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This page lists shout-outs seen in Live-Action TV shows.

Shows with their own subpages:


Individual examples:

  • 24:
    • Star Trek alumni Manny Coto and Brannon Braga have been involved with the show for a while now, and when the president was considering people for the position of chief of staff, Bob Justman and Rick Berman were suggested. There is Jane Espenson from accounting.
    • There seems to have been at least one Doctor Who fan on the writing staff: Seasons 2 and 3 feature a minor character named Tom Baker, and Season 8 has a villain named Davros.
    • McLennen-Forster, the weapons manufacturer in season 4, is a shout out to the Australian indie-rock band The Go-Betweens and their principal songwriters Grant McLennan and Robert Forster.
  • 666 Park Avenue:
  • The 4400:
    • In one episode, Diana makes a reference to 'The Thought Police', a shout out to Nineteen Eighty-Four.
    • In "As Fate Would Have It," there is one to the final scene of The Godfather. Liv, a homeless junkie whom Shawn befriended and convinced to join the 4400 Center, sadly watches as his aides close his office door on her shortly after Jordan Collier's assassination.
    • In "Gone, Part II," having been given a mental illness of the Nova Group leader Daniel Armand, Shawn begins tearing his apartment in the 4400 Center to pieces in order to find a bug, just as Harry Caul did in the final scene of “The Conversation''.
    • In "The Starzl Mutation," one of Darren Piersahl's victims is named Holly Martins. This was the name of the protagonist of The Third Man, as played by Joseph Cotten.
    • In "The Wrath of Graham," after NTAC and the Army lay siege to Adlai Stevenson High School, Graham Holt's followers all claim to be him in order to protect him, referencing the iconic scene in Spartacus.
    • The final scene of the Series Finale "The Great Leap Forward" has "Where Is My Mind" by The Pixies playing.
  • A113 appears in many animated productions and refers to a room number used by the animation program at CalArts.
  • The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. has at least one in every episode. One particular gem is referring to the idea of an armor plated dirigible as a lead zeppelin.
  • The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard: The name of Ros Pritchard's (fictional) hometown is a shoutout to The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.
  • Andi Mack has a main character named Buffy. She owns it.
  • Andor: The introduction of Niamos imitates the introduction of Miami in Miami Vice, as an image of a sunny resort paradise which instead conceals a cesspool of corruption.
  • Andromeda: Searching his secret weapons locker in one episode, Captain Hunt (played by Kevin Sorbo, who also played Hercules) finds a Hercules sword and wig. In the first episode, Hunt is referred to as being "like a Greek god or something."
    • There's also the episode where he goes in search of an old ship avatar, and it turns out to be Michael Hurst, who played Iolaus. A little later they have a "you look kind of familiar" moment. In the same episode, Hunt has a sense of déjà vu when he is told that he must mount a rescue out of a system named Tartarus.
    • In yet another episode, following a conversation about how powerful the Lost Technology ship makes him, Captain Hunt remarks "...but I'm not a god; I'm just a man."
    • The premiere of the series had a human crewman who was killed in the initial attack named after a noted denizen of rec.arts.sf.written who had died of cancer not long before.
    • Another episode featured a racist militant group called the Knights of Genetic Purity, who were lifted unchanged (name and all) from the role-playing game Gamma World.
  • Angel:
    • Meanwhile, it had a shout out to Joss Whedon having written one of the Alien films, with Fred's father saying he fell asleep during it. Despite it being a Whedon film, it wasn't well received.
    • When Angel examines her driver's license, Anne's address is listed as "Willoughby Ave." Anne Steele and John Willoughby are characters in Sense and Sensibility.
    • The Groosalugg or Groo for short. A mighty, good-hearted and rather dumb warrior nicknamed Groo?
    • May possibly be coincidental, but Illyria has some significant visual, backstory and personality similarities to Eldrad from the Doctor Who story "The Hand of Fear."
  • Another Period has offered up these shout-outs:
    • In "Senate," Hortense and Chef Chauncey Allistar recreate the blindfold-and-food scene from Nine and a Half Weeks.
    • In "Pageant," Lillian's win is spoiled when Hortense dumps a bucket of - not blood, but feces - on her head, a la Carrie.
  • Astrid:
    • Astrid herself is sometimes compared to Rain Man, usually in the context of ableist harassment and bullying, including a Troubled Backstory Flashback in "The Haunting". In "Invisible", a coworker knocks a can of toothpicks on the ground to get her to count them.
    • The victims in "Puzzle" are all named for ciphers of Jurassic Park characters: Alain Grant (Alan Grant), Denis Nedry (Dennis Nedry), and Yann Malcolm (Ian Malcolm). Raphaëlle also speaks to a Dr. Thierry Rex by phone.
    • Sherlock Holmes:
      • Astrid's comment in "Puzzle" about memory not being infinitely expandable is something Holmes said to Watson in A Study in Scarlet.
      • In episode 7, Astrid quotes Holmes's line, "When you eliminate the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth" from The Sign of the Four.
    • The cattleya flowers left as a Calling Card by the killer in the pilot is a reference to a Marcel Proust novel, Un amour de Swann, where the main character uses the expression "to do cattleya" as a euphemism for sex.
    • "The Haunting" has a bunch of Star Wars references. Laure Gana and Wilfred Tarquin reference Leia Organa and Wilhuff Tarkin from A New Hope; there's also a mention of a Max Rebo (the Ortolan keyboardist in Return of the Jedi), while a past victim is a man named Jabbah, born in Tataouine, Tunisia (the country where most of the Tatooine sequences in the series were shot).
    • "The Man Who Never Was":
      • The episode is titled after The Man Who Never Was. It involves a Body of the Week that uses several false identities, where the film was about a corpse with a manufactured background that was used to deliver disinformation to the Axis before the invasion of Italy.
      • The Body of the Week's aliases are all aliases used by Arsène Lupin in various novels: Louis Valméras in The Hollow Needle, Maxime Bermond in Arsène Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes, and Victor Hautin from Victor of the Wordly Brigade.
  • The A-Team gave Battlestar Galactica (1978) a shout-out. A first season ep had the boys meeting someone in Universal Studios' tour area. A BSG Cylon walked by Face, played by Dirk Benedict, Starbuck on the original BSG, who had had more than a little contact with toasters. Face did a Double Take, of the "wait, do I know you from somewhere?" variety. (at about 0:45 into that clip) A clip from the scene was used in the intro in later seasons.
  • Atlantis: In an early episode, Hercules berates Jason for falling in love with the princess Ariadne (a very dangerous thing for a commoner to do with her parents around), asking if he couldn't have chosen someone more at his level, like "the blacksmith's daughter." Central to the plot of Merlin is an analogous, though reversed, situation, in which Prince Arthur and Gwen, the blacksmith's daughter, fall in love, with similar problems. (Two of Atlantis' three producers previously produced Merlin, and in general Atlantis is considered a spiritual successor to Merlin).
  • The Avengers (1960s): A Christmas episode shows Steed getting Christmas cards from lady friends. He reads one from Cathy Gale and muses "Whatever could she be doing in Fort Knox?"
  • Babylon Berlin: The assassination of Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand is supposed to happen at a performance of The Threepenny Opera. The famous Moritat also serves as the episode's Leitmotif. Possibly in itself a Shout-Out to Hitman, which features a mission where Agent 47 can hide in an opera chandelier during a rehearsal of Tosca and use the gunfire on the stage to mask the sound of him assassinating an American diplomat in one of the loges.
  • Barnaby Jones:
    • A few callbacks to Buddy Ebsen's even more successful series, The Beverly Hillbillies:
      • Lieutenant Biddle's name is a callback to birdwatcher Professor Biddle, a recurring character on the Beverly Hillbillies.
      • In "The Secret of the Dunes", Barnaby uses a bloodhound known as "Count" to find a body. Compare to Jed Clampett and his bloodhound Duke.
      • J.R.'s first name is Jedidiah, Jed Clampett's full name.
      • J.R.'s also the son of Barnaby's first cousin. J.R's the same relation to Barnaby as Jethro is to Jed Clampett. Fortunately, he's a lot smarter than Jethro.
