Shout Out / The New Adventures of Invader Zim

The New Adventures of Invader Zim

Season 1

• Norlock is described by Word of God as being directly based on a Black Court vampire.
  • His first appearance contains references to Dracula, The Twilight Saga, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• During a rant in the first chapter, Zim says he's going to turn Dib into a bug, mail him to himself, and crush him.
• GIR at one point jumps on Zim's back while yelling "Hi ho Silver!"
• Zim's Computer's ID number is THX 1138.
• Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is the skool janitor. Which is itself a reference to Invader Zim: The Series.
• There are repeated use of jokes from Family Guy.
• Episode 4 is called "GIR and Phil's Excellent Adventure".
  • That chapter also has a joke based on one from Ed, Edd n Eddy.
  GIR: If you do [eat MIMI], her mistress will get mad and tell Master, and Master will tell Mr. Vampire, and Mr. Vampire will say 'not now, I just got home from work'!
  • One of MIMI's hallucinations is of a pair of meat children asking her to "come and play with us, forever and ever."
  • GIR at one point quotes "Rocket Man".
• Tak's giant rat monster is Experiment 24601.
• Dib compares the booby traps in the Swollen Eyeball Network library to Indiana Jones.
• The GEICO catchphrase briefly pops up while GIR is channel surfing at one point.
• When Zim and Skoodge are exposed to the Children of the Bright and Shining Saucer, a panicked Skoodge randomly blurts out "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"
• Viera at one point uses the Riddikulus spell on Gaz.
  • In the same chapter, Gaz at one points play a game called Super Slash Siblings.
• Episode 9's gag that Gaz's nightmare is a cheerfully happy dream is based on a similar one from an episode of The Life and Times of Juniper Lee.
  • Viera's dream in the same chapter is heavily based on the Adam West Batman show.
  • GIR's dream includes the "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" meme, as well as a cameo by several electric sheep.
• The rogue Meekrob who created Project Domination is named Ch'rell, the true name of the Utrom Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003).
• Episode 12 includes an exchange paraphrased from Vampire in Brooklyn:
  Nny: Let me guess — the fastest way to someone's heart is through the stomach, right?
  Norlock: Actually it's through the ribcage, but that can be messy.
  • There's another one in the following chapter, when Bill tries to stake Norlock and gets the wrong target:
  "That's my stomach. This is my heart. You should know the rules."
• Episode 13 has Bill paraphrase Hoss Delgado's claim that he's fought eight foot tall zombie elves, and the justification on their height by saying that "it was a leap year".
  • Later, he throws a piece of cheese at Norlock, thinking that the color yellow will weaken him. Norlock specifically tells him that he's thinking of the Green Lantern.
• Episode 14 is titled "Tenn Meets World".
• In Episode 15, when they first see the sea hydra, Steve comments that "we're going to need a bigger net."
  • And the hydra is finally defeated by causing it to regenerate so many heads it can't get enough blood flow to properly supply oxygen to its brains, causing it to collapse — a move taken straight out of The Order of the Stick.
• Episode 16:
  • The ceremonial robe Norlock wears for his monster-summoning ritual is Time Lord-inspired. And the debate over whether or not it counts as a dress is lifted straight from Jackie Chan Adventures.
  • GIR does a Michael Jackson's Thriller Parody at one point.
  • In the story Norlock tells Zim, he calls the gladiators Maximus and Commodus.
  • When the monsters attack Tak's base, a troll headbutts the base's walls, knocking itself out but creating an opening. This is a direct reference to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.
• At one point in Episode 18, while Gaz is beating up the members of SMOG, one uses a walkie-talkie to issue the warning "Liberate tutemate ex inferis."
  • The video games Iggins and Gaz play are a long series of shout outs/parodies:
    • Super Plumber Bros.
    • Bloaty Kong
    • Residence Evil
    • Mess Effect
    • Quiet Mountain
    • Five Nights at Bloaty's
    • Capsule Creatures
  • Gaz's motto "play smarter, not harder" is similar to Scrooge McDuck's motto, which is "work smarter, not harder".
• In Episode 19, when Team Save Earth and the two Irken factions are about to have a Combat by Champion for the Meekrob crystal, the Hobo King declares "Two men enter, one man leaves!".
  • One of Tak's alien swear words during the race to the doomsday weapon is "Blitznak".

