Shout Out / Archer

Heeere's Archer!

• Danger Zone!!
• The opening credit sequence contains a lot of nods to the opening credits from Cowboy Bebop.
• Pam smashes the intercom mid-sentence, and mutters "Boring conversation anyway."
• When he is the controller of the ISIS ops room, Ray wears a waistcoat and badge just like Gene Kranz's in Apollo 13.
• Lana tells Cyril "I find your lack of faith disturbing." after Malory commands her to "release him," and Lana replies "As you wish." Interestingly, she says that line while performing that looks like the Vulcan Neck Pinch. Even more interesting, not only does she nail a female Vader perfectly, but when Cyril succeeds in a coup she's savvy enough to see that Malory wants to play Palpatine to his Vader.
• Archer and others calling Lana "Truckasaurus" due to her large hands is a reference to the 1990 Simpsons episode "Bart the Daredevil".
• From "Killing Utne":
  Colonel Jakov: "Hello? What is the frequency?"
  Archer: "...Kenneth"?
• Uta is a German girl with red hair and father issues, like Lola in Run Lola Run. She even has a boyfriend named Manni, who looks like Revolver Ocelot. Her relationship with a much older assassin is a riff on The Professional.
• Woodhouse's Roaring Rampage of Revenge and the taking of scalps is likely a reference to Legends of the Fall. The later flashback in which he is sprawled naked on a bunk aboard a tramp steamer with two women is an almost perfect recreation of a shot from Legends.
• Archer's butler is named Woodhouse. And Woodhouse's best friend/gay lover was named Reginald, which is Jeeves' first name.
• Due to sharing many actors and a comedic style with the show, there are many references to Arrested Development.
  • Malory Archer, the Evil Matriarch of ISIS, shares a voice actor with Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development.
    • Malory's rivalry with her neighbour Trudy Beekman is a reference to Lucille's rivalry with her neighbor/friend Lucille Austero in AD. Sterling even says, "Wow, you don't get along with your neighbors anywhere."
    • While not the same in personality, Archer's relationship to his mother parallels that of Lucille's son Buster Bluth in AD. In both shows, Jeffrey Tambor plays an older man who may or may not be the father of Jessica Walter's character's child (Len Trexler in Archer, Oscar Bluth in Arrested Development).
  • In both shows, Judy Greer plays a sexually promiscuous secretary (Cheryl/Carol Tunt in Archer, Kitty Sanchez in Arrested Development).
  • In "Space Race, Part 2", Barry, in the SpaceBot suit, swings around the giant mechanical claws singing "Domo arigato, Archer roboto". This mirrors a scene in Arrested Development, where Buster Bluth sings the song whilst swinging around his Hook Hand.^note That scene actually was also an Actor Allusion to Tony Hale, who had previously sung the song on a car commercial.
  • A vehicle looking strikingly similar to the Bluths' iconic stair car briefly appears in "Nellis."
• Also on the airship:
  "Captain Lammers!"''
  "Nice read, Velma."
  • Malory complains about the bartender leaving his post, mentioning "[he] sees one empty glass and all of a sudden he's Judge Crater."
• From "Dial M for Mother":
  (Cyril flashes back to an affair as Lana quizzes him on his past infidelities.
  Cyril: Ms. Archer, you're trying to seduce me. ...Aren't you?
  • Again, from "Dial M for Mother", when Cyril is tricked into thinking Lana has had sex with every ISIS member:
  Cyril: [loading rifle] Seven-six-two millimeter. Full. Metal. Jacke— someone's in here!.
• Sterling's codename, Duchess, is also the Fan Nickname for Captain Archer of Star Trek: Enterprise.
• The visual nod to actor David Rees Snell, whenever Archer is shown with a mustache. Not to mention, the fact that Woodhouse's dead love was named Reggie, which is a variation of REG (the initials of Snell's character on The Shield).
  • Similarly, the character model for Archer as a child is strikingly similar to Simon's.
• Archer, Krieger and Cyril subject Trexler to the Ludovico Treatment in "A Going Concern."
• A mind control chip makes a rabbit hop its leg uncontrollably. Archer tells an impressed Krieger to name it Rabbit Klein after comedian Robert Klein's "I Can't Stop My Leg" routine.
• Give her the rabbit, Lenny!
  • Happened prior to that in "A Going Concern", when Len(ny) Trexler asks for the rabbit.
