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Shout Out / The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

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  • The intro sequence has a bit where Grim's head is ablaze and laughing with a swirly background behind him, referencing the intro to Grim and Evil, back when the series shared a timeslot alongside Evil Con Carne.
  • The tombstones shown in the intro sequence have the names of several short-lived Cartoon Network shows such as the aforementioned Evil Con Carne, Time Squad and Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?. The names were somewhat blurred in the final version albeit disordered from the post-production effects.
  • The score for the series was influenced from the works of Wendy Carlos.
    • Interestingly enough, Maxwell Atoms actually sent a letter to Carlos expressing interest in her composing for the series, which she ultimately and politely declined.
  • The first episode, "Meet the Reaper", is a blatant pastiche of The Seventh Seal, except the Grim Reaper is wagering a hamster's life over a game of limbo rather than a knight's life over a game of chess. And the Billy & Mandy version isn't in Swedish.
  • Horror TV host Atrocia in "Grim or Gregory?" is an obvious expy of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
  • Hoss Delgado is a blatant reference to both Ash from the Evil Dead series and Snake from Escape from New York.
  • The show's version of Dracula is not only black, but he's based on Redd Foxx.
  • "Tricycle of Terror" is a parody of Christine, as it involves a tricycle which is haunted, can repair itself after being destroyed, and attacks the enemies of its nerdy owner before being crushed to destruction in a final confrontation.
    • During the episode, Sperg tosses the tricycle off a sidewalk that abruptly ends at a cliff, saying "This is Where the Sidewalk Ends Baby!" The shot of him preparing to throw the trike is a reference to the book's cover.
  • "Dad Day Afternoon" includes an appearance by Country Bears lookalikes.
  • Someone on the show must have been a fan of Dune, because it gets more shout-outs than you'd expect from a children's show.
    • The episode "Mandy the Merciless" was a straight-up parody of God-Emperor of Dune, with Mandy in the Leto II role, Billy in the Duncan Idaho role, and Grim in the role of Moneo, Leto's majordomo. Spice is replaced with cinnamon, which spice is said to resemble in smell and texture.
    • In "My Fair Mandy", one of the tests turns out to be gom jabbar.
      Mindy: It burns! (removes hand from the box)
      Pirate judge: Arr, that'll cost 'er some points. (other judges nod)
    • At the end of the episode "Scary Poppins", Mandy uses the Bene Gesserit Voice to command the neighborhood adults to attack the nanny.
    • The Secret Snake Club's second attempt to summon a big snake involved a thumper.
    • Lord Byron paraphrases the Litany Against Fear when he's psyching Billy up for their fight with Sperg and his goons.
      Lord Byron: Fear is the mind-killer that leads to total obliteration!
  • From "Detention X":
  • Vampire Santa quotes the Deadites' catchphrase:
    Vampire Santa: I'll swallow your soul!
  • "Little Rock of Horrors":
  • Several examples involving Dungeons & Dragons.
    • "Wand of Magic Missile — I'm never gonna use that thing..." said offhandedly by Grim as he rummages through his trunk of magic stuff in the basement. Obviously a reference to 2nd Edition D&D as wands of magic missile in that version of the game really were useless.
    • The Elemental Plane of Fire briefly appears in one episode.
    • A subtle one in the Wrath of the Spider Queen special with the dark elves working for Velma Green.
    • One particular reference is in "Billy and Mandy Begins" where in Grim's story, the crowd of monsters he addresses include an otyugh, a grell, an owlbear, and an umber hulk.
    • Harold has a pair of fuzzy twenty-sided dice hanging in his car.
  • In "Scythe For Sale", Billy comes across a cantankerous green hand puppet living in a Dumpster who tells him to get away from his house.
  • The creators of the show claimed that the Big Boogey Adventure special was an indirect shout out to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, since like Wrath of Khan, a minor, one-time villain makes a comeback in a movie length special.
  • Pinface and the Rubik's Cube that summons him are blatant references to Pinhead and the Lament Configuration of Hellraiser fame.
  • "You kids ruined half of me bedknobs and all of me broomsticks."
