A commercial for Wal-Mart that tied in with the original movie featured Alex, Marty, Gloria, Melman, and the Penguins shopping at the titular store, interacting with real people.
Flushed Away: Roddy's owner has an Alex doll and a stuffed monkey resembling Mason and Phil in her bedroom. In addition, a DVD of the first movie can be seen in Roddy's DVD collection.
Family Guy: In a cutaway gag in "Hell Comes to Quahog", a loud, obnoxious Hummer Dinger is seen watching a fictional scene from the movie. In the fictional scene, Alex asks Gloria what her favorite kind of music is, and she answers, "Hippo-hop!"
Harvey Street Kids: Recurring character "Super" Todd's t-shirt depicts a purple Alex the lion.
The sketch "Outtagascar" is a very scathing and nearly vicious Take That! to the franchise in general (especially the third film), to the point of having Marty straight-up say "Yup, this franchise is running out of steam!" and the gang end up in jail for burning down the circus they were performing at. In truth, common consensus is that the series got better with each sequel.