingHeads, but after much ado it turned out that he had been high and in a delusional state at the time, and the venue for the supposed event was to be a UFO flying above L.A.

* Muaic/CampeVanBeethoven's "Long Plastic Hallway" includes the lines "Playing on a flying saucer/ Box O'Laffs was supporting Talking Heads". Box O' Laffs were a group David Lowery was in before Camper Van Beethoven; their guitarist had the rest of the band convinced they'd landed a gig opening up for Music/TalkingHeads, but after much ado it turned out that he had been high and in a delusional state at the time, and the venue for the supposed event was to be a UFO flying above L.A.

* Muaic/Campe4VanBeethoven's "Long Plastic Hallway" includes the lines "Playing on a flying saucer/ Box O'Laffs was supporting Talking Heads". Box O' Laffs were a group David Lowery was in before Camper Van Beethoven; their guitarist had the rest of the band convinced they'd landed a gig opening up for Music/TalkingHeads, but after much ado it turned out that he had been high and in a delusional state at the time, and the venue for the supposed event was to be a UFO flying above L.A.

* When authors Creator/TimPowers and James Blaylock were in college together, they invented a fake poet named "William Ashbless" to satirize the quality of their college's literary magazine. He ended up appearing as a character in both of their novels, entirely independently. Nearly all of Powers' novels mention Ashbless at least once, often in the form of an invented {{epigraph}}. In the novel ''Literature/TheAnubisGates'' we learn that "William Ashbless" is the alias of a time-travelling English professor, meaning he's also a fake character InUniverse, even in his own origin story.

* Adolescents' demo collection ''Naughty Women In Black Sweaters'' has a double meaning that only works if know a lot about the 1980s Fullerton, California music scene the band came out of: According to lead vocalist Tony, The Naughty Women was the name of a "transvestite punk band" from Fullerton, while "the black sweaters" was a nickname for a group of women who had a reputation of being groupies. So, the album title is either referencing the SweaterGirl trope or something more risque.

[[folder:Fan Works]]

[[folder:Film]]

* The son of Kate Cary, one of the authors writing under the ''Creator/ErinHunter'' name, once joked that ''[[Literature/WarriorCats Warriors]]'' should be called ''Worriers'' since that's all they seem to do. Kate included a reference to this in one of the books, having a character say "We're warriors, not worriers."

* ''Series/TimAndEricAwesomeShowGreatJob'': The word "chippy", which gets used a ''lot'', comes from some weird foreign porn Tim and Eric once saw.
* From ''Series/{{Lost}}'', the song "You All Everybody" and its only known lyrics ("you all everybody, acting like these stupid people wearing expensive clothes") came from an inside joke among the writers. One of them had seen someone use the phrase on a talk show many years earlier.
** "Geronimo Jackson" is a band that is mentioned several times throughout the series. Showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse swear the band was a legitimate one from the 70s that no one remembers, but the pair are known for making outrageous claims and jokes. However, they are unusually adamant that Geronimo Jackson was a real band. Several independent "investigations" (searches of music databases, copyright libraries, etc) have turned up no evidence Geronimo Jackson ever existed.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'' loved this one:
** Chris Carter's best friend as a child was called Fox and his mother's maiden name is Mulder.
** Various other characters are also named after people the writers knew.
** Almost every time a date or number is mentioned it has some kind of significance (most commonly 1013/October 13th, Chris Carter's birthday, or 1121/November 21, his wife's). They even subverted it once by using the same number about five times in a single season - the number was completely meaningless but by this point, fans had been trained to look obsessively for the significance.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': The CavemenVsAstronautsDebate in the fifth season episode "A Hole In The World" is funny enough as it is, but it was based on a real argument Creator/JossWhedon started in the writers' room that got way out of hand. He just wrote it on the chalkboard and came in later to find that the argument had effectively killed any work getting done.

* In ''Series/{{Lexx}}'', Xev's home planet [=B3K=] took its name from the production company's Halifax postal code.

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E5TimeHeist Time Heist]]'', one of the treasure items in Karabraxos' private vault, visible in the background of several important shots, is a child's cardboard model of a rocket ship. In the making-of documentary, director Douglas [=McKinnon=] explains that it belongs to him, was a gift from his daughter, and is one of his own most treasured possessions.
* In a ''Series/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'', Count Olaf, played by Neil Patrick Harris, mentions having tried to get his own television show in the city for nine years. This may have been a reference to when Harris played Barney in ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', a show set in New York City for nine years.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* From ''Webcomic/ItsWalky'', Walky's catchphrase "Wiigii" was inspired by a typo of the author's when he was trying to type "Woohoo" and his right hand was off to the left.
* The "You call this a X?" from ''Webcomic/RomanticallyApocalyptic''.
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' recycles a lot of characters and themes from Andrew's more obscure work. For instance, Gamzee [[spoiler: a monster clown serial killer]] is partially based off his little known and [[OrphanedSeries orphaned]] graphic novel series, ''Whistles''. The Kids and the flavor of Homestuck, in general, comes from what Andrew described as an idea that never left the launching pad of magical kids learning how to focus their powers and taking the piss out of it. The characters on the pages on Rose's wall are the concept art from that series. Likewise, there is a poster in Dave's room of two robot rappers, they were at one point planned to be minor characters and have a rap music album based on them, but it also never came to fruition.
** A few moments in the comic are just incomprehensibly bizarre without knowing that they're in reaction to fans on the forums or social media freaking out about events in the comic. The infamous scene of the AuthorAvatar trying to kiss [[Film/{{Hook}} Rufio]] back to life was to tease fans freaking out over one character's murder of another, and the bizarre scene of a character's insane glee at being Caucasian and another character's BigNo (due to having an actual skin tone in "trickster mode" instead of the monochrome white all other human children have) is a TakeThat to fan controversy over what race the kids actually are (which has since been edited due to blowing up into ''its own'' controversy... the page in question now has the character declaring "I feel PEACHY!").
[[/folder]]

** The name Homestar Runner comes from an incident in school when a friend of The Brothers Chap [[note]] James Huggins of Music/OfMontreal [[/note]] tried to imitate an old-timey baseball announcer but didn't know much about baseball. In the process, he garbled some terms and called a player a "homestar runner."

