- Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals: In Episode 29-A, Lee imagines everyone playing Mariko Kart.
- Sugar Rush in Wreck-It Ralph takes quite a few cues from Mario Kart.
- The Kedabory Verse:
- In Don't Cry For Me, I've Already Wilted, the Princess Cures play a racing game implied to be Mario Kart (Haruka yells for Minami to collect a star).
- In Super Game Pretty Cure
, Komachi, Madoka, and Miku play Mario Kart Wii together.
- Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse): At the end of Chapter 9, in a flashback to the past, a Mario Kart is discussed:The moment Death and Dracula was having that conversation, Julius Belmont was being beaten by his cousin Arthur in Mario Kart. At least he was ahead of Arikado.
- In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Rodney James can be seen playing Mario Kart DS during the Wizard of Oz play.
- In Are You Seeing Me?, Justine lists playing Mario Kart as one of the activities her brother Perry and her boyfriend Marc have bonded over.
- In Harmony, Alexandra reminisces about her daughters playing Mario Kart Wii. Tilly usually played as Baby Peach and at one point joked, "Do you think this would be safe, Mommy? To let a baby drive through a volcano?"
- In Queens of Geek, Charlie beats Alyssa in the arcade's Mario Kart.
- Saturday Night Live: A pre-recorded sketch from Season 48 advertises an HBO drama attempting to turn Mario Kart into the next The Last of Us, complete with Pedro Pascal escorting a girl (in this case, Chloe Fineman as a dethroned Princess Peach) through post-apocalypse environments.
- A poster included with the Title Fight album Floral Green features a picture of the band playing an Arcade GP cabinet.
- The Nintendo Switch version of Gone Home replaces the fake SNES cartridges with those of real games, such as Super Mario Kart. Sadly, they're not playable like the ones in Animal Crossing.
- In Infinite Craft, possible crafting recipes include "Mario Kart" and "Mario Kart 8".
- LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: When traveling to meet up with Thor to go to Asgard, the Human Torch mentions that there's something about the rainbow bridge that makes him want to race on it.
- The Nostalgia Critic: In his review of Babes in Toyland (1986), the Critic plays the title screen music from Super Mario Kart during the chase scene between Lisa and her friends and Barnaby and his goons.
- Scott The Woz has reviewed every game in the series up to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
- Amphibia: In "Bizarre Bazaar", the Wrecker defeats Anne and Sprig by using a very familiar looking flying blue shell...ed beetle. Also a bit of a Take That! as Sprig feels the item isn't very balanced, if only he had a Super Horn...
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "The Powerpuff Girls Rule!" has all the characters in a Mario Kart-style race at one point.
- Robot Chicken:
- In a sketch from "Gold Dust Gasoline", Mario, Luigi, and Wario compete in a race against various other pop-culture characters. Although none of the three plumbers win, at one point, Mario uses the blue shell, with Wario explaining its purpose to the viewers.
- A sketch from "Due to Constraints of Time and Budget" has Toad assist a gang of bank robbers in a getaway, using his kart as their vehicle and his items to fight the cops.
- A sketch from "He's Not Even Aiming at the Toilet" has Mario as a driving teacher, and order to pass his test, the student must defeat Donkey Kong, Bowser, and Toad in a Mario Kart battle.
- A sketch from "May Cause a Squeakquel" reveals a family of farmers to be living in Moo Moo Farm, where they get paid $20,000 to have Mario and his friends race a few laps on it. During the race, Bowser runs over and kills a few Monty Moles, the racers set the farm house ablaze, and the daughter gets killed when she touches a fake item box.
- Rock, Paper, Scissors: Within the episode "Putty", while on the race to get back to their apartment Paper picks up a power diamond complete with a roulette sound playing while an icon appears in the top left and generates a banana, which he throws at Scissors who is riding his rhino causing him to spin out.
- The Simpsons: Homer has a nightmare in the episode "Lisa Gets an F1" that takes the form of a Mario Kart race on a blue-and-purple version of Rainbow Road, with Lisa as Mario, Milhouse as Yoshi, Ralph as Toad, either Sherri or Terri as Peach, Nelson as Bowser, and Homer as Wario. Lisa-Mario takes the lead after Milhouse-Yoshi gets blue shelled off the track, but Homer-Wario throws a bomb at Lisa-Mario, sending her over the edge.Homer: I had a dream last night that I was Wario, and I bombed you off of Rainbow Road into oblivion!
Lisa: I'm not in danger just because you dreamed a bunch of crazy stuff from Mario Kart.
Homer: What's Mario Kart? - The Zig & Sharko episode "The Island Tour" has several references to Mario Kart, including a Gorilla using banana peels to trip up other racers and three of the racers running into some multi-colored ? blocks containing power ups.
