In the first season finale, Webby remarks that if Millionara, the Villain of the Day, "offered me an apple in the forest, I sure wouldn't eat it!", and later Millionara says, "I'm glad I only packed the bare necessities!"
In one episode, while holding a teleportation gun, Dewie says a variation of Dirty Harry's, "Make my day" quote. Definitely something for the adults in the audience.
In, "The Hindentanic" "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's that idiot McQuack!" The same episode is chock full of references to disaster films, from "Titanic," "The Hindenberg," "The Poseidon Adventure," "Meteor," and "The Swarm." An Irwin Allen stand in even shows up and comments on all the disasters showing up in his next movie.
Tale Spin: In the first episode, Baloo is seen dancing while dressed as a lady at Louie's place, just like in The Jungle Book.
Aladdin: The direct-to-video Grand FinaleAladdin and the King of Thieves had a Running Gag of Genie transforming into several other Disney characters, including the White Rabbit, Pocahontas, Pumbaa, and Mickey Mouse. In addition, while he's helping Jasmine pick a dress, one of the dresses is Snow White's, and several other princesses' and Jessica Rabbit's dresses all appear on cardboard photo-stand style cutouts.
In the original movie, he also turned into Pinocchio and pulled Sebastian out of a book.
Saleen, an evil mermaid, references Ariel: "You don't want red hair, you'll look like every other princess under the sea." Genie also turns into Ariel as a figurehead on a ship in the sequel.
Another episode of the series featured a female genie named Eden—you know, as in Barbara.
The character of Abu is based on a character of the same name in The Thief of Bagdad. The original was nota monkey but is still fairly blatantly the inspiration for Aladdin's Abu.
Hit the pause button during the scene in the original movie in which the Sultan is stacking his toys, and you'll find the Beast among them.
Hercules: Disturbingly, during the vase painting scene, Hercules is wearing Scar.
James Bond isn't the only spy\special agent Kim has nods to. Her Kimmunicator ringtone, sound familiar? Used by a certain federal agent perhaps? And one episode has her don a black stealth suit, where at the end they are picked up by boat, who just happens to be be driven by someone Kim refers to as Sam.
In the Christmas Episode, Drakken describes Kim's family celebration:
In The Great Mouse Detective, the mice come out of part of the floor moulding that looks exactly like the one the Cinderella mice use in the scene where they steal the beads.
In the toy shop, there's a clockwork toy elephant that looks like Dumbo.
WB animated shorts are notorious for including crew names on background objects such as billboards or boxes. "Friz" shows up a lot, an homage to director Friz Freleng. In the short Rocket Squad, Porky and Daffy play future cops in a parody of Dragnet, and a list of "known criminals" they use to find the bad guy includes everyone working in the animation department at that time. A more complete listing of the various inside jokes can be found here.
In Loonatics Unleashed, the bizarre cartoon about the descendents of the Looney Tunes characters operating as superheroes ...IN SPACE!, the most significant planets in the show's cosmology are Freleng (after Looney Tunes director Friz Freleng) and Blanc (after virtuoso voice artist Mel Blanc).
In the episode "Harley's Holiday" in Batman: The Animated Series Harley Quinn, upon returning to Arkham, says the line, "Home again, home again, jiggity jig." It's a reference to the scene where one of the toys says the same line when J.F. Sebastian comes home with a woman in Blade Runner.
The episode that introduces The Creeper has this exchange:
Animaniacs had a sketch titled "The Please Please Pleese [sic] Get a Life Foundation," about a treatment program for fans who took their obsessions just a bit too far. The fans' obsessive ramblings were taken directly from actual fans in the alt.tv.animaniacs newsgroup.
Ren and Stimpy did this in at least one episode, where they used quotes from real kids' fan-mail saying how great Stimpy was, and viciously tearing into Ren. ("What is he anyway, some kind of mosquito?")
And then there's the Pinky and the Brain short "Yes, Always". Maurice LaMarche has admitted that the Brain's voice was mainly inspired by Orson Welles, and he used the infamous "Frozen Peas" audio (where Welles got frustrated over the writing and directing of a commercial for which he was doing a voice-over) as a sound check. The aforementioned short centered on the Brain doing commercial voice-overs. Guess where 99% of the dialogue came from? (If you don't believe it, check out this audio synch featuring the original "Frozen Peas" audio over the short).
Pinky and the Brain has a George Lucas Shout Out. In the opening credits, part of the equations Brain writes on the chalkboard is "THX=1138".
