Stock Shout-Outs

aka: Stock Shoutout

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.

• Abbey Road Crossing
• The Ahnold
• Alice Allusion
• Alliteration & Adventurers
• Balcony Wooing Scene: Variants where the man holds a boombox are a shoutout to Say Anything....
• The Bard on Board
• Batman Parody
• "Basic Instinct" Legs-Crossing Parody
• Bob Ross Rib
• Borrowing the Beatles
• "The Breakfast Club" Poster Homage
• The Breakfast Plot
• Char Clone
• Charlie and the Chocolate Parody
• Chess with Death
• Chew Bubblegum
• Doctor Whomage
• Dystopian Oz
• The Fantastic Faux
• Finger-Snapping Street Gang
• Fountain of Expies
• Full Moon Silhouette
• "The Graduate" Homage Shot
• "Here's Johnny!" Homage
• Homage Shot
• HULK MASH!-Up
• Hyperspace Holmes Hat
• Icarus Allusion
• I'm Going to Disney World!
• iProduct
• It's a Wonderful Plot
• "Jaws" Attack Parody
• Jenny's Number
• Jurassic Farce
• "King Kong" Climb
• King Kong Copy
• Konami Code
• Knuckle Tattoos
• "Lion King" Lift
• Little Dead Riding Hood
• Long John Shout-Out
• Lorre Lookalike
• The Ludovico Technique
• May the Farce Be with You
• Michael Jackson's Thriller Parody
• Moby Schtick
• My Little Phony
• Noah's Story Arc
• Not Zilla
• Oceanic Airlines
• Odessa Steps
• Opening Scroll
• Paper-Thin Disguise (For a common variant of this where the disguise is just a pair of glasses with Big Ol' Eyebrows, a Gag Nose, and a moustache attached to them, that's referencing Groucho Marx.)
• Parodies for Dummies
• Parodies of Fire
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish" (At least, the sub trope thereof where it's literally "swordfish", referencing a scene from Horse Feathers.)
• Peter Pan Parody
• Phonýmon
• Pietŕ Plagiarism
• Pivotal Wake Up
• Playboy Parody
• Practically Joker
• Predator Pastiche
• Raiders of the Lost Parody
• "Rashomon"-Style
• Real Footage Re-creation
• Rei Ayanami Expy
• "Risky Business" Dance
• The Real Spoofbusters
• "The Scream" Parody: References to Edvard Munch's The Scream
• Sea Aping
• Sgt. Pepper's Shout-Out
• Shirley Template
• Sistine Steal
• Shotoclone
• Spider-Man Send-Up
• Spinosaurus Versus T. rex
• Spoofy-Doo
• Stock Clock Hand Hang
• Stock Scream
• Superman Substitute
• Talk Like a Pirate
• Tannhäuser Gate
• Teenage Mutant Samurai Wombats
• Terminator Impersonator
• The Twelve Spoofs of Christmas
• Three Stooges Shout-Out
• Tutti Frutti Hat
• Ultraman Copy
• We Didn't Start the Billy Joel Parodies
• Wolverine Wannabe
• Wonder Woman Wannabe
• Xenomorph Xerox
• Yet Another Christmas Carol
• You Can't Handle The Parody