  • Archer refers to a Welsh terrorist and his big, mentally-disabled brother as George and Lenny.
• At the beginning of "Swiss Miss," we see a photo of the sex-crazed teenager that ISIS is being hired to protect. It's a direct copy of the infamous photo of Lindsey Lohan inadvertently exposing her crotch while exiting a car.
  • The whole plot of the episode is itself likely a reference to a weird subplot in For Your Eyes Only where Bond has to fend off the advances of a teenaged athlete while doing recon in a Swiss ski village.
• A Friends reference: "You know what? We're on a break!" "Oh yeah? FINE BY ME!"
• Krieger is a boy from Brazil, though he was actually raised in Brazil, unlike the Hitler clones in the film.
  • During the Danger Island season, Crackers (Kreiger as a macaw) yells during the battle between the cannibals they're aiding and the Nazi storm troopers, "Nazi Punks Fuck Off!".
• "You maniac! You blew her up! Damn you all! Damn you all to hell!"
  • Krieger's voice-actor has gone on-record saying that this was his favorite moment in the role, due to it being a bit of a nerdgasm for him.
• Krieger's many ill-fated vans, all of which have featured airbrushed murals of him as part of Rush album art, as well as appropriate titles (Exit: Van Left..., Vanispheres, Caress of Krieger, and Van by Night).
• In Pipeline Fever, Krieger's vats of clones are exact counterparts of Ripley 8's deformed clones in Alien: Resurrection, down to every set of deformities. The scene cuts away just as the one that most resembles an adult xenomorph is coming into view.
• The racers in the beginning of "Jeu Monegasque" are named Bell, Bivens & Devoe. The second race has participants named Moonsie, Bennett and Kotero, after the short-lived girl group Apollonia.
• Krieger's stack of bins bearing Noodle Implements labels, along with a sign in his lab reading "CLEAN OR DIE" are both elements he shares with Jamie Hyneman.
• In "Diversity Hire", Conway talks about a "Charles Whitman Sampler", which is a double reference on both Charles Whitman, a Texas mass murderer, and a Whitman Sampler, which is an assortment of chocolates.
• Alas, poor Reggie...
• Archer's rampage in "Placebo Effect" is, in his own classic style, a (deliberate) Shout-Out to pretty much every Roaring Rampage of Revenge plot in the kind of media Sterling would partake in. For just a few examples, the grenade up the ass is quite similar to scene in Man on Fire, and "Did you see Regis this morning?" is a shot-for-shot remake of the famous ending from the third-season episode of Magnum, P.I. "Did You See the Sun Rise?".
  • A more specific reference is Villain of the Week Franny Delaney, who's basically what you'd get if President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a foul-mouthed Irish mob boss. His name is even reference to FDR, only omitting the surname.
• Cheryl's ocelot is named "Babou" which was also the name of Salvador Dalí's ocelot.
• The episode title "Un Chien Tangarine" is a reference to the Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel film Un Chien Andalou, probably most famous for its Eye Scream scene.
• In The Double Deuce Captain Reggie Thistleton says he never drinks water because fish fuck in it.
• Cheryl's family, the Tunts, are an expy of the Vanderbilt family, from their railroad fortune down to there being multiple "Corneli-i", to the "Tuntmore" (Biltmore) House and a matriarch who is nostalgic for the days of slavery. And as a sort of nesting doll of Genius Bonuses, her brother's name Cecil refers to the Cecil family, who married into the Biltmore family.
  • The swimming pool in Cheryl's mansion in New York is an exact replica of the one in the basement of the Biltmore House.
  • The reference is strengthened as of Archer: Dreamland where, in Archer's coma dream, Cheryl is renamed Charlotte Vandertunt. However, instead of being rail magnates, their fortune is stated to be from publishing and they live in Vandertunt Castle, shifting the resemblance to the Hearst family which gained fame, fortune, and infamy through yellow journalism pioneer William Randolph Hearst (inspiration for Citizen Kane), so Charlotte being just as unhinged as the real Cheryl makes her more like the equally infamous Patty Hearst.
• "White Knights" has Archer barefoot for most of the episode. There is a lot of broken glass involved.
• "This agency is not your personal bank account for you to jet off to Whore Island!"
• The "Sky Captain of Yeasteryear" outfit/setting/airplane from "Heart of Archness" references Tales of the Gold Monkey.
  • The title of the episode — combined with the basic plot of Archer becoming the corrupt ruler of a tropical society — is a pretty unmistakable Whole-Plot Reference to Heart of Darkness.
