Referenced By / Indiana Jones

aka: Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom

A stroke of genius, we know.

Indiana Jones is one of the most famous characters in cinema, and his adventures have been ripe for parody. Spoofs are prevalent enough to be their own trope: Raiders of the Lost Parody.

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Affectionate Parodies:

• The Norwegian TV-series Brødrene Dal has main characters that are Adventurer Archaeologists of some sort and are on a dig site in the start of the second Season. The 3rd season they travel around in search for some Sami treasure and uncover many places no one has been in many years. It's a Affectionate Parody but not the main focus. Even the logo and DVD cover is a huge nod.
• Arizona Goof, Goofy's adventurous cousin, is a parody character invented in the late 80s by Italian Disney comic book authors who appears infrequently. His original name is Indiana Pipps, from Pippo, Goofy's Italian name. He's a tough guy who never uses stairs, doors or beds, always drives an old but indestructible jeep and drags Goofy and Mickey in his crazy adventures around the globe. He has an arch-enemy too, the German archaeologist Doctor Kranz, a clear spoof of Frenchman René Belloq.
• Joseph Joestar from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, specifically his iteration in Stardust Crusaders, is practically an Expy of Indiana Jones. Granted, he's not an archaeologist, but he's a Guile Hero who wears a very distinct fedora and uses his Stand, Hermit Purple, as a whip. In addition, his original Battle Tendency iteration ended up forming an Enemy Mine with the Nazi party in order to take down the Pillar Men, while his Diamond is Unbreakable iteration ended up having an illegitimate child.
• The Kaeloo episode "Let's Play the Quest for the Wholly Gruel" is one big reference to Indiana Jones. Quack Quack dresses up as Indiana Jones, Mr. Cat dresses up as Arnold Ernst Toht, and they go on a quest to find the Wholly Gruel, a parody of the Holy Grail.
• Professor Layton stars another Adventurer Archaeologist and archeology professor in his adventures uncovering treasures, truths, and sometimes ancient cultures.
• The 1993 Hong Kong parody film, The Tigers: the Legend of Canton, stars Kenny Bee as an Indy spoof, being a fedora-wearing adventurer wielding a whip and battling the Japanese during the second World War. For bonus points, said character was named Indiana "Chung" Kwok-yan (a Punny Name, "Chung Kwok-yan" translates directly as "Chinaman"). The parody somewhat loses its meaning though, since the story isn't set in America there's no reason why the protagonist would be named after the state of Indiana.

In General

Anime

• Doraemon films:
  • Doraemon Nobitas Diary Of The Creation Of The World: When the airship carrying Dr. Dekimatsu and President Nobihide (with Doraemon, Nobita and Shizuka hitchhiking on it's back) travels from Japan to the North Pole, it's depicted as an old-timey world map with a moving red line, in a manner similar to the Indy films.
  • Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas has a 22nd Century gadget called the "Indira Johnson Adventurer Simulator", based on the "Indira Johnson" series of films where the player gets to become an adventurer in the 1930s and challenge themselves in a booby-trapped cavern.
  • Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicles of the Moon Exploration: One of the random Moonbits seems to be cosplaying Indy 24-7, walking around with a fedora and carrying a whip in every scene. In the final battle, said Moonbit even uses his whip to beat up enemy mooks and swing around the area with expert ease.

Comic Books

• Star Wars: Darth Vader. Dr. Aphra is a female Adventure Archaeologist who's an Evil Counterpart to Han Solo plus Harrison Ford's other famous role. Her Establishing Character Moment in this series and the Star Wars: Doctor Aphra spin-off both involve a Raiders of the Lost Parody scene.

Fan Works

• Chapter 8 of Boldores And Boomsticks is called 'Raiders of the Lost Temple Thingy'.
• Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger:
  • In "Prologue: Chance", while removing the Mask of Darth Nihilus from its strongbox, Jaune briefly worries that the box contains a trap like in a movie he saw about a "whip-wielding archaeologist that searched for ancient artifacts during the Great War."
  • In "Chapter 3: Victory," Jaune mentions that he's a fan of "those archaeologist Indigo Jones films."
• Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts: The stories featuring Catwoman have a tendency to include Indiana Jones shout-outs, what with the whip and the recurring topic of things that belong in museums.

