Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female on Male: no one seems to mind Lola beating the ever-loving crap out of Oscar, even though she does it in front of at least 20-30 people
Actor Allusion: When Oscar shouts "You had me at hello!" on tv, Angie is seen grinning. Renee Zellweger, who voiced Angie, stars in Jerry Maguire where the quote is said by her character in the movie.
Also, lines such as De Niro's character Don Lino saying, "I heard things" plus a conversation between the De Niro character and the Scorsese character (Sykes) spoof their infamous repeat the same lines back at one another.
The crowd even shouts "Oscar Bumaye!" the same where a crowd shouts "Ali Bumaye!" to Muhammad Ali (Will Smith plays Ali in his 2001 Bio Pic)
Oscar's "Pants" are big like Will Smiths clothes were befoe in his older works
Ambiguously Gay: Lenny. He's vegetarian, wishes to be a dolphin and tries to hide this secret to his family.
Don't forget the speech Oscar makes after he's trapped Lenny and Don Lino in the whale wash: "What is your problem? So, your son likes kelp. So, his best friend is a fish. So he likes to dress like a dolphin, so what?! Everybody loves him, just the way he is. Why can't you?"
Big "NO!": When an anchor lands on Frankie, Lenny screams this just before he tosses the anchor aside like a cottonball.
Billed Above The Title: The poster says it all. So did all the commercials, which did everything they could to make it seem as if the whole thing was just an excuse to have all the biggest superstars of the early 2000s (andMartin Scorsese) appear in a movie together.
Carnivore Confusion: Lenny the Shark, a principled vegetarian who refuses to devour sapient creatures, and massive disappointment to his father, makes an unsuccessful attempt to eat a sobbing shrimp who begs for his life.
Also, in the second scene, which shows off the city, we have a brief look at a sushi bar. There is not a single customer, to the owner's frustration. Guess why.
Celebrity Voice Actor: Dreamworks really went above and beyond for this one. In addition to casting just about the biggest name actors they could, they even went after non-acting celebrities like Martin Scorsese and Katie Couric.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: The movie wears some distinct resemblence to 1996's Dragonheart, which is about a knight and a dragon who ends up in a stalemate during a fight and decides to cooperate, to which they do by faking battles in front of awestruck villagers that the dragon pretends to attack, with the knight pretending to kill the dragon at the end.
Easily Forgiven: Oscar doesn't exactly hold the fact that Sykes ordered him murdered against him, even going so far as to let Sykes profit off of his new image.
Fake Ultimate Hero: Oscar is hailed as a "shark slayer" (the film's original title) after the shark chasing him is killed by a wayward anchor and he takes all the credit.
Herbivores Are Friendly: Unlike most sharks, Lenny is actually a vegetarian and is also pretty friendly since he doesn't want to hurt other fish. That doesn't stop the fish from being scared of him though.
Which is hilariously misleading, when you consider that Great Whites are among the few shark species which actually are ''warm-blooded''. Then again, maybe that's why Frankie called him a moron.
Shoot the Hostage: Oscar attempts to fake this when the Sharks kidnap his girlfriend by having his "dolphin" partner pretend to eat her right on the spot (he grabs her in his mouth, but doesn't swallow) on his order to show that he didn't care. Fails as the "dolphin" is a vegetarian shark who is repulsed by the simple taste of fish. He spits her out along with the contents of his various lunches.
When the whale burps in the whale wash, Oscar looks into the bucket of slime, which makes rings in the slime, like the famous waterglases in Jurassic Park.
At one point in the film, a spoof of the Kate Winslet portrait from Titanic is shown in the shark's home. Also the sharks house looks an awful lot like the Titanic.
Heck, in the funeral scene, one shark asks someone to play "My Heart Will Go On".
At Frankie's funeral, a portrait of him in framed in a life preserver from the RMS Titanic.
The Smart Guy: Lenny - you think at first it's just wishful thinking on Don Lino's part, but Lenny is pretty sharp. He thinks up a plan to fake his own death. He disguises himself as a dolphin. He even skilfully blackmails Oscar into taking him - a shark - home. When he talks all smooth and "God forbid somebody should find out the truth", you remember that yeah, he may act cute and vegetarian, but he's still the son of a Mafia Shark - and he knows how to get his way with that veneer of amused dismay and some totally innocent suggestions.
Water Is Air: Lampshaded when a race seahorse Oscar had bet on trips before the finish line.
Oscar: He trips underwater? Now who in the halibut trips underwater? And, by the way... on what?
What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: To the fish population of the Reef, Lenny the Shark is scary as a shark, but cuddly and safe when he disguises himself as a dolphin. Just so we're clear, dolphins eat fish too, but they're cute! (This led to a few reviewers reading a stronger metaphor in it...) Funny thing, is, the movie actually uses this, when Oscar tries to subvert I Have Your Wife by having Lenny fake eating his girlfriend. The "attack" appears to be just as quick and almost as savage as... well, a shark attack.
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