History CelebrityParadox / WesternAnimation

** In "The Day Violence Died", Roger Meyers, Jr. goes on a long tirade about plagiarism in animation, mentioning among other examples that Chief Wiggum is copied from Creator/EdwardGRobinson. Wiggum is present in the [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall same scene]] and [[TomatoInTheMirror understandably confused]]. Later, in "Treehouse of Horror XIX", Edward G. Robinson's ghost accusses Wiggum of ripping him off (both Robinson and Wiggum are voiced by Creator/HankAzaria, of course).

* In ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn2019'', Catwoman takes Creator/TimBurton as her date to Poison Ivy and Kite Man's wedding. Burton directed ''Film/Batman1989'' and ''Film/BatmanReturns'', the latter of which featured Catwoman.

* ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack: The Animated Series'': In "The Star System Syndrome", the worms write a [[Film/MenInBlack movie treatment for MiB]], which gets produced, starring Creator/WillSmith and Creator/TommyLeeJones... and the CGI version of the worms who look more like the Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles than their actual selves. J complains that Will Smith looks nothing like himself.

** The impersonators of the gang were caricatures of their voice artists--Frank Welker, Creator/MindyCohn, Grey Delisle, and Casey Kasem.

* Averted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Castlevania}}''. The creators have generally ShownTheirWork in regards to Romanian history, accurately naming cities and rivers, but the royal family of Wallachia are unnamed. Why? Because in real life, UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler, who lent his patronymic to the literary ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'', ruled Wallachia. Presumably, having a villain named Dracula Vlad Tepes and a barely-mentioned ruler named Vlad Dracula/Vlad Tepes would be [[OneSteveLimit too confusing]].

** In "I Am Furious (Yellow)", Bart creates a comic strip about Homer, "Angry Dad", which gets adopted into an animated web comic, and the voice actor brought in to play Angry Dad is strongly implied to be Homer's real-life voice actor, Creator/DanCastellaneta.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack: The Animated Series'', the worms write a [[Film/MenInBlack movie treatment for MiB]], which gets produced, starring Creator/WillSmith and Creator/TommyLeeJones... and the CGI version of the worms who look more like the Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles than their actual selves. J complains that Will Smith looks nothing like himself.

-->'''K:''' ''*sighs*'' We're going to have to neuralize all of Hollywood. AGAIN.\\

** Also, Creator/AlecBaldwin. What makes this especially funny is that in the earlier episode Homer had actually worked as an errand boy for Baldwin (and Creator/KimBasinger and Creator/RonHoward too) and had spent a great deal of time with him. The voice of the marine biologist should have been ''very'' familiar to him.

** A hair salon in one episode is named "[[Creator/HarryShearer Hairy Shearer's.]]"
** Creator/ConanOBrien was on the writing staff for ''The Simpsons'' for two years, writing the beloved episodes "Marge vs. the Monorail" and "Homer Goes to College" and contributing to the scripts of several others. O'Brien would leave the show to host ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien''...and appeared as himself in the season 5 episode "Bart Gets Famous", just a few months after "Homer Goes to College" aired.

** Creator/DannyElfman's jaunty ''Simpsons'' theme has been heard as diegetic (in-universe) background music on the show. For instance, in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS13E16WeekendAtBurnsies Weekend at Burnsies]]", Music/{{Phish}} guitarist Trey Anastasio is shown playing a few bars of the theme song during their performance at Homer's rally. This is something Anastasio actually did during the band's concerts for several years, often punctuated by him and the audience yelling "D'oh!". In the episode, however, "D'oh!" is replaced by a more generic "Boom!".

** In "Lisa's Sax", when Homer sets up his story, he says "''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow'' was once America's leading source of musical comedy and crudely-drawn filler material.", [[SelfDeprecation the latter referring to the Simpsons' origins]].

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack: The Animated Series'', the worms write a [[Film/MenInBlack movie treatment for MiB]] which gets produced, starring Creator/WillSmith and Creator/TommyLeeJones... and the CGI version of the worms who look more like the Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles than their actual selves. J complains that Will Smith looks nothing like himself.

--> '''Winston:''' Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis? Isn't that a law firm?

** The end of the episode "Bart the Murderer" features a sensationalistic made-for-TV movie retelling the episode's events. In it, Fat Tony is said to be played by Joe Mantegna, who provides the voice for the Fat Tony character in the show.

** Music/WeirdAlYankovic has appeared AsHimself in multiple episodes, and Homer has been established as a big fan of his music. Weird Al has also referenced ''The Simpsons'' in many of his songs, and he even used a clip of one of Bart's prank calls to Moe in "Phony Calls". His appearances in the show weren't just incidental [[TheCameo cameos]], either; he wrote and performed an original song about Homer and Marge's marriage in "Three Gays of the Condo", and he parodied a song that Homer's {{grunge}} band wrote in "That '90s Show".

** In the episode "Redneck on Rainey Street", Kahn's new redneck friends bust into a music store in order to steal the new Music/TraceAdkins CD. One of those friends, Elvin, is voiced by Trace Adkins himself.