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• AKIRA:
  • The giant sloped freight elevator.
  • Also, that badass motorcycle slide from the movie that Kaneda does.
  • Tetsuo's transformation in the end.
  • Less often: firing of SOL and Tetsuo's Deface of the Moon.
• The scene of the Colossal Titan looming over Wall Maria from Attack on Titan. The reference may also include people gliding through the air Dual Wielding blades emulating the Survey Corps.
• The ending scene of End of Evangelion, depicting people on the beach of red ocean After the End, with a giant figure in the distance.
• Expect a lot of art shifts to Fist of the North Star whenever a character wants to get serious in a comedic fashion. Any desert setting will also have the infamous mohawk-wearing riders there as well.
• Glass Mask gave us the iconic open-mouthed Color Failure, complete with posh shock and absurdly melodramatic faces. If a Japanese series wants to show the haughty getting their serving of humble pie, expect to see them in this manga's style.
• If there's gonna be an Initial D shoutout somewhere, expect to see someone pulling off a gutter drop technique and expect the opponent to be driving a Mazda RX-7 FD3S (yellow color optional), probably rendered in CGI. There is the off chance that Eurobeat might be playing during this sequence, but it's not guaranteed.
• Whenever you see "GOGOGOGOGO" sound effects, that will always be a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure reference. Other very common shout outs are quotes such as "Do you remember how many pieces of bread you've eaten in your life?" and "But I refuse!", Stands appearing behind characters, exaggerated poses that often reference specific characters, and anything from Stardust Crusaders, especially ORAORAORA for Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs or anything Dio Brando does.
• Long-running Lupin III is a source of many stock shout outs. The two most commonly referenced are from his second theatrical film, The Castle of Cagliostro:
  • The car chase early in the film has been referenced by animes as far apart as Lucky Star and Girls und Panzer.
  • The single most referenced shot is at the end, when Lupin dives into the water cradling Clarise in his arms. Any time a character dives into water while holding someone else protectively in their arms, especially if it splashes down by an aqueduct or a bridge that resembles one, it's a reference to this shot.
• Ranka Lee's "Kira" pose from Macross Frontier has been referenced in quite a lot of different Japanese media. While it is common for the person doing the gesture to be an Idol Singer, the gesture has popped up in many works unrelated to idols, such as Akiba's Trip: The Animation, No-Rin, and The World God Only Knows.
• Mazinger Z gave us the Super Alloy Z and the Rocket Punch. They pop up frequently, especially the second, which has quickly became THE most famous and most ubiquitous Super Robot weapon, showing up in all kind of works. Whenever a character screams "Roketto Panchi!" it is directly referencing the Trope Namer.
  • Since Spaniards Love Mazinger-Z, the Spanish Dub Name Change variant ("¡Puños Fuera!", meaning "Fists Out!") has become so omnipresent that it has been used in movie titles. And when a foreign work features a Rocket Punch, whatever attack name that the character screams is automatically replaced by "¡Puños Fuera!" more often than not.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: "You hit me! Not even my own father hit me!", which pops up a lot in Japanese media, usually in the same context (a Spoiled Brat acting shocked when someone actually smacks them for being a brat). There is also the fact that recurring Universal Century Anti-Hero Char Aznable has been parodied quite a lot in anime, usually seen in the form of references to his signature red Ace Custom.
• The bus stop scene from My Neighbor Totoro has been parodied quite a lot in popular culture.
• The image of God Warriors burning the world from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (which is, in fact, the first page of the manga and the second scene of the movie) is used to depict The End of the World as We Know It, sometimes parodically, sometimes not. God Warior firing its Breath Weapon often serves as a model for other Wave Motion Guns. The fate of Princess Kushana's mother is also referenced. Not to mention large flightless birds as mounts.
• Iyami's "SHEEH!" pose from Osomatsu-kun is THE go-to standard shock/surprised pose in Japanese media.
• If you see someone watching a pastiche of magical girl shows, you can rest easy knowing that it will be a Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure spoof.
  • Not just in anime, but in Western Animation- if there's a Transformation Sequence that isn't in a Magical Girl show, it will be similar to Sailor Moon.
• The final shot◊ in Tomorrow's Joe, after everyone realizes that Joe died of his injuries in the ring.

