Referenced By / Sherlock Holmes

aka: Sherlock Holmes 2009

Elementary school, my dear Loid.

Works referencing Sherlock Holmes and its many adaptations. The BBC adaptation Sherlock has its own page for specific references here.

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Anime & Manga

• Aria the Scarlet Ammo: The very title of the series, "Scarlet Ammo", is a clear reference to the fist Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet.
• Assassination Classroom: In chapter 83, Ritsu is cosplaying Sherlock Holmes. Does this again in chapter 86.
• Case Closed: Conan takes his alias from two popular mystery writers whose books he can see in the family library when asked for a name: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Ranpo Edogawa.
• The Doraemon gadget, the Sherlock Holmes Set consisting of a pipe, hat and magnifying glass which allows the wearer to think and analyze intellectually like Holmes himself, which Nobita uses to deduce a case involving Shizuka's stolen book. The same set appears in one of the movies, Doraemon: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum where Nobita-as-Sherlock-Holmes competes against a futuristic Gentleman Thief called Kaitou DX.
• Gintama: At the end of episode 30, a few shots of Gintoki and Kagura have them change outfits to something that resemble other famous detective duos. Like Sherlock Holmes and Watson.
• Hellsing: Alucard's shadow demon dog he can summon at Restriction Level 1, Baskerville, owes his name to the classic Sherlock novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Phantom Blood: When meeting Speedwagon for the first time, Jonathan is wearing the stereotypical Sherlock Holmes outfit, an inverness cape and deerstalker hat.
  • Steel Ball Run: Lucy Steel picks up The Sign of the Four at the library to gain the trust of Scarlet Valentine, who's also a fan of Sherlock Holmes books.
• Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: In Episode 11, the detective parody makes reference to Kosuke Kindaichi, Japan's own Sherlock Holmes with a dandruff problem. In the Blu-Ray special, which features Nozomu as a detective again, he laments that he's not cut out to be a detective because he doesn't have a detective for a grandfather or is a kid with an adult's brain.

Asian Animation

• In the English dub of episode 4 of Banzi's Secret Diary, Banzi gets the idea that Eungsim is playing detective because she read some Sherlock Holmes comics. This replaces a reference from the Korean original that refers to Detective Conan instead.

Comic Books

• Tim Drake: Robin: Tim is briefly dismayed to realize he's quoting Sherlock Holmes in his inner monologue.
• In issue 6 of The Joker's self-titled series, the Joker hits an actor playing the famous detective Sherlock Holmes on the head with a pipe, causing him to believe he is Holmes and that the Joker is Holmes' archenemy Professor Moriarty. "Holmes" "stalks" the Joker with the help of a stagehand (who used to be a sailor who worked on the docks) named "Dock" Watson.
• Pinky and the Brain: The second story of issue 11 parodies Sherlock Holmes - specifically, "The Final Problem".
• X-Men: Destiny's real name is Irene Adler, a nod to the female thief of the same name from the Sherlock Holmes stories. Eventually, it would be revealed that Destiny is in fact the Irene Adler and her lover Mystique was Holmes himself.

Fan Works

• Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger: In "Aftermath", Mercury quotes Sherlock Holmes from the 1890 short story The Sign of the Four.
  Mercury: I mean, if you eliminate the impossible, what's left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
  • Cinder lampshades Mercury's use of the quote, sarcastically remarking "Thank you, detective" though her gritted teeth.
• Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space. The Big Bad boasts of being the "Mille-feuille of Crime".

Film

• Kingsman: The Secret Service: Eggsy jokingly calls Merlin "Mycroft" at one point, referring to Sherlock Holmes' brother. Mark Strong appeared as Lord Blackwood in the first RDJ Sherlock Holmes film.
• The Man from Kangaroo: A police black tracker who is looking for some lost cattle gets called "Sherlock Holmes" by Jack Braggan.
• In Zig Zag (2002), Mr. Walters addresses Detective Hawke as "Sherlock Homie."

