Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
"No, I don't know why kiddie movies keep referencing Taxi Driver, either."
A joke on a children's TV show that children of the appropriate age would never get, but which their parents would. Serves as a way to keep the adults awake. Usually takes the form of an homage, but sometimes a Double Entendre or other variation of Getting Crap Past The Radar. See also Parent Service.
Popularized by Sesame Street, with characters like Sherlock Hemlock, Bert and Ernie and the Count, and thus most common on educational shows. Surprisingly, the barely intelligible Cookie Monster seems to get the most Parental Bonus lines, at least in recent history: "Me undergo sea-change," etc.
Of course, a badly done Parental Bonus will entertain neither the kids nor the adults, and may terrify the latter that the former actually will "get" it...
Golden Age animated shorts, especially those from Fleischer Studios and Warner Bros., often had material which would be considered Parental Bonus today (if people still got the references), as they were intended for all audiences (see Animation Age Ghetto). As a result, many cartoons had numerous double entendres and pseudo-cameos which were expected to go over the younger viewers' heads.
These jokes also give the shows rerun value years later when the original viewers are old enough to get the jokes that once went over their heads.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime
- An early example, Maicchingu Machiko Sensei (Humiliated Professor Machiko) was infamous for having the titular teacher end up naked in every single episode, often as a direct cause of her students groping her or otherwise destroying her clothing. Maicchingu Machiko Sensei was a kids show, and her students were 6 years old. It was so prevalent that she even turns up naked in the episode openings
 . Twice.
- Oh so many dubs have asides meant for adults stuck watching the show with their kid.
Film
- If you think really hard, there is a parental bonus in the theme that the villains in the Home Alone film series use for their names. "Wet Bandits"? "Sticky Bandits"?
- Used in all of the Shrek films. For example, in the first one, Shrek sees Lord Farquaad's towering castle and remarks, "Do you think he's compensating for something?"
- There are many references to University of Notre Dame in the movie as a handful of the people that produced the movie were "Domers" (Notre Dame graduates). The biggest example being the shape of the castle, which is exactly like that of the Hesburgh Library. Another reference is the town of "Du Lac"; the University's name is University of Notre Dame du Lac, which refers to Mary, Our Lady of the Lake. The student guide/disciplinary manual is also called Du Lac. A third reference is Lord Farquaad. There are many quads on the ND campus, and there is a dorm that is in the middle of nowhere, i.e. on a "far quad". You can also see the outline of the famous golden dome of the university on the back of Shrek's vest.
- The other ND reference this ND-attending troper has heard of is that of Robin Hood and his merry men doing a short jig during his little musical number. This sequence pokes fun at the fact that the University was founded by a bunch of French priests and brothers (Robin Hood's apparent nationality), but they somehow decided to call themselves the "Fighting Irish" (hence the jig). By the way, anyone who has ever jigged along with 7,000 other students to the ND Band playing "Rakes of Mallow" knows that it's by far the greatest student section cheer ever. Just saying.
- Farquaad was used as a way of getting as close as possible to fuckwad.
- More relevantly, Shrek 2 has literally dozens of movie and TV refs, only a handful of which are going to be known to the kids. The refs go back as far as the original B&W "Frankenstein". This troper had to explain a lot of the older refs to people in their forties and fifties, so forget kids getting them.
- Shrek 2 also had a bevy of modern pop culture references that would go over kids' heads: this troper's favorite is the people running away from the Gingerbread Man who run out of one
Starbucks Farbucks and into another Farbucks across the street.
- Please keep off of the grass. Shine your shoes. Wipe your....face.
- Disney's Aladdin, thanks largely to the comedic genius of Robin Williams, works on every level humanly imaginable. Specific example: as the Genie is being tricked into getting Aladdin out of the cave, he gets very angry at Aladdin. Kids laugh because of his sarcastic tone and the ruse working; parents laugh because the speech is almost directly lifted from Taxi Driver. Kids are also unlikely to recognize the Genie's imitation of William F. Buckley in another scene.
- Aladdin's introduction scene also had what might have been a Les Miserables reference.
- There's also in this tropers opinion a moment during the song "Never had a friend like me". During the song the Genie uses his magic to make a group of harem girls appear. Normally this would be (somewhat) harmless but when you consider both the way the girls were acting towards Aladdin and how Al himself reacted it seemed like one of the girls (the one in the middle to be exact) was giving Al a freaking lap dance. In addition the way Aladdin's hands are positioned it looks like he's groping the girl's ass, the scene in question is in 1:45-1:53. Could be viewed as Parent Service.
- This troper has also had "A Whole New World" explained to her as one long double entendre. This has totally changed the way she listens to that song.
- You mean that "Take you wonder by wonder" stuff? Can't think what you mean.
- You've scarred me for life. 'Over, sideways and under'. Great.
- All that "on a magic carpet ride", no less :D
- You think you've got it bad? That'sThis Troper and his best friend/Heterolife mate's song. We sing it all the time.
- To further the effect, replace any instance of the word "eyes" in the lyrics with "thighs."
- Taking it even further, someone has made a NSFW parody called "A Whole Nude World." It's all over YouTube.
- There's also a specific comment by Genie during "Aladdin and the King of Thieves" during the beginning of the scene where the infamous 40 Thieves rob the palace. When the stampeding elephants come towards the wedding which causes the ground to shake, Genie jokingly comments "I thought the earth shaking didn't start until the Honeymoon" you can guess what that means
- Genie makes a ton references from old movies: Poltergeist, Alice in Wonderland (obvious), Robocop... anyone else recognize the big blue robot as the ED-209?
