See also We Didn't Start the Billy Joel Parodies.
Fan Fic
- In Frozen Hearts (Finmonster), Dodger sings "Only the Good Die Young" as an Actor Allusion.
- Early in The Edge of Seventeen, Nadine and her father listen to "You May Be Right" in the car, with the song continuing to play as he suffers a heart attack and dies in front of her.
- In Sisterland, the twins dance to "You May Be Right" during a talent contest in eighth grade, with Vi as a greaser with a borrowed motorcycle and Daisy as the girl trying to dump him.
- In Wicked Good, Archer's alarm radio plays "Just the Way You Are."
- Hughie from The Boys (2019) is a Billy Joel fan, with the very first episode having him discuss the singer with his girlfriend before she's killed. Many of Joel's songs appear through the show.
- ER: In the season 6 episode "All in the Family", during the opening credits, Elizabeth and Mark are singing (badly) "Piano Man", until they get the news about Carter and Lucy being stabbed.
- Glee named an episode after Joel's song "Movin' Out" and covered the song in the same episode as well. An earlier episode also had the cast sing "Only the Good Die Young".
- "The Office (US)": Michael is mentioned as being a fan of Billy Joel.
- Saturday Night Live: In the May 16, 2009 episode, there's a sketch where Will Ferrell's character pretends to have a Vietnam flashback and ends up singing (and maraca-ing) the entirety of "Goodnight Saigon".
- The season 1 finale of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist has Mitch and David sing "Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel)" to each other.
Music
- "Ode to a Superhero" by "Weird Al" Yankovic is a parody of "Piano Man."
- In "Deja Vu", Olivia Rodrigo tells her former love "I'll bet that she knows Billy Joel / 'Cause you played her 'Uptown Girl'". Joel liked the shout-out enough to invite her on stage
at one of his MSG concerts to perform both songs. - Someone realized that H. P. Lovecraft's poem "Nemesis" can be sung to the tune of "Piano Man".
Podcasts
- The podcast We Didn't Start the Fire takes the song of that name and examines every person, place and event mentioned in it. They even got Billy himself to make a guest appearance in one episode, in which he explained his thinking behind some of the lyrics, and spoke of the difficulty inherent in performing the song live.
- Hark! A Vagrant: Big Dreams":Audience: Hey! HEY! Play Piano Man. I said play some god damn Billy Joel.
George Frederic Handel: to self ~Someday Handel, someday you will make it big~
- The Fairly OddParents!: In "Channel Chasers", Timmy's mom attempts to sell a glass house to a man named Mr. Joel, playing off of the title and cover art of Glass Houses.
- Family Guy:
- In "Dial Meg for Murder," the montage of Peter preparing to compete an upcoming rodeo is set to "The Ballad of Billy the Kid."
- "The Fat Guy Strangler" has a cutaway joke in which a group of cavemen belt out an impromptu A Cappella version of "The Longest Time."
- In "The Giggity Wife," Quagmire's wife goes on a shopping spree set to "Uptown Girl."
- In "Bigfat," Peter tries to sing "We Didn't Start the Fire" but messes up the lyrics.
- "Boy Dog Meets Girl Dog" has a caricature of Joel who shows up to sing parodies of "We Didn't Start the Fire" as a Running Gag.
- The Simpsons:
- In "D'oh-in' In The Wind", Homer tries to embrace the spirit of 1960s hippies... but uses "Uptown Girl", a song written in 1983, as his hippie theme.
- "Gump Roast", the final Simpsons Clip Show, ends with "They'll Never Stop The Simpsons", a parody of "We Didn't Start The Fire".