    • The episode "Fatal Witness" features Larry Hagman in a guest starring role. Randomly, we also see a [1] girl in a harem outfit teaching belly dancing at a spa!
  • Batman (1966):
    • In "The Cat and the Fiddle" Catwoman's thugs are crawling around the outside of the Gotham State Building. Commissioner Gordon says "Are they birds?" and Chief O'Hara says "Are they planes?", a reference to the signature line from Superman, "Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It's Superman!"
    • "An Egg Grows in Gotham."
      • Chief Screaming Chicken is the sole remaining representative of the Mohican tribe, making him "The Last of the Mohicans" (a reference to the James Fenimore Cooper novel The Last of the Mohicans).
      • At one point Chief Screaming Chicken says the phrase "Kemo sabe." When Egghead's goon asks him what it means, he says he doesn't know - he heard it on the radio. This refers to the The Lone Ranger radio show, in which Tonto regularly used that phrase.
      • An unnamed police detective played by Ben Alexander tells a woman to "Give me just the facts", a reference to Sergeant Joe Friday's "Just the facts, ma'am" line from Dragnet and to Alexander's character on the show, Frank Smith.
    • "Fine Feathered Finks." When the Penguin sees a camera observing him in a prison cell, he says "Goodnight, Big Brother" and pokes it out with his umbrella. This is a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which (among other things) had devices in people's homes that were used to spy on them. The symbol of the government was Big Brother, the Party leader in charge of the country.
  • Battlestar Galactica (1978): Also had a Star Trek shout out. A particular sect of Colonials believed in contact between genders only when sanctified by a certain ritual, only carried out "every seven years" (a reference to Vulcan "pon far").
  • Battlestar Galactica (2003): Cylons meet in weapons locker 1701D, a shout out to the Enterprise's registration number in Star Trek: The Next Generation which Ron Moore also worked on. The new show's pilot miniseries also had Trek shout outs, one being the callsign for a civilian ship being "Gemenon Liner 1701" (again referencing the Enterprise), as well as the very brief appearance of a Constitution class starship in one of the "rag tag fleet" scenes.
    • 1701 people died or went missing on New Caprica, and 1701 people were lost in the Battle of the Ionian Nebula. Ron Moore likes this one.
    • Similarly, a location on Caprica called the Martok Valley is probably a shout-out to General Martok of Deep Space Nine fame.
    • There is also a shout out to Firefly in the miniseries, as a Firefly-class transport is seen in the air over Caprica City before the outbreak of the war. The effects team loved doing these. In the finale it is possible to spot Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun's GDI Kodiak amongst the rag-tag fleet.
    • Possible shout out to The A-Team in Battlestar Galactica: Razor with Starbuck's line: "Ain't it grand when a plan comes together?" No doubt since The A-Team had one Dirk Benedict on the cast, the original Starbuck.
    • There are also two references to the Kennedy Assassination. The first in the Miniseries when Laura is sworn in as President aboard Colonial One is a deliberate parallel to LBJ's swearing in aboard Air Force One. The second is in the episode "Resistance," when Cally kills Boomer, essentially reenacting Jack Ruby's killing of Oswald.
    • In the opening credits of the rebooted BSG, there's a shot of Starbuck in a sleeveless shirt, grinning around a cigarillo while playing cards—duplicating a similar shot of Dirk Benedict's Starbuck in the credits for the original series.
    • The theme music for the original BSG series is used in the rebooted series as the (in-universe) anthem of the Colonial armed forces.
    • Baltar's dream sequence in "Collaborators." Dream Six: "Don't make me angry, Gaius." Dream Adama: "You won't like her when she's angry."
  • Beakman's World: Don and Herb Penguin form a Shout-Out to Don Herbert, aka Mr. Wizard. Also, several times the characters mention the shenanigans in Mr. Guenther's science class, referencing Al Guenther, the science consultant for the show.
  • Being Human: Annie excitedly tells Nina, "Hey, there's a werewolf called Nina in Buffy!" (Which is technically not true; Nina only appeared in Spin-Off show Angel.)
  • The Big Bang Theory is lousy with these.
    • Bottle city of Kandor, anyone?
    • A more subtle example: Leonard, Sheldon and Penny watch an anime called "Oshikuro the Demon Samurai." That was an allusion to an episode of Two and a Half Men, in which the animated adaptation of "Oshikuro" (which was a comic book then) was being made, and Charlie had to compose the opening song.
    • When Sheldon won a prestigious award and was nervous about giving an acceptance speech. He took a few drinks to calm his nerves, overshot the mark, and one of his hijinx was singing the periodic table of elements to much the same tune as Tom Lehrer. The melody is from Gilbert and Sullivan’s "A Very Model of a Modern Major-General", making it a double shoutout.
    • Mega nerd Wil Wheaton wore a Fruit Fucker T-shirt when he appeared on this mega nerd show. For those who don't know, Wheaton's a homeboy of the PA crew, to the point of playing in several D&D campaigns with them, and is subsequently ridiculed mercilessly for his choice of character name.
    • When the four come back from their Arctic expedition, Leonard, Howard, and Raj all have grown caveman-like hair and beards, while Sheldon has a perfectly-groomed goatee... just like the one mirror-universe Spock had.
    • Sheldon's various superhero T-shirts.
    • Sheldon named their bowling team "The Wesley Crushers" meaning that they would crush Wil Wheaton. Everyone else (including Wheaton) saw it as a Fan Shout Out to the actor.
    • In the episode guest starring Stan Lee, the judge who throws Sheldon in jail is named "J. Kirby."
    • In the fourth season New Year's episode, the gang (plus Penny's current boyfriend, Zach) dressed up as members of the Justice League for a party at the comic book store. Others were dressed as the Fourth Doctor, a Hogwarts student, and The Joker, among others.
    • Just one more subtle: "The Apology Insufficiency" featured guest star Eliza Dushku. Towards the end of the episodes Sheldon tries to get Howard to forgive him for a mistake by "reprogramming" him.
    • Sheldon's line "Of all the overrated physicists in all the labs in all the world, why does it have to be Leslie Winkle?"
    • There are several shout outs to Battlestar Galactica. They range from the characters talking about watching the show to Leonard, as Howard puts it, "taking out his aggressions on innocent Cylons" (i.e. he destroys a Cylon action figure with a laser).
      • Don't forget Cylon Toast! Everyone loves Cylon Toast.
    • Many shout outs to Star Trek both old school and new school. Penny gives Star Trek figurines to the guys, Sheldon is at first upset that he missed the Star Trek reboot then upset that he didn't get a Leonard Nimoy Spock standee, a quick Lt M'ress mention, Sheldon's feud with Wil Weaton, Sheldon compares their friends to a landing party ("Now we have a Dr. McCoy!"), and of course..."Do you know what this means? I possess the DNA of Leonard Nimoy!!!"
    • There was an ironic shout-out to Firefly by Joss Whedon in "The Staircase Implementation":
      Sheldon: "Roommates agree that Friday nights shall be reserved for watching Joss Whedon's brilliant new series, Firefly."
      Leonard: "Does that really need to be in the agreement?"
      Sheldon: "Well we might as well settle it now, it's gonna be on for years."
    • Sheldon's journal in "The Bozeman Reaction" is a shout-out to Rorschach's Journal in Watchmen.
      Sheldon: Sheldon’s journal. Security system in place. However, sleep continues to elude me. I’ve seen the underbelly of Pasadena, this so-called City of Roses, and it haunts me. Ah, the injustice, I lie here awake, tormented, while out there evil lurks, probably playing ''Donkey Kong'' on my classic Nintendo.
    • Strangely enough, there is no mention in that episode that Bozeman, Montana where Sheldon decides to move to was also the location in Star Trek: First Contact where humanity made first contact with the Vulcans. You'd think Sheldon of all people would have brought that up.
    • Doubling as an Actor Allusion, Wil Wheaton's The Guild t-shirt when he appears on Sheldon Cooper's Fun With Flags
    • Sheldon's frequent quoting from the extremely detailed Housemate Agreement, right down to paragraphs, sections and subsections, evokes Rimmer's obsession with the Space Corps Directives on Red Dwarf. As sci-fi nerds, of course Sheldon and the rest - and certainly the show's creators - would be aware of Red Dwarf. Sheldon as a more pernickity Rimmer makes great sense, too, with the rest of the cast taking it in turns to play the Lister role.
