Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's most famous plays due to its themes, which are universal enough to be adapted and parodied in a variety of eras, settings and characters.
- A Wilkins Coffee commercial spoofed the balcony scene, with Wilkins as Juliet and Wontkins as Romeo.Wilkins: Wherefore art thou, Romeo? And whereof is my Wilkins Coffee?
Wontkins: The coffee's all gone!
Wilkins: Well, so am I!
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: In Chapter 82.5 (a collection of Fractured Fairy Tales), Hakari plays Juliet, and is sent an "induces-death-like-state" drug by Kusuri, but accidentally drinks too much of it and nearly dies for real.
- Imagine if Romeo was the pilot of a Humongous Mecha, Juliet was an Alien Princess, the cousin trying to break them up was a brother and their planets were at war. The result is Daimos.
- An episode of Futari wa Pretty Cure centers around the school the main protagonists attend performing their own production, with Nagisa and Honoka in the leading roles. Of course, things go awry when Juna decides to attack during the play, forcing them to transform and fight him off.
- Team Rocket's motto in Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl references the play.Jessie: A rose by any other name's just as sweet.
James: When everything's worse, our work is complete.
- Bread Barbershop has an episode called "Strawberry and Chocolate" that revolves around a strawberry cake and a chocolate cake falling in love with each other, but not being allowed to be together because of their Feuding Families. Both seek to be turned into the opposite flavor by Master Bread so that they can be together. Their names? The chocolate cake is Romeo, and the strawberry cake is Juliet.
- The Simpsons story "Bard Boiled" revolves around parodies of multiple Shakespeare plays, including Romeo and Juliet.
- The Kedabory Verse:
- In the Ma Fille chapter "Major Upset
", Narcis Prince is compared to the play when found sleeping in a very dramatic position. - In the Strong and Steady story "Queen Bee Tongus", Tongus names one of her roses Juliet.
- In the Tall Pine Tales story "Paging Dr. Theresa", Theresa quips that pinks roses always make her think of Romeo and Juliet.
- In the Ma Fille chapter "Major Upset
- Toy Story 3: One of the ending vignettes involves Bonnie's toys putting on a production of Romeo and Juliet, with Mr. Pricklepants and an LGM in the title roles.
- Wreck-It Ralph: The "You are now leaving..." sign at the exit of Sugar Rush features the quote "Parting is such sweet sorrow."
- About Alex opens with the title character sending out a tweet that reads, "Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man", right before he tries (and fails) to kill himself.
- In Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, after the other Angels discover that Dylan's former name was "Helen Zaas", Charlie cuts off their teasing with a reminder that "a rose by any other name still smells as sweet".
- Dont Be Foolish: When the Toff mistakes Lydia for someone else and showers her with compliments, she tells him "Louder, louder, brave Romeo, your Juliet is listening."
- Down On The Farm 1920: When the painter (who Louise lied about being married to) arrives, the others say "Romeo is here."
- In the 1980 version of Fame, one of the characters auditioning to go to the New York High School for the Performing Arts reads Juliet's "Wherefore art thou Romeo" speech for his audition, not realizing it's Juliet.
- In the 1993 film Gettysburg, Longstreet asks Harrison, a former actor, if he can spy the Union's position at night, and Harrison quotes Juliet: "all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."
- Ginger Snaps: When Brigitte and Ginger visit Sam, Ginger, thinking Brigitte has a crush on Sam, mutters, "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"
- In Grease, Putzie quotes "Wherefore art thou Romeo?", referring to Sandy.
- Harold and Maude: Harold's enforced date Sunshine instantly recognizes his "suicide" as acting, and as he lays "dead" on the floor, joins in with a terrible and hammy attempt at Juliet's soliloquy.
- Hook Line And Sinker 1930: When Wilbur Boswell gets Mistaken for Cheating by Mary Marsh, her mother Rebecca says "Well, there is your Romeo making Juliet."
- The Hunger Games: The "Star crossed lovers" and the use of the Romeo and Juliet theme as the Mockingjay signal.
- Love (1919, Fatty Arbuckle): Fatty Arbuckle sends Winnie a note that reads she should escape her Arranged Marriage to be with him:My dearest Juliet - Let's go!
Romeo - In Molly (1999), Molly attends a production of Romeo and Juliet. She forgets it's fictional and ends up running onto the stage shouting "Romeo, stop! She's asleep! She's not even dead!" and slapping Juliet to wake her.