Literature

• Ciaphas Cain: Cain alludes to an incident where he almost drowned at a place called "Rikenbach" in The Emperor's Finest, a reference to Reichenbach Falls, where Sherlock Holmes had his final encounter with Professor Moriarty and nearly died, being presumed dead for some time.
• Dragaera: Jhereg contains a Sherlock Holmes Shout-Out:
  "I'm referring to the strange action of the bodyguards at the assassination attempt."
  "But the bodyguards did nothing at the assassination attempt."
  "That was the strange action."
• The Discworld novel Guards! Guards!, when Vimes is "detectoring."
  Once you've ruled out the impossible then whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. The problem lay in working out what was impossible, of course. That was the trick, all right.
  There was also the curious incident of the orangutan in the night-time...
• The Dresden Files:
  • Ghost Story provides us with the intentionally mangled quotation "The game's a-freaking-foot!"
  • In Skin Game Harry calls Nicodemus a psychopath, and Nicodemus responds with "Sociopath, actually". Strongly reminiscent of Sherlock. In another Sherlock reference, Nicodemus flicks Uriel in the nose to remind the latter that he's technically powerless in the situation, as C.A.M. does to John.
• Anthony Horowitz's Daniel Hawthorne Novels, being metafictional, discusses Horowitz's own writing of Sherlock Holmes sequels and compares them to "real life".
• Diogenes Club: The Diogenes Club was created by Arthur Conan Doyle for a Sherlock Holmes story, in which it was an eccentric gentleman's club catering to gentlemen who wanted access to the facilities of a club but didn't get on well with other people; Holmes's brother Mycroft was a member. Several of the stories contained within are actually Sherlock stories by Kim Newman but many of them are removed from Doyle's characters.
• In Experimental Film, Wrob snaps, "Don't pretend like you're the Sherlock fuckin' Holmes of CanCon, Lois!"
• Family Skeleton Mysteries: In book 3, Sid and Georgia dress up as Scooby-Doo and Velma while attending the Halloween Howl at McQuaid University. Later in the book, Sid refers to himself as "Sherlock Bones" and Georgia as his Dr. Watson.
• In John C. Wright's The Golden Oecumene Harrier Sophotect's appearance is clearly modeled on Sherlock Holmes.
• Grass and Sky: While investigating what she thinks is a murder, Timmi asks herself, "What would Sherlock Holmes do?"
• Help! My Story Has the Mary-Sue Disease: There are references to, among other things, Indiana Jones, the Borg, Jules Verne, H. P. Lovecraft, Sesame Street, The Twilight Saga, Sherlock Holmes, This Wiki, and Sue detecting devices blowing up.
• Just David: Sherlock Holmes gets mentioned in chapter 25.
• Lord Darcy:
  • Lord Darcy's deductive technique, along with a sidekick who's something like a doctor and the series's vaguely Victorian-era tech level, are reminiscent of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The series doesn't, however, contain any characters who are direct equivalents (at least in the stories penned by Garrett himself, who stuck to cameos by detectives contemporary with the story's 1960s-70s time period).
  • "A Case of Identity", the second Lord Darcy story, shares a title with the third Sherlock Holmes short story, although the mysteries in the two stories are widely different.
  • In "Matter of Gravity", the local policeman suggests that the victim was attacked by a demon or fire elemental; Master Sean soon disproves the hypothesis, and it seems to have been thrown in largely as an excuse to have somebody say "Elemental, my dear Doctor".
  • Too Many Magicians has this exchange, which is nearly identical to the "dog in the night-time" one from "Silver Blaze":
    "I should like to call your attention to the peculiar condition of that knife."
    Master Sean frowned. "But... there was nothing peculiar about the condition of that knife."
    "Precisely. That was the peculiar condition."
  • Michael Kurland's Lord Darcy novel A Study in Sorcery throws in a few more Holmes references, starting with the title and including Irene Eagleson, an American opera singer with an adventurous past.
• The Magician's Nephew: “In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road.”
• In Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, William of Baskerville talks about his good friend William of Ockham. Whereas the "of Baskerville" suggests a connection to another asexual detective of analytical mind.
• In Isaac Asimov's "The Obvious Factor": Mr Eldridge quotes from Sherlock Holmes: "When the impossible has been eliminated, then whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth."
• In T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats "Macavity, the Mystery Cat" is an extended Shout-Out to Professor Moriarty.
  He sways his head from side to side
  With movements like a snake
  And when you think he's half asleep,
  He's always wide awake.