  • "Billy and Mandy Begins" had Shout Outs to Indiana Jones, The Silence of the Lambs, Airplane!, Star Wars, and Ghostbusters. The title itself might also be a reference to Batman Begins, since that episode aired around the same time that movie came out.
  • In "Herbicidal Maniac", General Skarr gains the ability to command an army of plants, which he then orders to "Bloom and grow! Bloom and grow FOREVER!"
  • Skarr is a parody of Herr Starr from Preacher, being a bald, one-eyed villain subject to various humiliations throughout the series.
  • In "Billy and Mandy Moon the Moon", Grim casts a spell that gets Billy's nose stuck to an alien spaceship. When Billy asks him to cast it again to undo it, Grim says he can't because it has a ten-minute cooldown.
    • Billy shouts that he's going to "klaatu barada nikto" the aliens as he's pummeling them into submission.
  • The dream sequence at the start of "Duck!" ends with Grim realizing that "this is not my beautiful house... [and] "this is not my beautiful wife!" Adding onto the shout-out is Billy repeating the phrase "same as it ever was" once Grim wakes up.
  • Skarr gives one in his first Canon Immigrant appearance, getting into a battle mech and shouting "Take my love, my pain, and alllll of my anger!" (Not a direct quote to the series in reference, but still a clear Shout-Out).
  • The episode "Wishbones" is packed with references:
    • The demon bunny tries to run over Pud'n by driving a truck that has Optimus Prime's emblem and colour pattern. The entire sequence, including the half-burnt bunny limping out of the flames after the truck crashes, evokes the chase scene from The Terminator. The bunny's echoing voice and overlarge eyes are reminiscent of Frank from Donnie Darko.
    • Billy's fantasy is a pastiche of Jonny Quest, with Billy as Jonny, Billy's dad as Dr. Quest, and Irwin as Hadji. It then turns into the end of the opening action sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark, complete with Harold yelling for Gladys to start the plane's engine.
  • In the short "Wish Unfulfillment", when Thromnambular is revealed to be a genie, Billy asks Thromnambular to let him take a princess on a magic carpet ride and remarks that all genies dance and sing and impressions that only his dad would understand.
  • An episode revolving around Grim and Dracula driving through the desert entitled "Fear and Loathing in Endsville", complete with a title card evoking Ralph Steadman's signature style of illustration. And they parodied Johnny Cash's music with the song Like an Angry Woman, which was sung as a Running Gag throughout the episode.
  • "Son of Nergal" has the kids sent off to "winter camp" - where the axe-wielding counselor is named John Jack Daniel Torrance. The episode also bears some resemblance to The Thing (1982), as Nergal Junior slowly picks off the kids one by one, assuming their forms as he eliminates them.
  • Billy is admitted to a prestigious dancing academy, whose headmistress is actually a witch who feeds on her students to retain her immortality. This is a Whole-Plot Reference to Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977). The academy itself looks quite a lot like Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
    • The title of the episode is a spin on Billy Elliot - Billy Idiot.
  • The name "The Chocolate Sailor" is a nod to the George Bernard Shaw-inspired operetta "The Chocolate Soldier".
  • In "Ecto Cooler", Billy asks the ghost of Lord Byron for "a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range." (Lord Byron wisely steers him away). Later on, Billy coolly informs Sperg that "I'm your huckleberry."
    • The episode title is a reference to the Hi-C flavor made as a tie-in to the release of The Real Ghostbusters.
  • The episode "Hurter Monkey" alone is LOADED with them; you've got the Terminator, The Matrix, John Woo (with Disturbed Doves and Dual Wielding), Grim's Christopher Walken-esque attorney Harvey, Se7en, and Family Guy. Also Dickie at one point calls Grim Skeletor.
    Dickie: I admire your simple life, Grim...
  • More than one episode shouts out to the famous anime AKIRA, but in particular Mandy is seen riding Kaneda's Cool Bike.
  • In the episode where they went to Japan:
    • Mandy's clothes and her list made it look like she was gonna kill Billy (even the music from Ironside played).
    • The episode features parodies of Gamera, Godzilla, and Ultraman as giant monsters who battle each other.
  • All plots involving Nigel Planter are parodies of Harry Potter, and the first episode squeezes in some references to Animal House.
