Bud being a sci-fi nut; he gives the occasional reference to Star Trek and Quantum Leap, even naming one of his kids after James T. Kirk. Donald P. Bellisario even cameos as himself at a sci-fi convention, and his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is featured in one episode. The Star Trek connection is interesting considering it has the same copyright holder as JAG (i.e. CBS / Paramount.) Cross-promotion anyone?- The name of the fictional aircraft carrier USS Seahawk, first seen in the pilot, is probably an homage to that Errol Flynn movie.
- It is also interesting the first Scifi reference in the show - in the pilot, when Captain Boone (the CAG) and Lieutenant Arrutti return from a flight, as Boone is about to get out of the cockpit, one of the yellow-shirt flight deck crew starts to paint on the F-14.
Captain Boone: Chief, if I bagged a Klingon, I believe you'd know what Flag to paint on her.
Chief Ned Bannon: Klingons are Easy, now a Romulan Warship now that might be a problem, they're invisible.- So there's Trek fans among the fictional Seahawk crew aside from Bud, so an implied subversion of Hollywood Nerd.
- In "Brig Break" the Time Bomb stops at 00:07.
- In "Scimitar" Harm makes a comparison of events to a certain Western:
Lieutenant JG Meg Austin: John Wayne was being chased by Iraqis?
Lieuteant Harmon Rabb: Indians!
Corporal John Edner: Right in the middle of Monument Valley.
Lieutenant JG Meg Austin: Bet they didn't have a woman with them.
Lieuteant Harmon Rabb: You'd bet wrong! They had a woman a lot like you: Claire Trevor.
Corporal John Edner: Yep, prostitute Duke fell for.
Lieutenant JG Meg Austin: You're comparing me to a prostitute?
Corporal John Edner: No, ma'am. I didn't say that.
Lieuteant Harmon Rabb: I did, and I meant she was spunky like you.
- In Season 2’s "Washington Holiday" (itself a take on Roman Holiday) when the Romanian Princess has escaped from doing her duties and went to a night club instead: Harm, as her military escort dressed in whites, carries her back to the limousine causing a woman in the background to say: "This is so like An Officer and a Gentleman".
- In "The Game of Go", when Harm, Mac & Bud meets Clayton Webb at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.
Harmon Rabb: Nice to see you again too, Clayton.
Bud Roberts: Well, there were actually four musketeers, sir. Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan.
- When Mac questions an enlisted marine about their captain’s unorthodox training methods in "Force Recon" he replies that the captain would take them “to hell and back, he’d take us back Ma’am”. Considering that the captain has the nickname “Duke” (just like John Wayne) she comments that the captain probably is a movie buff and mentions To Hell And Back with Audie Murphy.
- Season 3, episode "Tiger, Tiger"
Josh Pendry: Iceberg off the port bow!
Lieutenant Bud Roberts: In the Gulf of Mexico?
Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb:
Annie and I took Josh to see the Titanic last night before we sailed.- After anticommunist Cuban terrorists have taken over the frigate and Harm and Josh are in the helicopter hangar:
Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb: What?
Josh Pendry:
Steven Seagal in Under Siege. He got the Pentagon on a satellite radio from a life boat. Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb:
Well, unfortunately this isn't a movie, Josh. These lifeboats have satellite radios with an emergency beacon and a short-range voice transmitter. We could activate one. The Coast Guard would come, but before we could inform them of our situation, who knows what these terrorists are likely to do. Josh Pendry: It's so cool in the movie.
- Season 4, episode "The Adversaries"
Big Bud: "Speaking of Harm, how you're doing
Perry Mason!"
- In season 5's "Boomerang, Part 1", when Bud looks at the beach with topless sunbathers he says to Mic that it's "an R-rated Baywatch out there".
- Rogue centers on a Navy commando who has recruited Navy SEALS, Delta Force and other assorted Bad Ass soldiers to infiltrate and attack military installations, including nuclear submarines, to test their security and advise on how to defend against a terrorist attack. Despite claims that it's not based on real life the episode name hints at the fictional and real life exploits of one Richard Marcinko.
- In season 7, episode "Answered prayers" at Christmas.
- "In Country"
- Bud bonds with a suspected terrorist by discussing the merits of the Prime Directive, as both are fans of Star Trek, using this to obtain useful information. (All this as opposed to an ineffective asshole CIA Officer who’d advocated torture to extract information.)
- "Enemy Below"
- When in Afghanistan with Harm, Mac starts to talk about that classic western.
Commander Harmon Rabb: Oh, yeah? Well, which one am I gonna be then?
Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie: Butch, of course.
Commander Harmon Rabb: Well, that's true. He was the brains of the operation.
Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie: Yeah, but Sundance was the shooter that everyone was afraid of. That's how I wanna go,
in a blaze of glory against impossible odds.
- The Hunt for Red October is even namechecked when Sturgis compares himself and the Russian renegade sub captain being chased to Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery respectively.
Commander Turner: With your permissions admirals, I'd like to volunteer for TAD aboard the Watertown.
Vice Admiral Holt: Commander, as much as I respect your service as a submariner, commander Flagler is perfectly capable.
Commander Turner: ''And I don't mean to imply that he isn't, sir, only that I am
Alec Baldwin.
Vice Admiral Holt: ''Excuse me?
- In season 8, Bud watches the 1953 version of The War Of The Worlds in "Dangerous Game".
- In "When the Bough Breaks", Bud makes comparisons between Shakespearian works and Star Trek episodes to Admiral Chegwidden's girlfriend (a Shakespearian scholar); Macbeth and "Dagger of the Mind"; The Tempest and "Requiem for Methuselah"; Hamlet and "Conscience of the King'.
- When Loren Singer visits the Roberts' house in "The Killer":
- In season 9, When asked by Mac how it feels to have Coates as a tenant and to be Mattie's guardian in "A Girl's Best Friend":
