This is what happens when one work references or shows a part of another work, both of which are owned by the same company, network or studio.
During The Golden Age of Animation, many studios had cartoon series produced and/or distributed by them play songs from their music library, or caricature movie stars the studios had under contract to them.
Compare Company Cameo, where the company itself is what's being referenced. Contrast Continuity Nod and Mythology Gag. Doubles as intra-company Product Placement. Crossovers don't count, but a Crossover Punchline can. Compare Production Foreshadowing and Production Throwback. See Shout-Out for references to media not owned by the same company.
Examples
- The Amazing World of Gumball: In the episode "The Boredom", as the Wattersons' house is hauled away, it passes by the sets of Clarence, Regular Show, and Uncle Grandpa. Gumball and Darwin, who are inside the house as it is being hauled, fail to notice because they're convinced nothing interesting is happening and are too busy staring at the clock.
- Ben 10: Omniverse: In one episode about a store that shifts between dimensions, Cow and Chicken make a cameo as alien customers in said store.
- Ben 10: Alien Force: Gwen is voiced by Ashley Johnson and Kevin is voiced by Greg Cipes, referencing their roles as another teenage superhero couple, Terra and Beast Boy.
- Ben 10: Ultimate Alien: Ben and Gwen's cousin Sunny is a complete Expy of Blackfire, down to having a black-and-purple color scheme and being voiced by Gwen's voice actor, Ashley Johnson in Teen Titans, Blackfire and Starfire had the same voice actor, Hynden Walch.
- Chowder has two references to The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
- At the end of "The Hot Date", Miss Bellum is initially revealed to be the police chief's blind date, before she realizes she mistaked him for her actual blind date a few tables away.
- In "The Heist", Mung tastes a Sweet Sapphire crystal that's so sweet, his head briefly changes into Bubbles and he speaks in her voice.
- Clarence:
- While Clarence is angrily burying his "Lil Buddy" doll in the episode of the same name, a silhouetted Greg and Wirt can be seen walking behind some trees in the background.
- During his attempts of getting Chad into the "camping spirit" in "Where The Wild Chads Are", Clarence comes across Chad sleeping while a little TV plays an Affectionate Parody of Adventure Time.
- Codename: Kids Next Door:
- Dexter makes a cameo as a balloon in a Zombie Apocalypse episode.
- "The Grim Adventures of the KND", as a Crossover between Kids Next Door and Grim Adventures, naturally takes the time to rope in several other Cartoon Network shows:
- Towards the beginning, there's a Crossover Punchline where Billy calls a group of kids to help him - but rather than the Kids Next Door, he calls Ed, Edd n Eddy.
- Billy later expresses disappointment that Sector V aren't The Powerpuff Girls.
- Fred Fredburger admits that he loves shows about monkeys, monkeys that go to camp, and shows about imaginary friends.
- The Creative Closing Credits feature artwork of crossovers between different Cartoon Network shows. This includes Ed, Edd, n Mandy, Evil Camp Carne, Class of Numbuh 3000, My Gym Partner's A Mandark, and Samurai Mac.
- Dexter's Laboratory: In "Tele-Trauma", Dexter, who is beaming TV shows straight to his brain, is constantly reciting TV quotes, including "Townsville's in trouble!".
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends:
- Many references to The Powerpuff Girls (1998), given that both shows are created by Craig McCracken.
- Frankie wears a t-shirt with color-coded silhouettes of Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup.
- In the pilot movie, Mojo Jojo appears as an "unimaginary" imaginary friend, as an example of friends based on things kids see on TV.
- In "Cookie Dough", Bloo names off some cities that want shipments of Madame Foster's cookies, including Townsville and Johnny Bravo's Aron City.
- In "Nightmare on Wilson Way", Frankie dresses as Blossom for Halloween.
- In one episode, Mac comes up with a theory about every imaginary friend being suddenly adopted before being returned. At one point, Mandy can be seen returning a smiley-faced imaginary friend for being "too happy".
- In "Eddie Monster" Ed, Edd n Eddy make an appearance.
- Many references to The Powerpuff Girls (1998), given that both shows are created by Craig McCracken.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy:
- In "Sickly Sweet", Grim is watching Codename: Kids Next Door.
- The plot of "Modern Primitives" is that Billy digs up and thaws out Fred Flintstone.
- In "Herbicidal Maniac", Cow gives Skarr a bag of manure for his garden, while Johnny Bravo makes a background cameo at Skarr's party.
- In "Billy and Mandy vs. the Martians", Billy sees a giant holographic screen and laments "Hey, this isn't Codename: Kids Next Door!"
- A Ham Being from the I Am Weasel episode "The Magnificent Motorbikini" appears in "The Incredible Shrinking Mandy" as one of three giant beings who were growing infinitely in the Realm of the Infinite.
- Johnny Bravo: In "I Dream of Johnny", Johnny tries to use his mind to return his "dream" girl back to her previous hot form. In one of his false tries, she becomes I. M. Weasel.
- Lamput: In "Super Docs", Slim Doc mixes up his bag of clothes with someone else's at the laundromat. When he gets home, he and Fat Doc use the superhero outfits they find in the bag Slim Doc did bring with him to go after Lamput; Slim Doc wears a blue outfit with a red cape and triangle-shaped Chest Insignia clearly meant to be Superman's costume, and Fat Doc dons a black costume with little pointy ears at the top and a yellow belt, meant to be iconic getup of Batman (both franchises are owned by DC Comics, itself owned by WarnerMedia who also owns Lamput's broadcast channel Cartoon Network India).
- MAD:
- In the sketch The Social Netjerk, at one point main character Sean says it's his time... only for Mordecai and Rigby to appear and tell him to hurry up, "'cause in a few minutes it'll be our time". Indeed, at the time this episode originally aired, new episodes of MAD preceded new episodes of Regular Show.
- "Avenger Time" is a mashup of The Avengers and Cartoon Network's own Adventure Time. In Uatu the Watcher's appearance, he states that what he watches is mainly reruns of Mad, but occasionally throwing in some Adventure Time, which is suggested to be part of how the Avengers ended up there.
- In the OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode "Mystery Science Fair 201X", Dendy takes K.O. to her secret lab to figure out how to get him to transform into T.K.O. as part of Dendy's science project. The entire sequence in Dendy's lab contains several references to Dexter's Laboratory (among other things, K.O. and Dendy's footsteps make the same sounds to Dexter and Dee Dee's footsteps and the former characters also walk similarly to the latter characters, and Dendy at one point speaks in Dexter's accent, even saying "Get out of my observatory!"). It gets to the point that there's literally a line of text saying "With apologies to the crew of Dexter's Laboratory :)" in the episode's The End tag.
- "Crossover Nexus" is basically nothing but this. We get cameos from characters from dozens of different Cartoon Network shows, although only four of them play an important role.
- Near the end of Over the Garden Wall, an overhead shot shows that the layout of Wirt and Greg's town is almost identical to the layout of Aberdale.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): Dexter had background cameos in several episodes. In addition, "Imaginary Fiend" featured a cameo by Dee Dee's imaginary friend, Koosie.
- Dexter and Dee Dee had a cameo in a concert the girls went to in one of the comic books by IDW Publishing. Dexter was there unwillingly, as he and Dee Dee were forcibly handcuffed together at the time.
- Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated had Derrick J. Wyatt as a character designer for its first season. One background character in Season 1 was modeled after Sari Sumdac of Transformers: Animated, which Wyatt had worked on before Mystery Incorporated.
- "Say Uncle", in addition to being a crossover between Steven Universe and Uncle Grandpa, has Uncle Grandpa go through a checklist with the names of nearly every Cartoon Network child character on it (at the time of airing) along with the SWAT Kats.
- Teen Titans Go!:
- In "Squash and Stretch", the Titans watch a parody of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner featuring characters who are obviously meant to resemble Gumball and Darwin, with the Gumball lookalike representing Wile E. Coyote and the Darwin lookalike representing Road Runner.
- "Beast Boy On A Shelf" is a spoof of The Elf On The Shelf, a storybook whose animated adaptations air anually on Cartoon Network.
- In "The Great Disaster", Robin dons the costume of Freakazoid!, the protagonist of another WB cartoon about superheroes.
- Not only does "Huggbees" have a crossover with Freakazoid!, but it also has references to fellow WB series Histeria! and Detention.
- In the episode "P.P.", Beast Boy mistakes the titular initials for the act of using the bathroom, just like the Warner siblings did in the Animaniacs episode "No Pain, No Painting", which was also made by WB.
- In one episode of Time Squad, Buck and Larry try to find an orphan to replace Otto after a fight. One of them is Dexter, who complains that he's not an orphan.
- We Bare Bears: In "My Clique", Chloe is watching an actual episode of Adventure Time on TV.
- Aladdin series:
- Aladdin: The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson, so of course he also knows other Disney characters:
- When Aladdin promises Genie that he'll use his third wish to free him, Genie believes he's lying and promptly turns his head into Pinocchio's, complete with growing nose.
- When searching a book for a spell that will turn Aladdin into a prince, he mentions "Alaskan King Crab" and gets his finger snapped from inside the book by Sebastian, complete with the first few bars of "Under the Sea" playing.
- The Beast is one of the Sultan's toy animals.
- When trying to coax a depressed Aladdin into freeing him, Genie says to him as "When You Wish Upon a Star" starts to play...
Genie: Aladdin, you just won the heart of the princess! What are you going to do next?note
(Aladdin doesn't listen and drops onto a pillow)
Genie: Hey, your line is "I'm going to free the genie." (beat) Any time. - At the end, the newly-free Genie prepares to see the world and dons a tourist getup, complete with a Disneyland Goofy hat. Doubles as an Actor Allusion, as Robin Williams wore that same outfit for the short film Return to Neverland.
- Aladdin: The Return of Jafar: Genie turns into a set of animatronics and sings the line "It's a Small World after all!" as a way of explaining why he's returned from his intended world tour so soon. Then when he releases the protagonists from the dungeon, he chants "Bippity-boppity-boo!"
- Aladdin and the King of Thieves: Among Genie's impersonations are several characters from other Disney films, such as Tinkerbell, Pocahontas, Pumbaa, and the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse.
Genie: [as Pumbaa] Hakuna matata! [as himself] Whoa. Talk about an out-of-movie experience.
- Aladdin: The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson, so of course he also knows other Disney characters:
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: Celia's teacher calls Anthony "Wreck-It Ralph" after he knocks over the school's trophy cases.
- Bedtime Stories (2008):
- During one of Skeeter's bedtime stories, a costumed Buzz Lightyear appears.
- In another story, someone is given tickets to see The Lion King.
- One scene shows the kids watching The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
- In Bolt, Blake (one of the Los Angeles pigeons) cross references Pixar when he says, "Don't freak out. This is how you blew it with Nemo."
- A Bug's Life: Flik says the Toy Story quote "To infinity and beyond!" in one of the outtakes.
- Cars series:
- Cars:
- The biggest race sponsor is Dinoco, which is the brand of the gas station seen in Toy Story.