  • In Season 9's Danger Island arc, as soon as Sterling brings up the possibility of the coveted idol being a gold monkey, Pam shoots it down, stressing that whatever it is, it's absolutely NOT a gold monkey.
• Lana's car during the Grand Prix is white with a red and blue stripe and the number 53.
• In "Drift Problem", Woodhouse sprays Archer's eyes with glass-cleaner because he was "going all Bilbo-y".
  • From the same episode, when Pam is first shown to be a drift racer, she is seen drift racing against a Toyota AE86.
• The ending of "Skin Game" has Barry and Katya on a bus in a shot for shot of the ending of The Graduate.
• The Ray viral video is a reference to the opening credits of Ironside (1967) starring Raymond Burr.
• In the second part of the third season finale, there is a security alert calling attention to Pod 6. Which is full of jerks.
• While on the space station, Barry clinks beer bottles together while chanting, "Archer, come out to plaa-ay!" in a reference to Luther doing the same thing in the climax of The Warriors.
• Barry exposes his cyborg innards at the end of Season 2 in the exact same manner Quinn did in the first pilot of Sealab 2021.
• In "Heart of Archness" part 3, Noah charges Bucky with a sharpened spoon, but instead stabs Rip Riley. He yells "SPOOOOON!" while doing so, which is the battle cry of The Tick, played in live action by Patrick Warburton, voice of Rip Riley.
  • After they put a eyepatch on Rip that Archer calls him "Nick Furious".
  • Also when Lana fails to reach the trap door Archer quips "Missed it by that much" in a nasal voice.
  • One of the island's lacrosse teams is named the "Lax-mi Singhers", after NPR midday newscaster Lakshmi Singh.
  • Bucky paraphrases one of the most recognizable lines from Dirty Harry
• In "Pipeline Fever", the airboat rental guy yells at "Ann", his watchdog, who appears to be asleep. When he realizes that the dog is dead, the view cuts to a tombstone with the name "Old Dan" carved on it, and a red-leafed fern growing beside it. Old Dan and Little Ann were the protagonist's dogs in Where the Red Fern Grows.
• Reggie's death in "The Double Deuce" is a reference to a superstition supposedly held by World War I soldiers (which turned out to have arisen after the war's end) that states that you should never light a cigarette three times with the same match (though Woodhouse used several) since each lighting allows an enemy sniper to spot you, take aim and fire respectively, which is what happened to Reggie.
• As Ray is being carried out of ISIS by Archer, he exclaims "Ferris Bueller, you're my hero!".
• In "The Rock," Archer, after being blinded, comments that "Holy crap! My other senses are already heightened!"
• In "Movie Star", the title character goes on a mission with Lana to research a role in an upcoming spy film — the cast of which includes "Ben Parker" and "Kevin Murphy".
• "The Wind Cries Mary" is named after a Jimi Hendrix song.
  • In "The Wind Cries Mary," Archer thinks for a moment that the Predator killed Cyril when he finds his clothes, then notices a tree riddled with bullets from Lana's submachinegun and hopes she wasn't shooting at an Ent.
  • Dr. Krieger tries to sell irradiated ants at one point.
• After learning that Cyril is being promoted to field agent in "El Contador," Archer says he has to get back to Earth before the Stargate closes and the chevrons lock.
• "Once Bitten":
  • Archer finds himself in the afterlife wearing a sweater and talking to James Mason, which are references to Heaven Can Wait (1978). After dreaming that he discovers his father's identity, he wakes up and shouts, "Buck Henry," who also appears in the film.
    • The idea that Buck Henry might be Archer's father also refers to Henry's role in creating Get Smart, which pioneered the spy-comedy genre Archer itself exists in.
  • While looking back on his life, Archer sees himself as a star athlete in the The '50s who is shot by his lover, referencing The Natural.
  • Archer even responds to the Natural homage by asking, "What's next? Mr. Gower slaps me deaf?"
  • When Archer is revived with the anti-venom, both the place the needle is stabbed, and the way Archer gets up, is a shot for shot of Mia Wallace's revival in "Pulp Fiction"
• In the episode "Lo Scandalo" the the ISIS workers pretend to be a high-class dinner party at Malory Archer's with Lana Kane as the maid Lana goes by the name Calpurnia.