• On the Road refers to nosy cops as Sherlock.

• In Isaac Asimov's "Out of Sight": Mr Long mentions a dish of curried lamb being put under his nose during the incident, alluding to the curried mutton from "Silver Blaze", which was an important clue toward the incident being an Inside Job, just like this story..

• Evie the Mist Fairy from Rainbow Magic, who loves mystery books, is said to fancy herself as Fairyland's Sherlock Holmes.
• In The Silence of Murder, Hope's mother calls her "Sherlock Hopeless" for wanting to find her brother innocent.
• In the mystery "The Story of the Lost Special", an "amateur reasoner of some celebrity" proposes a solution to the mystery and even uses Holmes's catchphrase about eliminating the impossible. It's hard not to see a Take That! to the Great Detective when his suggestion turns out to be completely incorrect — particularly since "The Story of the Lost Special" was also written by Arthur Conan Doyle.
• In the second Trueman Bradley book, Trueman has become a Sherlock Holmes fan and tries to emulate him.
• Wandering Djinn: Malik admits that he's a fan of both Sherlock Holmes and Spider-Man.
• West Meadows Detectives: Myron is working on a Mystery-o-pedia of fictional detectives and their famous mysteries. In the first book, he's upset when his cutout of Sherlock Holmes briefly goes missing.
• A Wolf in the Soul: Greg's therapist, who really does more mystery unraveling than psychoanalyzing, is named Holmes.
• In Zenobia July, Arli calls Zen "a young Sherlock Holmes of the Internet" and asks if vo can be her Watson.

Live-Action TV

• The Avengers (1960s): The murder mystery parody episode "The Curious Case of the Countless Clues" includes a character named Sir Arthur Doyle, dressed in Holmes's Iconic Outfit.
• Barney Miller: The beggar in "The Harris Incident", who finances a very nice house and nanny after being laid off from Wall Street, is a reference to the Sherlock Holmes story "The Man with the Twisted Lip."