- During the end credits, Mack watches several car versions of previous Pixar films at a drive-in theater, specifically Toy Car Story, Monster Trucks, Inc., and A Bug's Life. This scene doubles as an Actor Allusion as the scenes shown here features characters voiced by John Ratzenberger, who voices Mack in this movie.
- A drive-in marquee appears at one point in Cars 2 mentioning a film titled The Incredimobiles.
- In Cars 3, a shelf in Sterling's office has Cinderella's carriage on it.
- Cars:
- Chicken Little:
- In the opening, while Buck Cluck tries to figure out a way to start the story, he uses a familiar sunrise before discarding it.
- The alien father wears a three-eyed Mickey Mouse watch.
- Classic Disney Shorts: At the beginning of Soup's On, as Donald is preparing dinner, he sings "Zippity-Doo-Dah".
- Finding Nemo: Buzz Lightyear appears as one of the toys in the dentist's waiting room, a boy can be seen reading a Mr. Incredible comic book, and Mike Wazowski makes a cameo in the end credits.
- Flora and Ulysses showcases several Marvel Comics superheroes. Also, The Imperial March from Star Wars is used as Flora's house's doorbell chime.
- Frozen: Rapunzel and Eugene are seen in the crowd entering the castle when the gates are opened.
- George of the Jungle: The film ends with Babies Ever After, and George holds his son up on Pride Rock just like Rafiki held Simba.
- In the sequel, George Jr. is seen reading a book with the Disney version of Tarzan.
- A Goofy Movie:
- Walt Disney is referred to by name twice.
- During the song "On the Open Road", Goofy's keychain has a Disney "D" logo decoration, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are hitchhiking on the side of the road, and the song contains the lyric "I've got no strings on me."
- The Great Mouse Detective: One of the toys in the toy shop resembles Dumbo.
- Hercules: Hercules' poses with a Nemean Skinning of Scar.
- Inside Out: When Joy and Sadness pass through Imagination Land, among the things that can be seen is a board game called "Find Me" which has a cartoon Nemo on it.
- Lilo & Stitch:
- The Lion King (1994): After taking over Pride Rock, Scar reduces Zazu to an imprisoned jester and forces the poor bird to sing for him. One of the songs Zazu chooses is "It's A Small World After All", from the Disneyland ride "It's a Small World".
Scar: No! No. Anything but That!!
- In The Lion King 1 ½, a myriad of other Disney characters appear near the end of the film at the cinema, specifically: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; Belle, the Beast, Mrs. Potts and Chip; The Genie, Aladdin and Jasmine riding on Carpet; Hyacinth Hippo; Stitch; The Mad Hatter; Rabbit (from Winnie the Pooh); Peter Pan, Tinkerbell and The Lost Boys; Quasimodo and the gargoyles; Pocahontas; Dumbo; Terk; Mowgli and Baloo; Fauna, Flora and Merriweather; and Br'er Bear.
- Meet the Robinsons: In the baseball field where Goob is playing, a banner with Mowgli and Baloo is seen on a sign.
- Moana:
- While trying to get his shapeshifter powers back, Maui is briefly transformed into Sven.
- The Stinger has Tamatoa still toppled over, pleading the audience to help him up. After getting none, he states that they probably would help him if his name was Sebastian and he had a cool Jamaican accent.
- Onward:
- Triple Dent Gum, a Bland-Name Product version of Trident gum first seen in Inside Out, is sold at the gas station Ian and Barley visit.
- One particular location on the map used by the elf brothers is "The Brave Wilderness".
- Prep & Landing: Wayne watches Mickey's Christmas Carol on TV.
- The Santa Clause 2: During Scott and Robo-Santa's fight, the latter shouts, also as an Actor Allusion, "You're a sad, strange little man!".
- Tarzan: The tea set in the Porters' campsite resembles Mrs. Potts and Chip.
- Toy Story series:
- Toy Story: Andy has several books in his room that have the titles of Pixar Shorts on them, such as "Red's Dream", "Tin Toy", and "Knick Knack".
- Toy Story 2: There are several A Bug's Life toys in Al's Toy Barn.
- Toy Story 3: One of the kids in the daycare looks like an older version of Boo from Monsters, Inc.. When she first appears, she is reenacting a scene from said film using a couple of toys, specifically the scene where Sully accidentally scares Boo (she even says "Boo! No, no, no! What's the matter?").
- There are several in Toy Story 4. For example, Bo's remote-controlled skunk vehicle runs on Buy n' Large batteries.
- Lightyear: One of the buildings on T'Kani Prime is clearly modelled on Space Mountain.
- Turning Red:
- One of Mei's books bears a sticker resembling the rabbit from Burrow. It can only be seen for a split second. Multiple Burrow-esque rabbit stickers also appear on a promotional poster
.
- The logo of Star Command appears as a sticker on Miriam's skateboard, serving as a case of Pixar's Production Foreshadowing for Lightyear. The promotional poster mentioned above also features a sticker of Sox.
- Mei affectionately refers to the red panda statues in front of her family's temple as Bart and Lisa, a reference to The Simpsons, which Disney got in their Fox acquisition.
- In the bathroom scene, where Mei's group tries to hide her, one of the stall doors in focus has Nemo in sticker form.
- At Tyler's place, the Luxo Ball is floating in his large pool while Mei's group is looking down at the backyard.
- While Mei makes her frantic escape from school, she bumps into a blonde man and a hijab-wearing woman. On the upper left, the papel picado skull designs featured in Coco can be seen.
- The gothic Carter is wearing an Escápula t-shirt, the heavy metal band also featured in Coco .
- As Mei heads towards the Skydome in her Red Panda form, she passes a parked Pizza Planet Truck on her left.
- The recurring A113 in-joke appears three times in the movie: the SkyDome seat number seen in the TV ad for 4*Town, the actual ticket featured in the credits, and the chalk wheelbarrow used by Jin to makeshift a stadium-sized banishing circle for Ming.
- A restaurant in Mei's neighborhood has the logo for Bao on its sign.
- One of Mei's books bears a sticker resembling the rabbit from Burrow. It can only be seen for a split second. Multiple Burrow-esque rabbit stickers also appear on a promotional poster
- There are several in WALLE. For instance, the robot mice that nibble around EVE in the trash room are called REM-E's, and during the mosaic section of the end credits, a big turtle, two smaller turtles, and an orange fish swim by.
- Zootopia:
- The movie has a character called Duke Weaselton, whose name is an obvious Shout-Out to the Duke of Weselton. Both are even voiced by the same actor. They also have similar roles in the story: being minor antagonists.
- Another Frozen reference, along with some Biting-the-Hand Humor comes in when Bogo berates Judy for being unsatisfied with her current job, telling her "Life isn't some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and your insipid dreams magically come true! So LET IT GO."
- Later on, Weaselton is seen on the streets selling pirated movies, all based on fellow Disney movies, two of which are based on movies that weren't out yet, and one of which was cancelled.
Television
- In the season 2 Halloween Episode of Abbott Elementary, Ava and Melissa show up dressed as the Marvel heroines Storm and Scarlet Witch, respectively.
- Aladdin: The Series contains several. For example, in one episode, Saleen the mermaid attempts to give Jasmine a new hairstyle and ends up giving her one resembling the hairstyle of Ariel ("She looks like any other princess under the sea.").
- Another episode had a gag where Genie shapeshifts into Baloo from TaleSpin and even talks like him using the phrase "little britches".
- A Season 2 episode of the ABC series American Crime has one of the main character browsing posters in a comic book shop. All of the comic characters characters featured (Elektra, The Daughters of Dragon, and Melinda May) are Marvel heroines, while a prominent advertisement for Totally Awesome Hulk can be seen in the background.
- Amphibia:
- There's an episode where Anne and the Plantars go to the Amphibia's version of the Mystery Shack, which is run by Amphibia's versions of Stan and Soos. Additionally, Kristen Schaal is in another episode as a guest star. Much of the show's crew previously worked on Gravity Falls, also making this a Production Throwback.
- Keith David's role as the Big Bad is meant to be a reference to Gargoyles, as the show's crew were fans of the show growing up.
- Crumpet the Frog is an obvious reference to The Muppets' Kermit the Frog, and is even voiced by Kermit's puppeteer, Matt Vogel.
- A Big City Greens episode has a crane game that contains stuffed dolls from other Disney Television Animation series, featuring Rufus, Agent P, Bill Cipher, Wander, Star Butterfly, Sprig Plantar, and King.
- Bill Nye the Science Guy: In an episode about water, Bill compares a model of an H2O atom to a pair of mouse ears, and later says "See ya real soon." Disney produced both Bill Nye and The Mickey Mouse Club.
- The blackish episode "Scarred for Life" has the family dressed as the cast of Black Panther (Dre and Devante as T'Challa, Bow as Nakia and Junior as Killmonger) for Halloween.
- Darkwing Duck: The statue that Drake Mallard pounds on to activate the chairs and send him and his allies to Darkwing Tower is of Basil from The Great Mouse Detective.
- In the first episode of DuckTales (1987), Scrooge McDuck tells a worker "there'll be no whistling while you work!"
- DuckTales (2017):
- In the episode "The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee", Gizmoduck fights a Mad Scientist named Dr. Atmoz Fear who looks and sounds a lot like Dr. Doofenshmirtz from one of Disney's other shows, Phineas and Ferb.
- The episode "Quack Pack" is a reference to the other Huey, Louie and Dewey series, Quack Pack, and also features a version of Goofy based closely on Goof Troop. In fact, most of the Disney Afternoon gets referenced at some point in the series.
- One episode of Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much Everything uses a doll of Clover as a stand-in for a bunny.
- In a Halloween episode of Gargoyles, Eliza dresses up as Belle in her ballroom gown, making her the Beauty to Goliath's Beast.
- Goof Troop:
- Several references to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:
- In "Midnight Movie Madness", Goofy is against Max seeing a scary movie, saying that Max was scared of the Witch from Snow White.
- In "Date with Destiny", Max lies to his principal that Goofy is getting married and says "and we'll all live happily ever after like Snow White and Dopey and stuff."
- In "Calling All Goofs", Peg tells Pete to keep Goofy away from a surprise family reunion until noon, "even if you have to clean his clothes, shine his shoes, or take him to Disneyland!"
- Several references to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:
- In an episode of Hercules: The Animated Series, the Romans opt to have the Greek gods be given new names for them to worship. When Hades receives a letter stating they want to call him Pluto, he's outraged by the name and states that he wouldn't even name his dog "Pluto", a reference to Pluto the Pup.
- Kim Possible:
- In one episode, Dr. Drakken reacts to some good news by saying "It's a zip-a-dee-doo-dah day!", a reference to the Disney film Song of the South.
- The Cuddle Buddies toys that appear on the show are spoofs of The Wuzzles.
- In The Little Mermaid (1992), Mickey, Donald and Goofy can be seen during King Triton's concert hall entrance.
