Referenced By / Queen (Band)

Anime and Manga

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure loves to reference Queen every chance it gets.
  • The Stand of the main antagonist from Diamond is Unbreakable, Yoshikage Kira, is named Killer Queen, and has the ability to turn anything it touches into a remote-controlled bomb. It also has a second bomb, named Sheer Heart Attack, and a third bomb, named Killer Queen Bites the Dust. Killer Queen and Sheer Heart Attack would later reappear in JoJolion, albeit with slightly different properties.
  • Stone Ocean has two different Stands named after Queen songs. The first is Bohemian Rhapsody, which has the ability to bring every drawing or fictional character to life across the entire world, and the second is Made in Heaven, which has the ability to gradually accelerate time to exponential levels until the universe ends and resets itself.
  • The end of JoJolion has a How We Got Here segment, featuring Lucy Steel from Steel Ball Run and her temporary valet, Fumi-kun. In it, Lucy comes to Morioh to investigate what's known as, "The Radio Gaga Incident".

Asian Animation

• Boonie Bears: In Season 2 episode 2, Briar sings "We Are the Champions" after he wins a sports game against Bramble.

Films - Animated

• Chicken Little: The night after helping his school win a baseball game, Chicken Little, happy that things are going his way for once, sings "We Are the Champions" up in his room.

Films - Live Action

• Wayne's World, of course, has the famous scene of Wayne and Garth head-banging along to "Bohemian Rhapsody".
• In Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, John Deacon (played by David Dastmalchian) is a guest at Dr. Demento's pool party, and yet no one, not even Dr. Demento, knows who he is until he says "I play the bass in Queen."

Literature

• A Running Gag of Good Omens regards how any tape left for too long in Crowley's Bentley will turn into a Queen compilation - a reference to how service stations at the time used to offer utterly dreadful music tapes aside from possibly a Queen one. The Prime Video adaptation made sure to include as much Queen in the soundtrack as possible.
• In The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester, Sam's dad finds a Time Capsule from The '80s that includes Hot Space on cassette.
• Juniper Sawfeather: In Cry of the Sea, June and her dad sing along to Queen in the car to stay awake.

Live Action TV

• Birds of a Feather:
  • In "The Chigwell Connection", Detective Inspector Tatum mockingly tells Mrs. Mimms that another one bites the dust as her son Trevor is about to be sent to jail.
  • In "It Happened in Hollywood", Tracey quotes the same line after failing to track down her real father.
• Drake & Josh: At the end of "The Storm", Helen leads the trapped party guests in a rendition of "We Will Rock You".
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: The pilot episode ends with "Under Pressure", a case of Suspiciously Apropos Music, since the pilot ends with the two main characters taking back over a show thought to be in trouble.
• That '70s Show: For the 8th and final season, all the episode titles are derived from 1970s Queen songs (excluding the show's Grand Finale).

Music

• Chumbawamba: "How To Get Your Band on Television", one of the band's many scathing critiques of Live Aid, namechecks Freddie Mercury and criticizes Queen's decision to perform in Sun City, South Africa during the UN boycott meant to protest Apartheid.
• Kyary Pamyu Pamyu: The music video for "PON PON PON" opens with Kyary pulling a bottomless microphone stand out of her ear and wielding it in the vein of Freddie Mercury. Jun Tamukai, who directed the music video, confirmed in an interview that the similarities were intentional.
• Lady Gaga took her Stage Name from "Radio Ga Ga".
• In the song "Chessboard" by Japanese band Official髭男dism^note pronounced "Official Hige Dandism", when the vocalist sang the lyric "Queen", the music briefly featured a rock breakdown similar to those found in Queen songs, most notably "We Will Rock You". Here is a comparison.
• R.E.M.: "The Wake-Up Bomb" features the line "get drunk and sing along to Queen" in the chorus, which is paired with the line "practice my T. Rex moves and make a scene" as part of the song's tribute to the Glam Rock movement.

Tabletop Games

• In Canvas, the card "Pride" features an homage to Freddie Mercury in the "I Want To Break Free" video, with a mustachioed man in a pink tank top and skirt with a feather duster.