• In the Charlie's Angels episode "The Killing Kind," a villain calls Sabrina "Miss Sherlock Holmes."
• In Diagnosis: Murder episode "In Defense of Murder", Mark Sloan suggests getting a manuscript by the method from "A Scandal in Bohemia ": cause an evacuation of the building using a bomb scare, and then the culprit would pick up the incriminating manuscript.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Talons of Weng-Chiang": The whole story is essentially "Sherlock Holmes vs. Fu Manchu," with the Fourth Doctor and Leela filling the roles of Holmes (complete with a deerstalker hat and Inverness cape) and Watson. Litefoot's landlady is named Mrs. Hudson.
  • "Tooth and Claw": The Doctor, while passing himself off as "Dr. James McCrimmon", says that he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh under Dr. Bell. Bell was one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's teachers and a likely inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.
  • "Smith and Jones": The Doctor faking illness to investigate a hospital is similar to what Sherlock Holmes does in "The Dying Detective".
  • "Deep Breath"'s restaurant scene is similar to the one in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: In Victorian London, a highly intelligent, gorgeously-costumed girl meets an eccentric genius in a restaurant who proceeds to insult her (they make up later). Then, it turns out all the patrons were in on the bad guy's plot; they get up simultaneously and leave the girl to her fate (though Clara fares better than Irene).
• Endeavour:
  • In "Girl" Morse and Strange go for a drink in the White Horse - an Oxford pub that made several appearances in the original series. Their reading material is Moriarty's Police Law - this is actually not an ironic reference to Sherlock Holmes's arch-enemy but a real book on British police procedure which would be essential reading for constables looking to take their sergent's exam.
  • In "Prey" a body is found with marks suggesting an attack by a tiger or similar big cat. Morse raises the possibility that a weapon specially made to leave such marks could have been used. The Sherlock Holmes story "The Veiled Lodger" includes such a weapon, though in both cases the marks turn out to be from an actual animal attack.
  • "Oracle": Morse's description of Fred Thursday as "the best and wisest of men" echoes Dr Watson's comment about Sherlock Holmes after the latter's assumed death at the Reichenbach Falls in "The Adventure of the Final Problem".
• Fantasy Island:
  • In "Amusement Park/Rock Stars," Tattoo reads a Sherlock Holmes book Roarke gave him and afterwards shows up for work dressed as Holmes. Later in the episode, he tries to become a master of disguise by dressing up as a pirate and a chicken.
  • In "Jungle Man," Roarke lists Sherlock Holmes as an example of a fictional character who is iconic enough to come to life.
• House: As the main character is unabashadley inspired by Sherlock there are plenty of references in the show:
  • Indeed, the entire series itself is a gigantic Sherlock Holmes reference. House's name is similar to "Holmes", and they're both of great deductive mind, though while Holmes seems to be a free agent, House is an employed diagnostician. Indeed, Wilson is similar to "Watson" in both name and the fact that both men are loyal companions to House and Holmes. It even makes reference to an Irene Adler at a few points.
  • House's driver license lists his address as 221 Baker Street, Apt. B. This is the same address as Sherlock Holmes.
  • House says "There is only one truth" - a famous Sherlock Holmes quote.
  • The man who shot House in the episode "No Reason" is named Moriarty.
  • TOW has a paragraph about this.

• The Love Boat:
  • In "Ex Plus Y/Golden Agers/Graham and Kelly," Kelly pretends to be Sherlock Holmes and addresses Graham as "Watson" while she tries to solve the mystery of who threw up in his classmate's galoshes.
  • In "Murder on the High Seas," Isaac has become convinced that two guests are plotting Stubing's murder, but Gopher doesn't believe him and says, "Sherlock Holmes, you are not."
  • In "Take My Boyfriend, Please," a cheerleader's stalker follows her aboard. Her coworker remarks, "Looks like Sherlock Holmes has tracked you down."
• The Sooty Show: Sooty has dressed as Sherlock Holmes in a few episodes in order to solve whatever mystery has occurred in the episode.
• Veronica Mars: In the second season episode "Happy Go Lucky", Wallace is bugging Veronica while she's trying to study for finals, and she tells him to cram it:
  Veronica: Do you know how long I've wanted to go to Stanford?
  Wallace: Since middle school?
  Veronica: Elementary, my dear Wallace. {Beat) Do you know how long I've waited to say that?
• Yellowjackets: Amateur Sleuth Misty just can't understand why fellow amateur Walter would go to so much fuss just to meet her.
  Walter: Maybe I'm just a... bored Moriarty looking for his Sherlock.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000: The Inquisitor Obi-Wan's full name is Obi-Wan Sherlock Clousseau, from the Sherlock Holmes and the Pink Panther franchises.

