One FoxTrot story arc was about Paige falling asleep during a showing of the ballet and having a dream where her family members take various parts in the story — she's Clara, Roger is Drosselmeyer, Quincy the iguana is the "nosecracker", Jason is the Mouse King, Andy is the Sugarplum Fairy (who sets about replacing all the sweets in her act with healthy food), and after Paige attempts to ditch the "nosecracker" for a prince, Peter shows up singing "Purple Rain".
Samantha Parkington from the American Girl series falls in love with and is gifted a porcelain doll based on Clara, complete with small wooden soldier to look like the prince. (Though it's historically inaccurate for her to have one, as she's Edwardian and the ballet didn't arrive to the US until the 1940s.)
Angelina Ballerina has Angelina (and several others from her dance class) perform as the sugar plum fairy in Angelina's Christmas.
The first book of the Bad News Ballet series, The Terrible Tryouts, has the girls all meet each other at auditions for The Nutcracker. The five are cast as the Rat King's mice—hence the rerelease title, Drat, We're Rats!
You Look Different in Real Life: One of the scenes from the first documentary features six-year-old Rory and Justine dancing around the kitchen in princess costumes while The Nutcracker blasts from the stereo. Justine finds the scene very embarrassing as a teenager.
Clara from On the Spectrum was named after the character from The Nutcracker. When she was four, she hid backstage and watched her ballerina mother perform as the Sugar Plum Fairy.
The Netflix series Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker is about an all-black production of The Nutcracker spearheaded by Debbie Allen.
The Disney+ series On Pointe focuses on students of the School of American Ballet, with the climax being their participation in the New York City Ballet's 2019 Nutcracker production.
The Goodies puts on a performance of The Nutcracker which involves the ballet dancer being chased around the stage by a giant nutcracking tool.
Canadian figure skater Corey Circelli performed to "Pas de deux" for his long program during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 competitive seasons. He also mentions in an interview, "I'm the biggest ballet fan, so doing The Nutcracker was really exciting."
Tyco's My Pretty Ballerina from 1990 came with "Waltz of the Flowers" on the included cassette. A secondary outfit, based on the Sugar Plum Fairy, came with additional music from the ballet.
ANNIE: Last Hope have a stage where The Nutcracker Suite is played in the background... amidst a massive, gorn-laden shootout against numerous zombies. It's as big a Soundtrack Dissonance as you can imagine, which seems to be intentional.
Eat Me is a Fractured Fairy Tale that takes some elements from The Nutcracker, including the characters of the Mouse King and the Sugarplum Fairy.
In the Doug episode "Doug Wears Tights", the ballet production that Doug accidentally signed up to be a dancer for was titled The Beetcracker. The role Doug signed up for was the Beet Prince, a parody of the Nutcracker Prince, and Patti ended up getting the role as the Sugar Beet Fairy, a parody of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The Rat King remained unchanged, with Roger getting the role. Strangely, the soundtrack, despite being in the Public Domain, is not used in the episode, instead utilizing Suspiciously Similar Songs.
Oscar's Orchestra, an Edutainment Show about classical music, did an episode featuring the Nutcracker Suite with a very surreal plot involving giant mice and person-sized robotic nutcrackers.
during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 competitive seasons. He also mentions in an interview,