Referenced By / The Honeymooners

Films — Live-Action

• Back to the Future: Early in the movie, Marty and his parents watch the episode "The Man from Space". Later, while he's in 1955, Marty watches the same episode in its first run with Lorraine's family.
• Smokey and the Bandit: Bandit imitates Ed Norton while evading Sheriff Buford T. Justice (played by Jackie Gleason).
• The Star Wars Holiday Special: Art Carney's excessive noodling with a device in exactly the same way Ed Norton did in The Honeymooners, complete with an Imperial Guard yelling "Will you just get on with it?!" in the same way as Ralph Kramden.

Live-Action Television

• In Living Color! had a skit to reflect on modern times named Honeymooners '93.
• The King of Queens: The show acknowledged its inspiration in "Inner Tube" (Season 3), where Doug gets sick and dreams about being in various TV shows. For Honeymooners, he is Ralph, Carrie is Alice, Deacon is Ed, and the entire segment actively recreates the look and sound of the old episodes. As it happens, over a year later, James would host The Honeymooners 50th Anniversary Celebration, which featured a clip from this.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Joel introduces Crow as "Art Crow" in reference to Art Carney of The Honeymooners fame.
• Perfect Strangers: In one episode, Balki told Larry about a Honeymooners episode he saw once. The episode is reenacted with Larry as Ralph and Balki as Ed.
• That's My Bush!: George W. Bush is given a version of Ralph's Catchphrase: "One of these days, Laura, I'm gonna punch you in the face!"
• Treme: David Simon has admitted Antoine and Desiree are an Expy of Ralph and Alice; he wanted to get a clip of them watching The Honeymooners to tip his hand, but couldn't afford the rights.

Music

• Joan Jett's 1984 album, Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth, takes its name from a line of dialogue from the show.

Stand-Up Comedy

• In Robin Williams' comedy special Live On Broadway, he humorously recounted the birth of Jesus during his segment on the Bible.
  Robin: (as Joseph) "How did it happen?" (as Mary) "Oh, it's immaculate, Joe." (as Joseph) "Oh, it better be, Mary! It better be immaculate!" (normal voice) I'm sorry, I'm transforming Joseph into Ralph Kramden. But, it seemed to be kinda appropriate...

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem: The achievement earned for destroying a red ball of energy is called "In the smacker".
• Borderlands 2: When running over enemies, the Vault Hunter will say "To the moon"!
• Bravely Second: Magnolia at point says "One of these days... BANG! ZOOM! Straight to the moon"!