- In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, General Chang quotes a lot of Shakespeare, including "Parting is such sweet sorrow."
- Time Flies: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?" says Susie Barton.
- In The Amy Virus, Cynthia Butt grumbles, "What's in a name? Only everything. I don't care what William fracking Shakespeare said; if a rose was called a stinkburger, it would smell like a stinkburger."
- Asperger Adventures: In Lisa and the Lacemaker, Lisa speculates that the Secret Underground Passage she finds was a place for boyfriends and girlfriends to meet in secret, "Romeo and Juliet all over again."
- Avatar (Théophile Gautier):
- Chapter 2: Octave says he and Prascovie are like Romeo and Juliet.
- Chapter 6: Balthazar Cherbonneau says body swaps are difficult, but he reassures Octave, saying Romeo was untroubled by the possibility him falling down from Juliet's balcony.
- Crime and Punishment: After realizing that Razumikhin is in love with Raskolnikov’s sister Dunya, Raskolnikov teases Razumikhin and calls him Romeo.
- Discworld:
- In Mort, Ysabell's description of the events in one of the auto-autobiographies in her (adoptive) father Death's library ('-and then she thought he was dead, and she killed herself and then he woke up and he did kill himself-'), describes a gender-inverted version of the very specific fate which the titular characters of Romeo and Juliet meet.
- Unseen Academicals has a Juliet who is half of a Star-Crossed Lovers pairing with the supporter of a rival football team, Glenda calling them "two teams, alike in villainy", and finally the characters going to see a play called Star Crossed, by the Disc's Shakespeare counterpart and Glenda pointing out it would have saved a lot of trouble if the male lead had thought of checking for a pulse.
- In Eye of a Fly, Annie, who has memorized Shakespeare audiobooks, quotes "Parting is such sweet sorrow" after her first date with Ernest.
- In Good Omens, Wensleydale misquotes: "A plaque on both your houses!"
- John Halifax Gentleman: Chapter 10 mentions the characters read Romeo and Juliet once.
- In the Juniper Sawfeather novel Echo of the Cliffs, Greig tells Naomi, a romance novelist, that the book she's working on won't sell because it ends tragically. Naomi says, "Romeo and Juliet ends tragically." Grieg replies, "They make people read Romeo and Juliet in school. People don't read it for fun."
- Kris Longknife: Kris and Henry "Hank" Smythe-Peterwald XIII, of the feuding Longknife and Peterwald families, go on a couple of dates in the first two books. Hank genre blindly compares their budding relationship to Romeo and Juliet; Kris hangs a lampshade on the comparison, saying she has no intention of dying. The relationship goes nowhere and Hank ends up dead several books in after starting a Space Battle with Kris (his Escape Pod was sabotaged by a third party), but in a roundabout way their relationship does end the feud: she forms a friendship with his twin sister Victoria (after dodging an attempted assassination she arranged) and then helps save their father Henry XII's life.
- In volume 4, book 8, chapter 1 of Les Misérables: When Marius Pontmercy enters Cosette Fauchelevent's garden, and the narrator compares that to the scene where Romeo Montague entered Juliet Capulet's garden.
- October Daye's Tybalt (re)named himself after the character from the play, though being a King of Cats, it's also a reference (at least out-of-universe) to Reynard the Fox, which Shakespeare took the name from.
- In One-Third Nerd, Mr. Torpse's grandson has a copy of Romeo and Juliet in his back pocket.
- Gunnar from Navigating Early has a copy of Romeo and Juliet on his shelf.
- In Stim, a police officer calls a trespassing couple having sex in Robert's room "Romeo and Juliet." Robert misses the sarcasm and thinks what a funny coincidence it is that the trespassers have the same names as the characters from the play.
- In Things I Should Have Known, Chloe's English class reads Romeo and Juliet and discusses what Romeo would be like if he were a student at their school. Sarah thinks everyone would want to date him because he's perfect boyfriend material, but David thinks he's too flakey.
- The White Deer by James Thurber: "A plague on both your horses!"
- Blackadder:
- In the second season, Queenie's nurse is a parody of Juliet's with an even greater tendency toward telling embarrassing stories about her charge's childhood.
- There is a mention of an unseen character called Romeo the Builder.
- A Black Lady Sketch Show: There is a sketch parody called Rome and Julissa where instead of feuding families, it's the feuding fandoms of Cardi B and Nicki Minaj with Rome being a Nicki stan while Julissa is a Cardi B stan.