Video Games

• Guilty Gear: With series' creator Daisuke Ishiwatari being a huge fan of the band, this is to be expected:
  • Sol Badguy's full actual name is Frederick Bulsara, the last part of the nickname is a reference to "Mr. Bad Guy", his head-plate has the words "ROCK YOU" engraved on it, taking after "We Will Rock You", in his story mode in Accent Core+ Crow Kuwabara's dialogue calls him "Mr. Badguy", his sword technique is inspired by Freddie Mercury's theatrics with the top half of a mic stand, one of his servants in Guilty Gear 2: Overture is named Queen, and at the end of Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, he opens up a machine parts shop named Jazz. Even his theme song from The Missing Link/GG1 all the way up to Overture is a Queen reference, being called "Keep Yourself Alive".
  • Order-Sol, Sol's clone in XX, has an attack is called "Rock It", named after the song "Rock It (Prime Jive)" on the album The Game.
  • Axl Low's theme song in The Missing Link/GG1 is called "The March of the Black Queen", and he gets an Overdrive in -STRIVE- called "One Vision".
  • May is named after Brian May.
  • FIVE of Slayer's attacks are called "Dead on Time", "Under Pressure", "All Dead, All Dead", "Spread Your Wings" and "It's Late".
  • Potemkin's fist attack is called "Hammer Fall", a reference to both the song "Hammer To Fall" and the band of the same name.
  • Bridget's bear is named Roger, after drummer Roger Taylor.
  • One of Zato-ONE's intro quotes in Guilty Gear -STRIVE- is "Nothing really matters", after a line in "Bohemian Rhapsody".
  • Johnny's name is partially inspired by bassist John Deacon. He also bears a resemblance to Roger Taylor, especially his looks in the "I want it all" video clip.
  • Romeo (Bedman's real name) and Delilah reference the cats owned by Freddie Mercury. Among the two, Romeo was aggressive around other cats to the point of needing to be rehomed, referencing Bedman's originally bloodthirsty nature.
  • Prior to the beginning of a match, the announcer usually screams "Heaven or Hell", a line partly inspired by the last few lines of the song "Stone Cold Crazy".
  They are going to put me in a cell, if I can't go to heaven
  Will they let me go to hell
  • Testament's theme in -STRIVE-, "Like a Weed, Naturally, As A Matter Of Course", takes partially after the band's music.
  • Leo Whitefang's theme in -STRIVE-, "Hellfire", has a part that sounds like "Great King Rat".
  • Jack-O Valentine's theme in -STRIVE-, "Perfection Can't Please Me", sounds very similar to "Don't Stop Me Now".
  • Happy Chaos's theme in -STRIVE-, "Drift", is heavily inspired by the band's music.
  • Bedman?'s theme in -STRIVE-, "The Circle", takes several cues from "The Show Must Go On".
• Mortal Kombat 11: One of Rain's fatalities, at one point, has him and three fellow ninjas taking a stance borrowed from the band, where one is positioned at the top, another at the bottom, and two at the sides, while a May-esque riff plays in the background during that brief moment.
• Strategy RPG franchise Ogre Battle, as one might imagine given the entire series is named after the song of the same name, contains numerous references to Queen tracks, including the titles of two games - Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together - and a recurring location in the setting, the Rhyan Sea.
• In Pizza Tower, the first BGM track in "The Pig City" is "Bites the Crust", which features a legally distinct interpolation of the bassline from "Another One Bites the Dust".
• The Redfield siblings from Resident Evil both appear to be big fans. Chris owned a leather bomber jacket with "Made In Heaven" printed on the back along with a 40's style pinup (which sadly got destroyed when Raccoon City was nuked), while his sister Claire has a denim vest with the same graphic, along with a another vest that has "Let Me Live" written over the picture of a Valkyrie.

Western Animation

• Family Guy:
  • In "McStroke", Peter takes offense to Brian's comment that his new mustache makes him look gay, saying that it'd mean Freddie Mercury was gay. Brian responds that he was gay, which Peter denies, saying that his stashe is "practically like a wedding ring".
  • The subplot for "Killer Queen" has Stewie being scared to death by the cover art for News of the World, which Brian exploits for his own amusement. This was inspired by Seth MacFarlane's own childhood fear of the robot.
    Stewie: God, why does he look sad?! He's already destroyed mankind! What else could he want?!
• Gravity Falls: "Escape from Reality" takes its title from a line in "Bohemian Rhapsody".
• The Simpsons:
  • In "The War of the Simpsons", after Homer catches the legendary catfish General Sherman, he celebrates by singing "We Are the Champions".
  • In "Duffless", Homer sings about his first beer to the tune of "It Was a Very Good Year", ending with the lyric "I stayed up listening to Queen, when I was seventeen."
  • In "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken", Homer and his friends drunkenly trash the school after the Isotopes win a championship; in the gym showers, the gang sings "We Are the Champions" before switching to "We Will Rock You".
  • In "Please Homer, Don't Hammer 'Em", Marge becomes a carpenter and has Homer be her cover so nobody will know their stuff was made by a woman, hiding in a portable shed when someone's coming. When Lenny and Carl crack a sexist joke at her expense, Marge starts angrily shouting from inside the box, so Homer tries to block the noise by leading them in a round of "We Will Rock You" (with the two pounding on the box for rhythm).

Other

• Ice dancers Haley Sales & Nikolas Wamsteeker performed to "Killer Queen" for their exhibition number at the 2020 Canadian Figure Skating Championships.

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