    • In fact, Sheldon owns all sixty-one released episodes of the BBC series "Red Dwarf," as revealed in "the Friendship Contraction."
      • This would include the original eight seasons (52), the three-part "Back To Earth" and the six episodes of Red Dwarf X. Although the creators were sufficiently on the pulse to know that Red Dwarf X was being made, The Friendship Contraction was broadcast approximately eight months before the new season of Red Dwarf was initially broadcast in the UK.
    • And... the whole idea of Howard going up into space as the world's least likely and most temperamentally unsuited astronaut. Everybody, including university benefactor Mrs Latham, makes dismissive remarks about his being a "space plumber." Howard soon finds out he's only there to do the equivalent of servicing the chicken-soup dispensers. His quirks make him the butt of the joke from more macho astronauts. While entranced with the view at first, he soon comes to regard it as excruciatingly dull. Does This Remind You Of Anything?
    • And in the one where Howard gets into an embarrassing situation with a robot arm, he programs the arm to respond to a snarky Sheldon comment, by having it turn to him and jerkily, but very obviously, making a finger-gesture. This is not the American middle finger, but the British V-Sign with two fingers. Compare the skutter (maintenance robot) in Red Dwarf who makes a similar derisive gesture to Arnold Rimmer after being provoked by a similar superior sneer.
    • In "The Holographic Excitation," there is a blatant shout-out to Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Specifically, The Science of Discworld series, co-authored with prominent British scientists, in which Pratchett's fantasy world is used to mirror and illustrate developing scientific thought. In the books, the wizards of Unseen University (among them a rather nerdy type with glasses who affects a big baggy parka) accidentally create a bizarre pocket universe centred on a spherical world which orbits its sun. Stuck for what to do with it, it ends up gathering dust inside a protective glass sphere on somebody's desk. Meanwhile a geeky glasses-wearing scientist in a parka fires up holograms of Earth, planets and solar system to please his girlfriend. Leonard speculates that everything might just be one giant information-gathering hologram, being read by intelligences an unguessable distance away... The creation of the pocket universe in the Discworld — including Planet Earth — was done with the specific intention of averting a seriously Big Bang, by diverting a lot of dangerously destructive energy down a harmless path...
  • During the episode "Invertebrates" of Bill Nye the Science Guy, the show transforms into a riff-style skit mirroring that of Mystery Science Theater 3000 three times. Only, instead of two robots sitting next to a person in the theater, there is instead what appears to be a lobster, and a large squid sitting next to a person in the theater.
  • The Bionic Woman episode "Doomsday is Tomorrow". The Artificial Intelligence supercomputer Alex 7000 acts as an opponent to Jaime Sommers. He has a calm, emotionless voice, tries to convince her to give up her mission to stop him and attempts to kill her when she doesn't. He is based on the very similar computer HAL 9000 in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, who tries to kill all of the astronauts on the spaceship headed to Jupiter.
  • Birds of Prey: During the pilot episode, Huntress mentions that meteor showers are a likely source of metahuman abilities. Birds of Prey aired on the same network as Smallville.
  • The Bisexual:
  • There's one in Black Adder Goes Forth where General Melchet (Stephen Fry) is talking to Captain Darling about George (Hugh Laurie) and says this:
    Melchette: His uncle Bertie and I used to break wind for our college.
  • Boy Meets World had several references to South Park in the later seasons, mostly blatantly "Oh my God! They killed Kenny!" from "And Then There Was Shawn."
  • The Boys (2019):
    • Mother's Milk tells Hughie his cover is a "mild-mannered reporter," which of course how Superman was described in his secret identity as Clark Kent.
    • Homelander's big revelation that he conceived a child and was absent for most of his life is a nod to a contentious moment in Superman Returns.
    • Another Superman Returns shout-out comes in the Flight 37 scene, albeit with a much darker conclusion. Unlike Superman, Homelander leaves the plane to crash and the passengers to die after botching the rescue operation. Queen Maeve even brings up the possibility of him using his powers to lift the plane to safety, just as Superman did in that film, only for Homelander to point out that he'd just go straight through the plane's hull and destroy it.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • It give a shout out to Charmed as well: in the series finale, Willow, after performing the spell that awakens all the Slayers on earth, exclaims, "Oh my Goddess!" This is the title of the fifth season finale of Charmed. Apparently Joss Whedon saw the title of the episode, thought it was awesome, and threw it into the finale.
    • There's also a potential Battlestar Galactica (1978) shout-out in Anya's dismissive reference to the Buffybot: "She's not the descendant of a long line of mystical warriors. She's the descendant of a toaster oven"?
    • Buffy's last name might be a shout out to Montague Summers. Quotith The Other Wiki: "He was responsible for the first English translation, published in 1928, of the notorious 15th-century witch hunter's manual, the Malleus Maleficarum." He also believed in vampires, witches and other things.
      • Actually, Joss has stated that Buffy's last name is a Shout-Out to Cyclops (IE Scott Summers).
    • In Season 8's "Predators and Prey," they have vampire themed reality shows: Who Wants To Be Sired, Flavor Of Blood, Undead Chef, and Project Vampire.
    • Douglas Petrie named the villain in the episode "Helpless" after his nephew. One could also argue that his "talking corpses" and "possessed girl" CSI episodes were shouts back to his Buffy days.
    • The Master’s sunken lair is reminiscent of the 1987 vampire classic The Lost Boys, one of Whedon’s inspirations for Buffy.
    • Dawn wolfing down two bowls of "Sugar Bombs."
    • On the eve of the final battle, when Xander, Giles, Amanda, and Andrew are playing Dungeons & Dragons, they encounter Trogdor the Burninator.
    • During "No Future For You", Giles mentions the great bearded wizard of Northampton.
    • The one time Giles is skeptical of the supernatural effect of the week, Buffy tells him not to "Scully me."
    • Adam in Season 4, the name of Frankenstein's Monster, according to Mary Shelley.
    • Giles puts on "Danse Macabre" during his silent presentation in the Season 4 episode "Hush." "Danse Macabre" is the theme tune of Jonathan Creek. Anthony Stewart Head, who plays Giles, played magician Adam Klaus in the pilot episode of that show.
    • The Jan/Feb 2012 of the Season 9 Buffy comics has the cover in the style of Batman. For those who saw Faith wearing Batman pajamas in her series they should have seen it coming.
    • In Season 9, Faith updates Angel on the latest inmates from Batman: Arkham Asylum, while tracking a demon that feeds on trauma.
    • The last Season 9 issue with Simone and the Bot has someone wearing a skull t shirt. It certainly wasn't The Punisher, but it likely refers to the last Punisher comic where he dies which was published at around the same time.
    • Willow in Season 9: "Oh the places I'll go," and later "You'd be a fine minion...and your little dogs, too." Also, in the same issue,
    Connor: "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. And, uh... heForce will be with you."
    • In Death & Consequences from Season 9 does the jacket Faith wear look like it belongs to someone else? Commander Shepard perhaps? Looks like our Gamer Chick had upgraded from the PlayStation the Mayor gave her to an Xbox.
    • Season 9: "Why isn't the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy-head, fever, so-Xander-can-rest medicine working?!"
    • Season 9: "What would The Hardy Boys do when they got stuck on a case?"
    • Buffy calling Illyria "Smurfette" in Season 9.
    • Willow nicknames a giant octopus (which has the power to spilt itself into smaller, cuter octopi) Hello Cthulhu in Season 9.
    • Faith says there ain't no saints in this room in Season 9. Funny she should mention that: that's exactly who her actress Eliza Dushku played in Saints Row 2.
    • And Faith being sick of being responsible for Angel in Season 9, she's "not friggin' Spider-Man."
    • Caleb is a shoutout to Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter.
    • Faith's finally revealed surname of Lehane is probably a Shout Out to crime novelist Dennis Lehane.