The Freakazoid! episode "The Chip" has a couple of shout outs to one of the voice actors, Ricardo Montalban. The first is when he threatens to put "ooey gooey worms, that make you go all crazy" in the ears of Dexter and Roddy McStew. The second comes when he uses the phrase "Kirk, old friend..." before apparently realizing he was in the wrong character. Both gags come from Star Trek II.
In his second appearance, Guttierez gains powers like Freakazoid's, and is quite obviously Khan-inspired, with long white hair and rock-hard abs. Additionally, a Chekov-character appears in a TWOK era spacesuit.
In one episode, Brain and Wakko appear, after Freakazoid is called "wacko" for mowing someone's lawn. They are seen arguing over which show is Steven Speilburg's favorite. Wakko sings "Wakko's America" right after he appears!
Histeria contained several nods to previous WB cartoons:
Big Fat Baby's jingle (the one where Father Time's chasing him in the desert) is based on the theme song from The Road Runner Show.
A song introducing a sketch about Alexander the Great is sung to the tune of the Animaniacs theme, and the sketch about Florence Nightingale as a Hospital Hottie ends with the boys shouting "Hello Nurse!" In a song about the Gold Rush, Father Time can be seen watching a TV with Yakko Warner on it. Also, the World's Oldest Woman's jingle is sung to the tune of Slappy Squirrel's theme, and Froggo's regular outfit is much like that of Wakko Warner (except that he actually wears pants).
The Pinky and the Brain theme music can be heard when Chit Chatterson mentions brain removal in a sketch about mummification, as well as part of the background music for the introduction to Nikola Tesla's later life.
Superman made three cameos himself, including one as William Clark.
Fetch bares a bit of resemblance to Hunter from Road Rovers.
Later in "X", we see a set of diagrams listing all of Beast Boy's crazy theories over who is Red X now, one of them is a "Jason Todd", one of the lesser-loved Robins in the Batman comic book series.
Also, in "Mother Mae-Eye", Gizmo gets a transformation sequence, using transformation sounds similar, if not identical, to the Transformers series.
In "How Long Is Forever?" future Beast Boy is kept in a cage and advertised as "The Amazing One-Man Zoo". The designs of the two guys◊ jeering at him are eerily close to those of the Mutant Gang in The Dark Knight Returns. They looked like younger versions of a few background characters from Batman Beyond, so it's either a shout out to this show, or both series referenced DKR.
"Bunny Raven... or... How to Make a Titanimal Disappear" seems to be one long shout-out to The Muppet Show.
And how about the time Beast Boy, trying to assemble a dismantled Cyborg, turns him into Giant Robo and goes as far as transforming himself into said robot's pilot ?
Although lots of shows poked fun at older video games of their respective eras, Tiny Toon Adventures brought out the hilariously direct Super Plucky-o Bros, featuring a side-scrolling landscape that all but matched the original game's colors and patterns, and sounds lifted straight from Super Mario Bros. 1 and 2.
The Parody EpisodeA Quack in the Quarks is one big shout out to Star Wars. "Duck Vader" is the Big Bad, and Buster ends up dressed like Han Solo, while Babs has her ears curled like Leia, and Plucky is dressed like Luke. It's not just Star Wars, though — if you look closely at the loading bay, you can see the TARDIS!
X-Men: Evolution's camping episode had some bigfoot hunters mistake Beast for Bigfoot; when one is using a 'bigfoot whistle' he gets asked where to find it. His reply? Go to some bigfoot store & 'Ask for Maulder' just as The X-Files theme plays.
Also another 2 episodes had Kitty sleeping, no not like that you perverts, with a stuffed, supposedly purple, dragon, Not that Dragon, but a reference to Lockheed, Kitty's pet dragon from the comics & Ensemble Darkhorse.
In Superman: Doomsday, there's a scene of Superman ( actually his clone) fighting Toyman's giant mechanical spider. This was a shot at how movie producer Jon Peters wanted a giant spider in Superman Lives, written by Kevin Smith. Smith even voices a citizen in Doomsday that remarks, "Like we needed him to take care of a giant spider."
Sentinel Prime, voiced by Townsend Coleman, more famous for being the voice of The Tick. Sentinel Prime himself greatly resembles the character, being mainly blue, with a humongous chin and a head shaped like The Tick's mask. He even has a similar personality.