  • Malory's landlord has a son who looks like Tiny Tim, with a bad condition. Also Malory plays the typical Scrooge on refusing to give the landlord any extra money on Christmas.
  Boy: Will I get the operation now dad?
  Landlord: No son[wipes tears with potato], you are going to die.
• One of the artists is a Giant Bomb user, so "GLHB" and a drawing of Patrick "Scoops" Klepek in the infamous hot dog suit have made it into the background of two different episodes.
• In "Live and Let Dine", Anthony Bourdain running a reality show set in a restaurant with no reservations. The character of Lance Casteau and the general atmosphere of the show Bastard Chef, however (rampant belittlement, hectic pacing, staring directly into the camera, overly-dramatic graphics everywhere and pithy lines right before the commercial break), are all a direct homage to Hell's Kitchen.
  • Also from "Live and Let Dine":
  [The ISIS client chokes on their food and dies very dramatically]
  Cheryl: I'll have what he's having!
• In "The Papal Chase", Pam accidentally crushes the Pope with a mirror, to which Archer erroneously announces "Nice job, Oliver Cromwell."
  • The title "The Papal Chase" is a reference to the TV series The Paper Chase (1978).
  • Sterling mentions that he did extensive research on the papacy... by "watching Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil, which was way underrated." Sterling's voice actor, H. Jon Benjamin, was a cast member of the aforementioned series (as the Devil, no less).
• A couple of episodes contain a Shout-Out to Burt Reynolds (as Archer is a huge fan):
  • In "The Rock", Archer asks Lana to compare him to Reynolds' character from Deliverance in the conclusion.
  • "Pipeline Fever" has a few to Gator McKlusky, whom Reynolds played in White Lightning and Gator.
  • When Reynolds appears as a guest star, Archer spends most of a minute listing his movies. Hal Needham is later name-checked in a car chase.
• In "Un Chien Tangerine," Lana and Archer's extraction target is Kazak the English Mastiff, a reference to The Sirens of Titan.
  • The episode's title is a reference to Un Chien Andalou.
• References to X-Men:
  • In "Un Chien Tangerine", Archer discusses prehensile tails and how is favorite thing with one is Nightcrawler.
  • In "The Papal Chase":
    Archer: Did you learn Romansh?
    Pam: Who am I, Cypher? The gayest X-Man?
    Archer: I don't know, Gambit looks like he knows his way around a pair of—
  • Archer: What is this thing made of, Wolverine's bones? Does no-one here read X-Men?
• In "Fugue and Riffs", Archer mentions the old live-action Shazam! (1974) show. He also calls Lana "Jennifer Walters", the alter ego of She-Hulk.
  • Archer is also amnesiac and thinks he's Bob Belcher.
    • The burger special is the "Thomas Elphinstone Hambledurger with Manning Coleslaw," referencing the spy character Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon created by Manning Coles.
    • He fights off the spies the same way Tom Stall does in A History of Violence.
• During "The Papal Chase", Krieger starts yelling "Jazz hands!", to which Malory states she regrets taking him to both versions of The Wiz.
• ''Sea Tunt, Part 1" has Archer responding to Cyril with "Okay, Mr. Peabody."
• "Sea Tunt, Part 1" has Archer creating a spin on the "Fuzzy Navel" cocktail called a "Horatio Cornblower."
• When Cheryl starts hearing the soundtrack in "Sea Tunt, Part 1", she yells out, "God damn it, shut up, John Williams!"
• The ending of "Sea Tunt, Part 1" also ends with ISIS meeting the head of an underwater laboratory named Captain Murphy.
• In "Sea Tunt, Part 2", four of the ISIS group are trying to escape the flooding underwater laboratory, but find there are only three suits. The entire following sequence, including the resuscitation scene, was lifted nearly wholesale from The Abyss.
• The show has numerous has multiple variants of 934TEXAS, Captain Murphy's password from Sealab, hidden in several episodes, the first in "The Rock", where the password for the jewelry case is "934TXS".
  • This is also the serial number for the bomb in "Skytanic"
  • The chip implanted into Archer's brain in "Dial M for Mother" is shown to be the "934 TX"
  • The front of the train in "The Limited" is labeled "934TXS"
  • In "Live and Let Dine", the armory supervisor refers to machine as the "934TX telephonic isolator unit." As well, the helicopter at the end of the episode is marked "934-TXS"
  • The license plate of the Brazos County Sheriff car in "Southbound and Down".