- In Hercules, Herc and Megara see the play Oedipus Rex. Hercules only had one thing to say about that: "And I thought I had issues."
- Also a Basic Instinct reference. Megara talks about having weak ankles, uncrosses and recrosses her legs, and says, "Do you have a problem with this?... weak ankles, I mean."
- Although this joke wasn't sexual, when Pain and Panic (disguised as children) are "trapped" underneath the giant rock, one of them yells, "Someone call IXII!"—the Roman numerals for 911.
- Shouldn't it be CMXI?
- Nope, for the same reason that 911 is generally interpreted as "nine one one" and not "nine hundred and eleven".
- Of course, in Greece, the numbers 112, so...
- ...why are Greeks using Roman numerals?
- Hey, Herc's name is Roman (his Greek name is Heracles). Pretend it went through a Roman translation and then an English one, and somebody along the line screwed up.
- The fact that the movie is basically a Whole Episode Plot Reference to Superman and Rocky almost certainly wasn't for children either.
- And then there was the
flasher sundial salesman...
- In Beauty And The Beast, the wardrobe says "Let me see what I have in my drawers" and then a bunch of underwear flies out. The double meaning of drawers is completely lost on kids.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit; two words: "patty cake".
- This one is a subversion. They actually play patty cake.
- There's plenty more where that came from. Dolores' line about having to "shake the weasels", for instance.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of the kings of this trope.
Eddie (singing): "I'm through with taking falls / and bouncing off the walls / Without that gun, I'd have some fun / I'd kick you in the - " (object hits him on the head)
Weasel: "Nose? That don't rhyme with 'walls'!"
- The Cat in the Hat movie attempted this, with questionable results. Apparently, the writers' idea of Parental Bonuses are almost PG-13 level double entendres.
- Blazing Saddles has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it joke when Mongo first appears. A Mexican shouts "Mongo! Santa Maria!" Mongo Santamaria was a famous jazz musician. A lot of adults don't even catch this.
- In the Jim Carrey version of The Grinch, the Grinch as a young boy looks in at a Christmas party where people are dropping keys into a fishbowl; indicating this was a swingers party. This Troper was the only one who laughed.
- This Troper would like to point out that seconds before the keys are dropped into the fishbowl, a pair of Whos walk across the window, a man giving a woman a *ahem* "Reverse Piggy Backride".
- How about Madagascar? There's a Twilight Zone joke ("It's a cookbook!"), a Planet Of The Apes joke ("You had it all and you burned it up! Darn you! Darn you all to heck!") and, this troper's personal favorite, an American Beauty joke (Rose petal scene vs. steak scene).
- Plus a Moulin Rouge reference right before the characters are shipped off to Africa.
- Not to mention a Cast Away joke, remember? "Shut up, Spalding!"
- One Hundred And One Dalmatians: Roger tells Cruella that Anita is pregnant...
Cruella: Well, what can I say? Accidents will happen.
Roger: We're having puppies, too.
Cruella: (gasps) Puppies! You have been a busy boy!
- To say nothing about this little exchange after Pongo and Perdita return with the 99 puppies...
Anita: But where did they all come from?
Roger: Oh, Pongo-boy, you old rascal!
- Come to think of it, every Pixar film has plenty of these.
- At the end of Toy Story 2, Buzz is having a hard time talking to Jesse. She does a skateboard stunt using a Hot Wheels car and track, and his fold-out wings pop out. Does this remind you of anything?
- This troper saw the film with a friend when we were both 8 years old and laughed ourselves sick at the implications of that joke.
- And in the original movie, there's the line about Woody having "laser envy".
- One of the very first scenes in the first movie is Slinky going on and on with his speech about how Woody is right and everyone should listen to Woody. Mr. Potato-Head takes off his mouth and taps it against his backside to visually suggest Slinky is an ass-kisser.
- And let's not even get started on the whole "As he grows up Andy gets bored of floppy old Woody and gets much more interested in electronic plastic toy Buzz" kettle of fish...
- I don't know how anybody hasn't mentioned it, but there are tons and tons of movie homages in this movie (which kids won't really get) - "No Buzz, I am you father!" (spoken by a character with a dark face mask), a scene almost identical to Brighton Beach (just a few seconds), and probably many more that I'm missing.
- Bo Peep throws out a few; in the first, she suggests to Woody that she get "someone else to watch the sheep tonight", and in the second she gives Buzz a kiss, telling him to give it to Woody when they find him. Buzz says he doesn't think it'll have quite the same significance to Woody coming from him instead of Bo.
- Monsters Inc gets two for the price of one. The Abominable Snowman is clearly a riff on the "Bumble" from the Rankin-Bass Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer special, and also scores an extra for this exchange between himself and Mike:
Snowman : Care for a snow-cone?
Mike : Eccchh.
Snowman : Oh, don't worry. It's lemon.
- In Ratatouille, during Linguini's flabbergasted attempt to reveal his secret to Colette, the moment that he says that he has a "...tiny, little..." she takes a split-second glance downwards.
- Not to mention when she mentions to the press that he calls his inspiration his "little chef". His reaction shows that they were clearly not on the same thought pattern there as he tries to hush her about keeping private things private.
- WALL-E is the Pixar champ of this trope. There were only, oh, about five dozen 2001: A Space Odyssey references, in addition to a bunch of other tidbits that this troper only heard adults chuckling at in the theater. Though that didn't stop the movie from getting more than a few good chuckles out of me.
- A Bugs Life, in the carnival scene...
Fly: Hey, cutie! You wanna pollinate with a real bug?
- No mention of the brilliantly subtle one from the very beginning of Cars? If you pay attention, you'll notice the two red Miatas flashing their headlights at Lightning Mc Queen.