Wreck Gar, voiced by "Weird Al" Yankovic, proudly exclaims that he "Dares to be Stupid!", referencing the use of that Weird Al song in the animated movie. The "Universal Greeting" from the movie also gets a reference (utterly at random, but appreciated nonetheless). And yes, Wreck Gar is very, very stupid. The design of Wreck Gar's head is based on the rather brickish G1 toy's design.
The Cool Shades worn by Prowl and Soundwave are a reference to the ones worn by the ABC Warriors of 2000 AD fame. (Although they also resemble those worn by Kamina, that's just a happy coincidence.)
Starscream's elaborate transformation in the season one finale harkens back to the stock footage transformations used in Transformers Armada and its sequels — although the Twinkle Smile smirk at the end just takes it on to parody. It does, however, bear exceptional resemblance to Gasket/Ransack's transformation from Galaxy Force/Cybertron. And Ransack's partner in crime, Crumplezone, probably wonders why Animated Bulkhead has his jaw. Furthermore, during Starscream's stock-footage transformation, he very obviously enters a state where most of him is still in jet mode, but his robot mode legs are folded below the jet. This "jet-with-legs" mode is a reference to the "GERWALK modes" that can sometimes be formed from Transformers with jet alt-modes. The term originally comes from Macross by way of the G1 Jetfire toy, (rather infamously) a recolored Macross Valkyrie, and has since been used in the fandom to describe similar "walking jet" unofficial modes.
In one of the shorts on the Season 1 DVD, one of Prime's fans asks him where his trailer goes when he transforms — a common question asked among fans of the original Optimus Prime. Optimus is confused, probably because he doesn't actually have a trailer. One of the kids kept trying to get him to turn into a fire truck. An actual episode would go on to have Blitzwing (while in crazy mode) say "Ooh, ooh, I wanna see him turn into a fire truck!"
Lately, Beast Wars references are all the rage: at the end of the episode that sees Wasp become Waspinator, he and Blackarachnia are teleported to a jungle, where a gorilla, a cheetah, a rhino, and a rat are standing over them, references to Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Rhinox, and Rattrap, the original four Maximals. Blackarachnia sees them, and says "You've got to be kidding." Also, a few episodes back, there was Tigatron Stadium. And earlier, during Sari's birthday party, the kids are hitting a piñata in the shape of a very familiar purple Tyrannosaurus. (You may also add the very existence of Waspy, Blackarachnia, and the more recently-introed Jetstorm, but that just comes with the TF franchise's oft-rebootedness.) Waspy is often showing parallels to the original, but being a darker and more tragic character than Beast Wars' resident Chew Toy, it's always got a sinister twist to it. "Waspinator has plans," indeed...
A sign that's a homage to the Sinclair Oil logo has a dinosaur that looks a lot like the Generation One Dinobot Sludge (who doesn't have a TFA incarnation).
There's also some self-reference lately: Bulkhead points out his susceptibility to the Worf Effect once. "I'll keep him distracted! He always shoots at me first." [Charges in, gets blasted all the way down the street by Blitzwing, flips over, and a pebble bounces off his head] "Called it."
Each member of Starscream's clone army has the color scheme of one of the Starscream-repaint Seekers from Generation 1.
The head writers involved in Transformers: Beast Wars were very active in the online fandom. As a result, these cropped up all the time, often in the form of locations. Subsector Hooks and Grid Joona, for example, are named after fans who posted on the alt.toys.transformers usenet group at the time.
At one point a concussed Waspinator refers to himself as "Wonko the Sane". While this was originally a name of a minor character in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, the specific reference was evidently to another Beast Wars fan who used this name as an online alias. That fan, Benson Yee, went on to be recruited as a continuity consultant for the second season finale. The Beast Wars crew recognized the value of the fandom.
What may have been a very subtle Shout Out was Cheetor's weapon sound effect. It sounded just like Mega Man's from the cartoon. Both were voiced by Ian Corlett.
Rattrap and Optimus' dialog about the Ark, how "that ship wasn't built, it was poured" and "die-cast metal, its a lost art" are both about how the original Gen1 Transformer toys (well, the better, larger ones) all had die-cast parts for at least half the body.
In one of the Beast Wars comics, Megatron is threatened by someone claiming to be his greatest enemy, leading Megatron to ask if she's "Raksha". Raksha was the screenname of a well-known (and rather out there) Decepticon fan who absolutely loathed Beast Wars.
One from the TF Wiki: a toy for Polar Claw is described as transforming into an "agnostic killing machine".