* In ''Film/SuperTroopers'', the name of one of the Local Cops is Rando, which was something the writers called people they didn't know "randoms" during college. Not a huge injoke (as calling people randoms has been around for the last 10 years or so), but one nonetheless.

** Almost every time a date or number is mentioned it has some kind of significance (most commonly 1013/October 13th, Chris Carter's birthday, or 1121/November 21, his wife's). They even subverted it once by using the same number about five times in a single season - the number was completely meaningless but by this point fans had been trained to look obsessively for the significance.

** 5th season finale episode "If It's Only In Your Head". Lynette is told she's pregnant and says, "Are you sure it's not cancer?" This was based on creator Marc Cherry's personal experience: when his mother was told by doctors in in the early '80s that she was either pregnant or had cancer, she said, "God, I hope it's cancer."

* ''Series/TheMightyBoosh'' was named after something once said by a childhood friend of Noel Fielding (Vince): upon seeing the large curly hairstyle sported by Michael Fielding (Naboo) at the time, the foreign-accented childhood friend exclaimed "You've got a mighty bush!"
* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': The CavemenVsAstronautsDebate in the fifth season episode "A Hole In The World" is funny enough as it is, but it was based on a real argument Creator/JossWhedon started in the writers room that got way out of hand. He just wrote it on the chalkboard and came in later to find that the argument had effectively killed any work getting done.

* Music/EltonJohn was fond of his [[TheEighties 1980s]] CampGay pseudonym, "Lord Choc Ice", and it appears in many manifestations. An instrumental B side was called "Lord Choc Ice Goes Mental", he credits his co-writing credit for the Music/{{Cher}} co-written ''Leather Jackets'' song "Don't Trust That Woman" to "Cher/Lady Choc Ice" (he was upset that Cher wanted first billing, and tried to upstage her for revenge), he credits "Lady Choc Ice" as an "inspiration" in ''Leather Jackets'' 's liner notes, and "Lord Choc Ice" is billed as "director" on the closing clapperboard in his "I'm Still Standing" video. He was known to substitute "foreign guy" in the line "Susie went and left me for some foreign guy" in "Crocodile Rock" with "...Choc Ice guy" in his 1982 concerts.
* Music/SteelyDan members Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are long time best friends with many in jokes. When interviewed together, they will frequently joke cryptically about events of their past, but not explain them to the interviewer. Similarly, their lyrics are filled with them. The song Kid Charlemagne, for instance, is lyrically a hodgepodge of events from their past, arranged to create a story.

* Music/SystemOfADown's "I-E-A-I-A-I-O" includes the lines "Meeting John at Dale's Jr. / winked and eye and point a finger". As a child, drummer John Dolmayan had a chance meeting with Creator/DavidHasselhoff in front of a liquor store called Dale's Jr.; When John exclaimed "Series/KnightRider!", Hasselhoff said "Hey, kid", winked and pointed his finger at him. John told the story to Serj Tankian, who wrote it into the lyrics. It sort of ties in to the next line, which is a reference to the premise of ''Knight Rider'' ("a former cop, undercover / just got shot, now recovered").

* From ''Webcomic/ItsWalky'', Walky's catchphrase "Wiigii" was inspired by a typo of the author's when he was trying to type "Woo hoo" and his right hand was off to the left.

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' recycles a lot of characters and themes from Andrew's more obscure work. For instance Gamzee [[spoiler: a monster clown serial killer]] is partially based off his little known and [[OrphanedSeries orphaned]] graphic novel series, ''Whistles''. The Kids and the flavor of Homestuck in general comes from what Andrew described as an idea that never left the launching pad of magical kids learning how to focus their powers and taking the piss out of it. The characters on the pages on Rose's wall are the concept art from that series. Likewise there is a poster in Dave's room of two robot rappers, they were at one point planned to be minor characters and have a rap music album based on them, but it also never came to fruition.

** The name Homestar Runner comes from a incident in school when a friend of The Brothers Chap [[note]] James Huggins of Music/OfMontreal [[/note]] tried to imitate an old-timey baseball announcer, but didn't know much about baseball. In the process, he garbled some terms and called a player a "homestar runner."

* "Jalapena" as an exclamation in Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}''. Creator/KeithDavid had known someone who used it that way, and improvised during a recording session. [[ThrowItIn It stuck.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitchTheSeries'', one of the phrases Stitch says is "Maka maka, sasa!" (meaning "This way, hurry!") Sasa is an affectionate nickname for Sa, the wife of executive producer of the series Jess Winfield, and "makamaka" is Hawaiian for "friend and host". [[http://lasfansite.atspace.me/stuff/history/tvtome/page04.html Every year Sa hosts a luau party, and signs the invitations with "Makamaka Sasa."]]