- Lightning Mc Queen's name, in and of itself, qualifies. The target demographic of the film won't know who Steve Mc Queen is, much less have seen Bullit.
- In Flushed Away a fridge is lifted at one point to reveal a cockroach casually reading. And what is he reading? Why, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis of course!
- In Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, as Willy Wonka searches for the button on the Three-Course-Dinner Gum machine, he offhandly asks "Button, button, who's got the button?" Anyone who's read Go Ask Alice knows this as a game involving LSD and several glasses of Coca Cola. Don't do drugs, kids.
- As well as a delightful, innocent children's game.
- Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has a deliciously subtle one when Tia Dalma finds the Black Spot (an omen of death) in Jack Sparrow's palm:
Gibbs : The Black Spot!
Ragetti : The Black Spot!
Pintel : Black Spot!
Jack Sparrow : My eyesight's as good as ever, just so you know.
- Which is a very roundabout way of making a connection between palm sores, masturbation and the myth that it causes blindness.
- The Scooby Doo Movie had one that is very easy to miss out on:
Woman on Plane tells Shaggy her name is Mary-Jane.
Shaggy: Mary-Jane? That's my favourite name!
- For those who don't get it, Mary-Jane was a popular 80's slang term for marijuana.
- It goes back further than the 1980s. So yeah.
- Now that i think about it, Shaggy himself might qualify as this trope. He is clearly based on the 70's stoner archtype. (Talking dog? Always eating? Always saying groovy? He is so high.) There's also the fact that he spends his days with a group of teenagers who spend their time looking for monsters. In many slasher movies, there was usually a stoner.
- I'm surprised that the "hot box" scene wasn't mentioned. Soon after the team "breaks up" at the start of the movie, the following scene shows the Mystery Van with a whole lot of white smoke billowing out of it. Cut to inside, and you see that Shaggy and Scooby simply have a miniature barbecue that is letting off a lot of smoke.
- In Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, Chance the dog is chewing a shoe and offers a piece to Sassy the cat. She replies "No thanks, I'm not into leather".
- Tiny Toons: How I Spent My Summer Vacation:
Buster: I can't marry all three of them, that's bigamy!
Big Daddy Boo: No, that's big 'a me!
Literature
- A Wrinkle In Time and its sequels feature numerous plot devices to get the characters to travel in space and time and even into their own bodies, most of which are based on real scientific concepts. This makes reading them as a kid and as an adult two very different experiences.
- In The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz, courage takes the form of a liquid. Or, at least, the kind of courage that "makes you forget you are afraid" does. Or so the Wizard claims.
- An in-canon example occurs in one of the Amber Brown books, which are written specifically for elementary-school kids. When Amber, her mom, and her mom's boyfriend are about to start baking, Amber claps her hands and goes "Alright, let's start some preheating!" Her mom and Max look at each other, laugh, and refuse to explain. Amber narrates how annoying that is.
- A Series Of Unfortunate Events. By. The. Truckload. Just a few examples off the top of my head:
- 99% of the characters' names are literary references.
- In The Reptile Room, the Baudelaires are told not to let the Virginian Wolfsnake near a typewriter.
- The whole plot of The End is one big Bible reference/commentary.
Live Action TV
- Speaking of Sesame Street, try to think of a Muppet production that doesn't include these. We'll wait.
- In particular, The Muppet Show almost always did Actor Allusions about their current guest stars.
- Most of the sketches in Sesame Street had slapstick and word-play for the kids, with parody as the Parental Bonus.
- Sesame Street once did a pardoy of Waiting For Godot. After a while the tree walked out because it was too confusing.
- Similarly, Fraggle Rock played hard and fast with parody and social satire. One episode, for example, depicted a villain trying to take over the Rock with a very direct reference to Pink Floyd's The Wall.
- It has been argued that Sesame Street owes its success to "entertaining the parents so much they forced the kids to watch."
- This troper particularly enjoyed the Neil Patrick Harris sketch, after he came out as gay. He portrayed a "Shoe Fairy".
- The Ghostwriter episode "Am I Blue?" was an homage to Star Trek fandom. Another episode had flashback scenes that resembled 1930s film noir.
- The absolute king of this trope was Square One TV, which had an average of a Parental Bonus a minute. Sketches parodied everything from Max Headroom to Pac Man, and the musical numbers were always a style spoof (like the country-western "Nine, Nine, Nine" or the glam-rock "Angle Dance"). Each episode ended with a mystery called "Mathnet," an elaborate (and sometimes disturbingly true-to-form) parody of Dragnet, where agent Kate Monday (later Jonas Quinn'd into Pat Tuesday) flashed her calculator as a badge. In one "Mathnet" sequence, we hear a voice over an airport intercom: "Will Miss Amelia Earhart please come to the front? Miss Earhart, we have your luggage."
- Not to mention the music video that started with some teenage girls noticing that their friend's relationship must've gotten serious as they saw a "diagram" in her purse... That one might actually qualify as Getting Crap Past The Radar.
- The Electric Company was full of these, most notably "Easy Reader" and "Fargo North: Decoder".
- And it looks as if the 2009 remake will be full of these too, at least judging from the pilot episode running on PBS. This troper has spotted a character named Rebus wearing a shirt with "RE + " and a picture of a bus (does that count as a meta-rebus?), a sketch involving a dog known as Jack Bowser, and several references to the original series.
- Some of the songs were done by Tom Lehrer, who thankfully refrained from some of his better known works like Wernher von Braun, The Old Dope Peddler and I Hold Your Hand in Mine (which he has had requests from adults not to perform). There were still a few Parental Bonuses in his Electric Company songs, though.