- Mickey Mouse (2013) has quite a handful of Disney references, mostly to the Disney Animated Canon. Just to name a few examples, Lady and the Tramp appear in "Third Wheel" and have their signature Spaghetti Kiss interrupted by Goofy, Donald bumps into Belle and the Beast during a dance in "The Adorable Couple", and "Wish Upon a Coin" features appearances from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- The Owl House:
- In the "Escaping Explusion" episode, Hop Pop appears on the cover of a book about the life cycle of the common swamp toad.
- In "King's Tide", Camila has a story about Anne Boonchuy being missing in a "frog land" up on her tablet.
- One episode of Phineas and Ferb is titled "Troy Story", a reference to Toy Story.
- The 2019 revival of Press Your Luck is produced by ABC. The new Whammy animations include parodies of The Bachelor and The Oprah Winfrey Show, both of which are other ABC shows.
- In one of The Proud Family's earlier episodes, Oscar explains that an incident with a fish at a restaurant left him so scared of fish that he had to watch The Little Mermaid with his hands covering his eyes.
- Sofia the First features a bunch of them, but just to name a couple, King Roland's domain is part of the Tri-Kingdom Area, and in the episode "The Ghostly Gala", Dax sings about meeting his Uncle Walt and Uncle Roy (referring to none other than Walt and Roy Disney) and summons some familiar-looking dancing skeletons.
- Likewise, Elena of Avalor makes references to the Disney animated movies:
- Cinderella, Aurora, and Belle make blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos at Elena's accession and coronation.
- In the series finale, Patrick Warburton voices a Stupid Neutral antagonist who is based on Mesoamerican mythology, very buff, doesn't get along with Flo (who is an alpaca hybrid creature, alpacas being related to llamas), thinks another character being tricked into being shapeshifted into other animals is funny, and is annoying to the Big Bad who is an old woman huh?
- After defeating the monster that Olivia note accidentally created by messing up a spell, she's eager to cast an ice spell and asks the others, "Do you want to build a snowman?", to which they answer with an immediate "no".
- In Elena's song to Antonia to encourage her to keep trying to be a Royal Guard, she tells her to "go the distance".
- Esteban's Heroic Sacrifice and Redemption Equals Life scene in the climax of the series finale is a direct homage to Beauty and the Beast in fact, at least one of the crew members worked on the very scene being referenced.
- In the Sirena arc, after Marzel saves the other royals and is accepted by them, Cuco makes a joke that the prince has now become a "part of that world". Additionally, the sirenas can use their singing voices to put people into trances, referencing Ursula/Vanessa using Ariel's stolen voice to attract Eric before casting a spell to hypnotize him.
- Elena rising from Takaína and being given magic is a reference to the scene in Atlantis: The Lost Empire where Kida is imbued with the Heart of Atlantis.
- Likewise, Elena of Avalor makes references to the Disney animated movies:
- The Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Trial By Squire" ends with Star and Marco buying (among other things) gnomes resembling the ones from Gravity Falls. They then use the Catchphrase from Phineas and Ferb, "Yes, yes we are". The sloths that run the store might be a reference to the sloths running the DMV from Zootopia.
- In one episode of Tangled: The Series, a book for Beauty and the Beast can be seen in the royal library.
- One episode of Wander over Yonder has the characters watching TV and one of the shows on is an alien version of Gravity Falls but combined with Warner Brothers' Scooby-Doo. The premise of the cartoon is "Dipper", "Mabel", and "Stan" traveling around in the "Mystery Machine" and solving mysteries.
Print Media
- The Adventures of D & A, which ran in Disney Adventures for about six months in the late 1990s, leaned into this in its second story. It had Denise dressed as Pocahontas for Halloween; two of the kids she's babysitting are dressed as Mickey Mouse and Hercules.
Marvel Entertainment
- Avengers: Age of Ultron: Ultron sings "I've Got No Strings" from Disney's Pinocchio in one scene.
- In Ant-Man, akin to Zazu before him, Luis is heard whistling the song from It's a Small World.
- In episode 6 of WandaVision, a theater marquee displays that they are showing The Incredibles and The Parent Trap (1998).
- In episode 2 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, John Walker gets interviewed on ABC's morning show Good Morning America.
- In the next episode, Zemo's cell number is 2187, a number which features prominently throughout the Star Wars saga.
- During the opening of Black Widow (2021), classic Disney cartoons on shown on several monitors, chiefly, the original DuckTales.
- In Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Shang-Chi and Katy sing "A Whole New World" during a karaoke session. In the same scene they also sing "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" from Armageddon (1998), which was released by Disney subsidiary Touchstone.
Disney Channel India
- In Bhaagam Bhaag, the main character, Sunny, owns a Simple Samosa backpack. Not only do both shows air on Disney Channel India, but they were both created by the same person (Sanjiv Waeerkar).
- The Simple Samosa episode "Banana Fontana" is about Samosa pretending to be a popstar named Banana Fontana, which is most likely derived from one of Disney's American series, Hannah Montana.
- One episode of The Amanda Show has Amanda reading fan mail. She starts the letter with "Dear Amanda...", to which the audience replies with "Thaaaaat's me!", referencing the "Dear Ashley" segments of All That which always began with Ashley starting off her letters with "Dear Ashley... thaaaaaat's me!" Amanda catches on to the reference and says "Wrong show, guys."
- In one Crazy Courtney sketch where she goes to the movies, the Sniz & Fondue segment "Clubbed" can be heard as the movie.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: In the first season finale, Pakku tells one of his students that in a few years, they may be able to defeat a sea sponge. The creators of the series later admitted this is a reference to SpongeBob SquarePants.
- Big Time Rush:
- Patchy the Pirate cameos in "Big Time Beach Party".
- The titular group attempt to steal snacks from the cast of Yo Gabba Gabba! in "Big Time Cameo".
- During the video letter segment of the Blue's Clues episode "Blue Wants to Play a Game", the girl in the video is wearing a dress with Angelica Pickles on it.
- In the Clarissa Explains It All episode "Babysitting", the Doug episode "Doug's Big Catch" can be heard on the television in one scene.
- In one episode of Danger Force, a character wears a shirt of Rocky from PAW Patrol, which airs on Nickelodeon in the United States.
- An episode of Drake & Josh has Crazy Steve watching Dora the Explorer and wondering why she keeps on asking him questions.
- The Fairly OddParents!:
- There are several references to SpongeBob SquarePants:
- A Running Gag in "Ruled Out" has Timmy's Dad saying "Pants are for squares" and "X is/are for squares, like pants."
- In "Wish Fixers", Cosmo gives Timmy cheese pants and calls him "Cheeseboy Squarepants".
- In "Something's Fishy", King Greg says that the merpeoples' diet consists of "crabs, starfish and the occasional underwater squirrel."
- In "App Trap", a student at Timmy's school has a familiar-looking pair of buck teeth, white shirt, red tie and brown pants.
- There are several references to SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In Fred: The Movie, Fred's conversation with Judy is interrupted by Dora the Explorer.
- House of Anubis: When Patricia suggests getting the help of their "favorite comedy double act" to protest Victor's cameras, Amber suggests SpongeBob and Patrick.
- In one episode of Kenan & Kel, Kenan tries to learn the plot of the episode by reading some TV listings, but ends up finding a listing for fellow Nickelodeon show Rugrats.
- The Loud House:
- In "Left in the Dark", the kids are fighting over the TV remote and constantly switching channels. One of the programs that pops up on the TV for a split second features a yellow sponge and a pink starfish. These same characters, along with a green squid and a red crab, also appear on a poster in Lisa's kindergarten classroom in episodes featuring it, beginning with "Making The Grade".
- In "Linc or Swim", Iroh, Miss Bitters, Grandpa Lou, Grandpa Phil and Miss Fowl can be seen in the senior citizen pool.
- In "Driving Ambition", an Imagine Spot about Lori and Bobby's future kids features a baby who resembles Tommy Pickles.
- In the The Casagrandes episode "Skatey Cat", Casey, Sameer, and Nikki leap over a cabbage stand during their shopping spree, knocking over a few cabbages and causing a nearby employee to shriek, "MY CABBAGES!!!!"
- Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide:
- In "Daydreams", Ned sees Cosmo and Wanda in his daydreams.
- In "Photo Day", Ned gives the tip to "Dress up as yourself, not someone you see on TV". At that point, a student in a SpongeBob costume is shown in the montage of kids taking their photos.
- The website for the ill-fated NickMom block would sometimes reference Nickelodeon shows:
- This post about hotels
mentions that kids find them cool because Dora the Explorer is on a different channel than usual.
- This post about family vacation destinations
shows a carnival with Dora the Explorer being present as a toddler's idea of an ideal vacation.
- In this comic,
a kid watches SpongeBob SquarePants before going to school.
- This article about things toddlers shout to ruin school plays
features a GIF of Patrick Star for entry number 5.
- The ninth entry on this list of usernames toddlers would use on Twitter
is DoraSuperFan1. In addition, the picture for the article is a mockup of an account with this name and what they would post.
- This article about school supplies
uses an image of a SpongeBob backpack.
- This article about Thanksgiving
suggests that kids would be bored of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and would prefer to watch Team Umizoomi.
- This story
mentions Bubble Guppies-themed bandages.
- This comic on compliments
includes "Your face looks like SpongeBob" as one example.
- This article
describing an ideal vacation spot for kids says that all the jumbotrons would play SpongeBob.
- This post about hotels
- In the Sam & Cat episode "#TextingCompetition", one of the things Cat says she wants to do with the speedboat is to "Look for SpongeBob's pineapple!"
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Truth or Square", there is a scene where Patchy the Pirate is out on the street, standing right in front of some street posts depicting Dora the Explorer and Aang.
- In the True Jackson, VP episode "Trapped In Paris", a Cutaway Gag shows Karl Gustav dancing with the cast of Yo Gabba Gabba!.
- Victorious: In "Tori Goes Platinum," the paparazzi thinks Sikowitz is the voice of Plankton. Sikowitz goes along with it and says "Karen, I must have the secret formula for the Krabby Patty!"
- Zoey101: In "Curse of PCA", Lafe asks Lola if she thinks he's silly, and Lola says back "No, SpongeBob's friend Patrick is silly."
- Animal Crossing has become Nintendo's biggest repository of these.
- Every installment has a collection of items from other games that you can decorate your house with, starting with the Super Mario Bros. set in the first game and expanding to include clothing in Wild World. The fortune cookies introduced in New Leaf exist specifically to reward players with these for walking around with the 3DS in their pocket, and the Welcome Amiibo update allows certain animal characters (such as Epona and Wolf Link) to be brought to life as villagers. The first game even includes functional replicas of the Nintendo Entertainment System that play B-tier games.
- Gulliver sometimes references other Nintendo franchises in his dialogue, typically sticking to ones with nautical or marine themes:
- In the first game, he starts telling a story about fighting a Deep Python at Pinnacle Rock — an enemy and location from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask — before remembering that that wasn't him. He will also mention leaving his goldfish behind in Toad Town and in Hyrule.
