Referenced By / The Big Bopper

• "Three Stars" by Eddie Cochran is a tribute to Holly, Valens and the Big Bopper. Cochran's voice audibly cracks at several points in the song. What's worse, the poor guy had to record several takes... and would die himself in 1960, only a year after the trio's passing.
• Don McLean's "American Pie" is a Homage to the deaths of Buddy Holly, Valens and the Big Bopper.
• Pepper Ann: In "Cold Feet" a flashback shows a pregnant young Grandma planning to leave for a flight with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, but then she goes into labor before she can leave.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Sideshow Bob Roberts", Bart and Lisa discover that Sideshow Bob filled in the names of deceased people to win the popular vote, including Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. A close-up of The Big Bopper's gravestone shows that his epitaph is: "Gooooodbye baby!''
  • An Itchy & Scratchy cartoon in "C.E.D'oh" has Scratchy go aboard the plane that carried Holly, Valens and the Big Bopper, who somehow turned out to be vampires too.
• "Chantilly Lace" is used in the film True Romance.
• Futurama, "Roswell That Ends Well": When told that they might not get back to their own time, Prof. Farnsworth laments that they'll have to "endure the horrible music of the Big Bopper, and then the terrible tragedy of his death."
• The Venture Bros. heavily implies that Mauve Shirt supervillain Dragoon is the Big Bopper, having faked his death. (Red Mantle, his constant companion, is Buddy Holly.)
• Animaniacs, "Meet Minerva": When Newt the Dog first sees Minerva Mink and goes berserk, he manifests a '50s suit on himself and exclaims "Ooh baby, that's what I like!" quoting "Chantilly Lace." Later Minerva does the same thing when she meets a sexy guy.

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