  • Call the Midwife, appropriately for a show involving an order of nuns, has a number of references to 14th-century English mystic St. Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love.
  • Camelot: Ector's death scene (impalement by a spear, then pulling himself down the shaft to stab Lot) echoes that of Arthur versus Mordred in Excalibur.
  • Charmed:
    • In other possible shout-outs to Television Without Pity, recapper Demian at least once per recap expressed his dislike of the character Leo, referring to the supposedly omnipotent Elders as "the ever-useless Elders" due to their apparent inability or unwillingness to help the protagonists. In the episode "Lucky Charmed," Piper refers to the "Fricking ever-useless Elders!" In "The Courtship of Wyatt's Father," the demon-of-the-week is determined to kill Leo, and is named "Damien." And oh, didn't he love that.
    • Charmed gave a shout to Buffy the Vampire Slayer during the episode "The Power of Two." Prue and Phoebe are in a mausoleum and have this conversation:
    Prue: Ohh, I hate cemeteries at night.
    Phoebe: I hate cemeteries at day. What was that?
    Prue: Uh ... huh. Probably a zombie or vampire.
    Phoebe: Great. Where's Buffy when you need her?
    • An even better example is when Paige is attacked by a vampire in the fourth season, after Buffy's Channel Hop from The WB to UPN.
    Piper: Vampires? That'd be different.
    Phoebe: No, that's not possible.
    Paige: Why not?
    Phoebe: Well, because as far as I know, vampires attack in human form and not as a swarm of bats. You know, it's gotta be something else.
    Leo: It's true, vampires have been ostracized from the underworld for centuries. As far as I know they're a part of a whole different network now.
    • They also do a shout to Psycho when in a season 2 episode Piper is pursued by a serial killer from a movie.
    Piper: I am being stalked by psycho killers and I hide in the shower?!
    • The girls' one-shot "superhero" costumes in Season 5 are reminiscent of the Legion of Super-Heroes, with a dose of some more recent X-Men outfits for flavor. Piper's in particular seems like an updated version of the original Dazzler costume. This may or may not be intentional.
    • In the season five finale, Paige gets turned into a goddess of war — more a genderswapped version of Ares rather than Athena, but with Poseidon's trident. Phoebe asks her whether she was done being a Warrior Princess.
    • One demon actually says the line "I find your lack of faith... disturbing."
    • Another shout out happens in several episodes with Leo (Brian Krause) & Piper (Holly Marie Combs) about their real life dating when Leo quotes he always fancied a stronger woman like a "Bethany" he referred to his then wife Beth Bruce (who he later divorced) and Piper spat back with 'Well to bad your not a Don or David' which refers to her eventual real life husband David Donoho (also later divorced), who she was just casually seeing at the time.
    • In Season 8, "The Jung and the Restless" there is a shout out to Quentin Tarantino, by Rose McGowan who at that time had done the movies Death Proof and Planet Terror with him.
    • In early seasons, Prue works at the Buckland Auction House. The name comes from Raymond Buckland, who introduced the religion of Wicca to the United States.
    • The S:3 E:2 episode "Magic Hour" is almost a carbon copy of the plot from Ladyhawke about two lovers who are cursed to become animals at different parts of the day by a jealous ruler. Prue lampshades it with "I feel like I've seen this in a movie somewhere."
  • In Chernobyl, the three men who volunteer as the "divers", undertaking a Suicide Mission to drain the water beneath the power plant before radioactive molten slag hits it, declare their intentions by standing up and saying their names. This is in part to create a memorable scene so the audience knows the identities of the real men who chose to give up their own lives to save millions, but it's also terribly familiar—and writer Craig Mazin indeed refers to it as "the I am Spartacus scene" in the companion podcast. (For the record, their names were Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bespalov, and Boris Baranov, and they all survived.)
  • Cleopatra 2525: The appearance of the character Creegan is taken directly from the cover painting of Harlequin in the Shadowrun adventure "Harlequin's Back'' (1994).
  • Cobra Kai loves to give little shout-outs to the popular fan interpretation that Daniel-san was the real bully and antagonist of The Karate Kid films, such as by having Miguel hear Johnny's (admittedly somewhat skewed) explanation of his interactions with Daniel and remark "What an asshole" and of course this gem from the Season 3 premiere during a PTA meeting:
    Daniel: You don't have to turn this into some kind of karate Footloose! Karate is not the problem! When I went to school here, I was bullied, and karate saved me!
    Heckler: Bullshit! I heard you were the bully!
  • Community: At one point in the episode "The Psychology of Letting Go," Pierce is explaining the tenets of his religion(cult), mentioning that humans have a vapour form. Abed asks if there is a liquid form, to which Pierce replies that when Buddha comes all of the humans would turn into a liquid and combine into a single, super intelligent lifeform.
  • The Crazy Ones: Simon is teaching his daughter Sydney to drive. He asks her how she learned a particular “cool car move,” she replies “Sunnydale,” the setting of her role in Buffy.
  • The title sequence of the 2014 Cosmos series ends with an eye opening in a nebula and the title emerging from its pupil. The C and S at the beginning and end of "cosmos" are the first letters visible as a tribute to Carl Sagan. (Detailed here.)
  • Crime and Punishment Series: Set in Washington, D.C. they are always alluding to towns that are historical battlefields, allusions that a historian would catch. Truth in Television. Parts of the area can almost compare with the lower Rhine for being fought over.
  • Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior: Possibly one episode where a disturbed man seeks bloody revenge on behalf of his sister but his mental image of her doesn't want it.
  • CSI: An episode concerning Star Trek Expy "Astro-Quest," a Darker and Edgier Retool series is previewed before an audience to negative reactions, including a cameo from Ron Moore shouting "You suck!" (with Grace Park and Rekha Sharma looking on). Watching this footage, Greg comments, "Some nerd takes a cheesy 60s sci-fi show and turns it into something a little more realistic..."
  • CSI: NY:
    • One ep had a killer who was an actor, and Mac caught up with him by pretending he was trying out for the play Of Mice and Men, a shout out to Gary Sinise having directed and starred in a movie version of the work.
    • Another ep had Mac's Quip to Black line as "Houston, we have a problem," a shout out to Gary's appearance in Apollo 13.
    • There were a number of shout outs to Forrest Gump as well:
      • Mac's last name was selected by Lt. Dan Taylor himself.
      • "Cuckoo's Nest" had Adam use a variation of "You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes" when he begins explaining the evidence he's found to the team. The title also shouts out One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, obviously, as Danny refers to a mental institution as such during the ep. Sinise had previously played Randle P. McMurphy on Broadway, and had been personally congratulated backstage on his performance by none other than Kirk Douglas, the first actor to portray the character.
      • Another after Danny had recovered from being shot had him say to Mac, "I got my sea legs."
    • One episode has Mac comment, "Someone's playing Catch Me If You Can with us." Another has him confront a suspect with the fact that he impersonated a doctor and practiced medicine without a license, resulting in the death of his "patient." The suspect replies with something to the effect of "What next? Did I steal a pilot's uniform and fly a plane?"
    • Season 2's "Trapped" finds Danny locked in a panic room without his kit. While Stella walks him through how to process evidence old-school with only what's available to him, he calls her "Miss MacGyver" and says he thinks he saw one of her old-school techniques on an episode of The Flintstones.
    • Several in season 2's "Super Men". Our first victim is a would-be hero who wears a caped costume. His street clothes and glasses are later found in a phone booth. Adam finds traces of kryptonite on a piece of glass. When Mac & Stella encounter his best friends, the three call themselves The Flash, Aquaman and Thor. Stella asks Mac if he ever wanted to be a super hero. He replies, "Sgt. Rock. You couldn't get me out of fatigues when I was a kid."
    • Season 3's "Not What It Looks Like" has jewelry store thieves dressed as Breakfast at Tiffany's Holly Golightly.
    • In the "The Cost of Living" (ep 5.05), the victim of the main case is an archaeologist with a rather iconic-looking hat.
      Stella: Looks like James Sutton fancied himself a real "Indiana Jones."
      Mac: Until someone decided to make this his last crusade.