  • And in "Sea Tunt, Part 2", he's crushed by a soda machine like his namesake was. And the fake brand name, "GOZ", is (almost certainly) a tribute to Murphy's 2021 voice actor, the late Harry Goz.
  • Part 2 also gives us a take on the Han Solo/Princess Leia "I love you" "I know" scene from Star Wars.
  • Also from Part 2, when Pam is hoarding alcohol for "The End Of The World As We Know It":
  Pam: Grain alcohol is a key component of a good bug-out bag.
  Malory: A what?
  Pam: Bug out bag? Oh my God! For TEO-TWAKI?
  Malory: The bear from Star Wars?
  • Again in Part 2:
  Malory: Say, this stuff is pretty good. What did you say it was?
  Pam: Basically? Pure ethanol.
  Malory: Huh. Well, God bless corn subsidies.
  Cheryl: Who're you? Earl Butz?
• The Malory/Duchess photo is based on an infamous Rolling Stone cover with Yoko Ono and John Lennon◊.
• "More like Lemon Party chairman"
• In "Skorpio", Archer steals a crewman's clothes, and is mocked by Lana and the very crewman he mugged, prompting this remark:
  What? These are your clothes, idiot.
  • In the same episode, Archer quotes Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener ("I would prefer not to") and then is sad when nobody recognizes the quote.
  Granted, not an easy read.
• Your clothes. Give them to me. Now.
• ISIS Sat-com technician "Bilbo" is, as you would expect from the nickname, quite fond of J. R. R. Tolkien references. Other characters are familiar with the world, and mention it from time to time. Particularly Mithril.
  • "I bet he wishes he had Bilbo's coat of Dwarven Mithril."
  • "What is this door made of, some sort of alloy of Adamantium and Mithril?"
    • "SAY 'DWARVEN TECHNOLOGY' TO ME AGAIN! I DARE YOU!
• Almost every named historical operation Malory was a part of is real, such as Operation Gladio and Operation Ajax.
• At the beginning of Season 4 episode "Coyote Lovely," Archer is prone with a sniper rifle next to a boulder in the Texas desert. The boulder has DOM scrawled across it; the same boulder marked the spot of the buried bottle of champagne (Dom Perignon) in the 1985 Kevin Costner film "Fandango."
• The promotional materials for the new direction the show is taking is this to both Miami Vice (the name, Archer Vice) and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (the artstyle and the plot revolving around cocaine and building a criminal empire). Archer refers to it as The A-Team meets Scarface (1983) and Lana suggests he is Hannibal Montana.
• Burt Reynolds appears As Himself and awesome, and the Heroic Comedic Sociopath is totally in love with him. Wait, are we talking about Archer or Saints Row: The Third?
• Sterling refers to British currency as "Doctor Who money".
• "Pam's so strong she might as well be green and half deaf!" Said while Pam was wearing torn purple pants no less.
• Archer's misinterpretation of "said the actress to the bishop" as "said Ripley to the Android Bishop."
• When Barry tells Len Trexler that he was "engaged to be engaged" with Framboise, he punches Barry in the arm and says "If you like it put a ring on it."
• In "Palace Intrigue", Archer is confused that fine art can be worth a fortune, and Lana asks if he's ever seen The Thomas Crown Affair. Based on the context, it can be assumed she means the remake and not the original, though confusingly Archer mentions that he's not a Steve McQueen (actor) fan, possibly implying that the original was about art theft, not a bank robbery.
  • Lana also claims Archer would cry out McQueen's name in his sleep, and in "A Debt of Honour" Archer uses a Winchester 1892 "Mare's Leg" almost identical to the second one carried by McQueen's character in Wanted: Dead or Alive.
• After Archer gets excited about having just blown up a train, Lana calls him Gomez. Archer even pauses to compliment the reference.
• Part of the season 3 finale featured Archer getting in a Metaphorgotten with Cyril and Lana over George Orwell's novel Animal Farm. One of the others makes a reference to the book, which Archer misconstrues as them talking about an actual farm with animals. When they call him out on this, he makes it perfectly clear that he knows all about Animal Farm, though is still fascinated by the idea that the space pirates might have a farm full of animals on the space station.
• Kenny Loggins has a mysterious briefcase issuing an ominous glow. The episode even references the popular (though disproved, see here) Pulp Fiction fan theory that the briefcase is glowing because it contains the soul of someone who made a deal with the Devil.