- There was a Bone Chillers episode called Romeo and Ghoulette.
- El ChapulÃn Colorado had a few episodes parodying it, (calling them "Juleo and Rumieta"), and altering the ending into a Happily Ever After.
- First Kill: Cal appropriately compares her and Juliette (who even has the same name with a different spelling as Juliet) with Romeo and Juliet, to the point that she quotes the play's prologue while they hide out in their school theatre. Being a legacy vampire and scion of vampire hunters respectively, they both note how much it applies to them. Comparisons continue to be made and the play often quoted throughout the rest of the first season.
- Joey: Joey says, "I did the soap thing, but I can be serious. 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?' That's Romeo."
- The Love Boat:
- In "Love Me, Love My Dog," a man falls in love with a woman whose dog Cricket hates him. He says, "I'm Romeo and you're Juliet, but Cricket won't let me near the balcony."
- In "The Vacation," a passenger tells her sister that she and her husband look like Romeo and Juliet.
- M*A*S*H: In the ninth season episode "Letters", Klinger has a Flashback where he's telling Col. Potter and Winchester how he's invested in chinchillas, and said chinchillas are mating like Romeo & Juliet. Winchester points out they're more like Romeo & Mercutio, as both chinchillas are male.
- Mimpi Metropolitan: In episode 57, Alexi quotes "What's in a name", except he continues it with "if only Melani's is sweet" to justify not remembering other people's name.
- Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: The episode "Guide to School Plays" has the school putting on a production of Romeo and Juliet, with Ned trying to incapacitate Spencer (playing Romeo) so he can kiss Suzie (playing Juliet).
- The Office (US): Kelly Kapoor says if she and Ryan Howard are split up, it will be like Claire Danes' version of Romeo And Juliet in Branch Closing.
- The Queen's Gambit: When Fergusson is saying goodnight to the orphan girls at Methuen, he quotes Juliet's goodbye speech to Romeo from the balcony ("Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good night till it be 'morrow").
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Darmok" features Captain Picard attempting to learn to communicate with a race who speak entirely in metaphor, citing precedent of examples from their own culture to explain a current situation. When the bridge crew is discussing how the Tamarian language works, Counselor Troi suggests "Juliet on her balcony" as an analogous example of the problems with this linguistic structure; humans would generally know the underlying story of who Juliet was and what she was doing on the balcony, and thus realise that this reference was intended to suggest a romantic encounter, but it wouldn't make sense to an outsider who lacked that context.
- The Twilight Zone (1959): In "The Masks", Paula Harper says that her mother Emily has done nothing but complain ever since they arrived in New Orleans. Emily replies "He jests at scars that never felt a wound." This is a line from Act II, Scene II.
- In Westworld, the phrase that seems to trigger sentience in the hosts is "these violent delights have violent ends".
- From the UK version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, one session of Number Of Words involved the four players reenacting the final scene, with a handicap reducing all their lines to two to six words long. Stephen Fry, who got the largest number (six) managed to work around it in a noticeably rigid fashion, uttering lines like "Once a Capulet, Always a Capulet!", "You love Romeo? You love Romeo?!" and the immortal line "I'm going to count to six."
- In the US version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, a suggestion from "Scenes from a Hat" involved "Outtakes from the Hillbilly National Theater's Shakespeare Festival":Greg: Juliet, you get down here! I love you and you're my cousin, get on down here!
- Wizards of Waverly Place: Justin's vampire girlfriend, whose family the Russos initially detested, is named Juliet.
- The Arctic Monkeys song "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" from Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not has an obscure reference in an otherwise upbeat, superficial song:Oh there ain't no love no, Montagues or Capulets
Just banging tunes and DJ sets - Blue Öyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" mentions that Romeo and Juliet are "together in eternity".
- Dire Straits have a song called "Romeo & Juliet" (later covered by Indigo Girls).
- Peggy Lee's "Fever" mentions several forbidden romances, including Romeo and Juliet:Romeo loved Juliet
Juliet she felt the same
When he put his arms around her
He said, "Julie baby you're my flame" - The first song on Lou Reed's New York (1989) album is titled "Romeo Had Juliette".
- "Romeo and Juliet" by Hobo Johnson reimagines Romeo and Juliet living in modern times and sharing his experiences. He quotes from the Balcony Scene, substitutes drinking and drugs for poison, and even discusses Romeo's Serial Romeo history with Rosalind. Hobo suspects that Romeo and Juliet will get divorced, and the whole story is a lens for Hobo's own fears about all his relationships failing like his parents' did.
