Referenced By / Dick and Jane

References to Dick and Jane in other media.

Film - Animated

• In the "Strangers Like Me" montage sequence of Disney's Tarzan, Jane shows Tarzan a picture book in which the visible writing says "See Jane. See Jane run."

Film - Live Action

• Hoi Polloi, a 1935 Three Stooges short which spoofs George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, has the trio play illiterate garbage collectors who are taught by a professor to pass themselves off as aristocrats at a party. He teaches them to read with a primer that includes lines such as "See the cat! Does the mouse see the cat?" reflecting the original 1930 edition where Dick and Jane were accompanied by a cat rather than a dog.
• Fun with Dick and Jane (1977, remake 2005) is heist-comedy whose protagonists happen to be named Dick and Jane. The opening credits of the 1977 version are set against illustrated pages from a phony volume of the reader series.
• G.I. Jane: When O'Neill is being interrogated during a training exercise, they ask her the names of her siblings and pet, and she responds, "Dick, Jane and Spot."
• See Jane Date is a made for TV romantic comedy whose title references the style of the books.
• See Spot Run, an unrelated screwball comedy movie that references Spot, Dick and Jane's dog.
• T.J. from Mackintosh and T.J. dropped out of school back when they were reading books about a boy named Dick, a girl named Jane, and a dog named Spot. He always wondered if they caught Spot.

Literature

• Dick and Jane and Vampires.
• See Jane Run, a thriller novel with no connection beyond the title.
• The Wendy Cope poem "Reading Scheme" starts "Here is Peter. Here is Jane. They like fun." It then goes on — in the same style — to describe Mummy Cheating with the Milkman and Daddy chasing him off with a gun.
• The Cat in the Hat was intentionally created by Dr. Seuss as a Take That! to the Dick and Jane series, to demonstrate that a beginning reader book with simple vocabulary could actually be entertaining to read. The back covers of several editions of Seuss books contain quotes by Seuss and others stating that Seuss' bibliography puts "a karate chop on the weary world of Dick and Jane" or similar wording.

Live-Action TV

• Between the Lions parodied the series with "Fun with Chicken Jane", featuring the adventures of Scot and Dot and their pet chicken, Jane, who was smarter than the pair of them put together and inevitably got badly battered while rescuing them from some on-coming calamity that they couldn't evade themselves because they were too busy describing it in short repetitive sentences.
• The opening theme of the TV show Raising Hope has sentences in the style of Dick and Jane: "See Grandpa work," "See Sabrina read," etc.
• Red Dwarf, "Waiting for God": Lister starts learning the written language of the Cat people, and is shown reading an impressive tome — which becomes rather less impressive when he demonstrates his new-found ability to Rimmer by reading it out loud: "See Dick run. Run, Dick, run..."
• In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Changeling", it's pretty clear that Lt. Uhura is reading a Dick and Jane while recovering from an alien mindwipe. "See the dog. See the dog run. The dog has a ball. The ball is . . . blooie?"
• Parodied in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with a Ferengi (a Strawman Capitalist species) and his child. "See Grok aquire. Acquire, Grok, acquire."

Newspaper Comics

• B.C. had a series of Dick and Jane parodies. "See Dick take the test. See Jane take the test. See Dick copy Jane's test. See the teacher catch Dick. See Dick cleaning the latrine."
• Calvin and Hobbes:
  • Calvin writing a book report titled "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes".
  • The title panel for another comic has Calvin reading a page from one of the books, then sarcastically remarking, "Way to go, Jane!"
• The Far Side had a strip of a wolf reading to her pups. "See the wolves chase Dick and Jane."

Video Games

• From Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!: "Springs' Stories for Not-Yet-People": Especially with how the characters have D (male) and J (female) names.
  This is Deadlift. See Deadlift lift. See Deadlift who lifts become dead. See how happy this makes Janey. Verrrry happy.
• The final stage of Earthworm Jim 2? "See Jim Run. Run, Jim, Run." It involved a lot of running.
• In the online game Phrozenflame, the computer said, "c:\dos c:\dos\run run\dos\run".
• A level in Nightmare Ned is set in a giant chalkboard, which starts in an area where the words, "See Ned. See Ned Run. Run, Ned! Run!" are written overhead.

Webcomics

• Darths & Droids #1545 is titled "See, Spot, Run".
• Planet of Hats, which humorously recaps Star Trek episodes, makes the reference in "The Changeling" even more overt.
  Chapel: I'm retraining Uhura with Dick and Jane readers so she can resume her highly technical role next week.

Western Animation

• Daria: One episode is titled "See Jane Run".
• Rocky and Bullwinkle: In the "Wossamatta U" storyline, Bullwinkle gets recruited to play quarterback for the college of the title. Because he's playing football, he gets the simple classes; even the "classic literature" class he takes has him reading things like "Dick and Jane at the Seashore".
• From an episode of The Simpsons: "c:\dos c:\dos\run run\dos\run"

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