Are we forgetting Megatron's first appearing to Optimus after he gets his new dragon body? "Enter the Dragon!"
The TF Wiki itself for that matter contains several shout-outs, mainly in the photo captions.
"Wait, look, down in the sky.. is it a bird?" "May be a plane?" "Naah, it's OPTIMUS!"
Others
Hey Arnold! often features crew members' names as store names and product names.
Mako, one of the main characters, is a reference to Mako, Iroh's late original voice actor. Doubles as a real-life Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
Many of the structures in Republic City are shout-outs to easily recognizable real life architecture, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, the statues in the harbors of Hong Kong, Alcatraz, and the Empire State Building. The city itself also bears a great resemblance to 1920s-era Shanghai and is similar in setting to many classic kung-fu action movies.
Chowder features several video game references, such as Chowder exclaiming: "I was promised cake! The cake was a lie!"
"Mr. Fugu" features an anthropomorphic cat character who shares an identical character design to the felines from Cat Soup. (It freaks Mung and Schnitzel out.)
In The Heist after Mung tastes a Sugar Saphire, his head transforms into Bubbles and proclaims in her voice, "Wow, that's sweet!" There was even a part of the theme song playing in the background.
In "Weekend at Schnitzel's", there's a fight scene which takes cues from Street Fighter. There's an obvious Hurricane Kick, Shoryuken, Hadoken, and a Flash Kick, and when one of the two combatants is knocked down, it declares Get 'er Done!
The ending of "Grubble Gum" was Katamari Damacy, complete with music reminiscent of the game.
It's safe to say that one of the writers is VERY One of Us.
"Nugget": There is a placard for "Mr. Warburton's Flim Flam Elixir"◊ in the background. It is a reference to the series creator Tom Warburton (who on this show is always credited as just "Mr. Warburton").
And lets not forget the episode "Operation Archive", which plays out almost scene-for-scene like a family-friendly version of "The Second Renaissance".
The main antagonists, The Delightful Children From Down the Lane, seem to be based on the antagonists in co-creator Mo Willem's 1996 KaBlam!!, sketch, The Off-Beats, known as "The Populars".
The Delightful Children are turned into sheep in one episode. The middle one resembles Sheep from Sheep in the Big City. Also, in "T.H.E.-F.L.Y.", one of the stuffed animals shown in Numbuh 3's room is Sheep.
Operation: H.O.M.E gives us the origins of Rainbow Monkey Cereal. "IT'S MADE FROM PEOPLE RAINBOW MONKEYS!"
Numbuh Four's version of Op. R.E.P.O.R.T. is a huge one to Dragon Ball. At one point he blows a chewing gum bubble into his hands to make what looks like a Chewing Gum Kamehameha. Operation R.E.P.O.R.T. does five parodies in one episode.
Father appears to be based off of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs.
In Op. E.N.G.L.A.N.D., one of the British KND operatives actually one of the Rowdy Hooligans from Across the Square repeatedly says to Numbuh One "Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more, say-no-more!"
The Tommy's costume (wide-brimmed hat, mask and cape), hammy poses and catch phrase ("I am The Tommy!") reminds of another animated superhero. Probably also a shout out to The Shadow.
Operation P.L.A.N.E.T. feautures a planet of rainbow monkeys similar to the first Planetofthe Apes.
Invader Zim, created by the famously disturbing Jhonen Vasquez, contained various shout-outs to Vasquez's other works.
Mrs. Bitters, who is exactly the same in both appearance and personality as the unnamed teacher in Squee!.
Tak wears the same boots that Johnny the Homicidal Maniac does. And a demonic version of Johnny himself appears in "The Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom".
A scene where Dib was trying to infiltrate a warehouse, disturbing Kuronekosama in the process.
According to the commentary in the episode "Hamstergeddon", when Ultra-Peepi is running toward the giant hotdog, is a Shout Out to Neon Genesis Evangelion.
The begining of of an episode with Dib talking to a hobo at McMeaties looked similar to Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.
Subverted in "Bestest Friends", as shown by the commentary. To paraphrase Jhonen: "Some people ask, 'Was the whole eye thing supposed to be an homage to the animated short The Sandman?' I like that short, but... Nope! I made it up."
In the episode "Planet Jackers" the two aliens who are taking away Earth in order to use it as fuel for their sun have a conversation that is similar to one that the two kidnappers in Fargo have. Their personalities are even similar. When Zim goes to ask Dib to borrow his telescope, for his has broken, GIR squishes his head a la Kids in the Hall. Kids member Kevin McDonald plays Almighty Tallest Purple on the show.
