We have long studied your puny Terran broadcasts and analysed every detail of your primitive speech. Now, take me to your leader. Take me to ... Tinky Winky.
Know what I hate about deep space? Crap radio stations from two centuries back. Gosh, we were idiots.
—Jeff "Joker" Moreau, Mass Effect 2 note
We are communicating across the vast chasm of space. Do we truly want the phrase "Robot Pornography" to be broadcast across the cosmos to become some distant, advanced Alien civilization's first impression of mankind?
— Carl Sagan, Atomic Robo
Okay, so they've got a sports draft and The Wizard of Oz on Zeist? Are there any other anachronistic references to Earth culture that you wanna make that you'd have no realistic way of knowing, like "Elvis has left the building", or "Lucy, you've got some 'splaning to do"?
— The Spoony One (during his review of Highlander II: The Quickening), The Spoony Experiment
Graeme: Suppose the aliens got their whole idea of what humans are like through watching television!
Bill: Good grief! They probably think we're a race of Nicholas Parsons
.
Graeme: If they've got any moral feelings at all...
Bill: They'll blast us out of the universe!
Bill: Good grief! They probably think we're a race of Nicholas Parsons
. Graeme: If they've got any moral feelings at all...
Bill: They'll blast us out of the universe!
— The Goodies ("U-Friend or UFO")
"I have been monitoring your electronic wave-signals," said the alien. "10,000 channels of reality TV is enough to convince anyone you're worthy of extermination."
"It's a fairly well known fact that the Earth's television transmissions bounce around the atmosphere and off satellites positioned around the Earth's orbit. Some of these signals are beamed far into space where they could, potentially, be picked up by aliens. What? You don't believe in aliens? You better think again. The Earth is being threatened by something, and it's sure not human..."
— Attack of the Mutant Penguins manual
Kid Flash: Wait. Hello, Megan! is a TV show?
Robin: I just thought it was something she [Miss Martian] said all the time.
Robin: I just thought it was something she [Miss Martian] said all the time.
— Young Justice (2010), "Image"
Green Beetle: For years, the one you call "Martian Manhunter" has sent communications from your world to ours. Television signals. They are quite entertaining!
Robin III: All Martians love television.
Green Beetle: Indeed.
Robin III: All Martians love television.
Green Beetle: Indeed.
— Young Justice (2010), "True Colors"
"Remember what happened last time you woke us up for a supposed distress signal? We spent three whole weeks screwing around looking for a wormhole and a ship full of strange alien life forms, only to have it turn out to be a television transmission that'd been traveling through space for centuries."
— ALIEN!!!, a Slash Fic parody by Odon
"We have successfully traveled eons across both space and time through the Fargate...to get free cable!"
— Oglethorpe, Aqua Teen Hunger Force
"Start with the Intersolar Distress Frequency," she said, "then use your discretion. Try Terran-English, Esperanto, High and Low Martian... anything you can think of. Maybe these aliens have been monitoring our broadcasts like in those old scientifilms."