• The 'narco-sub' Krieger builds looks almost exactly like the H.L. Hunley from the American Civil War. This is even funnier when you recall his "Confederacy forever!" outburst back in Season 1.
  • He also calls it the Red Kriegtober. Or Red Octkrieger, he can't make up his mind.
• When Archer interrogates the Irish mob in "Placebo Effect" he sets it up as a mock game of Family Feud.
• A recurring premium brand of scotch, Glen Goulie, is a reference to, mainly, Glenfiddich. The name, bottle and label design are Glenfiddich, while the colour based ranking system is Johnnie Walker.
• "Filibuster": Apparently Cyril got really good at military maneuvers by playing Warhammer.
  • And Lana responds to the imprisoned Archer flinging himself against the bar with, "Whoa! Chill out, Miggs!"
• "The Archer Sanction" has what looks like a Dianoga eyestalk popping up from the onsen.
  • In the same episode, it's revealed that Pam has shaved her pubic hair into a lightning bolt with the letters TCB.
  • And the episode is a Whole-Plot Reference to The Eiger Sanction.
• Archer and Pam's fight with Barry in "Edie's Wedding" has shout-outs to both The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Archer steals a shotgun with an extended magazine and saws off the stock like Kyle Reese (though he stole it from gunshop, like the T-800) in The Terminator, and hides it in a box of roses like the T-800 does in Terminator 2. By episode's end, Barry looks like the T-800 after the fuel truck explosion in Terminator.
• The closing scene of "Edie's Wedding" plays the soundtrack of Fargo while panning over the smoldering remains of Barry's cyborg skeleton. It helps that Edie is voiced by guest star Allison Tolman (Molly Solverson in the first season of Fargo).
• At the end of "Vision Quest", someone has written "Touchable" on the elevator wall. In blood.
• The guns in "Space Race" have a screen with the current bullet count on it; quite possibly a reference to Halo.
  • More likely a reference to Aliens, since the guns are modeled exactly like the pulse rifles from that film.
• The ending screen of Krieger's "You're Not My Supervisor" flash game, released as part of the Season 6 ARG, is a reference to the Ghostbusters NES game:
  CONGLATURATION !!!
  YOU HAVE COMPLETED A GREAT GAME.
  AND PROOVED THE JUSTICE OF OUR CULTURE.
• The second half of "The Kanes" is an extended reference to the famous car chase in Bullitt, right down to the cars and much of the San Francisco locations, though the Charger's trunk being shot off on the bridge is from the opening chase from The Driver.
• Cheryl's plan to break up Lana and Sterling in "Reignition Sequence" involves kidnapping their daughter.
  "The child is sent to Bhutan, where for the next twenty years she's raised and trained as an assassin by Ra's al-Ghul before returning to destroy those who once betrayed her."
  • She also suggests paying a German man to kidnap her, then double crossing him so he goes to the electric chair.
• Just to show how cree-pee she is one scene has Cheryl on the phone making a paper figurine of The Human Centipede.
• In "Three to Tango":
  Archer: Jesus Christ! Will [Krieger] not rest until we've all been enslaved by Skynet?
  • In the same episode, Archer calls himself Lando Calrissiano and tranquillises a guard, saying, "Boring conversation anyway". (Note that Pam had already used that line in season three).
  • And though he gets interrupted, he cracks that Conway, as a cyborg, likely knew the code because it was Gaius Baltar's ZIP code.
  • Conway also responds to Lana’s attempts to get a crack in over him with, “Who are you, Horatio Kane?”
• In "The Archer Sanction", Archer asks, "Should somebody call the Ghostbusters?"
• "Edie's Wedding" reveals that Pam had pig's blood dumped on her at her prom. (Ok, it turns out it was really calf's blood, but it still counts). Archer also references Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics in the episode. Finally, Ray closes the elevator doors (while claiming he's trying to keep them open), saying it's "just like Maximum Overdrive" (he does this again in the next episode).
• In "Vision Quest", Archer tells Ray to "R2-D2 it", thinking that because he is a cyborg, he can interface with the phone.
• In "Reignition Sequence", Cheryl compares Lana to Groot.
  • Cheryl also says, "Well, in the immortal words of Wendell Stamps, 'That one's going in the slideshow!'"
• In "White Elephant", Lana makes a reference to The Muppets character Beaker after Cyril mimics his "meep" sound. Archer asks Brett Bunsen the name of Beaker's boss before he is fatally shot. For bonus points, the character shares a name with Brett, being named Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.