    • In a clear shout out to Rear Window, season 6's "Point of View" finds Mac at home recuperating from injuries and steadily watching his neighbors across the way. A la James Stewart's L. B. Jeffies, he witnesses what he believes to be a crime and ends up enlisting the help of a (former) girlfriend to solve the mystery.
    • There are a few to Jeopardy!, including this one in "Some Buried Bones" (ep 3.15):
      Det. Mac Taylor: Absinthe spoon, a branding, a brutal beat down.
      Dr. Sid Hammerback: I'll take Cult Rituals for two-hundred.
      Det. Mac Taylor: I don't think so. Kid doesn't look the part. We have reason to believe he went to Chelsea University...What is a fraternity hazing gone bad?
    • Mac is a big fan of Ronald Reagan. He keeps a framed 8x10 of the president prominently displayed in his office, and one of his colleges teases him about "that eight-hour documentary you're always watching."
    • One perp calls Det. Flack "Serpico", and Don says another perp "went Dog Day Afternoon."
  • The Culture Vultures:
    • The second episode was titled "Rake's Progress", after a series of eight paintings by William Hogarth.
    • "Practical Demonstrations" shows that Dr. Cunningham owns a copy of The Human Zoo by Desmond Morris.
  • The Daily Show and The Colbert Report: Taken to the extreme with the relationship between these shows. Not only do the two feature clips and images from each other, but it has become a standard procedure for Stewart to end his show by briefly conversing with Colbert as a direct lead in.
    • Based on actual cable news practice, by the way.
    • When Colbert got his honorary doctorate, he added framed photos of various famous TV doctors to the shelves in the back of the Report studio, including Greg House. In the episode "Unfaithful," House returned the shout-out.
  • Dark Angel: The names of the main character and her clone? Sam and Max....
  • Decoy: After an unsuccessful search for evidence, Casey thinks, "It looked like Casey had struck out."
  • Degrassi: The Next Generation: The title itself is a reference to Star Trek: The Next Generation, suggested by Stephen Stohn (producer and husband of creator Linda Schuyler), a Star Trek fan.
    • TOS isn't forgotten either: James Tiberius Yorke, anyone?
  • Desperate Housewives: Many episodes are named after songs by Stephen Sondheim.
  • Dexter: In the first season, in order to get the powerful animal tranquilizer to use on his victims, Dexter uses the alias "Dr. Patrick Bateman." Patrick Bateman was Christian Bale's serial killer protagonist in American Psycho.
  • A Discovery of Witches: The title is related to The Discovery of Witches by real witch hunter Matthew Hopkins, explaining witches supposed characteristics along with how they could be hunted down.
  • Dollhouse: In one episode, Victor is sent to the Hyperion Hotel, which was the base of Angel Investigations for three seasons.
    • Near the end of the second season, Caroline (in a flashback) sees a picture of Bennett, played by Summer Glau. Caroline tells the picture 'Bet you could kill me with your brain', which Glau as River Tam in Firefly claimed to be able to do.
    • In the same episode, Topher does an imprint chair override by routing something through an io9, a reference to the scifi news and opinion site io9. Joss Whedon confirmed that it was deliberate, as some of the io9 writers were Dollhouse supporters.
    • In the final episode of the first season, the characters are trying to get to "Safe Haven". In Serenity, Shepard Book resides in a place with a plaque labeling it 'Safe Haven'.
  • Eerie, Indiana:
    • Several episodes reference movies, music and television shows, including Twin Peaks.
    • In "The Retainer", the orthodontist who fits Steve Konkalewski with the retainer that allows him to hear dogs' thoughts is named Dr. Eukanuba after the dog food brand.
    • In "The Losers", the items in the Bureau of Lost's possession include Charles Foster Kane's sled Rosebud from Citizen Kane and one of the pods from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).
    • In "Scariest Home Videos", Marshall's pet lizards are named Godzilla and Mothra.
    • In "Heart on a Chain", there's a moment when the camera pans past a spider's web with a fly caught in it. And in the background you can just make out a tiny voice calling for help...
    • Also in "Heart on a Chain", Marshall shows Melanie a radio that can only pick up broadcasts from the 1930s. This is a reference to The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "Static."
    • In "Tornado Days", Simon paints "Hasta la vista, Big Bob" on Howard Raymer's tornado rider in order to taunt Old Bob.
    • In "Mr. Chaney", Radford, Chaney and Chisel can't wait to get home and catch The Howling on cable. The Howling's director, Joe Dante, served as creative consultant for Eerie, Indiana and directed five episodes. He also appeared As Himself in the Series Finale "Reality Takes a Holiday".
    • In "No Brain, No Pain", the leather clad, gun-toting Eunice Danforth says, "I'll be back" after Marshall and Simon stop her from attacking the homeless man Chappie, who turns out to be her husband Charles Furnell. Dash X comments that he didn't know that there was a "Mrs. Terminator" and later refers to her as "Grandma Schwarzenegger."
  • Eleventh Hour has a strong shout out to Doctor Who with its own Doctor Hood. Hood dresses similar to the 4th Doctor [Tom Baker] including the nappy hair and scarf. The detective tends to just call him "The Doctor" and when he was asked what alias he was using, he said "Smith" before being corrected. (Whenever the Doctor is forced to use a name, he uses John Smith, due to its forgettability). He's also extremely intelligent and always travels with a companion, although that's probably more of a plot/character point than a shout out. Later in the same episode he's seen wearing the 6th(?) Doctor's oversized turtleneck.
  • Eli Stone: In the 12th episode, a scientist predicts that San Francisco will be hit by an earthquake. He starts his introduction with "this is no fantasy, no careless product of wild imagination" — the exact same words used by Jor-El in Superman: The Movie. Since nobody but Eli believes him, that makes him an Ignored Expert. A few seconds after we've been treated to this scene, we witness Eli visiting the scientist and the scene with the scientist on the ladder tinkering with an electric wire is a visual Shout-Out to the scene with Doc Brown talking to himself in Back to the Future Part II. Somebody must have been having a great day.
  • Euphoria:
  • Eureka:
    • In one episode, Taggart tells the GlobalDynamics computer that it's fallen for one of the classic blunders: never go in against an Australian when '''death''' is on the line.
    • Interestingly, Wallace Shawn guest-starred as Warren Hughes, Carter and Allison's relationship auditor on Eureka and shares this piece of dialogue with Sheriff Carter:
    Warren Hughes: What did you expect? The Spanish Inquisition?
    • There is also an episode where S.A.R.A.H. the smart house accidentally reverts to the original military programming that her program was built on.
    Everyone: NO!
    • Season 4.0 Episode 8 "The Ex Files" has the main characters hallucinating someone from their original time line. When Allison asks Dr. Grant, played by James Callis, who his hallucination is he goes with "Tall leggy blonde, slinky red dress."
  • Extant: When Ethan goes to school, one of the concerned parents yells that Ethan isn't a kid, he's "a toaster with hair." In Battlestar Galactica, people insult Cylons by calling them toasters.:
    • When Molly tries to launch the shuttle, the space station's computer blocks her because of her infection.
    Molly: Initiate launch sequence please.

  • Fairly Legal marks the point where Shout-Out meets Tear Jerker; the recurring character of Judge Nicastro is named after singer/actress Michelle Nicastro, executive producer Steve Stark's wife - who sadly passed away during production of Stark's previous series The Event.
  • Farscape:
    • John Crichton makes a Blazing Saddles reference: "Get back! Get back, or the white boy gets it!"
    • That's all? At least half of his lines consists of constant shout outs to Earth fiction — starting with naming Scorpius' neural clone Harvey, after the invisible rabbit from a classic movie of the same name.
      • Speaking of Scorpius, in an episode of CSI: Miami, Ben Browder's character is a DJ named Scorpius ("Tinder Box"). And in CSI, Archie flat-out mentions Farscape...this could be due to the fact that Naren Shankar was involved with both series.
    • One notable one is this dialog snippet:
    Chiana: I love you.
    Crichton: I know.
...which happens right before Crichton is frozen in carbonite...er, turned into a statue, complete with a Han Solo grimace. Given how much Crichton loves his pop culture references, this may even be intentional In-Universe.