Season 2

• The first chapter is titled "New Doom, Same as the Old Doom", which is an obvious parody of the famous lyrics from "Meet The New Boss".
• Nyx's ability to dislocate her shoulder at will is based on Riggs' skill in the Lethal Weapon movies.
  • Also, her plasma minigun is called "My Little Friend".
• Viera refers to Ying's Battle Mode as The Iron Giant.
• The way the Miz followers wear copies of his costume as disguises to carry out their acts of rebellion is similar to V for Vendetta.
• The cover story Zim sets up for Nyx is that she's returning from an exchange program in Tibecuador.
• Ma'lack, one of the bounty hunters that comes after Dib in Episode 3, is stated to be a Garatron, a minor alien species from one of the later Animorphs books.
  • Later in that chapter, Havok cuts communications with Grissom, stating "Boring conversation anyway."
• Dwicky having taken a level in badass while living in space is taken from Becoming a True Invader.
• At one point while discussing his grand conspiracy theory, Bill slightly paraphrases one of The Question's most famous lines, regarding how the plastic tips at the end of shoelaces are "called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister."
• The exchange between Tenn and Slab Rankle about the enslavement of the rat people is paraphrased from an episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius regarding the legality of one of Jimmy's experiments.
  Tenn: Is that legal?
  Slab: In some states. Depends on how you define 'legal'.
• While freeing the enslaved rat people, Nyx yells "Freedom!" while half her face is covered in blue paint.
• At one point in Episode 5, Zim's Monster Clown breaks open a door with an axe and shouts "Here's Johnny!".
• In Episode 6, Jayd is shown to be a fan of Green Lantern, while Dite says she prefers more Anti-Hero stuff like Watchmen or The Punisher (but specifically doesn't like Dawn of Justice).
• In Episode 7, Ying uses "I'd like to test that theory" as Pre-Asskicking One-Liner when going up against Anti-Steve.
  • Anti-Zim's contribution to getting everyone back to their own universe is a device which reverses the polarity of the neutron flow.
• At one point in Episode 8, Nyx tosses a couple of people off of a balcony into a fountain, then admits she didn't know the fountain was there.
  • During the fight with the gangster clowns, Gaz makes references to Bozo and Pennywise.
• The Fan Convention in Episode 9 contains parodies of Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, and Evil Dead.
• Shloonktapooxis describes a the readout of a screen warning of a missile approaching the Resisty's ship as "a red thingy and a green thingy".
• The appearance of the Dreadnut is based on the Blade Ship.
• Episode 12's Trapped in TV Land plot has numerous film/TV parodies, but the only specific ones are Flag Day, a parody of Friday the 13th, and a mention of Oklahoma Power Saw Slaughter, which is based on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
  • Tak and Tenn flatly revealing that Zim's team was carrying out their new plan within eyesight of the former's base is based on a similar exchange from an episode of Teen Titans (2003) involving a plot by Doctor Light.
  • When listing the things that he'd prefer the Children of the Bright and Shining Saucer worship instead of him, Zim mentions a rock shaped like a face.
  • After returning to the real world with GIR apparently trapped in the interdimensional void forever, the portal opens one more time with GIR shooting out, claiming the other entities in the void didn't want him. This is similar to an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, when Billy said the same thing after being kicked out by Yog-Sothoth.
• Episode 13:
  • Whenever one of the characters starts fighting back against their nightmares, the figures in the nightmare point and shriek at them.
  • The Nightmare Weaver turning out to be very tiny is a reference to a similar fear demon in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Mature Edition

• The first story involves Gaz and Viera being caught up in a misfired magic spell which teleports them to the woods naked and tied to each other, like the "Sans-A-Pelt" episode of The Angry Beavers.
  • At another point in that story, a ghost causes the house it haunts to collapse in on itself, like the climax of Poltergeist.