- Beakmans World delights in old-school Parental Bonus references, which most frequently pop up in the Beakmania introduction, where every dance referenced by Beakman is an actual dance.
- One episode of Zoobilee Zoo was a direct parody of My Fair Lady.
- In Hannah Montana, the father (played by Billy Ray Cyrus) is often heard saying things like, "Oh, my achy-breaky back!" He and other characters also frequently mock his former mullet hairstyle.
- Also notable is the episode in which Miley pretends to be a Hannah Montana impersonator, where Billy's character Robbie Ray Stewart dons a mullet wig and introduces himself to a nosy reporter, saying "hi, I'm Billy Ray Cyrus".
- In The Sarah Jane Adventures episode "Revenge of The Slitheen" Maria's divorced mother asks her ex-husband if she can have the double bed size duvet as he won't need it having a single bed. Her mannerisms and delivery of this line is enough to make older viewers think she's making fun of his sex life.
- Maid Marian and Her Merry Men. Penned by Tony Robinson, better known as Baldrick, it's often been described as 'Blackadder for kids'. This troper would not mind at all if someone said it topped Edmund and his scurvy antics. *ducks* Seriously, though. The insults and the word play and the crazy songs ... it's a bundle full of awesome.
- One of the reasons Barney and other children's shows of that nature are so insufferable to adults is their near utter lack of such things.
- Doctor Who, "Love and Monsters". A man and an animated concrete slab containing a talking head have a "bit of a love life". Figure that out for yourself.
- As RTD put it, it was "good old-fashioned British smut".
- And in Tooth and Claw, "The servants were all bald men in suits and your wife was away... I thought you were just happy."
- In "The Doctor Dances", the Ninth Doctor switches Jack's sonic blaster with a banana without Jack catching on. Funny enough on it's own, but funnier for those parents that recognize the joke from the Buster Keaton short "The High Sign".
- Peewee's Playhouse was loaded with enough of this that it was resurrected... on ADULT SWIM. Watch any episode with Miss Yvonne and you'll come across some.
- Part of what made Gilmore Girls stand out from your typical teen drama was how rich it was with Viewers Are Genuises references. This 23 year old troper, usually no slouch in getting references, still has to ask her mother about certain authors or journalists they are wont to reference casually.
- This is referenced within The Office. Michael brings in a tape from a kids show he was on. There's an interview segment with a cat puppet called Edward R. Meow. While most of the staff laughs and notes that it's clever, Michael still doesn't get it.
- Rainbow once played this trope for laughs: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5157433404610777048 . Sadly, this was a gag episode that was never intended to be viewed by children, but it's still hilarious.
Video Games
- General Pepper from the Star Fox series. Think about it. If you don't get it, here's another clue for you all: in the Star Fox comic in Nintendo Power, Fara asks why Pepper didn't do something. His answer? "I was only a sergeant then..."
- Did anyone mention Earthbound yet? The Beatles references never end: the Runaway Five, a yellow submarine, and a set of default names for Ness & co.
- A couple more: when Nessie takes Jeff across the lake, the musical score is very obviously the opening mellotron from Strawberry Fields Forever. Also, one of the NPC's in Onett will ask you to "Finish this famous Beatles song —-terday" with a yes or no prompt.
- On the topic on the Runaway Five, not only is the design of the lead singers reminiscent of the Blues Brothers, but a certain hotel newspaper (as reported by the bellboy) claims that band member Lucky (modeled after Jake Blues, played by John Belushi) was seen in congress, an elaborate reference to John Belushi's role as John "Bluto" Blutarsky in National Lampoon's Animal House, in which the aforementioned character goes on to become a senator. Xanatos Reference anyone?
- Oh, and the New Age Retro Hippie's theme sounds a lot like Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode." As does Rockin' K.K. from Animal Crossing.
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was just loaded with somewhat suggestive material, to the point that this troper wondered how they managed to get an E rating on it. The "E-10+" rating didn't exist at the time.
- Including a nude scene for Princess Peach. She was invisible at the time.
- Russian missile base Don't tell me you didn't see the obvious Cold War references!
- Goombella was a walking Parental Bonus as well. Many of her tattle-analyses did this (or broke the fourth wall). Oh, and the Goomba-Gang that tried to hit on her plays real nice.
- The "Battalion Wars" series of games. This game is chock-full of references to nearly everything under the sun.
- The names of the nations:
- Western Frontier [green]: (Cold-War U.S.A.), overanxious, football on the brain, ever vigalant of the Tundran Bear
- Tundran Territories [red]: (Cold-War U.S.S.R.), vehicles look thrown together, condemns Frontier decadence
- Solar Empire [silver]: (High-tech Japan), quoting Sun tzu, and misplaced sense of honor
- Anglo Isles [yellow]: (WWII England)
- Xylvania [blue]: (WWI Germany), vampiric, wanting to return to glory after a sound defeat
- Iron Leigon [purple]: (Orcs with guns), resurrected Old Xylvania, hive mind
- Kommandant Ubel of Xylvania is a muscle-bound thickhead with dreams of becoming "governator"
- General Herman of the Western Frontier
- The Anglo Isle's Sgt. Pepper class submarine that is in fact yellow
- Kaiser Vlad of Xylvaina is the most honest depiction of Bram Stoker's Dracula in visual medium
- M17s, KA-74s, Humbugs, etc. in unit descriptions
- Kaiser Vlad; "Now witness the awesome power of this fully armed and operational mining spider!"