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': In "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret Hill". Peggy (who is married and Methodist) poses as a nun in order to get a full-time teaching job at a Catholic high school. When Hank finds out, he says to Peggy, "At least when Creator/WhoopiGoldberg posed as a nun, she was hiding from gangsters.". Creator/KathyNajimy (Peggy) played Sister Mary Patrick in ''Film/SisterAct''.

** Creator/DannyElfman's jaunty ''Simpsons'' theme has been heard as diegetic (in-universe) background music on the show. For instance, in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS13E16WeekendAtBurnsies Weekend at Burnsies]]", Music/{{Phish}} guitarist Trey Anastasio is shown playing a few bars of the theme song during their performance at Homer's rally. This is something Anastasio [[AluminumChristmasTrees actually did]] during the band's concerts for several years, often punctuated by him and the audience yelling "D'oh!". In the episode, however, "D'oh!" is replaced by a more generic "Boom!".

** Another episode has Homer getting barred from Moe's Tavern and having to find a new bar. At one point he wanders into ''Series/{{Cheers}}'', the same bar containing the same characters from the show. One of the characters shown (though not in a speaking role) is Frasier Crane, played on ''Cheers'' by Kelsey Grammer, who also plays Sideshow Bob on ''The Simpsons''. This would also seem to indicate that [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Springfield is somewhere near Boston]] ([[JustForFun/SeparateSimpsonsGeographyThing though probably not]]).

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "A Head in the Polls," Leela, Fry, and Bender visit the Head Museum, where the [[BrainInAJar preserved, living heads]] of various famous people are kept. The head of Creator/KateySagal (Leela's voice actor) is briefly shown in the TV stars section.

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': In "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret Hill". Peggy (who is married and Methodist) poses as a nun in order to get a full-time teaching job at a Catholic high school. When Hank finds out, he says to Peggy, "At least when Creator/WhoopiGoldberg posed as a nun, she was hiding from gangsters.". Creator/KathyNajimy (Peggy) played Sister Mary Patrick in ''Film/SisterAct''.

** In "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences", a 3010 SDCC panel with Matt Groening previewing "Futurella" set in the 40th century... which is [[TakeThat immediately cancelled by FOX]] [[UpToEleven before it even gets through the title cards]].

** In "The Day Violence Died", Roger Meyers, Jr. goes on a long tirade about plagiarism in animation, mentioning among other examples that Chief Wiggum is copied from Creator/EdwardGRobinson. Wiggum is present in the [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall same scene]] and [[TomatoInTheMirror understandably confused]]. In a later Treehouse of Horror episode, Wiggum fights Edward G. Robinson's ghost.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MightyDucksTheAnimatedSeries'', after the title characters arrive in Anaheim, they approach their future manager Phil, who dismisses them with "The theme park is across the freeway, fellas!", implying there is still a Ride/{{Disneyland}} (which is separated from [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Center Anaheim's hockey arena]] by Route 57). At least it's excused as for why the arena was already known as the "Anaheim Pond" (a nickname bestowed by Disney because the Usefulnotes/NationalHockeyLeague's Ducks would play there) by showing that The Mighty Frogs used to play in the city.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheCritic'', Jay is to be a fan of Creator/JonLovitz (who happens to provide the voice of Jay), and he even appears after a shooting of a ''Saturday Night Live'' parody.
* The ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'' episode "Present Tense" shows Sprig from ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'' as a stuffed toy inside a crane machine. Said episode came out the year after the Amphibia episode "A Night At The Inn", where Cricket Green is shown as a wooden statue.

** Creator/MattGroening definitely exists in the ''Simpsons'' universe, as he appears at a sci-fi convention in the episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E17MyBigFatGeekWedding "My Big Fat Geek Wedding"]], voiced by himself. He is excitedly proclaimed by Lenny as "the creator of ''Futurama''". Still paradoxical since ''The Simpsons'' is a fictional show in ''Futurama'''s universe, and ''Futurama'''s characters would later appear on the show.

** Multiple episodes establish that the ''Series/HarryPotter'' franchise exists in the ''Simpsons'' universe, including "Papa Don't Leech", "The Bob Next Door" and "The Regina Monologues". In the latter the Simpsons even meet JK Rowling, voiced by herself (though it is just a throwaway gag rather than being central to the plot the way Mark Hamill's role was). Yet the ''Simpsons'' universe also has its own version of ''Harry Potter'' called ''Angelica Button'' written by TR Francis, which is such an obvious parody there's no way it could co-exist alongside ''Harry Potter'' as it would constitute copyright infringement. It's also clearly a serious work whose popularity mirrors actual ''Harry Potter'' fandom, so it's not meant to be an in-universe parody either.

** Creator/MattGroening definitely exists in the ''Simpsons'' universe, as he appears at a sci-fi convention in the episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E17MyBigFatGeekWedding "My Big Fat Geek Wedding"]], voiced by himself. He is excitedly proclaimed by Lenny as "the creator of ''Futurama''". Still paradoxical since ''The Simpsons'' is a fictional show in ''Futurama's'' universe, and ''Futurama's'' characters would later appear on the show.

* In ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn2019'', Catwoman takes Creator/TimBurton as her date to Poison Ivy and Kite Man's wedding. Burton directed ''Film/Batman1989'' and ''Film/BatmanReturns'', the latter of which featured Catwoman.