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Company Cross References

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Red edition sold separately.

"Good Morning America!"
— John Walker, The Falcon and the Winter Soldiernote 
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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.

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Examples

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    Cartoon Network 
  • 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:
    • 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'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, 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".
  • 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: Dexter had background cameos in several episodes. In addition, "Imaginary Fiend" featured a cameo by Dee Dee's imaginary friend, Koosie.
  • 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.

    Disney 
Films

Television

  • 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 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.
  • 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.
  • 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!"
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 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.
  • 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 a Halloween episode of Gargoyles, Eliza dresses up as Belle in her ballroom gown, making her the Beauty to Goliath's Beast.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Print Media

Marvel Entertainment

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.

    Nickelodeon 
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    Nintendo 
  • 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, "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 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:
  • 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.
    • Octoman is a somewhat humanoid version of the Octoroks from The Legend of Zelda games.
    • James McCloud shares a name with the father of Fox from Star Fox. He also wears the StarFox 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:
  • 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.
  • Splatoon:
    • 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 Inklings' squid forms also strongly resemble Bloopers. The game also features renderings of Octoroks, the octopus enemies from The Legend of Zelda, after which the Octolings' octopus forms are designed.
    • Splatoon 2 adds 8-bit renderings of Gunion, the octopus enemies from Super Mario Land, and the octopus from the titular Game & Watch game, after which the Octolings' octopus forms are designed. 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.
  • 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.

    Williams Electronics 

    Other 
Anime & Manga

Asian Animation

  • 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 And Disy and Metalions, 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.
  • 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.

Animated Films

Live-Action 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.
  • 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.

Live-Action TV

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Sesame Street:
  • 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 Noddy Shop:
  • 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 above—Michela 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).

Newspaper Comics

  • 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.

Pinball

Professional Wrestling

  • 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.

Toys

  • 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.

Video Games

  • 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, 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.
  • 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.
  • Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout introduces 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.
  • 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". Vile Monarch created both games. You even make an arcade cabinet of it 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 IVs boss theme, and he mentions hailing from a two-dimensional realm in the Japanese version (contrasting Mario RPGs 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
  • 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.

Web Animation

Western Animation

  • 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 vaccum 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 throught 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".
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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".
  • 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.
  • 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.
 
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Dinosaur Train in Ready Jet Go

In the episode "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.

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Dinosaur Train in Ready Jet Go

In the episode "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.

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The Eye of Colm...