This became a running gag in the episode commentary, with almost every other comment later on being "Jhonen, was this your oh-mahg to...?"
In the series premiere, there are a great many gargoyles shown, in reference to director Greg Weisman's series of the same name, also set in New York. And when Mysterio lets loose little gargoyle-ish imps to harass Spider-Man, JJ Jameson loves it and says they should have their own show.
In the Title Sequence, one of the "photos" of Spider-Man is a tribute to the cover of Amazing Fantasy #15, his debut issue.
Musical leitmotifs from the 1960s and 1990s series can be heard in the background music.
In the second season episode, "First Steps," Sandman is stealing the "Urn of Morpheus" from a museum for Hammerhead.
In the fourth episode of the 1st season, Spider-Man comments to the Shocker/Montana "I mock. I'm a mocker." The Mocker was a comic by Spider-Man creator Steve Ditko.
A fair few to The Powerpuff Girls, both being made by Craig McCracken, as well as to many, many other pop culture phenomena, too many to list.
The founder of their town is Elwood J. Dowd, who was the one who saw Harvey, an "Imaginary Friend".
2 of the biggest Shout Outs to Video Games in Western Animation history: A chase scene in the pilot episode resembles the game Pac-Man to high degrees (which was easy, since Bloo looks just like one of the ghosts from this game). Later, in Destination Imagination, there's a longer scene that looks exactly like an NES Super Mario Bros. game, complete with Mac growing upon eating a... not mushroom, but pumpkin. The only real differences are said pumpkin and the appearances of some enemies. Oh, and there also was a game called Immortal Wombat in another episode.
Another shout out to Super Mario Bros. occurs during a chase scene, where a Sheet of Glass is being carried by two guys who are clearly Mario and Luigi.
Douglas and Adam, the guys who studied Coco. Adam even had a '42' sweater! And in another episode, Bloo played a video game featuring a character called "Lord Beeblebrox".
There's a scene in "Bus the Two of Us" which has a hitchhiker wearing a bathrobe holding a sign that says "Magrathea." In the same episode, there is a Star Wars shout out when Mac throws money for a toll out the window and misses to which Bloo responds "Negative. It only impacted on the surface."
In a halloween episode, Bloo turns white (he's sick) and everyone believes that he's a ghost. Coco picks up a phone.
Wilt: Nah, they've been out of business for years.
"Bloo's Brothers" had lots of children imagine clones of Bloo, although each one looked/sounded/acted slightly different than him. In a rapid montage of the clones, one appeared◊ that was very similar to Homestar Runner
In one episode, spoiled brat Princess donned a super suit and proclaimed herself to be a Powerpuff Girl. The fight sequence had several blatant nods to Dragon Ball Z. At one point, Princess fires a laser which Blossom dodges by just tilting her head slightly — a famous scene had Goku do that to Frieza (an earlier DBZ episode, during the training period before the arrival of Nappa and Vegeta, had Piccolo do the same thing while sparring with a clone of himself). It also contained a shout out to the Marvel comic book strategem "Fastball Special" (where Colossus would grab Wolverine and throw him to attack an enemy).
An episode has the Professor running into a pirate named Crack McGreggen.
When the girls are kidnapped by a crazy fan, the mayor suspects the perpetrator may be Genndy McCracken - this is a combination of Craig McCracken, the creator of the show, and Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter's Laboratory, who McCracken worked for.
There were two shout-outs to The Big Lebowski. In the episode where Princess becomes mayor and "legalises" crime, the Professor refers to a rug being stolen as "tying the room together". In the episode where Sedusa impersonates Ms. Bellum, and pretends to kidnap herself, the scene where the Mayor tells the girls about the kidnapping is almost exactly like the scene where Jeffrey Lebowski tells the Dude about Bunny's kidnapping.
Futurama had the Harlem Globetrotter planet, which was an extended shout-out to the old Hanna-BarberaHarlem Globetrotters cartoon series.
As well as the Globetrotters themselves.
In Beast with a Billion Backs, when Bender assaults Yivo, the scene resembles a certain savvy pirate meeting a kraken with his sword.
Bender's guess about the nature of the god-like entity in "Godfellas", "the remains of a space probe that collided with God", is also a fairly accurate description of V'ger in Star Trek.