- Some of the mission names, like "Bridges over the River Styx", or "Hogans' Heroes
- Ape Escape. The third instalment had movie-and-TV making as its conceit, so this involved parodic Homage Shots of such kid-friendly things as The Exorcist, Psycho, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet Of The Apes, Apocalypse Now, Django and Titanic (to name just a handful), as well as games parodying Mortal Kombat and Metal Gear. The names of the monkeys, in the UK localisation at least, often reference people in the movie industry (there's monkeys called M. Clayderman, D. Elfman, Ricky Ger V and Culkin, for just a handful of examples). Not only that, but some of the Simian Cinema shorts have a 'clean meaning' that the kids will find funny, and a 'dirty meaning' the older demographic will find funny (the one with the nude monkey telling the other nude monkey 'the ancient secret to keeping warm' before flossing between her legs with a towel as demonstration comes to mind).
- Humongous Entertainment. Oh boy, where to start? Pajama Sam's superhero references, Spy Fox's James Bond references, Backyard Sports's 80s references (most pros were kids then)...all more likely to grab parents than kids.
Western Animation
- Between The Lions often bases musical numbers on songs well outside the experience of its target audience, such as a song about the importance of breakfast to the tune of "Roadhouse Blues".
- This troper's fiance personally knows the guy responsible for that show; he did the same thing for Sesame Street with such numbers as "It's Hip to Be a Square."
- The Sam And Max episode "Christmas Bloody Christmas" featured Sam and Max entering a prison shower room. Max sees a bar of soap on the ground, and bends over to pick it up, with a sign saying "Do not open until Xmas" over his rear-end.
- The Recess episode "The Library Kid" featured the gang cornering said Library Kid in the Philosophy section, with Gretchen calling out "Head her towards the existentialists; there's no exit over there," a reference to Sartre's play. The actual opening look like a elementary school version of Hogan's Heroes.
- More than half the humor in Recess requires a high-school level of education to notice, much less understand.
- Then there's the episode that was a Homage to 2001: A Space Oddysey. I doubt most kids even know of the movie, much less seen it.
- The Recess movie has lots of references to various things. Among them, Ms. Finster yelling, "Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone!", and the song "Green Tambourine" (sung by Robert Goulet, no less) playing over the end credits while the kids danced in front of a psychadelic background.
- The Veggie Tales videos are chock full of the Homage type of Parental Bonus. For instance, "Josh and the Big Wall" features peas with French accents taunting Joshua from atop a wall. References to Madam Bovary, Gilligans Island and The Grapes Of Wrath are just as likely to go over the heads of younger viewers..
- There's also Larry Boy, who has a Larrymobile, swings above the streets via plungers he shoots out, has a signal in the sky that calls him, and his butler is named Alfred. A homage to certain popular superheroes, anyone?
- I don't think this one counts as Parental Bonus. Do you honestly think kids wouldn't get Batman and Spider-Man references?
- Likewise, the episode of The Powerpuff Girls titled "Los Dos Mojos" included its own Holy Grail reference:
Mojo Jojo: That's all just well enough, because in reality there is only room enough in this world for one Mojo Jojo. One shall be the number of Mojo Jojos in the world, and the number of Mojo Jojos in the world shall be one. Two Mojo Jojos is too many, and three is right out!
- Another episode referred to The Big Lebowski, when Professor Utonium laments a rug that "really tied the room together".
- Hell, they once had The Mayor recite the "Strong Men Also Cry" speech, but replaced Bunny with Bellum.
- PPG did an entire episode of Beatles references, "Meet the Beat Alls", which got an Emmy nomination.
- At the end of that episode, Blossom tries out a quote of her own, fails, and dismisses it with "Oh, who cares? It's by some dumb old band anyway."
- And in the movie, references to naughty words were stuck in, including an elongated sigh of 'Fffff...'
- In the episode "Super Friends" the girls invite their new neighbor, a girl their age named Robin, over to their house, and they introduce her to Professor Utonium:
Bubbles: He made us in his laboratory by accident!
Professor: Well, what can I say?
Robin: Don't worry, Professor. I was an accident, too!
[Cue surprised look on the Professor's face]
- Another similar joke occured in the episode, Gettin Twiggy With It when Mitch Mitchelson, who lived in a trailor park with his grandma, takes the class hamster, Twiggy home and starts playing withit violently. When Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup catch him in the act:
Mitch: But it was an accident!
Blossom: You're an accident!
- Many sexual innuendo jokes relating to Ms. Bellum occur. One was when Ms. Bellum came into the Mayor's office while he was writing something. She leand on his desk revealing a lot of her cleavage. He looks up and breaks his pencil, and exclaims "Pencil go snap!"
- Series creator Craig Mc Cracken was fond of classic rock references in general. Two examples off the top of my head: an episode entitled "Mr. Mojo's Rising", and in another Ace of The Gangrene Gang shouts "Billy! Don't be a hero!"
- Perhaps the most explicit example is Ms. Bellum's address: 69 Yodelinda Valley Lane. It's prominently displayed on her mailbox in several episodes.
- The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy did an entire episode parodying God Emperor of Dune, the fourth book in Frank Herbert's Dune series, with Mandy as the God Emperor, Grim as Moneo Atreides, and Billy as the frequently-cloned-and-replaced Duncan Idaho. Another episode featured a nod to the classic black-and-white Walt Disney short, The Skeleton Dance. Yet a third parodies the musical Little Shop of Horrors: Billy plays Seymour, bringing victims to the singing, brain-eating alien who stands in for Audrey Two. They also had a geriatric Dracula, who was quite obviously supposed to be Blacula. They also had an episode entitled "The Prank Call of Cthulhu."
- Another episode obviously references the Hellraiser movies with "Pinhead" who has bowling pins sticking out of his head and a rubik's cube look-a-like summoning him.
- In the episode with the Beauty Pageant, this troper recalls seeing "gom jabbar" among the Pageant contests.