- If you help him New Leaf, he says that he's hasn't met such a noble skipper since Bobbery of Rogueport, referencing Admiral Bobbery from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. On other occasions, he may mention upon waking up that "this sure is a fuzzy pickle," referencing the Photo Man's catchphrase from EarthBound (1994), "Say 'Fuzzy Pickles!'"
- Upon waking up in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, he may say "but, verily, it be the nature of dreams to end", quoting the Wind Fish in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Your character asks him what that's all about, and he says he heard a fish say it once.
- If you agree to help him find his communicator parts in New Horizons, he may gush that he hasn't gotten such a sweet reception since he washed up on Coralcola, the starting island from StarTropics. If you choose not to help him, Gulliver will say he hasn't gotten a cold shoulder as icy as this since he brushed with the Snomads, the villains from Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.
- Gullivarr can mention a couple of pirate characters from other Nintendo properties. During his half-conscious mumbling he may imagine fighting with the Multi-Armed and Dangerous Cortez from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. After agreeing to recover his communicator he may compare you to Captain Syrup, the pirate leader from the Wario Land games.
- In the second and third games, where he's an astronaut instead of sailor, he makes space- rather than sea-based references, and may ask the player if they've seen a space fox or a a bounty hunter who can roll into a ball.
- Unlike most fish, catching a squid in New Horizons can prompt one of a few different quips from your character. For example, they may say they had an "inkling" they would catch one or say it's "off the hook", referencing one of the bands from the Splatoon series, while another asks if squids don't actually "bloop", referring to Super Mario Bros.' Bloopers.
- If you have Blathers assess a Eusthenopteron fossil in New Horizons, he'll ponder what culture would be like if life had never left the ocean, such as if differences might be resolved through "some sort of ink-squirting contest of champions", again referencing Splatoon.
- Donkey Kong:
- Donkey Kong Country Returns: One level features Mr. Game and Watch in the background.
- In Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Funky Kong's description of the Crash Guard is "Vehicle Trouble? It's dangerous to go alone — take one of these!" Cranky Kong had previously referenced the phrase in Returns.
- F-Zero:
- Mr. EAD is named after the internal Nintendo division that develops the games. His overall shape and moustache resemble those of Mario, and his belt buckle is a star resembling those found in the Super Mario games.
- James McCloud shares a name with the father of Fox from Star Fox. He also wears the Star Fox uniform, and his vehicle is modeled after an Arwing.
- Kirby series:
- In Kirby Super Star, several Super Mario Bros. characters such as Birdo appear in the background of King Dedede's arena and the Megaton Punch minigame. The Great Cave Offensive mode is filled with similar references in the treasures collected, ranging from the Triforce from The Legend of Zelda, to the Falchion sword from Fire Emblem.
- Kirby's Dream Land 3: Several of the Heart Star missions involve characters from other Nintendo games. For example, one level has you reassembling R.O.B., and another level has you defeating several Metroids for Samus.
- Kirby & the Amazing Mirror: One of the copy abilities is the Smash ability, which gives Kirby his Super Smash Bros. moveset. The ability is acquired by defeating Master Hand, who appears as both a miniboss and as an actual boss alongside Crazy Hand.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: A portrait of Mario appears at one point in the game, and there are also two Chain Chomps that appear in Turtle Rock.
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening features several cameos from Super Mario Bros. enemies, and includes a number of characters based on those of the other series. It also features Kirby as an enemy. The Switch version has a subtle Splatoon reference — if you examine the Blooper figurine after placing it, the message "Squids are all the rage with kids nowadays" will be displayed.
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has several references to Super Mario Bros.. For example, Malon and Talon have brooches of Bowser's head, and portraits of Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, and Bowser can be found in the Castle Courtyard.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap includes Lakitus, an enemy from the Mario games.
- Pikmin:
- Pikmin 2: Several of the treasures are references to other Nintendo games, such as a tube of paint from Mario Paint and R.O.B.'s head.
- Hey! Pikmin goes a step further by having some Amiibo-unlocked treasures simply be figurines of characters from the Mario, Animal Crossing and Splatoon franchises.
- Pikmin Bloom: Linking a Nintendo account will give the player a blue decor Pikmin wearing a Mario hat.
- In the animated short "Occupational Hazards", a red Pikmin comes out of a green pipe with some gold coins while wearing lint resembling Mario's hat, nose and moustache, then hops out replicating the plumber's iconic jump, complete with the first seven notes of some very familiar overworld music.
- Linking a Nintendo account will give the player a blue Decor Pikmin wearing a Mario hat in Pikmin Bloom.
- Splatoon:
- The N-ZAP series of weapons are direct send-ups to the Nintendo Zapper, and each variant's name contains another reference to Nintendo history of The '80s:
- The N-ZAP '85 references the year that the Zapper was first released.
- The N-ZAP '89 is a nod to the Zapper being given an orange-and-white redesign in response to a law mandating that all toy guns look drastically different from real guns
.
- The N-ZAP '83 references the year of the Nintendo Entertainment System's release.
- In the first game, 8-bit renderings of Bloopers, the squid enemies from the Mario games, can be found in several out-of-the-way locations. The game also features renderings of Octoroks, the octopus enemies from The Legend of Zelda, in reference to the Octolings' octopus forms.
- Splatoon 2 adds 8-bit renderings of Gunion, the octopus enemies from Super Mario Land, and the octopus from the titular Game & Watch game. There are also 8-bit renderings of an Unira, the urchin enemies from Clu Clu Land, which appear in Starfish Mainstage as the series features urchin characters.
- The fourth boss in Splatoon 3 is a full-on homage to the Phantamanta fight of Super Mario Sunshine, from the mechanics of the fight to the colors of their goo trail.
- The N-ZAP series of weapons are direct send-ups to the Nintendo Zapper, and each variant's name contains another reference to Nintendo history of The '80s:
- Super Mario Bros.:
- In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, the various items you can get from making different brews of coffee at the Starbean Cafe represent different Nintendo series. For example, one such item is the Triforce, called the "Great Force" here.note
- The Mario Golf series has several. For example, the icon for the "Links" Club in the portable games is a Triforce; when you hit the ball into a flower patch in Toadstool Tour, Pikmin can be seen flying out; and the leaderboard in 64 features several character names from The Legend of Zelda and Star Fox.
- In Paper Mario: The Origami King, the player can obtain a mask of Samus at Shogun Studios. When Mario tries it on for the first time, Bobby comments it would probably look good on "some other M".
- Super Mario RPG has a few Nintendo references:
- Link can be found sleeping at the Rose Town inn at a certain point in the game.
- A toy of Samus can be found in Booster's toybox at the top of Booster Tower. After you get the fifth Star Piece, you can find the real deal bounty hunter in the Mushroom Castle guest room's bed; if talked to, she'll say she's getting some rest before taking on Mother Brain.
- The "Hino Mart" store contains figurines of F-Zero's Blue Falcon and Fire Stingray alongside an Arwing from Star Fox atop the crates in the back.
- Super Mario Maker 2's story mode has levels designed by people using the names Agent 1, Agent 2, Celebrity MC, and Celebrity DJ. If that weren't enough, their descriptions are written in-character as Callie, Marie, Pearl, and Marina, respectively.
- Almost every WarioWare game features a stage with 9-Volt, sometimes along with his friend 18-Volt and his mother 5-Volt, all Nintendo fans. To reflect this, all of their microgames are based around Nintendo and their products, ranging from retro things (such as breaking barrels in Donkey Kong or collecting coins while flying with the cape in Super Mario World), to games from the turn of the millennium (like spraying goop off of walls in Super Mario Sunshine or guiding the boomerang to a target in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass), to products that are much more recent by the time of the games' release (such as snapping Joy-Cons into the Nintendo Switch or shaking objects in Super Mario Maker to change them into other things). A good amount of Nintendo's non-video game output also appears in their microgames, such as Hanafuda cards, the Ultra Hand, the Ultra Machine, and the Custom Gunman. Viewing the Volts' microgame descriptions will also tell you the year the product featured in the microgame released.
- Twilight Zone references Pat Lawlor's previous pinball machines in two places:
- The Fast Lock mode is a Timed Mission where a radio steadily progresses back in time, playing sound clips from every one of his older titles in reverse order The Addams Family, FunHouse (1990), Whirlwind, Earthshaker!, and Banzai Run. Completing it (and thus starting multiball) will play the multiball music from the game the last quote played originated from.
- Hitting the clock enough times during "Clock Chaos" will play a clip of Rudy (from FunHouse (1990)) yelling, "Quit playing with the clock!"
- Red & Ted's Road Show similarly has a number of allusions to Lawlors other games:
- The Invaders from Twilight Zone appear during several modes, most notably during the Seattle mode.
- Los Angeles' mode is nicknamed "Earthshaker!", and you get to hear Red imitate the Title Scream at the end of the mode.
- The Kansas City "Tornado" mode starts with a quote from Whirlwind.
- One non-Lawlor allusion: if you restart multiball but fail to get the jackpot, Red comments "You missed everything!"
- Judge Dredd has several references to "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (also designed by John Trudeau):
- Scoring a jackpot during the Traffic Jam mode in Supergame prompts the "MOVE YOUR CAR!" soundbite to play.
- The "Safe Cracker" mode is extremely similar to Lagoons "Move Your Car" mode as well, in both scoring and aesthetics (the player uses increasingly excessive means to accomplish their goal, alongside a cry of "MOVE YOUR CAR!"/"OPEN THAT SAFE!" upon each successful shot).
- Furthermore, upon activating the mode, the display shows the players character donning sunglasses and declaring "Ill be back!"
- Several of the arrested criminals are characters taken straight from "Lagoon".
- Junk Yard has a lot of them. Examples include:
- One sound effect is taken from Earthshaker!.
- During Crane Hurry-up, the voice saying "Come on, hurry, hurry, hurry!" sounds like one of the voices in Dr. Dude (used for the Gift of Gab, among other things).
- The Angel's voice is the same as the Candy 5000's from Safecracker, and both the Angel's portrait and the Devil's voice are also in WHO dunnit (1995).
- The backglass indicates that the titular junkyard is located behind Tony's Palace, the setting of WHO dunnit (1995).
- The Super Jackpot animation comes from The Getaway: High Speed II.
- And, most of all, the Time Machine. After collecting a certain piece of junk, shooting a target will start a mode from a previous Williams title. Modes include "Mamushka", "Move Your Car", "Saucer Attack", and, in early revisions, "Payback Time".
- No Good Gofers has a few other references to previous Pat Lawlor tables, all of which occur when you lose all your balls in multiball without scoring the jackpot.
- Doing it once prompts a reference to Whirlwind:
Bud: Now, head for the cellar!
Buzz: You're in the wrong game, idiot! - Doing it again instead prompts a reference to Earthshaker!:
Bud: Everybody, head underground now!
Buzz: Now you're REALLY in the wrong game! - Just like in FunHouse (1990), starting multiball back up again causes Buzz to say "Oh, no!"