  • The In-Universe reason for that was because the process is excruciatingly painful for humans. That's why Crichton couldn't do it again after being unfrozen, but he suggested the new queen's true love to take his place.
  • Father Ted: The title character's habit of Shout Outs was lampshaded in the episode 'Flight into Terror' where Ted, having conquered his fear of flying, says to Dougal 'I feel Fearless, like Jeff Bridges in that film'. Dougal says he hasn't seen that film to which Ted replies "Not many people have, that was probably a bad reference."
  • Feel Good: Mae dresses up as Romeo in the Romeo + Juliet costume to confess her love to George.
  • Forever:
    • One of Henry's flashbacks in "Hitler on the Half-Shell" takes place in The Diogenes Club. (It bears little resemblance to the anti-social haven from the Sherlock canon, though.)
    • In "Skinny Dipper", when Henry deduces that the taxi driver was killed with a sword, Lucas makes a crack about putting out an APB for the Highlander. Henry, of course, has no idea what he's talking about.
  • Frasier:
    • A subtle one in "Flour Child"—the cab the cabbie gives birth in is number 804, the same number as the one in the Taxi titles and that crashes and burns in the first season finale. The creators of Taxi also created Frasier progenitor Cheers.
    • The sixth series episode Taps At the Montana is a homage to Monty Python's Flying Circus' "Dead Parrot" sketch. first Niles' pet parrot genuinely dies, then a guest at his dinner party dies too. In fact, the shenannigans about getting the body out un-noticed pays homage to a Fawlty Towers episode...
  • Friends: Joey's childhood friend was a space cowboy named Maurice.
  • FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman Also has plenty of refrences, either to real life people, or various films and tv shows.
    • This hilarious example from "Ruff's Big Break"
    Rosario (as puppet Ruff): [loud, scratchy, melodramatic voice] I BROKE MY LEG!
    Ruff: [voice-over] Is that Ruff Ruffman or Marge Simpson?
    • Ruff's old obedience school is named "Dogwarts" referencing Hogwarts from Harry Potter
      • The online flash game "Dog Pound" has Buzz Lightyear from "Toy Story has one of the wrong answers.
      • In "Ruff Follows His Dream", when Rubye and Marc learned skydiving signs, Ruff remarked that one of the signs looked like "one of Beyoncé s dance moves." Ruff mentions her again at the very end of his Just Drive! music video.
    Ruff: Look out, Beyoncé !
    • The ending of the "That'll Work!"" music video from "FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman The Ruff Ruffan Show has Ruff say 'What am I, Justin Timberlake!?
    • In "Shrimp a la Cart" Ruff gets creeped out by a horshoe crab's apperance when Talia finds one.
    Ruff: [horrified] Looks like Darth Vader's face with a billion legs coming out of it!
  • Full House wasn't immune from this, either. One scene with Jesse and Kimmy becoming a couple has Kimmy being a Peggy Bundy look-alike. At least Jesse wakes up soon afterward, much to his relief.
  • Gladiators (2024): Bradley Walsh references a couple of British Reality Shows in the first season's first episode, comparing Gladiators to I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! and The Great British Bake Off. Neither is mentioned by name, but it's clear which shows he's referring to.
    Bradley Walsh: This comes from an era when you were judged not on how well you could bake, or how you fared eating the private parts of a kangaroo, but how long you could stand on a podium whilst being battered about the bonce by a bloke called Rhino wielding a fluffy lollipop. Better times, in many ways.
  • Ginny and Georgia:
    • Georgia outright states that she and her daughter Ginny are like the Gilmore Girls but with "bigger boobs" or at least how she views them.
    • Austin tells the class his dad's in Azkaban as he's a dark wizard. He also wears round spectacles which look like the ones Harry has in the films (empty and just for show). Austin is a fan, as later we see he has Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We later learn his mom told him this about his dad, inspiring Austin's Harry Potter fandom.
  • The Golden Girls:
    • In one episode Rose worked on a children's series where the puppet sidekick was named Kolac from Twilar. This is a shout out to The Dick Van Dyke Show "It May Look Like a Walnut" episode, with Danny Thomas as Kolac from Twilo. Explained by the fact that Tony Thomas, one of the Golden Girls producers, is the son of Danny Thomas, who produced The Dick Van Dyke Show.
    • Another episode had the girls planning the funeral of a hated neighbor. When the director suggests that they hold the service on Thursday night, the girls react with outrage. The director apologizes, saying "I forgot.
  • The Good Night Show:
    • Most of the Sprout Stretches in Season 4 were based on Sprout shows.
    • In one segment, Nina and Star decorate their snack bag crafts with Sprout Diner stickers.
  • The Handmaid's Tale:
    • An apartment door in Canada has the number 451. This is a reference to Fahrenheit 451- another dystopian novel.
    • In "Bear Witness" after Lawrence allows use of his truck for June's extraction scheme she sees the boatload of muffins from Marthas willing to participate.
  • The Hard Times of RJ Berger gives us an episode in which an attractive, middle aged woman lures the teenage protagonist RJ into her bedroom with the intent of seducing him. Her name? Mrs. Robbins.
  • In Helix:
    • In the pilot, Dr. Doreen Boyle dryly notes that, given the shared tensions between divorced fellow CDC members Alan and Julia, and Alan's brother Peter, "this is gonna be the most frakked-up family reunion ever." The show is executive produced by Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore.
    • In "Vector" Major Balleseros quotes John McClane while trailing Peter (infected with The Virus) through an Air-Vent Passageway. Alan Lampshades it when he comments on how Balleseros should be too young to remember Die Hard.
  • Gortimer Gibbon's Life on Normal Street: The first episode tells the story of an old lady who made a wish and had it granted by a mysterious young man with golden eyes, who eventually returned to extract a price that was rather more than she wanted to pay. It bears a number of similarities to The Sandman character Desire.
  • Heroes: The recappers at Television Without Pity believe that someone on the writing staff reads their website, because there have been a number of conspicuous Shout Outs to said website within the show. When the Haitian was introduced in a flashback, moments before, a character had said, "Is that a new sensation for you?" The TWOP nickname (as well as Jack Coleman's, who plays Mr Bennet) for the Haitian is "The Haitian Sensation." Repeated moans for Peter to cut his bangs were met with Sylar cutting them off in a very dramatic scene. This might be due to the fact that TWOP read more into scenes than is necessarily meant, but, it's not implausible, since the episodes in question were filmed during the first hiatus, and TWOP recaps for the first few episodes were already online.
    • Hiro is the center of Shout-Out-ness for Heroes, actually. Hiro tears up an issue of Action Comics #1 to make origami in one of the online comics. Kaito Nakamura's Limo had NCC 1701 as the license plate. That's the registration number of the Starship Enterprise. Kaito is played by George Takei, who also played Sulu. Hiro named a few X-Men issues in episode 1... though fans will point out he cited an issue number incorrectly.
      • Later, when he met Charlie, the waitress with eidetic memory, he mentioned that same issue, and she pointed out that he had the wrong issue number. The show's producers shouted out to the fans on that one.
      • The sword repairman he went to late in season 1 is named Mr. Claremont, a Shout-Out to Chris Claremont, who put the X-Men on the map for Marvel Comics.
      • When Hiro calls home from Midland, Texas and gets himself on the phone, he gasps, "Great Scott!" (or "Greatu Sukotto!") in a Shout-Out to Back to the Future.
      • When he first arrives three years back to save Charlie, he says, "Oh boy!"
      • He calls Charlie, "The MJ to his Peter Parker" and "The Marle to his Crono." Appropriate, since that game is about Time Travel.
      • He later corrects himself; Charlie wasn't his MJ, she was his Gwen Stacy.
      • When facing a group of swordsmen, Hiro shouted "Mudamudamudamuda!" as he used his powers to stop time (and take their weapons). This is a direct reference to Dio Brando from Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders, who had the same power; the character Hiro is established as a fan of that series.
      • And after losing his memory he ends up in a comic book shop and is shocked at the recent developments in his favorites - all of which were actual Marvel plots at the time (the unmasking of Spider-Man, the death of Captain America, and the Red Hulk).