- The narrator of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" casts herself and her boyfriend as Romeo and Juliet, a forbidden love.That you were Romeo, you were throwin' pebbles
And my daddy said, "Stay away from Juliet"
Poetry
- The Ogden Nash poem "The Romantic Age" is about a teenage girl who seems confident that she's met her One True Love, comparing herself and her beau to Romeo and Juliet. The reader is advised, "Do not argue, do not shout; Remind her how that one turned out."
- An episode of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme with a series of sketches in which figures famous for speeches with a repeated word found that the word stopped meaning anything halfway through (the others being Winston Churchill with "fight" and John F. Kennedy with "country") had Juliet complaining that this was happening with Romeo's name. Without breaking iambic pentameter.
Roleplay
- In Dino Attack RPG, as he was emerging from his Angst Coma, one of the thoughts flying through Rex's head was "Then I defy you, stars!"
- Bare: A Pop Opera has a production of Romeo and Juliet as part of its plot.
- Maxwell Anderson's political satire Both Your Houses takes its title from Mercutio's famous line.
- Hair: Romeo and Juliet makes part of the song "Flesh Failures".
- The Drowsy Chaperone: The lyrics to "Love is Always Lovely in the End" cites the titular young lovers as part of an Analogy Backfire.
- Matilda: The lyrics to "Naughty" recap the fates of the title characters:Like Romeo and Juliet
Whose fates were written in the stars before they even met
That love and fate and a touch of stupidity
Would rob them of their hopes of living happily
- In Coffee Talk, one of Freya's articles for The Evening Whispers is a three-part story set in the modern world about two college students who happen to be named Romeo and Juliet trying to resolve their feelings for each other despite their different backgrounds.
- When playing as Venice in Europa Universalis III, you get prompted with a message to expand your territory, before being asked "Why not fair Verona, where we lay our scene?"
- Lollipop Chainsaw takes place in a town called San Romero (which sounds similar to Romeo), and the protagonist is named Juliet Starling.
- The Monkey Island series:
- In The Curse of Monkey Island, a character decides to rewrite various Shakespeare plays to better suit the local pirates' tastes, mangling not only famous Shakespeare quotations but entire plotlines, resulting in lines such as "Wherefore art thou treasure, Romeo?"
- One of the PS3 trophies in Tales of Monkey Island is titled "What's in a Name?".
- One sidequest in NieR: Automata involves some robots reenacting Romeo and Juliet in a stage play... except that there are three Romeos, three Juliets, and then they proceed to massacre one another until the last survivor blows herself up as well.
- Otoboku - Maidens Are Falling For Me has Romeo and Juliet as the class play.
- Rock Star Ate My Hamster: In the tabloid parody The Stun packaged with the game, a personal ad from one "W. Shakespeare" promised a reward for anyone having "information re. seduction of 14 yr. old Paduan girl, stabbing of her brother, drug coma and double suicide."
- RuneScape had a (now removed) beginner's quest based around getting Romeo and Juliet together.
- The Sims 2 has the town of Veronaville, and a pair of Feuding Families named the Montys and Capps, with a pair of Star-Crossed Lovers named Romeo and Juliette.
- Sunset Overdrive: A member from the scabs and Las Catrinas have a forbidden love, which has caused the deaths of many people. The player even remarks that it's a Shakespearian tragedy.
- Spyro the Dragon:
- "What light from yonder window breaks.... That window over there, dummy!"
- "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Oh, there's Romeo!"
- This is one of the available plays in Suikoden III once you get its corresponding script, Script 4. The script itself is based on the balcony scene in Act 2, Scene 2.
- Turtle Head Unmasked: Emma's Story has several excepts lying around in the cafeteria/auditorium, apparently leftover from a school production of it.
- World of Warcraft: An entire boss fight in the Karazhan instance of the Expansion Pack The Burning Crusade is an homage to Romeo and Juliet, featuring "Romulo and Julianne". The two even make quotes from various acts in the play throughout the fight.
Web Animation
- One episode of Camp Camp sees Preston write a sequel to the play in which Romeo and Juliet are resurrected (via We Can Rebuild Him and black magic, respectively) and Romeo has to go off and fight an evil empire of some sort.
- In Irregular Webcomic!, the sysadmin and Linux-user Mercutio to his co-workers (who prefer Windows or Mac OS): "A curse on both your OSs".