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

• The entire "Luke, I Am Your Father" scene in The Empire Strikes Back. Ironically, most shout outs to this will get the line wrong.
  • "Use the Force!"
• "Wax on, wax off", from The Karate Kid, although it's sometimes parodied with the trainer simply needing those things done.
• "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" and "The horror... the horror..." from Apocalypse Now. The latter line originates in the book, Heart of Darkness.
  • Wagner as the theme tune of helicopters and napalm.
• "Oh Captain, My Captain!", along with standing on a desk — from Dead Poets Society, and therefore often used with Save Our Students plots.
  • Itself a reference to the Walt Whitman poem of the same name, which is itself a quotation from Moby-Dick.
• The "one of us" chant from Freaks
• "Preciousssssss" or "my Precioussssss". The Lord of the Rings
• "That's the second-[adjective]-est [noun] I've ever seen!" from Get Smart
• The Alien series has given us quite a few.
  • "GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!"
  • "Nuke it from orbit. It's the Only Way to Be Sure"
• Planet of the Apes:
  • The Statue of Liberty half-buried or submerged
  • The line "You maniacs! You blew it up!"
  • Also the "damn dirty ape" line should be expected any time there's an antagonism with a primate.
• "You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?" from Taxi Driver
• The "King of the World" stance from Titanic (1997).
• The Silence of the Lambs: "Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?"
  • "It puts the lotion on its skin..." and "I ate his liver with a fava beans and a nice chianti (with the odd sucking sound)" are both often used, humorously, as an exaggerated way of saying that somebody is psychotically crazy.
• 1138: The designated number of the main character in George Lucas' student film, later made a full motion picture, THX 1138. It appears in Easter Eggs absolutely everywhere in Star Wars media.
  • Even referenced in the Disney Theme Parks in Star Tours
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • The monolith, and the use of "Also Sprach Zarathustra".
  • "Open the pod-bay doors, HAL." Often paired with:
  • "I'm afraid I can't do that." or the misquote, "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that" or "I'm afraid I can't let you do that" (both are used).
  • Any use of "The Blue Danube" to images in space.
• "STELLLLLLLLLLLAAAA!!!!!!" from A Streetcar Named Desire
• "I'll get you, my pretty! And Your Little Dog, Too!!", from The Wizard of Oz
  • Not in Kansas Anymore
• "I'll be back." From the films of Arnold Schwarzenegger, including, but not limited to, the Terminator series.
• "That'll do, X^note usually, this is "pig". That'll do," from Babe.
• "I'm walkin' here!", from Midnight Cowboy
• The Babel Building, from Metropolis
• "Klaatu Barada Nikto!" From The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
• "See you next Wednesday": to director John Landis' Creator Thumbprint.
  • This one was actually inverted once. See here. JMS, creator of Babylon 5, used the phrase in reference to the series being aired on Wednesdays and would have changed it if he knew it could be seen as a John Landis reference.
• "Tannhäuser Gate", usually as a space battle in Science Fiction. From Blade Runner. Spelling may vary. Or the whole speech may be used:
  I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. [pause] Time to die.
• "Feed Me!" Or "Feed me, Seymour!", delivered in a Large Ham fashion, usually in a voice as deep as the speaker can manage; from Little Shop of Horrors
• "Crocodile" Dundee's infamous "That's not a knife" exchange.
• "Be afraid. Be very afraid." From the remake The Fly (1986).
  • While we're on the subject of David Cronenberg movies, the infamous exploding head scene from Scanners.
• The iconic shot of Cesare carrying a sleeping Jane over the rooftops in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
• Orlok's shadow ascending a staircase in Nosferatu. To the point where, when they made a movie that fictionalized the filming of Nosferatu, they literally called it Shadow of the Vampire.
• "The Spice must flow!", from David Lynch's Dune (1984) (also see below, under Literature).
• Brainwashing people will often resemble The Ludovico Technique.
• In any James Bond parody, whether it's the whole basis of the work or a fleeting gag, the villain is very likely to be based on Donald Pleasance's performance, costume and make-up as Blofeld in You Only Live Twice.
• Playing Chess with Death, from The Seventh Seal.
• A dinosaur in the rear-view mirror, from Jurassic Park.
• Any time a character dives under a lowering door as it is about to close, expect to see them drop and then retrieve their hat (or, barring that, some other item) in reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• Any sequel inexplicably subtitled "Electric Boogaloo".
• The entire premise of Black Hawk Down has become one, to the point where it's difficult to find a shooter in a modern desert warfare setting that doesn't have a map or mission similar to the film. Other popular moments include the helicopter being shot down by an RPG-7 and the "Mogadishu Mile".
• Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers hold a similar status for World War II video games, especially those set on the Western front, to the point where entire scenes were recreated as levels in Call of Duty and Medal of Honor.
• Aside from the eponymous "The Graduate" Homage Shot mentioned above, The Graduate is the source of the infamous Between My Legs shot accompanied with the line, "Mrs. Robinson — you're trying to seduce me... Aren't you?" For that matter, just using the name "Mrs. Robinson" about a seductive older woman may be enough to qualify.
• A character produces a grotesquely oversized weapon while saying "Say hello to my little friend!".
• If a character tries to ruin prom, expect an homage to the scene in Carrie where the protagonist gets pig's blood dropped on her.
• Bruce Lee's yellow and black tracksuit from Game of Death.
• The "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" number from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
• Carmen Miranda has gone down in history as the originator of the fruit hat — "The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat" in The Gang's All Here — one of comedy's most enduring funny hat/silly dance bits.
• The Exorcist has made "Your mother sucks cocks in hell!" an obligatory line to say for any being possessed by a demon/devil.
• When a plot-important vehicle is destroyed or has a fiery, spectacular crash, we may expect to see its detached license plate twirling on the ground, a la Back to the Future.