Film — Live-Action

• In Captain America: The First Avenger the Red Skull remarks that Hitler is digging around in the desert for trinkets. Appropriate reference since Director Joe Johnston was on the visual effects team for Raiders and won a shared Oscar for his work on the film.
• The low-grade Taiwanese Indy-ripoff, Combat At Heaven Gate, managed to contain references to all three Indiana Jones movies that existed at the time of the movie's release:
  • There is scene where the keys to a sacred vault gets chucked into a burning fire, before being stuck into a henchman's forehead, leaving a mark behind, a rather obvious reference to the medallion being burned in to Toht's palm in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
    • And then there's the characters Kawatomo and Kanko about to fight each other to the death, but Kawatomo instead opts to shoot Kanko on the spot. Just like what Indy did to the swordsman who challenged him.
  • The cavern where the ancient scroll is located should be familiar to anyone who has watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The chamber where the scroll is kept can only be accessed by an invisible bridge, and upon reaching it the scroll turns out to be guarded by a few thousand-year-old guardians from dynasties ago, made immortal by the scroll's powers until someone retrieves it. And the real scroll is hidden in more than 50 dummy scrolls.
  • After escaping the collapsing scroll chamber, the heroine Jean and her team ends up tethering on the edge of a cliff while the chamber collapses on the other side, not unlike the same predicament Indy, Wille and Short Round find themselves in at the end of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
• Ultraman X The Movie: Here Comes! Our Ultraman! has a blatant nod to Indy, when the supporting character Carlos Kurasaki comes to a set of ruins dressed in an Indiana Jones outfit, which looks more like something he bought from a Halloween Costume shop instead of an actual archeologist outfit, in contrast to the other characters who wears more practical clothing. He even have a whip, a pouch and a fedora, for no reason other than to enforce the reference.

Literature

• In "The Adventure of the Death-Fetch," a horror story by Darrell Schweitzer, a character recalls crossing paths with "the crazy American, something-or-other Jones, a lunatic who carried a bullwhip and fancied himself an archaeologist." (Fortunately for our Indiana, the story is set in 1900, so this must have been some other Jones.)
• The Miskatonic Affair has a college conservative organization claim that Doctor Henry Jones (whether it be Indy or his father) is guilty of a perceived crime and challenging others to debate them about it.

Tabletop Games

• In the Robinson Crusoe board game, one of the random events that can occur while exploring the Island of Mystery allows a player to loot a whip off a fedora-wearing skeleton.

Video Games

• In Deep Diving Simulator's "Adventures" expansion map "Sons of Horus", you find a secret room filled with golden treasures, along with some odd gold statues. One of them is of a man in a fedora brandishing a whip, giving the implication that Indy had found the treasure room but been transformed into gold before the tomb had sunk beneath the waves.
• In Infinite Craft, "Indiana Jones" is a possible crafting recipe.
• Treasure Hunter Man 1: The description of the sword:
  It's your sword! Every adventurer needs one. Only wimpy ones use whips instead.

Western Animation

• Doug sometimes imagines himself as an Indy Expy called Race Canyon.
• Simon's death on Infinity Train is a combination of Toht's face melting in Raiders and Donovan's Rapid Aging in Last Crusade.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Anime & Manga

• The boulder scene is referenced in episode 16b of Jewelpet Sunshine, where the gang has to dodge various booby traps to steal their summer homework. One of the booby traps is a rolling boulder accompanied by the Indiana Jones theme.

Comic Books

• In Superboy (1994) Sidearm uses a new weapon that's comprised of small mechanical tentacles and Superboy sarcastically exclaims "Oh no! Little wires like snakes! I can't stand snakes!" before slamming Sidearm face-first into the asphalt while saying "Oh, wait that's Indiana Jones, snakes don't bother me at all."