    • Lord Voldemort is replaced with Lord Moldybutt, and much like in the original books, saying his name brings bad fortune to the speaker.
    • The Dumbledore stand-in, Dean Toadblatt, changes voice actors later in the series and even his appearance somewhat, invoking The Other Darrin that Dumbledore underwent in the films after Richard Harris passed away and was replaced with Michael Gambon. His original actor was John Vernon spoofing his role as Dean Wormer in Animal House.
  • Their version of Pandora is based on Dora the Explorer. This exchange makes it a tad bit more blatant:
    Grim: Oh great hairs of Hasselhoff! Why didn't I realize this sooner?! I'm about to miss my favorite TV show!
    Billy: Oh! Oh no! Is it the show about the little girl that wanted to run around in the jungle without any adult supervision averting crisis and conversing with wild animals with the aid of her foreign language speaking monkey?
    Grim: That's the one, man!
  • The first time we meet Baron Von Ghoulish in the Christmas Special (voiced by Malcolm McDowell) he's humming "Singing in the Rain".
  • In "The Firebird Sweet", Grim directly references the 1939 movie Drums Along the Mohawk when the group was about to enter a factory via the sewer... then says that he was referring to the director's cut when Mandy questions the authenticity of his claim.
  • Mandy (off-camera) smells smoke after Grim and Billy accidentally torch the carpet. Mandy tells them that if she finds a scorch in the carpet that "I'm opening up a can of Powerpuff on you two." Also, in the Kids Next Door crossover, Billy answers the door, sees the Kids and says "You're not the Powerpuff Girls!" It's worth noting that The Powerpuff Girls was originally intended to target an older audience. And it was going to be called "The Whoopass Girls". Now take what Mandy said, replace "Powerpuff" with "Whoopass", and it all makes sense.
  • "Alas, poor Grim! I knew him Billy!" They get it closer to the real thing than most people, who substitute "I knew him well" for "I knew him Horatio", or some other variant.
  • Princess Morbucks was spotted in the background in the beauty pageant episode.
  • "Happy Huggy Stuffy Bears":
    • Billy urges contest-entrant Mandy on with "Big money, no Whammys!"
    • This line from Eris references the famous quote from Apocalypse Now: "I love the smell of chaos in the morning. It smells like victory."
  • "Chickenball Z" has Billy and Mandy competing against each other in a martial arts tournament, where both have glowing yellow hair and raise their power by shouting.
  • In "No Body Loves Grim", Mandy demands that they leave the beach because she's tired of, among other things, an annoying dog that won't stop biting the back of her swimsuit, a la Coppertone (thankfully, Mandy is wearing a one-piece suit).
  • In the episode "Crushed," Mandy receives a makeover a la Sandy from Grease, with a heel-crushed lollipop in place of a cigarette.
  • "Grim in Love":
  • In the episode "Smarten Up" Billy’s cat Milkshakes eats an intelligence enhancing bookworm that was meant for Billy. After Billy complains about never being able to pass a math test now that the worm is gone Milkshake states “…I'm very well acquainted with matters mathematical. I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical.” These are lyrics from the “Major-General's Song” from the 1879 opera The Pirates of Penzance.
  • In "Battle of the Bands":
    • When Sperg tells Grim to play his guitar, Grim replies, "Well, I did play that Stairway To Heaven thing in high school."
    • Billy's line "Play that funky music Grim boy" is a clear reference to the song "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry.
  • In The Stinger to "Puddle Jumping", Grim dives through Portal Pool and accidentally winds up in a sauna with some Japanese salarymen. He then reassures one of them that he's still got a few months left.
  • Part of the initiation into the Secret Snake Club involves choosing between a red cupcake and a blue one, and their oath contains the phrase "by Grabthar's hammer."
  • In the Secret Snake Club's debut episode:
  • When Mandy takes the Apple of Discord and plans to use it for herself, she goes into a dramatic speech similar to Lady Galadriel from The Lord of the Rings, even calling herself a "dark and terrible queen".
  • When the main three get into a shape-shifting fight with Eris's Apple of Discord, Grim is turned into the weird-looking creature that Daffy became in "Duck Amuck", complete with a defeated "You're despicable."