The episode A Bicyclops Built for Two contains several Shout Outs to Married... with Children, the show actress Katey Sagal (who voices Leela) was best known for before her work on Futurama. At one point, Leela does her hair up like Peggy Bundy, dresses like her, walks like her, and exchanges cheap dirty insults with her husband-to-be, an alien named Alkazar.
Turanga Leela: Aaaaaaaaal!
Two shout-outs to Star Trek in the episode Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love: The Decapodian tradition of dueling to the death is named Claw-plah (after the Klingon word for victory, Qapla'), and their national anthem is the dueling music often featured in similar deathmatches fought in the Original Series.
Another Star Trek shout-out that has already been used twice is the reference to Christopher Pike, former captain of the Enterprise, and particularly his wheelchair. The chair appears first in the episode "Love's Labours Lost in Space". Pike himself appears in the chair at Professor Farnsworth's 150's birthday in "A Clone of My Own". In both cases either the chair or pike's disfigured visage are subverted. The sliding doors used all throughout the show have the same sound effect from the ones in Star Trek, which is commented on by Fry in the first episode. He later gets stuck in the door too.
Even before Bender's Game, there were numerous shout outs to Dungeons & Dragons in the series, ranging from the obvious (Gary Gygax showing up in "Anthology of Interest") to the subtle (ranging from a rust monster at a veterinary hospital to a beholder in "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back").
Courage the Cowardly Dog features several products labeled "Dil", such as the Dilvac vacuum cleaner. All of them are named after the show's creator, John R. Dilworth. There is also a caricature of Mr. Dilworth hanging up in Courage's house.
And a far more disturbing one in the form of Muriel's cousin, "freaky barber" Fred, who is likely a reference to Sweeney Todd. Fred himself is mostly harmless and a bit amusing, but recognizing the source material still makes it a bit creepy.
The entire episode with the demon mattress was one to The Exorcist.
Upchuck, the Extreme Omnivore alien, is a Gourmand from the planet Peptos. Matter-Eater Lad, the Legion of Super-Heroes member with the same power, comes from the planet Bismoll.
One episode, albeit only in a deleted scene on the DVD, has Meg say that she "feels like that retarded Osakan girl". She refers to Ayumu "Osaka" Kasuga of Azumanga Daioh.
In one episode of Monster Buster Club, Cathy is sent to detention, and it's specifically mentioned that it will be in Room 101.
Two-dimensional art in the series, such as on posters, is generally rendered in the Animesque style used for fellow Marathon series Martin Mystery and Totally Spies!.
Speaking of Totally Spies!, the villain from the first season finale (and second season premiere) has a last name of Lumiere, and is a filmmaker. The Lumiere brothers were pioneers of French cinema.
One episode famously focuses on Jack's adventure with an obvious Totoro send-up. Later, Jack completely loses his memory because of Destiny's Child. Another episode has Jack fighting over a time traveling jewel with a palette-swappedDaisuke Jigen.
In the episode with the flatulent dragon. Jack gets directions from an eccentric scissor-smith, who tells him to turn left at a fork in the road to get to the dragon's lair. When Jack asks, "Where does the other path lead?" the scissor-smith replies, "Space Ace!"
Nearly any given SJ ep is going to have shout-outs. One ep had him encountering Quickdraw McGraw and Babalooie, as he's pursued by Old-West themed bounty hunters. In one where he fights an evil witch, she is voiced by BJ Ward, the VA for both Princess Allura and Witch Haggar on Voltron and is drawn like an SJ version of Haggar. She is even called The Hag.
Lest we forget about the episode "Jack's Sandals." Upbeat techno music? High-speed sneakers? Blurring by anything on feet or wheels? Sounds like a certain blue-quilled speedster we all know and love.
The Boondocks has numerous Shout Outs to anime and manga, even in the opening credits of the first season, which are similar to the opening credits of Samurai Champloo. Jin also makes a brief cameo appearance. Another big Shout Out is to Fist of the North Star at the very end of "Soul Plane 2: The Blackjacking", when Huey and Ruckus leap at each other, their outstretched legs crossing in midair. It's a reference to the first attacks Shin and Kenshiro make against each other when they finally fight.
When stranded on an alien planet and looking for transport, the turtles find Captain Ersatzes of Han and Chewie. They conclude, "We can do better."
In the previous episode, Michaelangelo says, "Not today, Chung Lee." A triple entendre in that he references not only Wang Chung and Bruce Lee, but Street Fighter Chun Li.