Films - Animated

• Chicken Little: During the chaos that erupted because of Chicken Little's claim that the sky is falling, a rolling piece of the town watertower rolls into a movie theater that's coincidentally showing the boulder scene (of course, Harrison Ford appearing in a World of Funny Animals brings up quite the Fridge Logic).
• The Rugrats Movie: The movie opens with the babies imagining themselves in an "Okie-Dokie Jones" adventure while trying to steal the cookie jar. The adventure is repeated at the end, this time with new baby Dil part of the team.
• The War to End All Wars – The Movie: After passing through the Third Battle of Doiran, King Albert's letter is boxed up and stored in a museum warehouse packed with wooden crates in imitation of the last scene of Raiders.
• Winnie the Pooh: While laying out objects for the "Backson" to follow, Piglet switches a pinecone with a teacup, much like how Indy switched the idol with the sack.

Films - Live Action

• D-Day has a hilarious bit near the end that's reminiscent of the swordsman bit in Raiders. Our hero, Ivan, had killed a ton of mooks and is currently slinging a Grenade Launcher around, when the main villain's Japanese subordinate tries intimidating Ivan with a katana. By swinging his blade around to taunt Ivan, only for Ivan to pull the trigger and nonchalantly walk away. The look on Ivan's face is even similar to Indy's after shooting the swordsman.
• In the Line of Duty 4: Witness has an ambulance chase that feels like a recreation of the desert chase from Raiders, but with the hero and villain switching positions. The Cowboy Cop protagonist, Rachel, clings on top of an ambulance driven by one of the bad guys and attempts to enter from its side, fights the bad guy, and ends up being flung through the windshield and hanging to the ambulance's front. Unlike the Nazi who got run over by Indy however, Rachel got out of the way in time.
• The ending of A Kid From Tibet is directly inspired by the ending of Raiders. The villains attempts to steal a sacred Tibetan Chest the titular character is assigned to protect, and the chest turns out to house ancient spirits too powerful for the villains to control who then goes around killing everyone.
• UHF begins with "Weird Al" Yankovic parodying Raiders of the Lost Ark's opening, except he's trying to collect an Academy Award instead. After judging the weight of his bag of sand, he just tosses it aside and grabs the statuette, leading to the boulder chase... which eventually flattens him.

Literature

• In Experimental Film, Lois compares Wrob Barney, cringing from the film of Lady Midday and peeking through his splayed fingers, to Toht before the Lost Ark.
• Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: In Cookies and Campers, the "Snakes. Why'd it have be snakes? " line is referenced when the campers see snakes, but misquoted:
  "Snakes..." Claire said, in the tones of someone just dying to be the first to the pop culture quote. "Why does it always have to be snakes...?"

Live-Action TV

• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Vic Armstrong declared in an interview that the fight between the Elf Arondir and the giant Orcs was inspired by the fight between Indiana Jones and the German Mechanic.
  Vic Armstrong:I stole off Raiders of the Lost Ark with Harrison Ford fighting the big German around the revolving aeroplane,” Armstrong says, “Arondir fighting the orc, where the orc doesn’t move as fluidity as Arondir but he does move. And Arondir hurts when he gets hit. It makes him vulnerable, like Harrison was. And then you feel for the characters.”

Video Games

• Crash Tag Team Racing: When retrieving the Power Gem from Mystery Island, Crash grabs it in the same fashion that Indiana Jones grabs the Golden Idol, including swapping it with a sandbag and quizzically stroking his chin while looking at it. Ironically, in a game series where boulder chases are commonplace, Crash isn't chased by a boulder in this game after getting the Power Gem.
• Dark Adventure have it's opening credits imitating the end of Raiders, with the three protagonists about to open a magical, ancient chest before things goes horribly wrong for them. The game's main character, Dr. Condor, is even dressed like Indy with a fedora and jacket, and gets to kick ass aplenty with a whip.
• Edwin Lindsey's chapter of Eternal Darkness is one big Indiana Jones homage, being about an Adventurer Archaeologist. A more direct reference is later used in Michael Edwards' chapter, wherein he assembles a Staff of Ra and refracts sunlight through a gemstone onto a scale model of a city, the beam causing a passageway to open up.
• For the King: A non-combat random encounter in the Jungle Falls region offers a chance to acquire a golden idol by evading a rolling boulder.
• Heaven's Vault: Completing 10 translations unlocks the "Reader of the Lost Marks" achievement, a name that references this work.
• In Le Temple Perdu de l'Oncle Ernest, once Chipikan finds the golden statuette inside the temple, he fears that the temple will collapse once he takes the statuette since, according to him, that's what happens in movies.