- Outside of Multiball, getting no ramps or orbits during Cart Attack prompts Buzz to say "You missed everything!"
- Doing it once prompts a reference to Whirlwind:
- One of the things Pin*Bot can say when you cheat in Jack*Bot is "Look, there's Rudy."
- Johnny Mnemonic:
- Shooting the outer loops several times in a row prompts Skull the Bone Head (from No Fear: Dangerous Sports) to appear and shout "Again!"
- Starting a Frenzy plays a voice clip of Rudy from FunHouse (1990) saying "Frenzy?!" and laughing.
- Congo has several references to John Trudeau's Creature from the Black Lagoon during the "Satellite Transfer", including the hot dog vendor and the MOVE YOUR CAR! man.
- In Tales of the Arabian Nights, you can sometimes hear the callout "Move your carpet!" after a shot up the ramp.
- Creature from the Black Lagoon has two allusions to Mortal Kombat (by Midway games, which was acquired by Williams in 1988):
- In the game's Video Mode, when beating up the peeping tom, pressing both flipper buttons for the final blow decapitates him, prompting the announcer to yell "FATALITY!"
- A similar Easter Egg allows the player choke the snack bar attendant after yelling, "COME HERE!" The words "Choking Fatality" appears on the display.
- The Flintstones:
- The angry customer in "Joe's Diner" is the angry moviegoer ("MOVE YOUR CAR!") from Creature from the Black Lagoon.
- The "Bedrock Water Buffalos" mode is an updated version of the "Bad Impersonator" mode from Judge Dredd.
- In the back of FunHouse (1990) (underneath the ramp) is a freeway sign reading "Kansas — Feel the Power." This is both a reference to Whirlwind and one of Pat Lawlor's Creator Thumbprints.
- The last award in Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure's Quick Multiball is "The Fish of Tayles" (alluding to Fish Tales, also by Mark Ritchie).
- In Indianapolis 500, the ending for "Wrong Turn" shows an Indy car stuck in a traffic jam, whereupon someone shouts, "Move your car!"
- Medieval Madness is highly referential to the company's older works:
- Shooting ramps consecutively prompts Skull to appear. He's also one of the objects that can be fired from the catapult.
- One of only two game-opening lines that isn't spoken by the King of Payne is "It's a great day for jousting!", referencing the opening line of Indianapolis 500.
- Spiritual predecessor Attack from Mars gets several nods:
- The rioting peasants sometimes cry "They took our livestock and treasured historical monuments!"
- One possible intro dialogue for Trolls! is "Trolls rule!" "That's right! Rule the universe!" Rule The Universe is the Wizard Mode in Attack from Mars.
- Francois du Grimm is basically one giant Shout Out to the Frenchman from Attack From Mars; in addition to the two characters using the exact same voice, about half of the former's lines are Snowclones of the latter's.
- If you defeat the left Troll during the Trolls! mode, the right one can quip:
"Hey! What did I ever do to you?"
- Occasionally, whenever you shoot the Damsel ramp, you can hear "Toasty!" (on the second shot) and "Fatality!" (on the third shot). (Williams acquired Mortal Kombat developer Midway Games in 1988, and sound designer Dan Forden worked on both games.)
- Another Midway allusion: the jousting announcer can sometimes shout "BOOMSHAKALAKA!", just like in NBA Jam. (Again, Tim Kitzrow provided voice work for both games.)
- Monster Bash:
- The lane for the Creature from the Black Lagoon includes a translucent panel with a small Gill Man figure underneath it, similar to the "hologram" effect from the Creature from the Black Lagoon table.
- One of the locations that pops up upon shooting the scoop is "Phantom Haus", the name of a redemption game Williams had previously made.
- The stretch taxi seen on the backglass of Police Force is from Mark Ritchie's previous game, Taxi.
- No Fear: Dangerous Sports twice alludes to Steve Ritchie's earlier Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
- Skull says "Get out!" when you shoot the tube saucer at certain times.
- No Fear's "Payback Time" is the same as T2's version.
Skull: "IT'S... PAYBACK TIME!"
- Revenge from Mars:
- Deplete the Big-O Martian's Life Meter in "Secret Weapon" and you're prompted to "FINISH HIM!"
- The "Drive-In Demolition" mode is a reference to the "Move Your Car" mode in Creature from the Black Lagoon.
- In Space Shuttle, the shuttle itself is named the "Defender," after Williams' popular video game.
- During the "Hat Magic" illusion in Theatre of Magic, the third item produced out of the hat is a telephone. The person on the other end yells "MOVE YOUR CAR!", from Creature from the Black Lagoon.
- World Cup Soccer has cameos from Raiden, the "Stay cool, daddy-o" guy, Admiral Biagie, and Rudy.
- Under the ramp in the upper-left corner of Whirlwind's playfield is a road sign reading "Visit the Fault", a reference to Pat Lawlor's Earthshaker!.
- Blend-S: In Episode 3, as Dino mentions anime girls with long, flowing hair, Shino of Kiniro Mosaic and Hifumi of New Game! appears in an eyecatch. These three series are all published by Hobunsha under the Manga Time Kirara brand.
- During the beach trip in the fifth episode of Comic Girls, Koyume ends up hanging out with Wakaba Girl's Wakaba Kohashi, Moeko Tokita, Mao Kurokawa and Nao Mashiba for a brief time. Wakaba Girl is another Manga Time Kirara series animated by Nexus.
- Sanrio:
- In episode 6b of Jewelpet: Magical Change, plush toys of Hello Kitty and My Melody are turned into giant monsters. Both characters, as well as the Jewelpet franchise, are creations of Sanrio.
- On the topic of Jewelpets, Ruby also makes an apperance in the 2012 Short Film Onegai My Melody: Yu and Ai where's she seen among the other residents of Mariland lessening to My Melody's stories. Fittingly enough, Onegai My Melody: Yu and Ai was screened alongside Jewelpet the Movie: Sweets Dance Princess during it's original Japanese release.
- During eyecatches for Onegai My Melody, Hello Kitty is seen watching TV as her television is playing clips from that week's episode.
- The 1981 feature film The Fantastic Adventures of Unico (based on the Osamu Tezuka manga series) features Hello Kitty and The Little Twin Stars (Kiki and Lala) making a non-speaking background cameo during Katy's musical number of her dreams on becoming a cat witch. Fitting, since the Unico manga series was first seralized on "Strawberry Magazine" (Sanrio's magazine divison released monthly) between November 1976 and 1979. In general, Unico was originally co-created between Osamu Tezuka and Sanrio, with Sanrio having the merchandise rights between the seventies and eighties until Tezuka Productions took over after Tezuka's passing in early 1989.
- The second Unico film Unico in the Island of Magic features Tuxedo Sam making a non-speaking cameo appearance where he alongside Unico and the other forest animals are lessening to Toby performing on his flute.
- Hello Kitty, My Melody, and The Little Twin Stars show up during the climax of the 1985 animated film A Journey Through Fairy Land which is Sanrio Animation's final animated film.
- In Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, there are several references to fellow Studio Ghibli film My Neighbor Totoro. For example, there's a Totoro magnet on the refrigerator in Sosuke's house, and at one point Lisa sings a line from Totoro's opening song ("I'm happy as can be!").
- Pretty Cure:
- Nagisa Misumi's blanket on her bed is purple and has a print of rabbits on it, just like Usagi Tsukino, the lead heroine of another Magical Girl series by Toei.
- The Birthday Episode of Futari wa Pretty Cure MaX Heart features a sign with references to
Ojamajo Doremi, which was not only made by both Toei Animation and Bandai, but also held the same 8:30AM Sunday timeslot on TV Asahi.
- The Birthday Episode of Futari wa Pretty Cure MaX Heart features a sign with references to
- Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure had two references to Ojamajo Doremi:
- Batetemoda greets people by saying "Chiisu!", just like Hana-chan does in the Dokkan season.
- A poster for Majo Minarai wo Sagashite is shown when Hinata puts up flyers for the Eternal Tree festival.
- Nagisa Misumi's blanket on her bed is purple and has a print of rabbits on it, just like Usagi Tsukino, the lead heroine of another Magical Girl series by Toei.
- The festival episode of the first season of Ojamajo Doremi featured a plush Stonston as a prize. Like Ojamajo Doremi, Yume no Crayon Oukoku was a show with a toyline by BanDai that aired Sundays at 8:30AM on TV Asahi.
- Many episodes of Sailor Moon's first season reference previous timeslot occupant and fellow Toei/Bandai production Goldfish Warning!, mainly by showing the Gyoppi character on merchandise from shopping bags to underwear. Most notably, Usagi uses Wapiko's catchphrase, "Onaka no rappa ga pu!", in episodes 11 and 25.
- In an episode of Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, the leads of Akazukin Chacha and Hime-chan no Ribon make cameos. All three shows had the same production company, Gallop, and in fact were the three then-most recent shows Gallop had produced.
- Combined with Writing Around Trademarks in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean. The original manga contains a reference to Mickey Mouse. This was changed to Bugs Bunny in the anime adaptation, on which Warner Bros. Japan is a member of the production committee.
- Crazy Candies: In one Season 3 episode, while digging through the ground to find a secret treasure he thinks is in Bao House, Mr. Seed accidentally ends up in the worlds of Doby & Disy and GG Bond, with all three shows being produced by Winsing Animation.
- The Flower Fairy animated series - especially in Season 1 - contains multiple references to one of Taomee's other properties, Mole's World. The Flower Fairy protagonist An'an owns a plush toy of Mole's World antagonist Kula; multiple Mole's World plushes are seen in a store in Season 1 episode 2; another character wears a hairpin shaped like one of the lahms the Mole's World moles keep as pets, among other examples.
- Happy Heroes contains a few references to Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf which may count — Alpha Group Co., Ltd. owns the companies that produce both shows. For example, in one episode of Happy Heroes, Happy S. launches a monster so far that he ends up landing near Wolf Castle from Pleasant Goat.
- Kung Fu Wa: In episode 4, on the school's second blackboard behind the students' desks you can see a doodle of the title character of P. King Duckling, another UYoung series.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The Little Detective episode 1 features a wall painting of Fun Alliance. Both shows were created by Creative Power Entertaining.
Films — Animated
- Cartoon Saloon:
- In Song of the Sea, Aisling from The Secret of Kells (the studio's first film) can be seen sitting on a bus full of children in Halloween costumes.
- In Wolfwalkers, Mebh pulls out the Eye of Colm Cille (also from The Secret of Kells) when she's rummaging through Robyn's things. Ben and Saoirse's shell flute from Song of the Sea can also be seen in the background towards the end of the film.
- In DC League of Super-Pets, Lulu asks "What is this, PAW Patrol?" upon seeing the rest of the Superpets in the climax. Outright Games made tie-in videogames for both this movie and PAW Patrol, which may explain the joke.
- Several DC Universe Animated Original Movies have done references to Warner Bros.-owned properties:
- Justice League: The New Frontier: There's a scene where Martian Manhunter shapeshifts into various characters he sees on TV. One of them is Bugs Bunny.
- Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths: When Batman uses the mech to challenge Superwoman, he causes one of its hands to perform the Bring It hand gesture that Neo and Morpheus used in The Matrix.
- Batman: Under the Red Hood: The Riddler is ordering around some very familiar looking droogs.
- Batman: Year One: This film changes some of the toys stolen from Loeb (originally Lawyer-Friendly Cameos of Mickey Mouse and Peanuts characters in the comic) into a Huckleberry Hound and an Elmer Fudd.
- Batman: Assault on Arkham: Harley Quinn is introduced while watching The Looney Tunes Show on her cellphone.
- Felix the Cat: The Movie: The "Sly Like a Fox" musical number. Pannonia Film Studio actually did make a movie about foxes.
- In Happy Family: Snowball the Memory Gobbler, one of the characters mentions wanting to see I Love Wolffy, the most recent Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf film at the time. Both are owned by Creative Power Entertaining.
- In Home (2015), there's a joke where Oh is in a bathroom and tries to eat a urinal cake, thinking it's a mint. The earlier film Madagascar from the same company has Melman do the same thing.
- Universal handled production of both Minions: The Rise of Gru and Jaws, the latter of which is seen in the former when Gru makes a stink bomb and throws it into a theater auditorium just to have the whole thing for himself and his minions.
- Teen Titans Go! To the Movies: Starfire recognizes the Warner Bros. water tower as the home of the Warner Siblings. Both this film and Animaniacs, as you probably guessed already, were produced by Warner Bros..
Films — Live-Action
- A giant poster of Call Me Bwana can be seen in From Russia with Love as Ali Kerim Bey and James Bond snipe Krilencu. Eon Productions produced both films.
- Practically every major movie produced by Columbia Pictures since 1989, when the Japanese electronics firm Sony acquired them and sister label TriStar Pictures, has had these, often going into full-blown product placement (before Sony, Columbia was owned by Coca-Cola, which also did the product placement stuff). Sony's logo now appears before the film label the movie is distributed by, just to drive it in. Video releases have often carried advertisements for other Sony products.
- Take Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle for example. Several references to Sony products appear throughout the film. For example, Spencer plays Street Fighter V on a PlayStation 4 and has posters of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and The Last Guardian in his room, both of which are PlayStation exclusives.
- The 1995 film had an ad for Sony's "Maximum Television
" sets before the film, with the spokesman pointing out that without a Sony TV and speaker setup, you weren't getting the full sound and picture.
- A lyric in the song "Who's Inside In" from Barney's Great Adventure makes a nod to another Universal film:
Maybe it's a cousin of E.T.'s?
- DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story has Fox Sports Net signage visible at times during both the dodgeball and cheerleading tournaments (though it's not clear why it's there for the dodgeball tournament, since ESPN-8 "The Ocho" is supposed to be the only one covering the event); Dodgeball was a 20th Century Fox film. Became Hilarious in Hindsight as Disney, owners of ESPN, got their hands on Dodgeball when they bought 20th Century Fox in 2019; this also included the Fox Sports regional networks, but they were sold to Sinclair Broadcast Group shortly after for competition reasons.
- The second Critters film has the second shape-shifting bounty hunter (identified as Lee) almost copy the likeness of Freddy Krueger before Charlie gets them back to copying the appearance of a nude woman from a magazine centerfold. Both Critters and A Nightmare on Elm Street are film series by New Line Cinema.
- American Pie 2 contains a scene in which The Adventures of Timmy the Tooth plays on Jim's TV. This joke actually came about because of this trope: the creators wanted to use Teletubbies for that scene, but they decided to instead go with a children's show that was also made by Universal (after not being able to get rights to Teletubbies).
- Clifford the Big Red Dog, a Paramount release, features a character who uses a SpongeBob SquarePants flash drive at one point.
- Months later, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had Sonic call Knuckles Clifford the Big Red Rage Monster, a reference to Paramount distributing both films.
- In Instant Family, a girl holds a SpongeBob SquarePants-themed knife.
- Saw 3D: The reality TV show that Bobby and his crew are seen at is named "Daybreak", likely a reference to a past film distributed by Lionsgate titled Daybreakers, which was released the previous year to Saw 3D's.
Literature
- Alan Alone: In the illustrated prologue, Alan says that if he ever found the titular magic ghost from Hantu Silap Mata, he would ask it to steal Mr. Nurie's mouth (because he won't stop singing late at night), to which Mr. Faisal replies that it's a fictional character and not a godlike creature anyway. The next panel advertises the book Hantu Silap Mata, also written by Alif Firdaus Azis.
- CSI: NY: In "Buzzkill," a billboard in Times Square advertising Dexter can be seen in the background a few times. The shows aired concurrently on CBS.
- Goosebumps: In "The Cuckoo Clock of Doom", when Michael is six years old, his father reads him Clifford the Big Red Dog as a bedtime story. Both Clifford and Goosebumps are properties of Scholastic Inc.
- Janda Kembang:
- In episode 5, the RT leader is watching fellow NET. drama series Cinta dan Rahasia when his TV antenna needs adjusting.
- The footage used for the soap opera watched by Neneng and Seli in episode 8 comes from another NET. series Kesempurnaan Cinta.
- The motorcycle taxi that Malik uses in episode 19 is OK-JEK from NET. sitcom of the same name.
- Both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune are produced by Sony, and Jeopardy! has made several references to Wheel. For example, "Before & After" is a recurring Jeopardy! category that references Wheel, and at one point, they featured a category called "Wheel of Jeopardy!" where the clue was given in the form of an unsolved Wheel of Fortune puzzle.
- Mimpi Metropolitan
- Like in other NET. shows, the online motorcycle taxi service used by the characters are OK-JEK from NET. sitcom of the same name.
- Since they share the same lead writer, the show sometimes references a previous NET.Limelight collaboration Cinta dan Rahasia, such as giving Mami Bibir the same birthday as Dimas from that show.
- In episode 23, Mami Bibir watches Ini Talkshow, also aired on NET., and comments on how funny it is.
- Odd Squad:
- There are two cross-references pertaining to Sinking Ship Entertainment.
- In "The Void", one of the things Omar learns in order to be similar to Opal, Orla and Oswald is how to speak Spanish. He does this by watching a short clip of Mac and Sammy communicating in Spanish from Playdate, which is produced by Sinking Ship Entertainment. Doubles as an Actor Allusion subversion, as Millie Davis played Molly in that show, but does not appear in "The Void."
- "Slow Your Roll" has Opal, Omar and Orla come face-to-face with a creature known as a Madmelodia, which looks strikingly similar to the alien creature seen in Endlings, a show also produced by Sinking Ship Entertainment. This is yet another Actor Allusion subversion similar to aboveMichela Luci, who plays Orchid, also plays Tabby; however, she does not appear in the episode.
- Besides those, in "The O Games", the song that Odd Todd whistles as the 25-Centigurp Dash begins is the opening theme to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Both shows share the same production company, Fred Rogers Productions (known as The Fred Rogers Company at the time of this episode's airing, and Family Communications when MRN was airing).
- There are two cross-references pertaining to Sinking Ship Entertainment.
- In the Planet Ajay episode "Planet Badjay", Ajay's Evil Twin Badjay takes over the show, leaving Ajay on Badjay's spaceship. Ajay presses several buttons in the ship to see if any of them teleport him back to Planet Ajay; one of the buttons plays the drum beat heard at the beginning of the theme song of EastEnders. EastEnders is a series produced by The BBC, whose children's station CBBC aired Planet Ajay.
- In an episode of The Practice a witness claims that he knows what time a certain thing happened because he was watching Boston Public at the time. This caused a Continuity Snarl when The Practice and Boston Public had a crossover later on.
- CBBC series Sorry, I've Got No Head references fellow BBC series Doctor Who in a few episodes.
- In the Mr. Blobby VHS "Blobbyvision", Mr. Blobby rides in Noddy's car. Both Noel's House Party (where Mr. Blobby originated from) and Noddy's Toyland Adventures aired on BBC.
- In The Film of the Play version of Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Laa-Laa and Po from Teletubbies make a cameo. This production aired on BBC, which also aired Teletubbies.
- The Halloween 2002 strip of Mr. Potato Head, which was co-created by Jim Davis, had Mr. Potato Head attempt to go trick-or-treating with his son Chip while dressed as Jim Davis' character Garfield.
- The Attract Mode for Sega Pinball's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein shows Sonic the Hedgehog alongside the company's logo. After a few iterations, Sonic appears with big scars, like Frankenstein's other Creatures.
- Similarly, Sonic appears as an astronaut during Apollo 13's attract mode.
- In addition, on Starship Troopers (also by Sega), Sonic can also appear as one of the Brain Bug's thoughts during the Match Sequence.
- One possible outcome in Cue Ball Wizard's "Where's the King?" Video Mode is Cactus Jack (from the Gottlieb table of the same name).
Cactus Jack: Surprise, tendafoot!
- The Candy Kodes in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory have a few references to other Jersey Jack Pinball games:
- One of them prints a message alluding to The Hobbit:
"Have you ever spelled dwarf in order during Orc Attack?"
- Two others reference Dialed In!: "Crazy!" (accompanied by an appropriate soundbite from that game) and "When you are Dialed In, look to the moon."
- Two more reference Pirates of the Caribbean:
"Use random select to choose your character yarrr!"
"Have you found the 23rd character? Yarrr!"
- One of them prints a message alluding to The Hobbit:
- One of the alternate dimensions in Rick and Morty is themed after Total Nuclear Annihilation (also made by Scott Danesi and Spooky Pinball), emulating its music, lighting, and rules.
- The official rule sheet
for Avengers: Infinity Quest describes Trophy Mania as "the super duper mega extreme wizard mode", alluding to the name of the final wizard mode in the older Stern game The Simpsons Pinball Party.
- Back when Ring of Honor and Full Impact Pro were "sister promotions", the "Crazy Homeless Person" who interfered on the behalf of Jimmy Jacobs and The Age Of The Fall in ROH was Milo Beasley, a longstanding bum/minion of FIP who had previously "served" indie legend CM Punk. The only member of the FIP Age Of The Fall that was respectively recognized in ROH was Radiant Rain, on account of her and Lacey working as The Minnesota/International Home Wrecking crew in ROH's other former sister promotion, SHIMMER.
- In the Donkey Hodie episode "Good Dog School", Purple Panda holds up a picture that he drew of Bob Dog in order to remind him of how good he was at staying still for a picture and therefore he can stay still at his Good Dog School graduation. The picture he holds up is in the same art style as Nature Cat, which is also by Spiffy Pictures. It actually looks a lot like the design of the dog Hal from that series, albeit with Bob's features instead.
- Fraggle Rock: In "The Cavern of Lost Dreams", Sprocket tries his paw at making his own dog food and, at one point, imitates the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show, another Jim Henson series.