In a fight, Donatello realizes, "A bo staff? And a bunch of guys who all look the same? Time to try one of my favorite movie stunts!" He spins around his staff Ă la Burly Brawl, but it doesn't work. Raphael (I think) reminds Donny that "This ain't the movies."
A recent episode has Donatello find wayward computer data in the systems of a Texas paper factory — likely a Shout Out to Heroes, where The Company uses a paper factory in Texas as a front. Makes you wonder what other kind of data he'd find there if he looked...
The episode "Reality Check" takes place In a World where the Turtles are super-powered heroes. The "Shell of Justice" is a shout-out to the Hall of Justice from Superfriends, and "Shelletron-1000" probably references the Autobots computer in Transformers Generation 1, Teletron-1. An early episode has similar shout-outs, where Mikey's fantasies of the Turtles as superheroes get mocked as "the Ninja-stice League", "the Shelltastic Four", and "the Legion of Sewer-Heroes".
There are massive amounts of shout-outs in The Simpsons
In the Treehouse of Horror segment, "Dial Z for Zombies", Bart attempts to revive Snowball I with black magic and he is wearing a Michael Jackson album cover as a hat. In a segment about Zombies. Put two and two together.
Simpsons writer Don Payne is apparently a fan of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, as two episodes written by him contain references to it. In "The Wandering Juvie", one of Cletus the Slackjawed Yokel's disturbing wood carvings is Psycho-Doughboy. "Thank God It's Doomsday" has an obvious shout-out to the infamous head-explody scene from issue 6.
In the episode where the fortune teller shows Lisa her "true love", the sound made when her future fiancee speaks into his watch is the same as the communicator beep from Star Trek.
Reoccurring villain "Sideshow Bob" Terwilliger got his last name from the eponymous madman in The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr. T
Some of the dialogue said during Homer's hot-pepper-induced acid trip in "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer" is meant to be nonsensical, but hidden in all the gibberish are references to The Beatles ("goo goo g'joob?") and The Ramones ("gabba gabba hey!").
One episode had a gag involving a Swear Jar. It seems Francine keeps a separate labeled jar for each swear, and the one that was the fullest was labeled "Moist".
The Fairly OddParents has at least two episodes completely dedicated to Shout Outs, one is the Trapped in TV Land TV Movie Channel Chasers, the other one is the first episode including Timmy's grandfather, which has a Captain Planet and the Planeteers reference early in the story (called "Captain Green and the Ecoteens") and goes on to become a complete parody of old monochrome cartoons, especially the first Mickey Mouse shorts and Popeye.
In "Mr. Right!", Timmy wishes that everything he says is correct. Including, at one point, "2+ 2=5".
In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Divided we Fall," Green Arrow dissuades Superman from disbanding the Justice League, and gets ready to ride off into the sunset. Just before he does, Batman stops him, saying "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" To which, GA translates as "Who guards the guardians?" Most comic fans know what they're really talking about, though.
The Venture Bros. is chock full of shout outs from a myriad of sources. Comics, movies, music, television, pulp fiction and real life all contribute to the VB mythos. The most obvious references are from Jonny Quest, from the technology ("Walking eye...") to appearances Race Bannon, Hadji and a drugged-out adult Jonny.
There are many shout outs in Arthur. Some of the ones I can think of are the shout outs to Chopin's Revolutionary etude, Invention 8 by J.S Bach, Child's Play — the movies, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Stellaluna, Jeopardy, James Bond, The Adventures of Tintin, Alice in Wonderland, Law and Order, Mondarin, Monty Python. This is still only about 4-5% of the shout outs from Arthur.
There's an obvious nod in the episode "Lucky in Love" to Gone with the Wind. The Once an Episode title card was a parody of the famous movie poster of Rhett holding Scarlett in front of the burning city of Atlanta.
Nathan also references several Cannibal Corpse songs by name in the first episode (Every Bone Broken, Rotted Body Landslide and Hammer Smashed Face). Project Falconback is a reference to Falkenbach.
Several times, a Totoro plush toy can be seen in Yumi's bedroom.
At the end of episode "Vertigo", Odd comments that he would love to turn invisible, like Susan of the Fantastic Four. This is quite a direct shout-out since French animation company MoonScoop also produced Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes.
In episode "The Secret", the demolition worker controlled by XANA distinctly looks like Mario. William even calls him a "super-plumber".