Western Animation

• Animaniacs:
  • The short "Hello Nice Warners" features the Warners having Mr. Director play the role of Illinois Smith and act out the boulder scene.
  • The short "Noah's Lark" has Indy show up when Noah asks God what an ark is, and then get chased away by Bushmen.
    Noah: What's an ark?
    Indy: It's what I've been searching for! It's this incredible bejeweled box containing the power of the Heavens! And it melts Nazis.
• In the Bluey episode "Yoga Ball", Bandit, Bluey and Bingo play a game called "Raiders" where Bandit rolls the titular ball down the hallway and Bluey and Bingo have to outrun it like in Raiders of the Lost Ark's boulder scene.
• Family Guy:
  • The episodes "Peter's Got Woods" and "Back to the Woods" both end with James Woods being stored away in a crate by "top men."
  • In "A Fistful of Meg," Meg kills Mental Mike by flashing him, causing him to melt like Toht. Similarly, in "The Peter Principal", Meg's bullies put the Ark of the Covenant in her locker and her face melts off when she opens the door, but she's more annoyed than anything.
• Robot Chicken:
  • A sketch from "Slaughterhouse on the Prairie" had the main duo of The Magic Garden being punished by the Magic Storybox for being gay and suffering the fates of Toht and Belloq.
    Sherlock: I hate Biblical stories.
  • A sketch from "They Took My Thumbs" features native contractors building the traps in the temple, with the chief pointing out all its flaws while saying that they should just use snakes.
  • A sketch from "Due to Constraints of Time and Budget" has the ghosts of the Covenant pathetically trying to get Indy and Marion to open their eyes.
• The Simpsons
  • The opening to "Bart's Friend Falls in Love" involves Bart stealing Homer's change jar, with Homer playing both the boulder and an angry native. The famous theme music plays throughout the scene.
  • Near the end of "Mr. Plow," a pair of snowmen melt in a scene resembling Toht's fate.
• South Park: The climax of "Free Hat," a satire of movies being altered for re-releases, involves a new version of Raiders with Ewoks. This negative audience reaction causes Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to suffer the fates of Toht and Belloq.
  Cartman: (overseeing the aftermath) Man, that new version must have sucked balls.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: The episode "Cinemaniacs!' has the short Pasadena Jones, with Buster in the title role, and Montana Max as Toht.
• In Phineas and Ferb, the Elseworld episode "Phineas and Ferb and the Temple of Juatchadoon" pulls from all three movies, but primarily Raiders. The titular boys are now Ohio Flynn and Rhode Island Fletcher with Doofenshmirtz in the Belloq role, and all of the most iconic tropes appear and/or get parodied: runaway giant boulder, badasses in fedoras, ancient peoples with an unaccountable taste for creating magical super-weapons, concerns about melting faces, Isabella in Elsa's role from The Last Crusade as the traitorous love interest, et cetera.
  • This episode is the most obvious example, but Shout Outs to the franchise are scattered throughout the show. It's at the point where the wiki has a list.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Anime & Manga

• Explorer Woman Ray: The work was apparently made as a cash-in on the Indiana Jones franchise and some reviewers see parallels with several characters: Ray as the Distaff Counterpart of Indy and Mai and Mami of Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
• The Mysterious Cities of Gold: The whole India Story Arc screams of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. A ruler under a villain's control, villagers enslaved and outsiders coming to the rescue.

Film

• 40 Days and 40 Nights: Ryan finds a tape of In Diana Jones and the Temple of Poon.
• Barf the Mawg explicitly compares Yogurt's hideout in Spaceballs to the Temple of Doom.

Literature

• The Dresden Files: In Skin Game after opening the final Gate to Hades' vault, Harry is asked what he thinks is in the vault. He responds with "Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory."
• In The Pants Project, Liv's family watches Temple of Doom for the third time in three months.

