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Stock Shout-Outs
aka: Stock Shoutout

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A Shout-Out that pops up in a lot of places. An oddly specific Shout Out.

Apparently multiple authors independently noticed the same detail and decided to reference it in their own story. The fact that so many authors possess such a thorough knowledge of the original story goes to show just how influential the subject of the Shout-Out is. It's a good example of Popcultural Osmosis: everybody knows that one scene, even if that's all they know about it.

Stock Shout Outs differ from Stock Parodies in two ways: They aren't played for laughs (beyond the inherent in-joke-esque nature of the common reference point) and they're usually blink-and-you'll-miss-it short.

Some are so famous that they've become tropes themselves.

See also Art Imitates Art for shout-outs to single non-narrative artworks or images.

The Other Wiki also has more information.

A Super-Trope to: If an example fits into one of these subtropes, it should be on that page, not here.


Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 

    Comic Books 
  • "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry," from the Hulk.
  • "It's a bird! It's a plane!" from Superman. Also, "This looks like a job for..."
    • Various Superman pastiches; changing costumes in a phone booth, working as a reporter, disguising yourself with only glasses...
    • The cover of Action Comics #1 with Superman holding a car over his head and smashing it into a rock. Particulary detailed homages will also copy the poses of the bystanders.
    • The cover of Adventure Comics #247 with the Legion Of Superheroes voting not to admit Superboy is very frequently homaged in comics.
  • For Batman, the Bat-Signal, Batcave, and the addition of the "Bat-" prefix are all referenced and parodied constantly.
    • The TV version also gives us the theme song, "Bam!" and "Pow!" showing up in fight scenes, "Holy something, Batman," and the transition between scenes with the bat logo.
  • Spider-Man's "My Spider-Senses are tingling" line, sometimes with the "Spider-" part replaced with a more appropriate prefix, sometimes not.
    • "With great power comes great responsibility."
  • If Throwing Your Shield Always Works, there is a good chance it is a nod to Captain America.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • Catch-22, from the novel of the same name.
  • "He who controls the Spice controls the universe!" from Dune
    • Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear may show up once in a while.
  • "Yer a wizard, Harry", from Harry Potter. (Although it's worth noting that that wording is particular to the films. In the books, the line is, "Harry — yer a wizard".)
  • 42: Most famous as the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though it occurs over and over again in Lewis Carroll's works.
  • "Nevermore." Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. Expect it wherever or whenever anything corvid-related appears.
  • Room 101 from Nineteen Eighty-Four
  • Sherlock Holmes in general, but in particular lines like "elementary, my dear Watson", "the game's afoot", and "when you've ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, [however improbable,] must be the truth".
  • Jean Valjean's prisoner number, #24601, pops up frequently when a series visits a prison.
  • The "Gimlet" joke that is re-used throughout many of the Discworld novels: it related to a Dwarf with the capacity to really hold your gaze.
    • J. R. R. Tolkien's wise words on dwarfs in The Lord of the Rings also take a repeated hammering. The original Gimli's assertion that there such things as female Dwarfs, only "they are in look and garb so alike to the males that the eyes of Man cannot tell them apart" spawns several books' worth of Shout-Out-s to dwarfs who favour chain-mail lingerie and take more care with grooming their beards. A Dwarf schoolgirl is allowed into a prestigious boarding school, but must plait her beard with ribbons in the school colours. Then there is Dwarf feminist Cheery Littlebottom, who rebels against all that but cannot bring herself to shave her beard off.
  • References to the various Tomes of Eldritch Lore of the Cthulhu Mythos. The Necronomicon and Chambers's The King in Yellow (pre-Lovecraft but later absorbed into the mythos) are the standards, but it's not unheard of for De Vermis Mysteriis or Die Unsprechliche Kulten to make appearances.
  • Many works have featured single-episode or single-issue plots involving islands infested with human-parasitising Festering Fungi, which are Shout Outs to either William Hope Hodgson's short horror story "The Voice in the Night", or its much-expanded Japanese film adaptation Matango/Attack of the Mushroom People.

    Live-Action TV 
  • 4 8 15 16 23 42: The Lost numbers, which notably include two numbers listed separately above.
  • "Beam me up, Scotty", of course, is a misquote, but it serves as one of these nonetheless. The actual beaming up sequence is also an example, as are phasers with the settings "stun" and "kill".
  • The Prisoner (1967):
    • The entire opening conversation between Number Six and Number Two.
    • The black jacket with white piping worn by the title character.
    • The monstrous weather balloon Rover.
    • The phrase "Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for the self."
    • The farewell "Be seeing you."
  • Twin Peaks
  • Kamen Rider: The Rider Kick, with obligatory "(insert name here) KIIIIICK!!", at least in Japanese media.
  • A team of multicolored masked superheroes in spandex is a clear reference to Super Sentai/Power Rangers.

    Music 

    Theatre 

    Video Games 

    Western Animation 

    Uncategorized 
  • A113: A reference to the California Institute for the Arts, specifically the classroom for first-year graphic design. This one is common in Pixar films (witness "special order A113" in WALL•E), but Cal Arts grad and Pixar stalwart Brad Bird also included references in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
  • Someone sticking out both hands and making the V-sign with them will immediately bring up images of Richard Nixon.
    • Often accompanied by rapidly shaking the head, allowing the jowls to flap.
  • Fiction about boxing (and possibly any sort of combat sport in general) will almost always contain some sort of variation on "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee". In a similar vein, expect the protagonist to do the Ali Shuffle at some point too.
  • "It's a man's life in...", from the traditional recruiting slogan "It's a man's life in the British Army". For extra humour, the organisation or occupation used will often be very lacking in apparent manliness.


Alternative Title(s): Stock Shoutout, Stock Allusions

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