- Lamb Chop's Play-Along made two jokes referencing fellow PBS series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood:
- "The Planet Yzarc" ends with an alien asking for directions to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
- In another episode, Shari Lewis asks Lamb Chop if she's ever wished upon a star, and she replies she hasn't, but she wrote a letter to Mister Rogers once.
- The Noddy Shop:
- "Find Your Own Song" features a Kids' Show Mascot Parody named Robbie MacRhino, a spoof of the main character of fellow PBS Kids series Barney & Friends.
- "Kate Loves A Parade" mentions a location from Shining Time Station, also created by Rick Siggelkow.
- Sesame Street:
- They have made several PBS Kids cross-references:
- Bert composes a letter to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in one skit. There was also an episode where Big Bird met Mister Rogers.
- Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop cameoed in one Around The Corner-era episode.
- One episode had a worm in a parade wear a Barney costume. He even hums "I Love You" when putting it on.
- They've also done one for another Sesame Workshop series: Right before Big Bird's Fairy Godperson left in the 2006 episode "Big Bird Wishes The Adults Were Kids", he gets a call on his wand phone, telling us that there are two kids who want to fly with dragons. He even repeats their Invocation word for word.
- They have made several PBS Kids cross-references:
- Hero Factory: One of the online games has "S-L-I-Z-E-R-S" as an access code, with Slizer being the name of a previous LEGO toyline.
- My Little Pony: Some of the G1 First Tooth ponies come with a Glo-Worm as an accessory. Glo-Worms are also made by Hasbro.
- The Radio City Christmas Spectacular includes a 3D video of Santa flying over New York, at one point passing over Madison Square Garden during a Knicks game. The Madison Square Garden company also owns the Radio City Music Hall, making this a form of cross-promotion.
- Alan's hardboiled detective novels in Alan Wake are heavily based on Remedy's earlier Max Payne. Quantum Break also has a number of references to Alan Wake, although Control upgrades it to a full-on Shared Universe.
- The Namco game Alpine Racer
3 has Pac-Man as the dot on the question mark denoting "random" on the character select, Pac-Man and the ghosts appear on the time comparison every time you reach a checkpoint, and Klonoa appears as an unlockable Secret Character.
- Capcom likes doing this with their games. For example, in God Hand, one of the mini-bosses is wielding Nevan the electric guitar from Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, one of the names of the chihuahua in the dog race minigame is Amaterasu, and the Mad Midget Five miniboss is a reference to Viewtiful Joe.
- Chibi-Robo!: Bandai-Namco co-produced this game. You can receive a Tamagotchi toy (another Bandai property) as an item for completing Captain Plankbeard's sidequests and can interact with it.
- Chocobo Racing has tons of Final Fantasy cameos, as you might expect, but it also taps into two unrelated games for secret characters — Aya Brea from Parasite Eve and Jack from The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner.
- In Daytona USA, the Beginner track has a stone wall near the final curve that has Sonic carved into it, and the Expert track has a statue of Jeffry McWild.
- Digimon, being a male counterpart to Tamagotchi, was practically contractually obligated to make at least one Tamagotchi reference since its inception. Both franchises are from Bandai.
- Tamagotchi character Oyajitchi serves as the inspiration for Digimon character Nanimon's appearance.
- Wizardmon's staff and Belphemon's Sleep Mode clock are both modeled after Tamagotchi devices.
- Fall Guys:
- Legacy Season 4 introduced a costume based on the character SCOUT from the visual novel Murder by Numbers (2020), along with a color palette based on the game — both titles are developed by Mediatonic.
- There are also in-game costumes based on games published by Devolver Digital (which originally published Fall Guys before it was bought by Epic Games), namely: Enter the Gungeon, Hotline Miami, My Friend Pedro, Gato Roboto, GRIS, and The Messenger (2018).
- Forza Horizon really gets in on this from Horizon 4 onwards, with a Halo-themed mission, as well as unlockable novelty car horns from Halo, Sea of Thieves and Killer Instinct, along with the (in)famous Windows XP shutdown noise and the "Wololo" voice clip from Age of Empires. Horizon 5 expands upon this; the horns return, along with new contributions from Banjo-Kazooie, Ori and the Blind Forest, Battletoads, The Outer Worlds, and even DOOM, as well as the Windows 10 notification sound, the classic "ta-da!" shutdown sound from Win3.1 and 95, and even the Microsoft Teams ringtone! Horizon 3 also marked the debut of a drivable Warthog from Halo, which returned in 4 and 5.
- In Growing Up, one of the shops at North Pine Galleria's called "Oh...Sir", referencing one of Vile Monarch's other games. There's also an arcade cabinet named after that game in Starcade 80, and you even make another one if you become a game dev studio CEO in the end.
- Since Innersloth and PuffballsUnited produces both the Henry Stickmin Series and Among Us, the two games often reference each other.
- From Stickmin: Completing the Mission has a sidequest that has you find crewmate plushies hidden throughout the many routes in the game. A poster depicting the Imposter also appears in Mission, and one of the fails is a direct Among Us reference, to name a few.
- From Among Us: There are multiple pets, hats and costumes lifted directly from the various entries in the Stickmin series, among other things. The fourth map is even themed after the airship belonging to the recurring Toppat Clan.
- Some cards in I Was a Teenage Exocolonist have references to other games published by Finji:
- In the Klonoa series, the titular character's hat depicts Pac-Man on it; both game series are Namco creations.
- LEGO Stunt Rally:
- Johnny Thunder and Baron von Barron (or at least a character resembling him) can be seen in the intro cutscene.
- Billboards advertising LEGO Loco are among the city's scenery.
- The game's manual says that Radium was once a scientist for the Rock Raiders until he was caught in one of his own radioactive experiments.
- Psycho Mantis is known for this in Metal Gear Solid and its GameCube remake, The Twin Snakes. By reading your memory card, he'll comment on your enjoyment of other Konami or Nintendo games that he finds save files for.
- The remakes of Lucasarts' The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge are subtitled "Special Edition", a nod to the Star Wars Special Editions.
- The Bandai video game Monster Party features a boss modeled after one of the toys from Gegebomajuu, a line of model kits with gross-out features created by Bandai. Specifically, it is the infamous "Sorry, I'm dead" boss, which is modeled after the Torigaran toy.
- The Monster Rancher franchise had a gimmick where players would insert a CD (and later a DVD) into their game console in order to spawn a unique monster with the data on the disc as a source. Naturally, Tecmo allowed their own games to create especially unique monsters, with available sources including the Deception series, Dead or Alive, and Fatal Frame, among others.
- Tying in with the above-mentioned connections between Midway and Williams, Mortal Kombat 3 had a couple of Kombat Kodes that gave hints for the pinball tables Jack*Bot and No Fear: Dangerous Sports (likely baffling people who weren't into pinball and/or aware of the connections).
- NEO: The World Ends with You has the in-game game FanGO, which is basically Pokémon GO with Final Fantasy monsters instead of Pokemon. Such monsters include nutkin and pupu. Also, Rindo's phone has moogle, cactuar and tonberry stickers in its communications app.
- Prince of Persia: Warrior Within has a few hidden joke weapons. One of them is a cartoonish White Glove, which is clearly borrowed from the title character of Ubisoft's fellow series Rayman.
- Game Freak, the developers of Pokémon, often puts references to their other works in the games, especially to Pulseman. To note:
- The ship S.S. Anne from Pokémon Red and Blue is named after Saint Anne, the computer from which Pulseman was born.
- The move Volt Tackle has the same Japanese name as Pulseman's signature attack, Volteccer (ボルテッカー).
- Rotom, first introduced in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, has a similar appearance to Pulseman, especially to his pointed helmet and affinity for electric attacks. Also in Diamond and Pearl, the evil Team Galactic has the same Japanese name as the Galaxy Gang (ギンガ団 Ginga-dan) in Pulseman.
- Boltund is an Electric-type dog Pokémon introduced in Pokémon Sword and Shield. In Japanese, it is named "Pulsewan" (パルスワン), which sounds very similar to "Pulseman".
- Outside of Pulseman, another Game Freak title, HarmoKnight, includes multiple bonus stages and easter eggs referencing Pokémon.
- In Puyo Puyo Tetris from Sega, it's possible to purchase an alternate appearance for tetrominoes that turns them into Sonic heads. And in the sequel, Sonic himself becomes a Guest Fighter in the first post-launch update.
- Ridge Racer loves doing this, referencing their other games via car names, decals and even tracks name-dropping their other games. Especially prominent in Type 4, whose Story Mode has racing teams all named after Namco's arcade classics: Dig Racing Team, Micro Mouse Mappy, Pac Racing Club and RT Solvalou, as well as a track named Phantomile and Pac-Man himself appearing as a secret car.
- The Roblox game Mad Games includes a mini-game based off of the Roblox game The Mad Murderer. Both games were made by the group Mad Studios.
- In Streets of Rage 4, players who have access to Max from the Mr. X Nightmare DLC will sometimes hear him shout "Drop kikku!" when performing one mid-air. This is a reference to Guard Crush Games' own Streets of Fury, whom also co-developed Streets of Rage 4, and the voice-over line came from the character MC Manhattan from said game.
- Super Mario RPG (developed by Squaresoft) has a Bonus Boss that is a lengthy homage to contemporary Final Fantasy games: he's surrounded by four crystals (mirroring the Plot Coupons of several early Final Fantasy titles), his fight music
is a rendition of Final Fantasy IV's boss theme
, and he mentions hailing from a two-dimensional realm in the Japanese version
(contrasting the Mario RPG 3D art style).
- Falcom does this in Tokyo Xanadu with their Show Within a Show Magical Girl Alisa, which features Rean and Alisa, two main characters from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. The costumes they wear in the anime are also references to their DLC costumes from the second Cold Steel game.
- In Zuma's Revenge, one of the boards exclusive to Blitz Mode takes place in a garden where zombies from Plants vs. Zombies occasionally appear; both games are published by PopCap Games.
- Tell Me Why features posters in one segment that reference developer Dontnod's previous games:
- One is an ad for a film company with a blue butterfly logo. The tagline is "Life is weird."
- Another is a poster for Jax Energy Drink, which has a robot panda as a mascot. This a reference to Jax the Robot Panda from Remember Me. Tyler mentions that he tried the drink once and his memories didn't make sense afterwards, referencing the protagonist's power to "remix" peoples' memories.
- Finally, there's a poster for Red Queen wine. While looking at it, Tyler asks "What is glass but tortured sand?"
- Unpacking: One of the protagonist's action figures is that of Assault Android Cactus, the main character from the eponymous game also developed by Witch Beam.
- In The Futzu Tower stage of Solatorobo, you can see the logo to the CyberConnectCorp (not the actual CyberConnect2 themselves, but the fictious company prominent in the .hack series) in some of the areas. Seems pretty harmless, but those who knows their .hack lore can probably go on an essay on why that could be a bad thing for that game's world.
- One episode of Let's Go! Tamagotchi has Chamametchi transforming into a superhero with a costume based on Cure Dream from Yes! Pretty Cure 5, another Bandai series.