  • The little “Mandy moments” after the opening credits are full of these:
    Grim: I'm about to get supernatural on your-
    • There’s one where she makes a reference to The Shadow of all things!
      Mandy: Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
      Grim: (randomly pops up) Oh! I do! I do!
  • When Billy is asked what weapon he wants for a fantasy roleplaying adventure, he shouts "Warhammer!".
  • Nergal and his Nerglings are a shout-out to Warhammer 40,000's Chaos God of Decay, Nurgle. Nergal's words to his son about romance sound suspiciously like Nurgle's attitude toward Isha, whom he imprisoned in his lab. Both beings are the namesakes of the Sumerian deity Nergal.
  • Billy sees what looks like the shadow of a giant spider on his ceiling. He looks down to see that it is just Bubbles' stuffed octopus on top of his lamp.
  • One episode has a bunch of zombies in a plane which has Air Voorhees written on its side.
  • "Don't look at me! Don't you look at me!"
  • Grim's scythe 2.0 (from "Scythe 2.0") is an homage to Kitt from Knight Rider, complete with the scrolling red light and the voice of William Daniels.
  • After being busted for using the Lord Moldybutt suit, Toadblatt says, "And I would have gotten away with it too, if wasn't for you meddling kids and that stupid dog!" "Reap Walking" has Gladys saying the same thing after being outed as the perpetrator. Complete with appearances from the gang!
  • The Dinobonoids from "Fiend is Like Friend Without the "R"" and "Toys Will be Toys" are a parody of the Dinosaucers.
  • In "Scary Poppins", Billy's Dad goes off into a rant when he realizes that Mandy does not in fact live with them:
    "You mean to tell me that Mandy isn't our daughter? This whole time I thought she was! And what now, you say she isn't? So tell me... who does Billy belong to? How much of my life is a lie? Is our marriage fake? What about this house? My shirt? My underwear? Is this all part of some interplanetary conspiracy to make me think I'm a lowly construction worker?
  • In the episode "Brown Evil, Part 1" (which in itself is a Shout-Out to almost every zombie movie ever made), there is a moment where Billy says this as he goes to face the zombie horde:
    Billy: Alright, zombies! You wanna smell what Billy the Baker is cookin'?
  • From the go-kart episode: "Butt out, Princess Wanna-Know-Ke!"
  • "Wrath of the Spider Queen" has Grim's memory that is a clip from "Bimbo's Initiation".
  • At the end of "The Really Odd Couple", Mandy seals Billy in his closet behind a brick wall a la The Cask of Amontillado. While she's doing so, Billy mumbles something similar to Fortunado's line "For the love of God, Montresor!" behind his gag.
  • In "Reap Walking", Gladys turns on the TV to an episode of "Fister's House for Crazy, Weirdo, Made-Up People".
  • In the Codename: Kids Next Door crossover, Fred Fredburger mentions that his favourite shows are about "one about a monkey who goes to camp, one about imaginary friends, and one about an imaginary monkey friend who goes to camp."
  • In "The Greatest Love Story Ever Told", Billy's dates to the Valentine's Prom are both Parvati and Padma Patil. He's quite the Kavorka Man it would seem.
  • In "The Taking Tree", Billy says he found Waldo and Carmen Sandiego along with all the other stolen items.
  • In "Modern Primitives," a brief scene has the kids and Grim riding on a flying bike past a full moon. Billy lampshades this one, saying it reminds him of a film that always makes Grim cry.
  • The episode title, "Be A-Fred, Be Very A-Fred", is a nod to The Fly (1986): "Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid."
  • One of the names Hoss calls Irwin in Underfist is "Urkel".
  • You've got to look pretty carefully to see it, but in some shots of Billy's room throughout the series, you'll notice a figure of Robot Jones.
  • In "Recipe for Disaster", Mandy ends her big motivational speech to her Person Scout troop with, "Resistance is Futile!"
  • The titular character from "Duck!" and its habit of making people think its victims are farting is a nod to a scene from Caddyshack in which Rodney Dangerfield's character says "Who stepped on a duck?" after farting in public.