Video Games

• Ace Attorney: There are multiple references throughout the games to earlier investigation serials like Perry Mason or Sherlock Holmes. Unlike most other references in the English language version, these were usually in the original Japanese dialogue as well.
• AdventureQuest Worlds: In "Greed" when the Hero tries their hand at detective work, they get compared to Hemlock Bones, a great fictional detective in-universe.
• Arknights: May's Obsgram username is "SherlockHonks", a pun on Sherlock Holmes.
• Borderlands 2: Gaige the Mechromancer has a skin named "A Study in Red".
• Criminal Case: In the London Bus scene, there is a poster of Sherlock Holmes and the logo of the Rolling Stones. Additionally several case names refer to Sherlock Holmes:
  • Case 40: An Elementary Murder
  • Case 52: A Study in Pink
  • Samuel Waldorf-Ridgewood dresses like Sherlock Holmes.
• DragonFable: In the first Dragongrasp quest, Inspector Doyle mentions "the villiage of Bask". He's also sitting in the Baker Street Inn.
• Fate/Grand Order:
  • Sherlock Holmes is a Ruler-class servant in the game, though by his own admission he should have been a Caster. He is first referenced in the fourth Singularity before appearing in the sixth, successfully solving the mystery behind the actions and behaviour of the Big Bad. Afterwards, he is a steadfast ally to Chaldea, eventually serving as the technical advisor during the Lostbelt arc. When asked about the books featuring him - since Mash is a huge fan of them - he says that he and Watson asked Arthur Conan Doyle to write them as a source of extra income.
  • The main ally and Diabolical Mastermind of Pseudo-Singularity I is no other than James Moriarty, hatching an incredible plan that combined Memory Gambit, Batman Gambit and his own genius to hatch a feasible plan to destroy the planet just to surpass Holmes. He had everyone played like a fiddle up until the last second. Holmes later admits that he deliberately told Watson to downplay his conflict with Moriarty when passing information to Doyle in fear that Moriarty would become too infamous.
  • An alternate version of James Moriarty shows up in the interstitial story between the final two Lostbelts as a Ruler-class Servant, this version being a Younger and Hipper man in his 20s who has yet to ascend to his status as criminal mastermind supreme that his Archer counterpart represents and is fused with the Norns of Norse Mythology by his Master, the Foreign World. As he does not have the memories of his older version, only vaguely aware of what happens in his future, he arranges a plot to out Sherlock Holmes as a Disciple of the Foreign God at waterfalls he designates Reichenbach to murder him in recreation of "The Final Problem" and take over Chaldea. Unfortunately Holmes simply lets himself die first in order to recreate Moriarty's final fate and negate his Winds of Destiny, Change! power granted by the Norns, resulting in Moriarty's defeat by Chaldea once again.
• Final Fantasy XIV: One of the quests is titled Kurobana Holmes.
• Genshin Impact: In her own story quest, Amber quotes Sherlock Holmes after she crossed a large gap to reach Raptor:
  Just like a wise man once said, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
• In Grimms Notes, Sherlock Holmes's world is mentioned by Chaos Archteller as one of the many Story Zones which Revol and his friends have yet to visit.
• Honkai Impact 3rd: "Apocalypse Scandal": This web event is a reference to the Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia", which features Irene Adler. In the event's story, "Conan Doyle" (i.e you) is the "Holmes" figure, Fu Hua (in her Hawk of the Fog suit) is the "Watson" figure, Otto is the "King of Bohemia" figure (the scandal is different in his case, even though it also features a photograph as a blackmail material), and Rita (as Fallen Rosemary) acts as "Irene Adler".
• Lemmings: One level has the Pun-Based Title "It's lemmingentry, Watson".
• Skullgirls: Big Band's quotes include "The world is full of obvious things".
• Story of Seasons (2014): A children's program called the Mighty Munchin' Veggie Rangers. These multicolored nutrition-loving superheroes battle an evil vegetable-stealing figure named Moliarty, who pilots a robot called a Negazord during his thefts. Their signature attack, Veggie Bomb, eventually levels up into the ultra-powerful Shining Harvest.
• Wizard101: Sherlock Bones is obviously this universe's equivalent to Sherlock Holmes, and he is portrayed as a bloodhound. He lives on 221B Barker Street, while his counterpart had the same address on Baker Street. His partner Watson is here too as his pet, a bulldog.

