Referenced By / Stephen King

See also:

• Carrie
• The Shining
• Stand by Me

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Comic Books

• The Sandman (1989):
  • In "Sleep of the Just", one of the guards watching over the captured King of Dreams is reading IT to pass the time.
  • In "24 Hours", a diner waitress dreams of becoming a famous novelist and knocking Stephen King off the bestseller lists.

Literature

• In William Goldman's novel Brothers (his sequel to Marathon Man), Scylla is with an operative who complains about the car they're in, comparing it to Christine (though he mixes it up with Cujo at first).

Live-Action TV

• Friends:
  • In "The One Where Monica and Richard are Just Friends", Rachel finds Joey's copy of The Shining in the freezer because that's where he hid it when he got scared reading it. He convinces Rachel to read it while he reads her favorite book, Little Women.
  • In "The One Where Joey Dates Rachel", Joey and Rachel watch the movie version of Cujo.
• The Goldbergs: "Stefan King" has Adam, inspired by King's novels, write a story about a monster that is based on his "smother" Beverly. When she finds out, Beverly locks Adam in his room until he rewrites the story, in a spoof of Misery. Aside from that, Adam disguises himself as a clown in a reference to Pennywise, while Murray reads Cujo and becomes suspicious of family dog Lucky.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding", Daniel Molloy compares Claudia's writing style to "Anne Frank meets Stephen King."
• Stranger Things:
  • The font used for the title — ITC Benguiat, if you're wondering — has a long, proud history of being used for his novels. Considering the writers' stated influence from Mr. King himself, this is probably not a coincidence.
  • One of his books physically appears in the series, read by the state trooper guarding the morgue. We can only see it from the back, which has nothing but a giant author photo of King, but from Hopper's quip it's Cujo.
  • Stranger Things contains numerous references to It, which makes sense when you know that the show grew out of an unused screenplay treatment for the movie remake that would eventually morph into It (2017):
    • In the pilot, Joyce alludes to her son Will having a fear of clowns. In a series heavily influenced by Stephen King, the allusion to Pennywise is hard to miss.
    • Bob's anecdote about "Mr. Baldo", which he offers as advice — after being frightened at the fair by a strange clown offering him a balloon, he had nightmares about Baldo for months until he finally took charge of his fears and, in doing so, conquered them, driving the clown away. Will's monster, however, does not work on the same rules as Pennywise.
    • In the mobile game, each of the dungeons has a set of five collectibles that can be found throughout the map (smoke detectors in the lab, overdue books in the library, etc.). What is the collectible in the sewer dungeon? Balloons. Looks like the gang has a lot more to worry about down there than the Demogorgon...
    • The Mind Flayer is a more accurate portrayal of It's true form than either official adaptation of the novel has gotten. Looks like a giant spider but that is just the closest description that the mind will come up with.
  • When Becky Ives recounts Eleven's backstory, it's basically Firestarter. She then lampshades this by asking, "Ever read any Stephen King?" The movie adaptation makes use of Psychic Nosebleed, just as Stranger Things does.
  • One analysis compares Eleven's arrival to that of puberty and maturity for the boys. The video also notes that Eleven bleeds frequently, and the blood is a source of horror and fear, much like Carrie. There's even a school dance.
  • While under the influence of the Mind Flayer, Billy stops the Party from escaping from the mall by removing part of their vehicle's ignition system. This is the same tactic Jack Torrance, while under the influence of the hotel and its ghosts, uses to prevent Wendy and Danny from escaping the hotel in The Shining.
  • According to Dacre Montgomery, his performance as Billy is inspired by both Kiefer Sutherland 's performance as Ace in Stand by Me and Jack Nicholson in The Shining and other roles.
  • The scene where Billy reveals himself at the mall, his headlights flaring up out of the dark, is almost exactly shot like a similar scene in the film version of Christine.
  • The rats in Season 3 are reminiscent of the ones that have appeared in King's work (including his essay "The Ten Bears," which discusses things that make many people squirm, particularly rats). "Graveyard Shift" and 'Salem's Lot both featured rats as part of the horror.
  • Person turning to alien goo? "Grey Matter," from the collection Night Shift.
  • The title of the show itself is a nod to Needful Things.

Western Animation

• The Cleveland Show: The second half of "A Rodent Like This", which sees Cleveland and Donna stuck in their car with a rabid rat outside, is a parody of Cujo.
• Family Guy:
  • In "Brian in Love", Brian thinks he's run over Stephen King, a reference to his 1999 car accident. However, the man turns out to be Dean Koontz, whom Brian runs down again for good measure.
  • The episode "Three Kings" features parodies of three Stephen King stories with the show's characters in the key roles. King himself cameos in the second segment, again in a joke involving Brian and that car accident.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "The Joy of Sect", the Springfield airport has a bookstore called "Just Crichton and King", a reference to their books being favorites at airport bookstores.
    Hans Moleman: Do you have anything by Robert Ludlum?
    Salesman: Get out.
  • In "The Boys of Bummer", Lenny brings up that he wrote a series of bestselling mystery novels that Stephen King called "Scary, good fun."
  • "Not It", a homage to the Andrés Muschietti-directed It duology, has additional Stephen King references that include Kang and Kodos having a library of the author's works to fall back on when they devise a new horror to replace the deceased Krusto (A Pennywise expy).

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