    • There are also other references to Marvel Comics creators; "Jessica" shoots FBI agents Quesada and Alonzo (EIC Joe Quesada and editor Axel Alonzo, respectively). And the time that Hiro's bus driver was played by Stan Lee.
    • Also a possible Shout-Out on the part of a character, The Invisible Man introduces himself as "Claude Rains," though it is later established that most people know him as Claude. It is unknown whether this is really his name. It gets better: "Claude" is played by Christopher Eccleston, and in his first episode he sarcastically exclaims, "Fantastic!" — a Shout-Out to his other notable television role.
    • The 4th episode of Season 3, "I Am Become Death," there's a subtle shout-out to Season 1: in yet another dystopian future, Sylar is an HRG-like father, and we first see him making waffles (a Running Gag) for his young son, Noah. During this scene, Sylar is wearing a blue apron that says "Hail To The Chef!", a play on words with "Hail To The Chief!", with the Presidential seal on it, and Sylar was the Commander-In-Chief the last time a character visited a bleak, dystopian future.
    • In Season 2, the character Detective Bryan Fuller is named for the writer of the same name, who had left Heroes to create Pushing Daisies. After Pushing Daisies was cancelled, Fuller returned to Heroes.
    • A season one episode had the Kensei sword being held in vault CRM 114 - a reference to Dr. Strangelove.
  • Highlander once had Geraint Wyn Davies as a guest star, during the time Wyn Davies was doing his Forever Knight series. His character in the episode had a girlfriend named Jeanette, likely a shout-out to Nick's girlfriend/vampire-sister Janette on FK.
  • Hightown: Jackie brings Moby-Dick to Charmaine in Season 2, comparing the whale with Frankie whom she's desperate to bring down. Charmaine in turn notes that makes her like Ahab, who dies in the end without success in his obsessive hunt. The series is set in New Bedford, the book's setting, and they mention this too.
  • Highway Patrol Broderick Crawford, who had just come off the long-running "Highway Patrol" took a role as a detective in a short-lived series called "King of Diamonds." In the earlier series, Crawford's character was known for two things: kicking down a door with one kick and constantly shouting "10-4" into a police radio. The "King of Diamonds" theme song (both shows came from the same studio) was a weekly shout-out to "Highway Patrol" with the lyrics "When Johnny King kicks a door down, he's not saying '10-4' now..."
  • Homicide: Life on the Street used family and crew as murder victims on the white board.
  • Horrible Histories, among many others, had a segment on the Battle of Thermopylae which contained a few references to 300.
  • House of the Dragon:
    • Viserys I's half-mask (which hides his Facial Horror) is remarkably similar to the full-face mask worn by King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (who suffers from debilitating leprosy) in Kingdom of Heaven.
    • The organic tissue sack that Daemon retrieves dragon eggs from was directly inspired by Alien, as confirmed in the behind the scenes video by the the production team.
  • Identity had in its first episode a villain known to one of his victims as "Smith," a name he'd chosen for it being utterly generic. Later, the cops get a photo of the antagonist at age 16, and use some software to reconstruct a possible appearance for him at age 24; the picture bears a striking resemblance to Hugo Weaving...
  • Episodes 9 and 10 of The Imperfects are named All Monsters Attack and Destroy All Monsters respectively.
  • Impulse (2018): Townes is a nerd who frequently references popular video games and speculative fiction TV shows during the series (he's an avid gamer).
  • In From the Cold: The title is an obvious reference to the famous espionage thriller The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
  • The fourth episode of Series 2 of Inside George Webley is titled after the film Brief Encounter.
  • It's Awfully Bad for Your Eyes, Darling...:
    • In "A New Lease", Pudding quotes Ernest Dowson's poem, "Vitae Summa Brevis":
      Pudding: Ah, the days of wine and roses. They are not long.
      Samantha: Who said that?
      Pudding: I did?
    • When Virginia reads an overdue letter from the library in "A New Lease":
      Virginia: "The librarian wishes to remind you that the following books are now overdue: Portnoy's Complaint, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Sensuous Woman, and the Kinsey Report".
      Pudding: I remember that last one. It said that married couples do it 2.8 times a week.
      Clover: I wonder what they do on the .8 occasion...
    • Before the girls' landlord, Horatio, arrives in "A New Lease", Virginia instructs Pudding to stand with both feet wide apart to cover wine stains on the floor, and with her hands over the cigarette burns on the sofa. Samantha watches her do so, and after seeing the bent-over position she's in, compares it to "something out of the Karma Sutra".
    • The fourth episode takes its title from the play The Man Who Came to Dinner.
  • Janda Kembang:
    • Laila's birthday party is Frozen (2013)-themed.
    • In episode 7, the RT leader claims that he can fix Sri's water pump with minimum tools because he is like Mac Gyver.
    • When telling Salmah to not carry the rice bag herself, Malik spoofs [{Dilan 1990 Dilan]]'s "rindu itu berat" (longing is hard) as "beras itu berat" (rice is heavy).
    • The soap opera watched by Neneng and Seli in episode 8 is titled Layangan Nyungsep and also takes its characters' names from Layangan Putus.
    • In episode 14, Seli claims that millions of people doesn't realize they can earn one thousand dollars without leaving their home, quoting nearly word-for-word the infamous "Budi Setiawan" commercial from Binomo.
    • Wulan compares how Sri and Jufri's past relationship started to Cinta and Rangga's from Ada Apa Dengan Cinta. Flashback reveals that Jufri's poem for Sri is directly based on a poem from the film.
  • John Adams: John and Abigail Adams are anxiously awaiting some news in the final episode. John is pacing. Abigail, seated, remarks, "Oh, for God's sake, John, sit down," taken directly from the Broadway musical 1776, where John Adams is the lead character.
  • Jonathan Creek:
  • Jupiter's Legacy: The front page of a newspaper has a picture of Lady Liberty carrying a car the same way Superman did in his very first appearance.
  • Just Shoot Me!:
  • Law & Order regularly uses the names of Dick Wolf's children for characters, which explains the surprising number of women named "Alexandra."
    • He named the two Law & Order: Special Victims Unit detectives after his children Elliot (Stabler) and Olivia (Benson), which makes any Unresolved Sexual Tension between them somewhat... squicky.
    • Wolf also named Detective Joe Fontana after his old friend Tom Fontana. Fontana previously executive produced Homicide: Life on the Street, which was where SVU character John Munch first originated.
    • Also, one episode contains a movie shout-out, when Brisco and Green question a man they suspect is the killer of his female neighbor. The man declares that, despite not actually being at the scene of the crime, he saw the murder in his mind due to psychic ability. To this, Brisco responds by saying mockingly to Green, "he sees dead people."
    • In the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode Silver Lining, Captain Deakins refers to a thief of antique silver as "our silver surfer," referring to the Marvel Comics character Silver Surfer. L&O:CI writer Gerry Conway was a long-time writer for both Marvel and DC Comics; his notable work at Marvel includes co-creating The Punisher and Man-Thing, and a long run as writer of The Amazing Spider-Man beginning when he was only 19. (Conway did not write the episode, however.)
    • And Law & Order: UK has made several references to its stars past roles—a Tardis on a character's desk (Freema Agyeman played Martha Jones on Doctor Who), a murder victim named Archie (the name of the first major role Jamie Bamber ever had in the series Horatio Hornblower)
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
    • Adar paraphrases Colonel Kurtz whilst talking to Arondir, asking him if he was born near a specific river and saying he once walked down said river when he was young.
    • The construction work of Celebrimbor's new forge tower bears a great resemblance to Pieter Bruegel's famous Tower of Babel-painting.
  • Lost
    • The commentary for the Season 1 DVDs has a number of shoutouts to this wiki. Further, in the first season, the fact that the infiltrator's pseudonym is Ethan is almost certainly a shoutout to one of J.J. Abrams other works, Mission: Impossible (especially since the guy playing Ethan is Tom Cruise's cousin). Also, in the episode "Homecoming," during one of Charlie's flashbacks he meets a girl named Lucy, who talks about her father buying a paper company in Slough in a possible reference to The Office.