Web Animation

• In RWBY, Dr. Arthur Watts has been described by the creators as Dr. Watson if he allied with Moriarty instead of Sherlock.
• hololive: The VTuber Amelia Watson is named after John Watson, and is claimed to be his descendant, as well as being a detective herself, albeit of much stranger phenomena than the books' usual fare. A more direct reference to the series happens in her debut episode in hololive - Holo no Graffiti, wherein she and Chloe Sakamata form a detective agency only to get swamped by all kinds of useless requests from the other talents - whereupon Amelia ditches them all by throwing herself off a waterfall, a reference to Sherlock's death in "The Final Problem".

Web Original

• Arthur, King of Time and Space: One strip, in which Arthur asks Merlin if there are other groups of people going through the same adventures in different time periods, features Sherlock's Sherlock Holmes and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes's Dr Watson.
• Bernadette Banner is a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective tales and did a series of videos creating a "Lady Sherlock" outfit using historically accurate techniques and materials.
• Hark! A Vagrant explores the way adaptations tend to dumb down and plump up Watson in a couple of comics.
  Sherlock: They wanted Watson to provide more comic relief.
  Watson: Being a brave, intelligent lady killer wasn't interesting enough?
• Philosophy Tube: When discussing the many fallacies used in supporting executions in Capital Punishment (& Prison Abolition) Abigail refers to an earlier point in the video where she talked about a homeless child who was publicly hanged for stealing a spoon
  You know, people like Andrew Brunning, the Moriarty of tableware.
• Questionable Content: The comic directly preceding the one in which Clinton finally puts all the cues together and realizes that he is the crush Eliot's talking about is sarcastically titled "A Regular Sherlock".
• Wolf 359: Hilbert tells Eiffel that "when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth."

Western Animation

• 101 Dalmatian Street: In Nose Job, Dylan says even Sherlock Holmes needs Doctor Watson.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: In the episode "Avatar Day", Sokka channels Judge Bao, with some Sherlock Holmes elements, while attempting to solve the case.
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers: "Pound of the Baskervilles" introduces the late detective novel author Lord Howard Baskerville and his character Sureluck Jones. All one big Shout-Out to Sherlock Holmes in general and The Hound of the Baskervilles in particular.
• DuckTales (1987): Shedlock Jones is an obvious parody of Sherlock Holmes.
• DuckTales (2017): The episode "The 87 Cent Solution!" served as a Whole-Plot Reference to the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Dying Detective, down to Scrooge pretending to be dying in order to get the Villain of the Week, in this case, Glomgold, to do a Motive Rant and confess to his plot. The title on the other hand, is a Shout-Out to a different Sherlock Holmes pastiche, entitled The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.
• In the Fireman Sam episode "The Case of the Liquorice Shoelaces", Mandy has a Sherlock Holmes kit, which she and Norman use to investigate why liquorice shoelaces have been disappearing from Dilys' shop.
• In the Gravity Falls episode "Headhunters", one of the cursed wax figures is of Sherlock Holmes.
• Hey Arnold!: "Nuttin' Without You" references Laurel and Hardy, Romeo and Juliet, Sacagawea, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Sherlock Holmes.
• Kaeloo: In "Let's Play Guess Who" the cast imitate various people such as Sherlock Holmes, Doctor House, Grand Corps Malade, and The Incredibles.
• Phineas and Ferb: The episode title "Elementary My Dear Stacy" is a reference to the inaccurate but oft-quoted Sherlock Holmes catchphrase, "Elementary, my dear Watson."
• A Pup Named Scooby-Doo: Fred says "Elementary" to Daphne much like Sherlock Holmes.
• Ready Jet Go!: Mitchell is a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes. He dresses up as him for Halloween, and owns a toy of him.
• Regular Show: "Terror Tales Of The Park V" has Rigby dressed up as M. Bison, Eileen as Kiki the Witch, Muscleman as Snake Pliskin, Pops as The Fourth Doctor, Mordecai as Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon, Benson as Sherlock Holmes, and Skips as Rambo.

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