Western Animation

• Animaniacs: In the Pinky and the Brain segment "Win Big", Brian gets annoyed by Pinky constantly shouting "Bang! Zoom! Right in the kisser!". Later, while Brain competes on Gyp-Parody, he is stumped when the final question is about who said the phrase (which, in itself, is a reference to "The $64,000 Question").
• Family Guy:
  • At the end of "Mr. Saturday Knight", the family talks about the episode where Ralph lost his job and didn't get it back by the end.
  • In a cutaway from "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" shows Indiana Jones taking his time preparing to swap out the idol with the sack before the camera pans out to reveal Ralph, who shouts "Would you just pick it up already?!"
  • A Cutaway Gag from "North by North Quahog" shows Ralph finally making good in his threat to beat Alice before nervously walking off the set.
  • In "The Fat Guy Strangler", it's revealed that Lois' brother Patrick was sent to an insane asylum after witnessing his mother having an affair with Jackie Gleason, who yelled "Pow! Right in the kisser!" when climaxing. Later, Peter (unaware of the circumstances) puts on a bus driver uniform and repeatedly says the phrase, causing Patrick snap and go on an fat-man killing spree.
  • In "PTV", an episode of The Honeymooners is dubbed as part of the FCC's censorship campaign.
    Ralph: One of these days Alice! One of these days / I'm going to stimulate the economy by buying an American car.
• The Flintstones: The show is more or less a stone-age version of The Honeymooners. Jackie Gleason actually thought about suing, but then decided it wasn't worth it to be known as "the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air".
• Futurama:
  • In "The Series Has Landed", an attraction at Luna Park about the "history" of the moon features animatronics of Ralph and Alice, with the "Straight to the moon" quote being said in an inspirational context.
    Leela: Wow, I didn't know the first astronauts were so fat.
    Fry: That's not an astronaut, it's a TV comedian! And he was just using space travel as a metaphor for beating his wife.
  • In "Spanish Fry", Lrrr says to Ndnd, "Bang! Zoom! Straight to the third moon of Omicron Persei 8!"
• Looney Tunes:
  • The short The Honeymousers is a parody of the show taking place in a Mouse World. The characters appeared in two further cartoons, Cheese It — The Cat! and Mice Follies.
  • In Hyde and Hare, Bugs says a Ralph-like "YOU are a mental case!" upon meeting the transformed Dr. Jekyll.
  • In Red Riding Hoodwinked, Granny threatens Sylvester, "One of these days, POW! Right in the kisser!". At the end, she appears as a bus driver and makes good on her threat.
  • In Half-Fare Hare, Bugs is antagonized by two hoboes that look and sound like Ralph and Norton.
  • At the end of Wideo Wabbit, Bugs dresses and acts like Ed Norton.
  • In A Bird in a Bonnet, one of Sylvester's attempts to get Tweety causes him to fall through an open manhole into the sewer. After Granny walks away, we hear a Norton-like character say, "Va va va voo! Hey, look at this, Ralph! A pussycat."
• Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures: In "Mighty's Wedlock Whimsy", Mighty Mouse has a dream about being married to Pearl, which plays out as an episode of The Honeymooners, with The Cow as "Morton". In addition, the episode begins with Mighty introducing the story in front of a curtain a la The Jackie Gleason Show.
• Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" episode "Fire Dogs 2" has a live-action Framing Device spoofing The Honeymooners, starring Ralph Bakshi.
• Rick and Morty: Rick's delivery of the phrase "And awaaaay we go!" in "A Rickle in Time" is identical to Ralph Cramden's catchphrase.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "The Day the Violence Died", Roger Meyers Jr. compares The Flintstones to The Honeymooners during a speech about how cartoons were built on plagiarism.
  • In "HOMR", a panel at the animation convention features a voice actor doing voices based on existing people, with a Jackie Gleason impression being used for the character Loudmouth Leopard.
  • At the end of "Yokel Chords", Cletus says to Brandine, "Baby, you're the greatest!", followed by a pan up to the sky where Cletus is the "man in the moon".
  • The Couch Gag from "How the Test Was Won" features the Simpsons in the roles of various classic sitcoms; the Honeymooners parody featured Homer as Ralph, Marge as Alice, Bart as Ed, and Lisa as Trixie.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Squidward Tentacles was designed to be a nautical Expy of Ralph Kramden due to his Hair-Trigger Temper and being Only Sane by Comparison, down to his voice acting, courtesy of Rodger Bumpass, reflecting Ralph's vocal cadences. In "Dying for Pie", Squidward yells out, "Drown in it!", the same way that Ralph yells out, "Blabbermouth!"
  • In "Suds", Patrick pretends to be a doctor and screams "Don't touch me, I'm sterile!" Norton, another dimwitted best friend, did the exact some thing in "A Matter of Life and Death".
  • "Squilliam Returns" features a stunned group doing Ralph's "Hummina hummina hummina."
• Yogi Bear's voice is based on Ed Norton, complete with his Signature Laugh. In some early shorts, he even used Ed's Catchphrase, "Sheesh, what a grouch!"

Real Life

• NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which visited Pluto in July 2015, has instruments named "Ralph" and "Alice". "Ralph" is a secondary telescopic camera used to apply color data in conjunction with its primary telescopic camera, LORRI. "Alice" is an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer used to determine the composition of the tenuous atmosphere of the Pluto-Charon minor planet binary system; it would also verify data about a "hydrogen wall" in the outer reaches of our Solar System collected by Voyager 2. Versions of both instruments are being used in the Lucy spacecraft, launched in 2022 to explore the Trojan asteroids that co-orbit with Jupiter.

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