- The Queer Duck episode "B.S. I Love You" features a cameo by Abraham Lincoln as depicted in Hard Drinkin' Lincoln, which was another animated series created for Icebox.com.
- 3-2-1 Penguins!:
- In the episode "Trouble on Planet Wait-Your-Turn", Michelle says that she and Jason stopped at Burger Bell on their way to the cottage. Burger Bell first appeared in one of the Silly Songs in VeggieTales, from Big Idea who also created 3-2-1 Penguins!. The episode also features a vacuum cleaner that sounds and looks like like Larry The Cucumber, one of the main characters of VeggieTales.
- In "More Is More", one of the comics Jason suggests the penguins read is Minnesota Cuke, based on the VeggieTales episode of the same name. There is also a joke where the characters make up names for superpowers and Kevin suggests "Plunger head", a reference to LarryBoy, who has plunger ears on his costume.
- Animaniacs:
- One of the lyrics in "I Am The Very Model Of A Cartoon Individual" mentions several other Warner Brothers cartoon characters: Tweety Bird, Daffy Duck and Babs and Buster Bunny.
- In "Potty Emergency", a poster of Gossamer from Looney Tunes is seen outside the movie theater. In the coloring book adapting the same episode, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are seen as posters.
- In the episode "Take My Siblings, Please", Wakko sings the theme to Tiny Toon Adventures, which is also a Warner Brothers cartoon.
- The cast of Tiny Toon Adventures show up in "The Big Wrap Party Tonight".
- The following company cross references occur in the reboot:
- In "Suspended Animation", the Warners accidentally bump into Batman, causing him to emit the Wilhem Scream. Warner Brothers owns the rights to make movies and TV shows based on Batman.
- In "Sufferegate City", many WB cartoon characters such as the Looney Tunes and Babs and Buster appear to march for cartoons to have the right to vote.
- In one segment in Season 2, Pepe Le Pew makes a cameo.
- Arthur:
- In the episode "Attack of the Turbo Tibbles", while D.W. goes to get her mother to help fix the Mary Moo Cow tape they were watching earlier, Tommy and Timmy switch through the television channels to find something to watch. One of the shows they find is a parody of The Busy World of Richard Scarry where Huckle and Lowly are bats sleeping on a ceiling. Both The Busy World of Richard Scarry and Arthur were produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment, known as Cinar back when the episode originally aired.
- Another Cinar reference happens in "Jenna's Bedtime Blues": When Jenna tries to get her mind off bedwetting, one of the programs she turns on features puppets that look similar to some of the puppets in Wimzie's House.
- The show also loved making references to Teletubbies, which also aired on its' American (PBS Kids) and Canadian (TV Ontario) broadcasters. In fact, there were at least three different parodies of Teletubbies that appeared throughout its' run!
- Mary Moo Cow is a spoof of fellow PBS Kids show Barney & Friends, right down to her theme song being sung To the Tune of... a well-known kids' song.
- "The Contest" has two examples of this trope:
- "Andy And Company", the Arthur expy the story contest is for, resembles The Little Lulu Show in its' artstyle. The DW clone also dresses like the titular character.
- During Muffy's story, Muffy wears a costume that resembles Dipsy, causing Buster to call her "the fifth Teletubby".
- Dennis the Menace (1986) features references to other cartoons produced by DiC Entertainment at the time:
- In several episodes, one of the characters hums the Inspector Gadget theme song. Dennis hums it in one episode, and in several other episodes, Mr. Wilson hums it. In "The Big Candied Apple", the captain of the ferry hums it. Mrs. Wilson hums it in "Up Up and Away (From Here)" and "A Moving Experience", and Margaret hums it in "Charmed I'm Sure!".
- One episode of the series is titled "Ghost Blusters", and in "Dennis the Genius", Dennis creates a ghost that bears a strong resemblance to Slimer. Both episodes also feature a sound-alike of the Ghostbusters theme song. The Real Ghostbusters was one of the cartoons produced by DiC at the time.
- In several episodes, the theme to The Littles plays; in "Big Baby", it plays when Dennis agrees to babysit Sylvester, the infant son of Mrs. Atkins. In "Dennis the Businessman", it plays when Mr. Wilson turns his TV on, only to find every channel has cartoons on it. In "G.I. George", it plays when Dennis and Mr. Wilson go to a soldier union, and in "The Martians are Coming", it plays on the radio.
- FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman: One of the phrases Ruff uses at the end of the Season 4 intro, after Chet the mouse destroys the set for the intro, is "You know, I bet Arthur doesn't have to deal with stuff like this". Both shows air on PBS Kids and are produced by WGBH Boston.
- One episode of The Flintstones has Fred and Wilma going on a picnic. Their picnic basket is stolen by fellow Hanna-Barbera character Yogi Bear.
- Freakazoid!:
- In the first episode, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot show up and sing a song called "Freakzoid and Friends" to the tune of the Animaniacs theme song.
- Another episode had Wakko and the Brain argue over which of their cartoon is Steven Spielberg's favorite. They go to Steven himself to ask who simply says, "Who are you people?".
- Fresh TV's cartoons provide plenty of examples, which might not be too much of a surprise given that a lot of these shows featured the same people working on them (notably Jennifer Pertsch and Tom McGillis, who created three of the company's four animated shows).
- Several 6teen references in Total Drama.
- In the Action episode "Dial M for Merger", when Chris announces the merge's arrival, the contestants briefly recreate the intro to 6teen, complete with the original theme song.
- The World Tour episode "Broadway, Baby" has a brief moment where Lindsay mentions shopping at the Khaki Barn, a store that appears prominently in 6teen as the workplace of Nikki Wong.
- Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race: In a confessional in "Dude Buggies", MacArthur drops the name of her babysitter as Jennifer Masterson, although whether she was literally referring to Jen from 6teen is a bit unclear.
- Stōked: In the Season 1 episode "A Prank Too Far", the intro to Total Drama Action can be seen on a TV screen.
- On Grojband, Corey Riffin's beanie is decorated with the same skull that is seen on Duncan's shirt in Total Drama. It's also worth noting that Grojband creator Todd Kauffman was the director for Total Drama's first two seasons, and said skull has also appeared in non-Fresh TV cartoons he's worked on, like Sidekick and Looped.
- Several 6teen references in Total Drama.
- In Inspector Gadget, there are several references to Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats; to name just a few examples, Penny is shown to have a Riff-Raff stuffed animal in "The Incredible Shrinking Gadget", and a person attending a costume party in "Ghost Catchers" is dressed up as Heathcliff. Both shows were produced by DiC Entertainment.
- Similarly in one Catillac Cats segment of Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats Riff Raff turns on the tv and Inspector Gadget is on.
- In the Jelly Jamm episode "Jammbo TV", Goomo becomes hopelessly addicted to watching the television in the King and Queen's castle. Said television displays footage of Bugsted and Pirata And Capitano, which are produced by Vodka Capital who also worked on Jelly Jamm.
- The Jetsons: In the episode "Miss Solar System," George Jetson compliments the disguise of the character Mr. Spacely by telling him that "as Yogi Bear would say, [he's] smarter than the average bear!", referencing another character created by Hanna-Barbera.
- An episode of Littlest Pet Shop (2012) has Blythe Baxter dressed as a cowgirl riding Applejack for Halloween. Doubles as an Actor Allusion, since Ashleigh Ball voiced both characters.
- A few of the Looney Tunes shorts reference Casablanca, such as (to name one example) Bugs Bunny humming "As Time Goes By" in the 1944 short Hare Force. Both Looney Tunes and Casablanca were produced by Warner Bros..
- Martha Speaks: In "Martha's Chair", Mrs. Demson sees a chair resembling Martha's favorite chair on Antiques Roadshow, which airs on PBS just like Martha Speaks.
- The Mask: One episode features spoofs of Animaniacs called The Goofalotatots. Wang Film Productions Co., Ltd animated both Animaniacs and The Mask.*
- Muppet Babies (1984):
- In "The Daily Muppet", Oscar the Grouch, from fellow Jim Henson series Sesame Street, makes a cameo during the episode's song, "The Daily Muppet".
- In "Nice To Have Gnome You", Baby Piggy, Baby Gonzo and Baby Animal try to cross the Bog of Eternal Stench from fellow Jim Henson production Labyrinth.
- Oggy and the Cockroaches: One episode has Oggy and the cockroaches falling into acid and being turned into slime. They then enter a washing machine, which turns them into clothing, animals, and the aliens from Space Goofs, both of which are produced by Gaumont.
- The Perils of Penelope Pitstop: From the debut episode "Jungle Jeopardy":
Penelope: My arch-enemy, the Hooded Claw!
Claw: Who did you expect? Dick Dastardly? - Ready Jet Go!: In "Mindy's Weather Report", Sunspot flips through the channels on Face 9000. One of the programs he flips to is Dinosaur Train, another PBS Kids show created by Craig Bartlett, complete with a second of the Dinosaur Train theme song playing.
- Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is briefly mentioned in the special, only to be described as part of another story. In fact, he's from another story produced by Rankin/Bass.
- In the Sid the Science Kid episode "Sid's Amazing Lungs", Gerald pretends to be a baby and says "I'm the baby, gotta love me!" This is one of the Catch Phrases of Baby Sinclair from Dinosaurs, another Jim Henson series.
- The Simpsons: One episode is titled "Them, Robot", a reference to the similarly 20th Century Fox-produced film I, Robot.
- Spiral Zone: In one episode, Tank gives a hospitalized girl a Pound Puppies doll. Tonka Toys had the license to both franchises at the time.
- The Canadian animation company Nelvana provides a couple examples.
- Spliced: In "Same Difference", one clip in Smarty-Smarts and Joe's montage shows the two of them watching Grossology, which Spliced creators Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott worked on as series developers.
- Sidekick: In "Master XOX Ray Vision", after Eric puts on a pair of superpowered contact lenses, it intially causes him to see his friends Kitty, Trevor, and Vana as Scaredy Squirrel characters (Scaredy, Dave and Sally, respectively).
- In a few episodes of The Day My Butt Went Psycho!, the characters can be seen watching clips from Spliced and Scaredy Squirrel on their TV.
- A Watch My Chops episode "Who Said That?" featured cameos of Nelson the Elephant from 64 Zoo Lane and the title character from Pablo the Little Red Fox. These shows are produced by Millimages.
- In the first episode of Trollhunters, Jim's tablet is playing How to Train Your Dragon. Both are owned by Dreamworks Animation.
- In the Nature Cat episode "Wild Batts", a crossover with Wild Kratts, Nature Cat mentions that the other neighborhood bats besides Chris and Martin Batt are named Daniel Bat, Peg + Bat, George the Curious Bat, and the Bat in the Hat, all references to other PBS Kids shows.
- In Green Eggs and Ham (2019), the show features several references to fellow Dr. Seuss book The Cat in the Hat, with the most notable being the cat's hat appearing in the opening credits.
- The Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum episode "I Am Fred Rogers" focuses on fellow PBS Kids show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.