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
  • "Who killed Laura Palmer?"
  • The iconic 'waiting room dream' that Agent Cooper has
  • "Damn good coffee!"
  • "The owls are not what they seem."
• 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

• The phrase "Welcome to the Jungle" pops out everywhere.
• The first four notes of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
  • Ode to Joy, from the Ninth Symphony.
• Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse" has been used countless times in animated cartoons.
• Elvis Presley in his Las Vegas period.
• The Beatles in their mob top haircut days.
  • The covers of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road.
• Michael Jackson's Thriller Parody: Because sometimes it's not even meant as a parody, but more as a shout-out.
• Sampling music is a kind of shout out in itself.
  • The line "Put your hands up in the air/and wave 'm like you just don't care" from The Sugar Hill Gang has been used in countless rap songs.
  • The Amen Break by the Winston Brothers and James Brown 's "The Funky Drummer" have beats and breaks that have been sampled to death.
  • The announcement "The Official Adventures of..." from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five has also been re-used countless times.
• The album cover of The Dark Side of the Moon.
• The Bo Diddley Beat.
• An incredibly large Girl Group calling themselves some variation of "ABC48".
• Expect references to the 50's song "Love Potion No. 9" written by Leiber and Stoller when Love Potions and/or attempts at courtship are afoot.

Theatre

• The Major General Song, from The Pirates of Penzance; also a favorite stock parody
• Pirate Jenny, from the song by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
• Also see ReferencedBy.William Shakespeare
• Hamilton: Anything about "throwing away my shot."

Video Games

• "I used to be a ____ like you, then I took an arrow in the knee," from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. As of 2012 it's received nods from NCIS and Borderlands 2, among others. It's become a Discredited Meme quite quickly, which went to the point where mocking it is the new standard.
• The Cake Is a Lie had a similar lifespan. Used first in Portal, then turned into a meme, then to a Stock Shout-Out and finally a Discredited Meme. It was so abused, even the creators got sick of it and removed the references to the joke in Portal 2.
• "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike", from Colossal Cave.
• Super Mario Bros. brought us the denial of victory in "Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!" Usually only the second sentence gets used, and often as "Your Princess Is in Another Castle!."
• At least in Mass Effect Fanfiction, having one of Miranda Lawson's aliases be named Sarah Walker. This is because Miranda's character is heavily based off of hers and she's voiced by Sarah's actor Yvonne Strahovski.
• Zero Wing references invariably use CATS' opening spiel: "All your ____ are belong to us," et cetera. One example from Charles Stross' The Atrocity Archive when the protagonist is giving an overview of computational demonology:
  "This has several consequences, starting with screwing over most cryptography algorithms—translation: all your bank account are belong to us ..."
• The crowbar from Half-Life.
• The combination code 0451 pops up a lot, typically in games created by Looking Glass Studios or its former employees and typically as the first code you're prompted for. It got started because it was the door code to Looking Glass's actual offices, and is often mistaken for a Fahrenheit 451 reference (a connection that has since been acknowledged in the newer Deus Ex Universe games with more explicit references to the book).
• The Dark Souls series' bonfire became one of these, since recreating it is as simple as sticking a sword (or occasionally, a gun) into a campfire.
• Medieval Fantasy worlds are usually flanked by some Dragon Quest Shout-out, either by including a Loto clone somewhere or a send-up to the interface/4-man party.
• The names of Touhou Project games are routinely dropped into any medium that another writer wants, particularly character abilities in a Tabletop RPG (for example, saying that a creature is Highly Responsive to Prayers).
• The Item Get! jingle from The Legend of Zelda.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • The lines "Finish Him!" and "(character) wins! Fatality!"
  • Characters with an attack that drags their enemy towards them will often mimic Scorpion's "Get over here!" shout.

Western Animation

• The children dancing during A Charlie Brown Christmas.
• Many from Scooby-Doo, but the one that stands out is "I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids." Beat. "And your dog, too." "Dog" is replaced with the appropriate qualifier.
  • Or "And that stupid dog."
• Eyes popping out of their sockets and enormous rolling tongues will often be a shout-out to Tex Avery.

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.

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