As one of the most famous 20th century plays, Waiting for Godot has inspired its share of imitators, parodies and mentions.
- Early on in Shirobako, aspiring voice actress Shizuka Sakaki goes to see a stage performance that her mentor is directing, which happens to be an all-female version of Waiting For Godot.
- The play is mentioned in Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy: comic book creator Holden McNeil responds to a dimwitted fan's referral of his characters as "Bill & Ted meets Cheech & Chong", saying that he prefers to think of them as a modern-day "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meet Vladimir and Estragon", to the fan's consternation.
- Drive My Car: Early on, Yusuke performs in a production of the play.
- In one of the earlier Adrian Mole books, Adrian reads Waiting for Godot and writes a transparent imitation featuring characters named Vladivar (a brand of vodka) and Tarragon (the actual English translation of "Estragon," though Adrian probably doesn't know that).
- In Distress, Worth's old shames include an underwater butoh version of Waiting for Godot he produced when he was nineteen.
- In Grange Hill, the Deadpan Snarker teacher Mr. Baxter references the play, when confronting a suspiciously loitering pupil.Mr. Baxter: What are you doing here?Pupil: Er... I'm waiting for someone.Mr. Baxter: Who for, Godot? (Pupil looks blank) You wouldn't know, it's a literary reference.
- The fourteenth-season finale of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, titled "Waiting for Big Mo", is heavily based on the play.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000:
- As the sequence with the two drunks in The Horror of Party Beach goes on too long, Mike quips, "Vladimir and Estragon: The Sitcom."
- For the episode with Gorgo, there's a gag where one of the actors is said to resemble Samuel Beckett. Gypsy introduces a host segment saying they will do a one-act play in response to that: Waiting for Gorgot. Servo and Crow sit on a stage saying a few lines about waiting for the eponymous character, and Mike comes out dressed as a giant lizard to attack them. A lengthy applause from the supposed audience follows.
- Outlaw has Tom and Crow finding Mike's old theater scrapbook. One of the plays depicted is Waiting for Godot, represented as Mike smugly looking at his watch.
- Sesame Street had a short video in their "Monsterpiece Theater" segment titled "Waiting for Elmo", where Telly and Grover wait by a bare tree for Elmo to appear and discuss how they will feel if he does or doesn't come. The tree then gets fed up and leaves.
- Treme: In the third season, Toni and Sofie go to see a local theater production of the play, and because the play reminds Toni of what's been going on in New Orleans, as well as how Creighton, her husband, was feeling at the time when he was Driven to Suicide, she starts weeping.
Music
- Jean-Michel Jarre's 1990 album Waiting For Cousteau is titled after Waiting for Godot, and features a long, seemingly endless Title Track in the vein of the play.
- "Sheep Go To Heaven", by Cake features the line 'the gravedigger puts on the foreceps', taken from just before the arrival of the Boy.
- Doonesbury once had a parody strip where Zonk and Mike are hoping for then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo
to enter the 1988 U.S. Presidential race, and the strip was called "Waiting for Mario". It even ends with Zonk and Mike in the following exchange:Zonk: Let's hang ourselves.
Mike: Fine, but where?
- Ride the Cyclone references the erection scene when introducing Noel.
- Certain discussions from Waiting for Godot are repeated nearly word for word in Kentucky Route Zero. The place where Conway's truck breaks down in Act 3 - "A country road. A tree. Evening." - is taken verbatim from the play's stage directions.
- Godot engine co-creator Juan 'reduz' Linietsky stated during a 2015 presentation that he chose the name "Godot" as a nod to this play, as it represents the never-ending wish of adding new features to the engine to eventually make it on the level of more comprehensive engines like Unity or Unreal. The engine's own website even has the tagline "The game engine you waited for." as another nod to the play.
- The Godot engine's Waiting for Godot theme continues with a game jam centered around the engine run by Terry Cavanagh of VVVVVV, Super Hexagon and Dicey Dungeons fame titled "STOP WAITING FOR GODOT".
- The Godot engine's Waiting for Godot theme continues with a game jam centered around the engine run by Terry Cavanagh of VVVVVV, Super Hexagon and Dicey Dungeons fame titled "STOP WAITING FOR GODOT
- Housepets!: In one comic, Peanut attempts to show off his understanding of Atlas Shrugged, which he thinks is about characters continuously asking who John Galt is and finally finding out at the end. For this reason, he compares it (in the Alt Text) to 'Waiting For Godot except he shows up at the end'.
- Arthur: The episode "Waiting to Go" is a parody, featuring Brain and Binky waiting for their parents to pick them up from soccer practice. They don't know what time it is, and start to wonder if they'll ever arrive. The most concrete reference is when Brain offers Binky carrots and turnips as a snack — also the foods Vladimir and Estragon have while they're stuck waiting.
- The Critic: "Siskel & Ebert & Jay & Alice" features a quick reference, as Roger Ebert interviews possible new partners. As an example of the kind of lousy movies they'll have to review, he cites Yo, Godot, I'm Waitin' Here! starring Sylvester Stallone and Frank Stallone. We get a glimpse of it on Ebert's TV before the scene change.
- In It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown the plot centers around the wait for the titular mysterious figure, who never arrives.