Live-Action TV

• Amen: While representing the Reverend Reuben Gregory in a personal injury lawsuit, the Deacon Ernest J. Frye refers to the defendant's truck as a "death wagon," "kamikaze van" and "rolling Temple Of Doom. https://mobile.twitter.com/Fan26_America/status/1554910082781020167"
• Stranger Things: Nancy and Jonathan sitting in separate rooms while talking to themselves in an irritated manner in regards to their feelings for one another is based on the similar scene between Jones and Willie in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which came out in the same year as season 2 takes place.
• The Sunny Side Up Show: Oscar the Grouch mentions in an interview with Kaitlin and Chica that one of his favorite movies is Raiders of the Lost Trash Can.

Web Original

• The Nostalgia Critic:
  • In his review of Thomas and the Magic Railroad, the Critic underscores Diesel falling off a broken bridge by shouting "Prepare to meet Amtrak! In Hell!"
  • The Critic once reviewed this movie with the cast of 80's Dan.

Western Animation

• In The Boondocks episode "The Lovely Ebony Brown", Uncle Ruckus says, "A black woman's body is a temple of doom!"
• Family Guy
  • The climax of "The Courtship of Stewie's Father" involves Peter and Stewie trying to escape Disney World on an Indiana Jones-themed ride, with Michael Eisner acting as Mola Ram.
  • A Cutaway Gag from "Stewie B. Goode" has Stewie in the role of Short Round, commenting "Lady only here 'cause she humping director".
  • In "Road to Germany", Stewie quotes Willie's "We're not sinking, we're crashing!"
  • In "Family Goy", Stewie rips out Meg's heart while doing the "Kalima" chant.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Films - Animated

• In Tangled, the way Gothel dies seems to be directly inspired by Walter Donovan's death.

Films - Live-Action

• In Black Widow, the protagonist's family member sends them the MacGuffin to keep it safe, only for the protagonist to bring it right back to that family member.
• In Dogma, after Silent Bob throws Bartleby and Loki out of the train they're in, he gives his mandatory once-a-movie line: "No ticket."

Literature

• In Queens of Geek, Taylor compares her feelings of anxiety to the word puzzle.
  Taylor: That's how I feel. Like the ground is giving way beneath me. All. The. Time. Nothing is ever stable. Any minute, the earth could collapse beneath me, and I'll fall into a chasm. But unlike Indy, I don't know the answer to the puzzle. I don't even know the question.

Video Games

• In Black Mesa, a scientist in the chapter "Questionable Ethics" quotes Henry Jones' "Look what you did! I can't believe what you did!" when walking in on the aftermath of the HECU's attempt to ambush Gordon Freeman.

Web Video

• At one point in The Runaway Guys' playthrough of LittleBigPlanet, they have to stick stickers on some ducks in the background, but they have to time it right with signal lights coming on or bombs drop and blow them up. When Chugga doesn't get it right and is killed, Jon says "You chose... poorly."

Western Animation

• Bluey: In "Perfect," during a game where Bandit pretends to be a ticket conductor, Bluey says she doesn't have a ticket and Bandit throws her off the couch and onto a beanbag and tells Bingo and Chilli "no ticket".
• Drawn Together: In "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist," Elsa's death is parodied when Toot tries to reach for a bag of peanuts while strapped to her seat on a crash-landing plane.
• Futurama: In "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles," Norm Zoidberg's death in the Fountain of Aging is more than a little reminiscent of Walter Donovan's ageing to death after drinking from a false grail.
• Regular Show: In "Eggscellent," when Mordecai successfully eats an enormous omelet as part of a Mega Meal Challenge where the prize is a net hat with "I'm Eggscellent" written on it, he's taken to a chamber similar to where the Holy Grail was located and must pick the hat out from many other hats. He's then shown the skeleton of Jonathan Kimble, the last guy to finish the challenge, who is wearing a crown that he thought was the right hat and died from choosing poorly.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Video Games

• Fallout: New Vegas: If the player has the Wild Wasteland perk, they can find a refrigerator near Goodspirngs with a skeleton in it and a brown fedora.
• Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time: In the Lost City world, the Turquoise Skull Zombie is a reference to the movie, with its almanac entry even mentioning crystal skulls.

Western Animation

• South Park: The subplot of "The China Problem," most of the kids are horrified over seeing the film, going as far as saying that they witnessed Spielberg and Lucas raping Indy. Butters, on the other hand, thought it was pretty good.

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