- The Demented Cartoon Movie: "Oh, Romeo...Catch!"
- The Nostalgia Critic: The editorial "Does Romeo and Juliet Suck?" has the Critic analyzing the story and how it works as a love story.
- American Dad!: In "Spelling Bee My Baby", after Steve and Akiko's mothers begin to fight over whose child will win the spelling bee, Principal Lewis appears in medieval garb to paraphrase the play's opening lines.Lewis: Two households, both alike in dignity. In fair Langley, where we lay out scene. SHAKESPEARE, BITCHES!
- Arthur: The Cold Open to the episode "Kiss and Tell" parodies the balcony scene from the play, with D.W. playing Juliet and her Imaginary Friend Nadine playing the nurse. D.W. even directly borrows the line "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" from the play, although she uses it in the wrong context. In addition, during the episode itself, the actual Novelization of the play appears, as reading it is a homework assignment for Arthur.
- Family Guy: In "The King is Dead", Peter says "Put enough monkeys in a room with a typewriter and they'll produce Shakespeare". The ensuing cutaway depicts a group of monkeys gathered around a computer trying to find a good word for the phrase "An [X] by any other name..."
- The Flintstones: There is an episode titled "Dino and Juliet", where Dino falls in love with the pet snorkasaurus of the new neighbor who is feuding with Fred.
- In the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Ties That Bind", when Mister Miracle and Big Barda are about to finish off Granny Goodness in the end, Martian Manhunter points out that the Enemy Civil War needs to continue. Scott remarks, "A curse on both their houses."
- Looney Tunes:
- In the short Hamatuer Night, two talent show contestants act out the balcony scene as part of their act.
- In A Ham in a Role, the thespian dog recites quotes from Romeo and Juliet as he aimed to be a Shakespearian actor.
- In Stage Door Cartoon, Bugs Bunny puts Elmer Fudd out on stage in tights and instructs him to say, "What wight thwough yonder window bweaks."
- The balcony scene is referenced by Bugs and Witch Hazel in A Witch's Tangled Hare.
- The Owl House: In the first episode, one of the flashbacks that shows how "weird" Luz is shows her trying out for a school production of Romeo and Juliet, in which she yells "O happy dagger, give me death!" as she pretends to cut herself open with fake guts flying out. This moment was revisited during her mother's nightmare in "Thanks to Them", which reveals that she was actually amused by the gag, but everyone else treated it like something to be embarrassed about.
- In The Perils of Penelope Pitstop episode "Carnival Calamity", Penelope and the mobsters in the Tunnel of Love encounter a diorama of the balcony scene, in which the Hooded Claw stands in for Juliet.Pockets: That's Juliet? Yuck!
Yak-Yak: I feel sorry for Romeo! - Phineas and Ferb:
- "Hey, where's Perry?" is a Once an Episode Catchphrase. When Irving get the opportunity, he overdoes it with a Long List of increasingly dorky variations, including, "Wherefore Art Thou, Perry?"
- "That Sinking Feeling": Candace expresses a wish that Jeremy was more romantic, "like Romeo and Juliet, but without all the dying."
- In Season Three, Vanessa Doofenshmirtz and Monty Monogram begin a relationship that they try to hide from their parents.
- "Save Summer": The OWCA ceremony has booked a venue under the name "Capulet Bat Mitzvah". They end up sharing the venue with the "Hatfield Wedding Reception", which is, of course, LOVEMUFFIN's code name.Major Monogram: Huh. What are the odds?
- The Simpsons:
- In "Bart's Friend Falls in Love", Bart sabotages Milhouse and Samantha's relationship by tipping off her overprotective father so he can take her away. Afterward, Milhouse sullenly states, "How could this happen? We started out like Romeo and Juliet, but it ended up in tragedy."
- "The Principal and the Pauper":Lisa: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Bart: Not if you called 'em stench blossoms.
Homer: Or crapweeds. - There is an episode titled "Rome-Old and Julie-Eh", where Homer objects to a romance between his father and sister-in-law.
- The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!: The episode "Mario and Joliet" has King Koopa starting and prolonging a feud between two families.
- In an episode of Steven Universe, a restaurant war breaks out between the owners of the fry shop and pizza parlor. In an effort to get their fathers to calm down, Jenny and Ronaldo pretend to be in love. Their fathers actually agree to calm down with this in mind, until they realize the lie.
- The Tick made references to the "What's in a name" line.
Real Life
- Two of Uranus's moons are named Juliet and Mab.