Mindy: It burns! It burns!
When Mindy pulled her hand from the gom jabbar, the judges said something along the lines of "that will cost her." Funny, because in the book removing your hand from the Gom Jabbar while it works leads to instant death by poisoned needle.
- The show's full of them. Here's one where Billy reads an ad off of a cave wall.
Billy: For a good time, call —
Someone else: Stop reading that!
- Valentine's Day. In general. For one, the end of Mandy's episode was apparently a Grease parody, and let's not forget Grim's.
Malaria: What do you mean, you can tell when someone fakes?
- Hurter Monkey: Billy and Mandy get a helper monkey who sounds like Kevin Spacey and even paraphrases the "simple life" speech from Se7en.
- There is also the occasional visit from Hoss Delgado, a parody of Snake Plisken played by Kurt Russell in Escape from New York.
- Chowder. For an example, in one episode, Endive wears mood fruit, fruit that changes color to reflect the wearers mood. I'm not sure, but I think the fact that most of the time, evrey part of it is a diffrent colour means something...but I AM sure that when it changed to brown, which was acknowledged, HAS to mean something.
- This troper gets tickled by Truffles' snarky remarks towards her nearly dead relationship with her husband, Mung. During Panini for President, when the two were watching her on stage:
Mung: Fireworks...she used fireworks.
Truffles: Oh, I've completely forgotten fireworks existed..!
Truffles: (Different voice) ...in our marriage~
Truffles: (Normal voice, shocked) Who said that?!
- This gag is repeated throughout the series, seen here in episode 103
Mung: Truffles, mind the shop. We need more spice!
Truffles: Well, I'm glad one of us finally acknowledged it.
- Another one occurred at the end of an episode where Mung and Truffles rekindle their romance.
Mung (to Truffles, in a suggestive voice): Let's get cooking.
(Mung and Truffles head offscreen)
Chowder: Mung! Where are you going? The kitchen's that way! (points other way)
- Both Animaniacs and Eek the Cat have done parodies of Apocalypse Now. In the Animaniacs one, the Colonel Kurtz character was an out-of-control director, portayed in No Celebrities Were Harmed style as Jerry Lewis.
- Rocky And Bullwinkle did this constantly, as did Jay Ward's other animated series, Hoppity Hooper and George Of The Jungle, and Ken Snyder's Roger Ramjet. At times it seems like more of the jokes are for the parents than for the kids.
- One definitely for the parents: Boris, wearing a metal mouse costume in his role as the Big Cheese, details his plan to take over whole U.S. of A. He holds up a book. The title? "Mice Kampf."
- Rugrats's popularity peak can be traced to its frequent use of the Parental Bonus.
- Example: The creepy doctor that Chucky visits in named Dr. Lector. This Troper sincerely hopes that none of the kids got that reference.
- In another episode, while the children are looking for one of the children's favourite toy, they open up a drawer full of favourite things, and start pulling things out. On the screen can be seen a photograph of a woman.
- At the beginning of the home movies episode, when Stu starts showing an incredibly boring home movie, Didi's father picks up the phone and says "Hello, Dr. Kevorkian?"
- In the Time Travel episode of The Fairly Oddparents, after the Fairies In Black erased everyone's memories of events, the main characters were requested not to interfere in "the re-election of President McGovern". The show as a whole was saturated with an ever-increasing amount of Parental Bonus. The very first occasion would have to be way back when it was still an Oh Yeah cartoon:
Timmy: Oh magic eight-ball, will Mom and Dad come home early? "Titanic! Director's cut?!" They'll be there all night!
- "Fairly Odd Parents" has many moments of this, its hard to think of some off the top of my head but one that sticks out is 'Dads' obsession with Eggnog in every christmas episode.
- There's an episode where Cosmo and Wanda lose their wands at the beach. In searching for them they find, among other things, Elvis and the Holy Grail.
- Probably closer to Getting Crap Past The Radar, but this exchange in the episode where Timmy wishes his parents were superheros:
Timmy's Dad: *Pushing Timmy out the door* And that's everything you need to know about where babies come from!
Timmy: But what's the machine for?
Timmy's Dad: We'll tell you when you're older, son.
- The intersections in Fairy World almost always are the names of famous magicians (like the intersection of "David" and "Copperfield")
- Come on, this is all there is here yet for Fairly Oddparents? It's all they do!
- Adam West voices Catman (I can't remember the character's "real" name), who is obsessed with the role he played on a 60's live-action show; his attacks are punctuated with large on-screen sound effect bubbles
- The character's name is Adam West
- Jay Leno portrays the comic book superhero "The Crimson Chin"
Cleft (Timmy): Thanks, CC! You saved me!
Chin: No, Timmy. You saved me— from myself! Well that was smallty. Who did you say writes my comic books?
Cleft: Some 40 year old guy who lives with his mom.
Chin: Any money in it?
Cleft: (points to his caption ballon) Lives with his mom.
- Jorgen von Strangle, the Schwarzenegger fairy (no, they didn't actually get ahold of the governator for the role)
- And just general grown-up friendly silliness
Wanda(after Cosmo slightly alters her hair color in a fight): I'm not a summer, I'm a winter!
- ...and
Cosmo:I don't get it. If you're not married to her, why is she trying to kill you?
- ...and
Timmy Turner: I'm huge, I hurt people, and I'm misunderstood!
Cosmo: Just like the IRS!
- Don't forget:
Wanda:Oh no, now he's evil AND a genius!
Cosmo: Just like Dr. Phil!
- Rocko's Modern Life was thickly saturated with these; the creators throttled things down considerably for Spongebob Squarepants. However, the latter's popularity put it on the Media Watchdog radar and as a result, it was subject to more controversy.