• The first promo released for season 7 was a shot-for-shot remake of the Magnum, P.I. intro. Completely fitting given that in this season the former members of ISIS are reinventing themselves as a detective agency.
• During the Archer Vice arc, Archer speculates that the Tuntmore mansion has a gigantic Scrooge McDuck-ian vault.
• "The Figgis Agency":
  • The episode's opening Wham Shot and structure are reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard.
  • The bumpers introduced in this episode are reminiscent of those of Charlie's Angels.
  • Archer's car is similar to the one driven by the title character of Magnum, P.I.. Ray also makes a reference to T.C.
  • Malory calls Archer "Mancy Drew". This is also a Call-Back to "Skytanic" where Archer used "Mancy" as a letter of the phonetic alphabet.
  • One of the detectives in the opening scene refers to the floating corpse as "Tennessee Tuxedo".
  • Archer compares the infrared goggles to something out of Predator.
  • Archer's fall down the mountainside is like something straight out of The Simpsons.
  • Pam calls the dog on her poster "Furlock Bones".
  • The plot of the episode is a Whole-Plot Reference to Chinatown.
• "The Handoff":
  • Malory tries to cover for Cyril almost blowing their cover by saying he's an autistic detective, like Sherlock Holmes or Daryl Zero.
  • The group makes the titular handoff at the Korean Bell of Friendship in Los Angeles. This is very likely a reference to The Usual Suspects, where a similar scene happened at what appears to have been the same location.
  • One of the bikers compares Lana to Miss Daisy.
• "Deadly Prep":
  • Ivy's entire proposal to Archer is reference to Fletch, right down to it ultimately being a trap.
  • Cyril's Imagine Spot is a direct reference to Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.
  • Archer quotes It's a Wonderful Life when he makes fun of Whitney attempting to lie about not having money in the house: "It's in Tom's house... and Bill's house".
  • Archer sings Duane Eddy's "The Ballad of Paladin".
• The main conflict and antagonists of the two-part episode "Bel Panto" is a clear homage to The Dark Knight, in which the Joker interrupts Bruce Wayne's fundraiser to get at Harvey Dent. Like the Joker and his gang, Mr. Rompers and company burst into the fundraiser with no warning while disguised as clowns, and Rompers himself is a very obvious expy of the Joker himself. After Cheryl "gives in" to Stockholm Syndrome, she starts putting on makeup to look like a clown herself with the expectation of becoming "Mrs. Rompers," clearly based on Harley Quinn.
  • She also insists on going by "Tania," like Patty Hearst was referred to among the Symbionese Liberation Army.
• Double Indecency
  • Krieger's new look (afro with friendly chops) is explicitly compared to Bob Ross, while with the sunglasses, he bears a passing resemblance to Jeff Lynne.
• Deadly Velvet, Part 1
  • Veronica Deane's dressing room has a Maltese Falcon statue in it, which Lana later uses as a weapon in her scuffle with Archer.
• "Archer Dreamland: Berenice" has sequences of faking the titular Berenice's ongoing lifestyle despite being dead.
  • Archer's choice of naming the dead maid is a reference to an Edgar Allan Poe short story where a man becomes obsessed with the perfect teeth of his late wife, the eponymous Berenice.
• Archer 1999 is drowning in references to Alien, but "Cubert" is particularly explicit about it, from Carol nearly choking at the dinner table in a way that evokes the birth of the xenomorph, to a particularly cracked out Archer trying to asphyxiate Lana with a rolled-up magazine like Ash did to Ripley. In fact, Lana's appearance in this season evokes Ripley, particularly her hair.
• In Archer 1999, Malory can transform into a glowing orb that resembles Siri.
• Archer 1999 is largely about a group of colorful misfits having space adventures. This could be a reference to Firefly. The most obvious parallel is that Rey serves as the ship's "courtesan" while in Firefly, Inara does the same thing.
• The Archer 1999 episode "Road Trip" involves the cast becoming stranded on an alien planet where they're threatened by a huge dinosaur-like alien with camouflage abilities—aka, basically the Indominus Rex.
• Helping Hands
  • Hands' mansion◊ is a pretty much identical clone of the building seen in the Hawkes Bay mission in Hitman 2. Take a look at the similarities here◊.
• Photo Op
  • When Archer sees that the head poacher is wearing night vision goggles and covered in mud He calls he out for trying to be both the Predator and Dutch.

---