In the What's New, Scooby-Doo? episode that tells an origin for the Mystery Machine, the unmasked villain is Susan Dimwittie, the obsessive stage mother for the bro-sis band The Mystery Kids, the MM's previous owners. Voiced by Kathy Soucie, she is drawn like and voiced to sound like the animated version of The Partridge Family's Shirley Partridge as voiced by Joan Gerber on The Partridge Family 2200 AD, aka The Partridge Family In Outer Space. Shirley Jones never voiced her animated counterpart.
Scooby-Doo Where Are You? episode "Decoy for a Dognapper" (October 11, 1969). While in a swarm of bats, Shaggy dances around and calls it a "Batusi dance". This is a reference to the "Batusi" dance in the Batman episode "Hi Diddle Riddle" (January 11, 1966).
In A Scooby Doo Halloween, one of the guests at the masquerade is badly dressed up as Hong Kong Phooey.
Hanna-Barbera's The Adventures of Gulliver episode "The Dark Sleep". The witch Malagar was inspired by the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
She lives in a huge forbidding castle.
After she captures Gulliver, she holds up an hourglass and says "You have until the sand runs out, young Gulliver. Then, if you do not give up the map, I shall deal with you in my own fashion".
At one point she says "All in good time", a line spoken by the WWotW in the movie.
Johnny Bravo has few episodes starting and ending with narrator announcing that Johnny is now "in the zone, where normal things doesn’t happen very often."
2 Stupid Dogs once had a really weird episode where they were trained in using cartoon-violence. When they were asked to show some, very first thing they thought was to imitate The Little Mermaid.
One episode of Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders opened with a bored fairy lamenting that her town was "boring" while her pet tried to talk her out of it. It was almost line-by-line taken from one of the best Adventures Of The Galaxy Rangers episodes. Turns out that it was the same voice actress, and Jewel Riders used most of the same writers and staff as Galaxy Rangers!
Super Friends (1973) episode "Dr. Pelagian's War". Dr. Pelagian's submarine the Sprite looks very similar to the submarine U.S.S. Seaview in the film and TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
The Generator Rex episode "Breach" has Rex telling Holiday he was fighting a little girl, and she wasn't "made of sugar and spice!"
The entire episode (or at least Rex's segment) seemed to reference Silent Hill, foggy town filled with monsters, a creepy school, and the possibility of Alternate Dimensions being involved, not helped by some of the questions about Breach's psyche.
George's aunt(?) in George Shrinks tends to respond to shocks with "What in the name of (Insert Groucho Marx Character Here)..." - this has included such luminaries as Hugo Z. Hackenbush, Jeffrey Spaulding, and Rufus T. Firefly.
The Critic is chock-full of them. (These are originally located on the show's own work page.)
In the episode "Frankie and Ellie Get Lost," Franklin behaving like Curly after drinking spiked punch (also resulting in him being the show's Cloud Cuckoolander), and has Albert Einstein acting like Larry and Ted Kennedy acting like Moe.
Alice's sister Miranda used venetian blinds for her ball gown, a reference to the famous Gone with the Wind spoof from The Carol Burnett Show.
In the season 1 episode "A Little Deb Will Do Ya," Jay is about to do the deed with a woman he met at his sister Margo's debutante ball, but the woman admits to having a "terrible" secret below her waist. She's wearing the bottom half of the Humphrey the Hippo costume, also revealing to be his TV-ratings rival.
A reviewer's face melting off and reducing him to a skeleton (after Roger Ebert shows him a clip of a bad movie) is a reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark.
On the Young Justice episode, "Terror", Superboy and Miss Martian go undercover as a pair of superpowered twins called Tommy and Tuppence, referencing the Spy Couple created by Agatha Christie.
While not as Shout Out-y as the current series, the original My Little Pony did have a few. For instance, on one occasion the Moochick and his rabbit assistant Habbit are seen playing three-dimensional chess. Amusingly, Habbit is winning.
X-Men: Evolution was not shy about this, but here are two specific examples:
One episode has Beast take the students on a nature retreat, where it just so happens there are people looking for Bigfoot. They spot Beast, think it's the mythical...um, beast, and one of the ways they try and find him is to break out these Bigfoot callers. One of the searchers asks where to get one.
The Bigfoot trading post on route ten. Ask for Muldur.
If you're not a fan of The X-Files and didn't get the reference then a remix of the show's theme will play for a moment.
On another holiday, this time on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, Bobby is goofing off using his ice powers. His trump card is to make an iceberg in front of the ship, jumps right on the stern, and shouts "I'm king of the..."