- In addition to practically being an entire show's worth of homage to Transformers Generation One, Transformers Animated has a number of parental bonus moments.
- The Autobot science team is composed of Wheeljack, whose face greatly resembles a roboticized version of a certain walrus-faced mythbuster, and Perceptor, whose computerized voice resembles that of physicist Stephan Hawking.
- Any episode of The Tick. The show doesn't quite make sense when you watch it as a kid, but things such as the "Ottoman Empire" (a bunch of goons obsessed with furniture) work out for older audiences.
- Spongebob Squarepants, as mentioned earlier, is a particular user of this trope, culminating in The Movie ending with Spongebob defeating Plankton with The Power Of Rock. The song? A parody of Twisted Sister's I Wanna Rock.
- The sequence includes a closeup of shapely legs in fishnets—Patrick's.
- The surprise appearance of Nosferatu, "wormsign", the titular character's trousers discarding akin to an o-ring separation before his legs erupt into rocket exhaust plumes, etc.
- Watch Karate Island, the most popular episode of the series, and just try and find more than three jokes that aren't Parental Bonus.
- Another referenced George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine. This troper's favorite was when Spongebob was trying to act adult by acquiring an appreciation for free form jazz.
- Don't forget the episode "The Secret Box", where the secret that turned out to be in the box was a string. Come on, a string in a box in a Bikini Bottom?
- Of course, though, the string opens a secret compartment in the box that contains an embarrassing photo of Spongebob at a Christmas Party
- And then there's Plankton and his reviewing of "foreign exercise videos" for his cousin.
- When Squidward has convinced Spongebob and Patrick to wait on his every whim, they move around his sun chair to various locations— one is Too Sunny, one is Too Windy, and the one with a background of cancan dancers is "Toulouse-Lautrec"
- The episode that begins with Sponge Bob watching a dancing live-action sea anemone on his TV, with a goofy entranced look on his face, leaning toward the screen. When Gary comes in and meows at him, he immediately turns off the TV and comes up with a hasty excuse for what he was really watching.
- The episode with the squeaky boots is a parody of Edgar Allen Poe's short story The Tell Tale Heart.
- Kim Possible was fond of this, too. In one episode, Ron announces "the first rule of chess club is: you do not talk about chess club."
- What's the second rule of chess club?
- In another...
Dr. Drakken: Your Nana is one bad grand-mother—
Kim Possible: Shut your mouth!
Dr. Drakken: I'm just talking about Nana.
Sadly, Kim did not answer "I can dig it."
- The exchange was, however, played out in full in a Shaft parody episode of Dexter's Laboratory between Dee Dee and a friend.
- And in yet another:
Seņor Senior Sr.: Junior, this is not a party! This is not a disco! This is not... fooling around!
- Okay kiddies, how many of you have seen Psycho? How about played Resident Evil or Splinter Cell? Because homage is payed to all of these in one episode or another.
- And then there was this:
Kim Possible: Payback's the sitch!
- "Careful Bonnie, you know what they do to witches in this town." Given how she quickly hops away with a frightened look Bonnie guessed she was being a bitch.
- How many people in Kim Possible's target demographic would recognize the character Ron is channeling in this screenshot? [1]◊
- Not to mention in the episode where they had to have mentors and Ron's happens to be a secret agent, Ron starts using a Scottish accent as a reference to Sean Connery as James Bond. This was exceptionally cool for older folks who always see Sean Connery as Bond rather than the more recent actors like Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.
- Yin Yang Yo has several, not the least of which is Yang saying "Ah, pellets!" in place of stronger language.
- This troper was just caught off-guard by something in the show that she's not quite sure where to put. An anthropomorphic monkey had a make-over, and a dog commented "That's a foxy monkey." The Villain of the Day said, "I'll sell her to you." He did. On a generally kids show, he literally prostituted a monkey.
- Paraphrased:
Yin: Yang, where do you think Carl the Evil Cockroach has gone?
Yang: The Booby Trap factory, which is safe for you because you don't have bo-
Yin: Hold that insensitive remark!
- Dylan the rabbit from The Magic Roundabout was (at least in the UK Gag Dub) portrayed as an Erudite Stoner, and often said things that might have been about drugs. This gets a lot more blatant in The Movie.
- Justice League is full of these.
Flash: Yep. Fastest man alive.
Hawkgirl: Which might explain why you can't get a date.
Flash: Yeah... hey, what's THAT supposed to mean?
or
(after Hawkgirl attacks a villain with a whip) Hawkman: You always were good with that thing!
- Interestingly, Hawkgirl seems to me involved in a lot of these. Including this editor's favourite:
(While joking about Flash probably not having a chance with Fire): I hear she's, y'know... (Insert significant glance toward Fire, who is chatting with Ice.) ...Brazilian.
- Possibly the most blatant example occurs in the episode where Flash and Luthor switch bodies. Tala, who had been trying to seduce Lex for a while, leads him (actually Flash) into the bedroom to "rest". Shortly after the door closes, we hear him happily chirp "Hey, that's not restful."
- How about in the episode Epilogue? That was a pretty impressive one.
Amanda Waller: Bruce's DNA was easy enough to obtain. He left it all over town.
Terry McGinnis: [raises eyebrow]
Amanda Waller: Not remotely what I meant!
- A pretty infamous one:
Princess Audrey of Kaznia: I'm a world class party girl. I intend to go out with a bang. Several, if it can be arranged.
- And there's the episode where Flash and Wonder Woman rescue a magazine proprieter who looks a lot like Hugh Hefner (and letches on Diana). The exact nature of the magazines he publishes are unrevealed, but Wally insists he only buys them for the articles.
- Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers had a Cargo Cult episode with a tribe of kiwi birds. The tribe's chief, for no apparent reason whatsoever, spoke in nothing but Ed Sullivan mannerisms.
- The Lion King's Triumph of the Will-inspired imagery goes (one hopes) right over the kiddies' heads.
- This troper had an older coworker point out how the appearance of the savannah had a very Arthurian theme to it in the way it recovered after Simba's return.
- The Lion King is Hamlet. To the point where people in my uni class who were studying Hamlet were advised to watch it to see how the original story influenced popular culture.
- This troper always thought it was meant to be Richard III. Then again, the two plays are very similar in event, at least, if not in theme.
- My Life As A Teenage Robot was full of various pop culture references, such as a group of villains named the Lonely Hearts Club Band... with a leader named Pepper. There was also this exchange, which goes past Parental Bonus into Viewers Are Geniuses territory:
- Histeria sometimes had jokes that only the viewer's grandparents could get, such as a sketch of Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence done as an episode of The Jack Benny Program.
- In the Avatar The Last Airbender episode "The Cave of Two Lovers," the Gaang meets up with some extraordinarily 60s Hippie-ish, guitar playing nomads with vocal characteristics of The Stoner. When the cave the group is traveling begin to move, their leader shouts "The tunnels, they are a-changing!" How many kids in the target demographic got that reference?
- Two words: High. Sokka.
- "It's a giant mushroom! Maybe it's friendly! FRIENDLY MUSHROOM! Mushy giant friend!" I was rolling on the floor with laughter by that point.
- What about Sokka waiting for Suki in a tent filled with flowers and candles, and not wearing any pants?
- Even better, the leader of the aforementioned nomads was named Chong.
- Danny Phantom has its moments - Desiree and Vlad are both walking Parent Service, specifically. The eighties and college references help as well. In fact, this Troper is surprised that Mel Brooks fans didn't get into this series, it's his brand of humor! It also has it's share of Double Entendre.
- George Shrinks has the titular character, at one point, tell a bee to go pollenate itself. When this troper heard this from his little cousin watching the TV, he had a lot of trouble not breaking up into laughter.
- Much of Fillmore parodies 70s cop shows specifically, and relies heavily on What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome.
- And how many kids were they expecting to get all of the Silence Of The Lambs references in the episode "To Mar a Stall"?
- One episode of Arthur featured the characters all writing stories for a TV show's story contest (the stories themselves written by kids, or so it says at the end), which were then played out using the Arthur characters in the animation style of other cartoons... including South Park, Beavis and Butthead, and Dr Katz Professional Therapist.
- In the episode when Buster is diagnosed with asthma, Arthur accidentally induces an asthma attack when he's reading an old, dusty joke book with Buster. The following exchange with his father ensues:
Arthur: This is all my fault!
Mr. Read: How could it be your fault?
Arthur: It's because I showed him those dirty books! That's what made him sick. I just know it!
(Confused look on Mr. Read's face)
- Derek Blunt, in the Darkwing Duck episode "In Like Blunt" is a parody of Derek Flint (who is, in turn, a parody of James Bond). The episode title is a parody of the second Flint film In Like Flint (which is, in turn, a parody of the phrase "In Like Flynn"). It's unlikely kids would get any of these references except Bond.
- This Troper is surprised that there's no mention of Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends yet. These are 50% of the reason why she's wtaching the show. For example...
- This troper recalls noticing that in a space themed episode of a cartoon the kids she was babysitting were watching—maybe Wow Wow Wubbzy?—the ship had a Star Trek like bridge, with the little bridge beepy noises. She was quite amused.
- Recess has some in it's episode titles (Kids in the Mist, anyone?), and an entire half of an episode parodied 2001: A Space Oddysey quite well.
- ReBoot is full of these, with constant references to pop culture (both American and British) and computer terms. Whole episodes would do this, notably the homage to The Prisoner, "Number 7". To the hordes of little kids who didn't know The Prisoner existed, the plot was a terrifying mindfuck full of creepiness. The end of Series 2 even had references to the Blitz of London; as a result of a war in the sky, the Binomes shelter in Tube stations, and Binomes resembling the Women's Auxillary Air Force are working as spotters in the War Room.
- Don't forget the cabin from Evil Dead!
- Although Wonder Pets is usually rather light on Parental Bonus, the episode "The Wonder Pets Save the Beetles" is filled with non-stop references to a certain rock band...
- The Beetles were voiced by two of the performers of Broadway's "Beatlemania."
- The (terrible) Donkey Kong Country 3D cartoon had a scene where Diddy utters the phrase "the only thing worse than a bruised banana is a bruised butt." Yeah.
- The Playhouse Disney show Special Agent Oso has episode titles like "Gold Flower" and "A View To A Kitten".
- Flapjack in the episode "Whale Times." Bubbie meets a whale names Harvey, and they like each other. Bubbie isn't that kind of whale though. Also with that comes an innocent-Flapjack comment after they realize Harvey kidnaps people from other giant creatures, "Harvey sure does get around."
- Ruby Gloom makes a rather obscure Beatles reference in the episode "Beat Goes On", when Frank cries out "I got blisters on my fingers!". Frank is quoting Ringo Starr, who says exactly the same thing (in the same tone of voice) at the end of the song "Helter Skelter".
Comic Books
Newspaper Comics
Real Life
- Weird Al's parodies. They manage to be amusing to people who don't even know the original work, which leads to the Weird Al Effect.
- It's not really the case with Weird Al as most of his parodies come out from a few months to a few years after the original song.
Web Original
|
|
