Referenced By / Soylent Green

Comic Books

• Y: The Last Man. At the start of #41 Yorick is shouting, "Soylent Green! Soylent fucking Green!" after encountering a Cannibal Tribe.

Fan Works

• In the Parody Fic ALIEN!!!, the crew of the Nostromo are eating lunch and one of them asks, "What do you think this Soylent Green's made of, people?"
• In Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space, Captain Proton says that "without Zarkendorf's timely invention of Soylent Green, the human race would have resorted to cannibalism!" The Soylent Corporation buying up cryogenic storage companies and putting out adverts saying, "You Are What You Eat!" still doesn't clue him in.

Films — Live-Action

• Drop Dead Gorgeous: One of the contestants at the beauty pageant reenacts scenes from the movie, including "Soylent Green is people!".

Literature

• Sex Robots and Vegan Meat: Philip Nitschke, founder of the pro-euthanasia group Exit, says that he was inspired by Sol's death scene in Soylent Green. The author isn't familiar with the film, so she buys the DVD, and gets a very different impression:
  I blink as the credits roll. Out of all the euthanizing scenarios dreamed up in the canon of science fiction, from Star Trek to Futurama, this is what has inspired Philip? The calm, controlled death Soylent Green depicts is the compliance of an old, depressed and desperate person relieving the burden on an overpopulated planet; death engineered so that humans can eat other humans. It is total madness. Can Philip really have seen this cautionary tale and concluded that the death scene is ‘doing the right thing by the planet’? Yes, Sol felt no pain, chose when to die, and had his favourite colour shone into his face. But his death was hellish.

Live-Action TV

• Angel: In the third season episode "Carpe Noctem", Angel takes Fred to a double feature of this movie and The Ωmega Man.
• Barney Miller: In the season two episode "Discovery", Fish talks about seeing the movie.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In the first season episode "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date", Owen says at one point, "At least you don't have to eat your Soylent Green."
• Chuck: In the fourth season episode "Chuck Versus the Muurder", Morgan asks which Charlton Heston movie is cooler, Soylent Green or The Ωmega Man. Damien says it's a trick question, and the real answer is Planet of the Apes (1968).
• Judging Amy: While home sick, Vincent can be heard watching the movie, and he says in surprise, "Wait a minute - Soylent Green is people?"
• Lois & Clark: In the season three episode "Oedipus Wrecks", while Lois is amnesiac and confusing her life with Charlton Heston movies, she says at one point, "But Soylent Green is people, right?"
• Millennium (1996). "Soylent Green is people" is the verbal password Frank Black uses for his computer.
• Muppets Tonight: On the episode Billy Crystal hosted, Rizzo says, "Soylent green is people."
• NewsRadio: In the season four episode "Look Who's Talking", Bill says at one point, "If this were Logan's Run, I'd be Soylent Green by now."
• Saturday Night Live did a parody of the movie, with the Thorn character running down the street and yelling the famous line.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000: Soylens Viridiens is an ubiquitous artificial food ration that thankfully doesn't taste of anything. Whether or not is actually does consist of rendered-down human corpses is an in-universe mystery, with most people not caring to find out.

Video Games

• XenoGears: At Solaris, there's a 'Soylent System' that disposes of dead organisms by compressing their bodies into organic food for production.
• The Walking Dead (Telltale): One of the three things Lee can shout in Episode 2 when he comes into the room to warn everyone, you can have him shout "IT'S PEOPLE!", referring to the food. Brenda responds by simply saying that, yes, this is a room full of people.
• Portal 2: Cave Johnson has Soylent Green served in his Aperture's cafeteria, but the player hears him opting to stop after receiving a memo from the president... that it's doubling in price.
  Cave Johnson: Now, listen up: I don't care how good people tastes. This stuff is costing me more than lobster, so we're going back to fish-sticks.

Western Animation

• Futurama: In the first season episode "Fry and the Slurm Factory", Leela says the soft drink "Soylent Cola" is made of people.
• Johnny Bravo: "Panic in Jerky Town!" parodies the film, especially the ending where Johnny learns the jerky is made of soy, causing him to scream, "It's health food!"
• The Simpsons:
  • In the season four episode "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie", Soylent Green is being sold at a movie theater of the future.
  • In the season seven episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two", Smithers confesses the secret at a church.
  • In the season eight episode "The Old Man and the Lisa", Lisa runs around telling everyone what Lisa's Slurry is made of.
  • In the season 11 episode "Bart to the Future", Homer offers corn flakes called Soylent Green, but Ralph says they're made of people.