  • In "The Crawling Niceness", Billy rummages through Grim's trunk, naming things as he takes them out and throws them to the side. Among them is a dark crystal which looks exactly like the one in the movie.
  • In the show's intro, the gravestones read "Evil Con Carne", "Time Squad", and "Robot Jones" on them — all short-lived cartoons that were cancelled around the time The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy became its own show. See here.
  • "A Grim Surprise":
    • In one scene, Billy is wearing a chef's hat and giggles after Grim pokes him in the belly, just like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
    • A reference to How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is made when Grim remarks that his heart has grown two sizes larger after he's moved by Billy voicing his appreciation for helping out with the surprise party. We even see an X-ray staff being broken from Grim's swelling heart and a shot of Grim smiling like the Grinch.
  • "Prank Call Of Cthulhu":
  • Other than the reference made in the title, "Spidermandy" features a scene where Billy's parents watch a show called Everybody Loves Rain Man.
  • When Mandy orders Billy to go somewhere far far away in "Waking Nightmare", Billy asks if she means a galaxy.
  • Nigel Planter turns out to not be a wizard but the only surviving heir to a peanut conglomerate. So a company specializing in peanuts...owned by a guy named Planter...one wonders how the studio got away with this without having to pay royalties.
  • In the episode where Irwin's grandfather is revealed to be a pharaoh, he shows Irwin a Spacedoor, but almost calls it a Stargate.
  • The episode "Druid, Where's My Car?" (the title itself a shout-out to Dude, Where's My Car?) has a bit where Grim searches for his spirit animal, which happens to be a penguin. "Slide!"
  • In "Dracula Must Die!", Irwin's father mentions that he thought his own father was a navigator on a spice freighter.
  • Billy is a red-haired preteen with a name that's short for William, a speech impediment, and a fear of clowns.
  • The episode “It’s Hokey Mon!” is a blatant rip-off of the Pokémon trading card game.
  • In The Stinger for "The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name", Grim recites the entire "Twitterpated" monologue from Bambi.
  • In "A Dumb Wish" Mandy screams "STOP!!" causing the whole world to become frozen in time, which is exactly the same thing that happens in The Eyes of Kid Midas. The show even has Mandy seemingly regret her wish at first, as Kevin did, but then subverts it when she ultimately doesn't.
  • "Hey, Water You Doing?" parodies The Snorks and a few characters from a memorable undersea animated film.
  • In "Runaway Pants", Grim blissfully says "Ah, sweet dreams are made of this!" after a brief Imagine Spot where he pictures Billy's head blowing up from trying to do sit-ups too hard.
    • The episode also features narration from a Rod Serling-esque narrator who ultimately gets beaten up.
  • In "Which Came First?", Billy shouts that he's Rocky Balboa as he eats a raw mutant chicken egg.
  • In "The Bubble with Billy", Grim creates a talking gumball machine that speaks 42 languages, including the binary language of moisture vaporators and Klingon. It also imitates William Shatner's distinctive vocal cadence.
  • In "Here Thar Be Dwarves!", Billy is fleeing from a feral and starving Yogi and Boo-Boo when he stumbles into the middle of an ancient feud between elves and dwarves. The feud got its start after the the Great Council of Midwestern Earth 3,000 years ago, when the dwarves were tricked out of the cookie franchise by the elves and wound up harvesting mushrooms in the Mines of Boring-Ya. The elves are rather smug and unsubtle expies of the Keebler Elves. Meanwhile, mankind, represented in part by a clown, got the hamburger industry. The dwarves recruit Billy to infiltrate the elves' cookie factory and shut down their shield generator, which happens to look and work exactly like the Death Star's.
    • Just as the dwarves are attacking the elves, a drill sergeant voiced by R. Lee Ermey pops up and starts yelling at the viewers, evoking his iconic role as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman.
    • The dwarf king is voiced by Michael Dorn, who drops a couple of subtle references to his time on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. At one point he pronounces "human" like "hew-mon", the same way Quark often pronounced it. He also comments that the elves have an "intoxicating aroma of summer lilac", which may be a reference to Bashir and O'Brien trolling Worf about his personal aroma ("earthy and peaty, with a touch of lilac") in "Trials and Tribble-ations".

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