Shout Out / Craig of the Creek

• One of the posters in the Elders' hideout is a poster for Sadboy Pilotgeddon. It highly resembles the infamous End of Evangelion poster of Asuka and Shinji looking at Lillith/Rei's giant head sinking into the horizon, except she's shedding a single tear.
  • Also contained within the hideout is a bag/box that showcases two D's flanking a shield
  • One of the Elders wears a shirt with a 4-pronged Planeswalker Symbol.
  • In "You're It", a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot shows that three of the RPG miniatures are characters from The Adventure Zone. Merle and Magnus, admittedly, are fairly generic, but Taako's umbrella/Umbra Staff is unmistakable.
• While cards appearing in the episode Bring Out Your Beast have some obvious MTG parallels—like Thorn Bolt, Regrow, and Redirection—the card Squeakers, the Infected Rat, is a rather sideways shout-out to the card Sleeper Agent.
• Craig apparently has a book on MTG in his room.
• Steven Universe:
  • One of the things in the junk pile seen in the pilot episode is a doll of the title character.
  • In "Bring Out Your Beast", Craig sings the Lil Butler theme song while washing dishes.
  • In "Council of the Creek", Bernard eats Craig's Cookie Cat.
  • In "Jessica's Shorts", the family is shown to support Marty's disgusting Guacola drink.
  • "Little Butler" is a board game that Craig plays with his family.
  • Kelsey is enticed by a pair of purple singing boxing glo-oh-oh-OH-oves with yellow stars that'll make her "stronger than you".
• In "The Invitation", the scene where Craig throws the axe at the Tea Timers’ cake is remarkably similar to the famous 1984 Apple commercial.
  • The same episode features a trio of obvious villains popping up out of nowhere and inviting the protagonist to a tea party in song.
• In "Vulture's Nest", there's a poster in Bad Moves' garage that reads "Jeff Rose - In Stock". This is a shout-out to Jeff Rosenstock, who composes the music for the series and has toured with Bad Moves in real life.
  • The same episode features a shout-out to the Silent Barn, a beloved but now-defunct music venue in Brooklyn, New York.
• Bobby's Big Time Bobby form tends to be one big love letter to Dragon Ball's various Super Forms.
  • In "Ace of Squares" where he first brings out the form, it has a bright red aura to it, resembling the Kaio Ken ability from Dragon Ball Z.
  • During "Into The Overpast", Bobby brings out a new blue-haired Big Time Bobby form, specifically Big Time Bobby Blue, an obvious reference to the Super Saiyan Blue form from Dragon Ball Super.
  • This later gets followed up on in "Capture The Flag Part 5: The Game" as Bobby takes up a white haired form in the battle against The Arm, a clear reference to the Ultra Instinct form from the same series.
• Tiny Boxer from the titular game in "Power Punchers" is K.O. with an altered design.
• In "The Climb", Kelsey shouts "Merry Christmas, you filthy animals!"
• In "Dinner at the Creek", J.P. trying to take some acorns from inside a tree and then getting attacked by the squirrels is similar to the way Winnie the Pooh would do with honey bees. He even says "Smackeral" and "Oh, bother."
• To Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in "Deep Creek Salvage", when Craig finds a wrapper good for $50,000 and a tour of Moldy McGoldy's candy factory, which was located in Kentucky and closed down in 1964 for giving out too many winning candy bars.
• In "The Great Fossil Rush", J.P. mentions wanting to resurrect dinosaurs and keep them on an island sanctuary that he names "Jurassic Playhouse". Even better considering they have the same initials.
• In "Summer Wish", the toy ship J.P. takes out from the cereal box at the end is a shout out to the Going Merry from One Piece with its design, namely its sheep figurehead, and straw hat wearing jolly roger.
• Eduardo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends appears as a home-made mask in "Sparkle Cadet" and as a plush toy in "Cousin of the Creek".
• In "Kelsey the Elder", many older cartoon series were named by Barry. The full list includes SWAT Kats, Dexter's Laboratory, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Codename: Kids Next Door, and Pirates of Dark Water. Mark later mentions Sym-Bionic Titan.
• The Creek Kid Rap is based on the PokeRap.
• A fictional manga titled Two Piece is shown, with the cover depicting a girl highly resembling the titular character of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water while she holds a giant shark, and the girl's name is Floofy. Other characters included is a shark named "Laboon" and another lifeguard named "Bruno".
• In one episode, a kid aims a bow-and-arrow while using their feet to hold them between two trees at a high height, referencing a shot from Naruto with Kidomaru.
• In "Ancients of the Creek", J.P. uses the twist ending from Planet of the Apes while playing with his toys.
• In "Trading Day", the cats that reside in the Junk Lord's territory are none other than Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats.
• In "Crisis at Elder Rock", one of the Elders hold a figurine of Utsuho Reiuji with a sandwich as her control rod.
  • In the same episode, Elder Mark mentions an anime called My Hoagie Academia.
• In "Kelsey the Worthy", Kelsey reads a Slide the Ferret comic book, an obvious Sonic The Hedgehog parody featuring Dr. Robomelette, a Captain Ersatz of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Robotnik, and Slide's Robot Me.
  • "Ferret Quest" depicts this Sonic parody more. Slide's love interest Glide The Ferret was inspired by Rouge the Bat and Amy Rose.
  • The crew made more Slide the Ferret characters. with Tootsie The Skunk being inspired by Tails and Cream, Silhouette The Mongoose and Delusion the Lemur being genderbent versions of Shadow and Rogue and Claws the Badger being inspired by Sonic Boom Knuckles. A "Classic" Slide design resembling that of 90s Sonic (and possibly Sonic the Comic) is also present.
• The cover art of "Into the Overpast" is based on the cover of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
• "Sugar Smugglers" briefly frames Craig in a sequence similar to the Cowboy Bebop title intro.
• "Council of the Creek: Operation Hive-Mind" briefly references the Marvel logo in the beginning.
  • It also points in Bobby's honey suggestion where he shows a brief photo to something called "Honeypaw" which is a direct reference to Winnie the Pooh.
• The plot for "Craig World" is entirely a reference to Disneyland.
• In "Capture the Flag Part 4: The Plan", Jason and Craig clasp hands just like Dutch and Dylan do in The Predator. Craig even hammers it home by saying, "Jason, you ol' son of a scout!"
• According to the character designer for the Chef Kids, Susan's extra long kitchen mitts are a shout out to Turkey from Dorohedoro.
• During "Grandma Smugglers", while Raj and Craig are heading through the Creek with the former's grandmother, Ravi, Raj's father (who's quite overprotective of his mother) is pursuing them, and has this to say as he's calling Raj on the phone, in a reference to Bryan Mills' iconic line from Taken.
  Ravi: Raj! I will find you, and I will ground you!