    • There are also numerous references to Star Wars, from an episode title ("Some Like It Hoth"), Sawyer using (and criticizing a guard for falling for) 'the Wookie prisoner trick' and nicknaming various people 'Han and Chewie', 'Jabba' and 'Yoda'.
    • The presence of 23 and 42 in the show's Arc Numbers are references to Illuminatus! and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, respectively.
  • Lost in Space, episode "The Space Pirate." The title character was a clear reference to Long John Silver in Treasure Island, specifically his becoming Will Robinson's friend and the parrot resting on his shoulder.
  • Mayfair Witches: In the pilot, Rowan tells Maya, "Remember, the slow blade penetrates the shield," which is a reference to Dune.
  • Medici: The very first Botticelli painting seen in the series is "Fortezza", befitting its status as the painter's first known masterpiece. Somehow, it's seen hanging in the dining hall of the Medici Palace in Part 1—the Medici family didn't commission the painting, statesman Tommaso Soderini did, for the Tribunale di Mercanzia of Florence. Lorenzo the Magnificent has it moved elsewhere in Part 2.
  • Merlin:
    • The ornamental Celtic mask that is on the cover of the Winter King can be seen on Arthur's table in the background in the first series finale.
    • Which is in turn oddly similar to the helmet from Sutton Hoo.
    • Several episodes are named after famous Arthurian texts: "Le Morte d'Arthur" is named after Sir Thomas Malory's compilation of Arthurian tales, The Once and Future Queen is a play on T.H. White's The Once and Future King, The Coming of Arthur is the first chapter/poem in Tennyson's Idylls of the King (as well as a chapter title in Roger Lancelyn Green's more contemporary retelling of the legend) and The Wicked Day is a quote from Malory's above-mentioned books, as well as the title of the fourth book in Mary Stewart's Merlin series.
    • The goblin giving Arthur donkey ears (and braying) is reminiscent of Puck giving a donkey head to Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is also similar to something that happened to King Midas of Classical Mythology and in the book Pinocchio.
    • In "His Father's Son," two armies meet on the battlefield and each send out a champion, one of which is much larger than the other. Sounds a lot like the story of David and Goliath in The Bible.
    • Merlin being the one who puts Excalibur into the stone and afterwards orchestrates Arthur's retrieval of it is reminiscent of Discworld's commentary on the Sword In The Stone trope.
    • The show has a scene lifted straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark in which Prince Arthur is facing a warrior in a duel. Said warrior starts off with an elaborate sword-spinning display; Arthur simply punches him in the face.
  • The Middleman: Every episode features numerous pop-culture Shout Outs related to the specific danger of the week: ghosts, vampires, time travel, etc.
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers,
    • In one scene in Season 3, the Rangers (in their Ninja Ranger outfits rather than their Ranger suits) decide to go all Super Sentai, doing a team roll call (which IIRC they'd never done before - all previous uses of roll call footage had been adapted into either different speeches or Zord calling) followed up with a team pose - specifically, the signature pose of Dai Sentai Goggle Five (or earlier, Himitsu Sentai Gorenger)!
    • One episode involved a Monster of the Week named Shellshock who was a turtle-creature. When he grew to giant size, he exclaimed, "Just wait until those teenage mutants find out what a full-grown turtle can do!" The reference couldn't have been more obvious.
    • In "A Chimp In Charge," as Finster attempts to transform a chimpanzee into the Sinister Simian, he asks "Don't you want to be a big gorilla like King... what's his name?"
    • "Rangers in Reverse". The natural rotation of the Earth is stopped and then put in reverse, causing time itself to rewind. Where does this sound familiar?
    • "May the Power protect you." I know I've heard something like that somewhere before.
    • "Trick or Treat": Skull (dressed in a prisoner costume) has "24601" written on his chest.
    • As Rita Repulsa is being shrunk down by Zedd in "The Mutiny," she exclaims "I'm shrinking! What a planet!", a reference the Wicked Witch of the West's final words in The Wizard of Oz.
    • In "The Wedding", Finster is trying to return Rita to normal size with his machine. He eventually says "I've never turned it up to eleven before," and this setting restores Rita to her normal size.
    • Both Rita's voice and the voice and dialogue of the third-season monster Witchblade are shout-outs to the film version of the Wicked Witch of the West. Witchblade's dying words are "I'm falling, falling - what a world!"
  • Millennium (1996) had a pretty obvious shout out in giving its lead character the name Frank Black. It's unclear whether this is a shout out or just the obvious result of doing a web search in The '90s, but in the second episode of the series, Frank searches for the plot relevant term "Gehenna." Up above the plot relevant page? An Old World of Darkness fan site.
  • Monarch: Legacy of Monsters episode "Secrets & Lies" has one to We Need to Talk About Kevin, when Shaw jokingly reassures Kentaro that there was no Troubling Unchildlike Behavior to indicate Hiroshi was a budding monster when Shaw watched him growing up, listing things that the titular child sociopath of the movie did: "He didn't torture small animals, no issues potty training."
  • Monday Mornings:
    • James Bond and his license to kill got a few mentions. Dr. Martin, who gets sacked in the very first episode, is nicknamed "007."
    • In one episode, the team try very hard to diagnose a patient. Clearly they are missing something. Dr. Ribodaux asks whether they should call House.
  • Monk: In the first episode, one of the first things Adrian deduces is the brand of cigarettes the killer smoked. Like another detective who wrote a whole paper on distinguishing cigars from their ashes.
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus: Episode 15, the "Spanish Inquisition" sketch. The part where Cardinal Ximinez repeatedly orders the old lady to "Confess!" is very similar to the scene in The Prisoner (1967) episode "Fall Out" where the judge orders Number 48 to confess. They even both wear red robes.
    • And in Episode 8, two shop assistants in the "Buying a Bed" sketch (where a store employee puts a bag over his head when he hears the word 'mattress') are named Mr. Verity and Mr. Lambert, after Verity Lambert, the BBC producer who's best known as the first producer of Doctor Who.
  • Mr. Show: The episode "What to Think" contains a line from Jesus' Finale as a shoutout to Godspell.
  • MTV Flux, a short-lived UK Music-and-UGC TV channel, had a games programme on it named after the Konami Code — originally used in its entirety, the title was shortened to simply Up Up Down Down.
  • The Muppet Show: When John Cleese starred in one episode, one sketch featured him as a pirate with a nagging parrot. Fed up with it, he whips out his gun and asks if it wants to be an "ex-parrot." This one needs no explaining.
  • The Murders: In "The Long Black Veil" and "Stereo" Evan Walker ("the audiologist") and his friend reference famous murder ballads in committing murders, with the cops looking into many different ones to catch them.
  • Murder, She Wrote: The character Harry McGraw is a hard-boiled Private Detective, who was introduced when his partner was killed investigating something for Jessica. In acknowledgement of where that plot point originated, the partner's name was Archie Miles, a reversal of Sam Spade's equally dead partner Miles Archer.
  • Murdoch Mysteries regularly did this with character names, including the supporting character, Henry Higgins, and a guest character named Ian Kilmister. (The birth name of Lemmy from Motörhead.)
  • My Name Is Earl: In one episode, a character using the screenname "whojackie" was seen typing (and reading out loud) "No, I don't think shows should do more meta jokes that cater to the online bloggers and I'm sure everyone at Television Without Pity Dot Com agrees with me." To add another layer to the Shout-Out, a staff writer (possibly even Greg Garcia, the show's creator) posted that same message to Television Without Pity's message board for the show (along with a comment about how he always talks out loud while typing) shortly before the episode aired. To add another layer, the same person posted previously about his fears that his Murphy bed would close up on him and kill him, which is what happened to the character in the show. To add yet another layer to it, several posts were made by "whojackie" after the episode aired, in the character of Joy, who had stolen whojackie's computer. Posters to the forum could even email Joy, and she'd respond — in character!
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 has this as a major part of its appeal. For instance, on seeing a rocket carrying white mice: "Hi. My name is Benji, and I'm a pan-dimensional being."
  • My World… and Welcome to It:
    • Every episode in the series references cartoons and stories by James Thurber, many of which serve as basis for the plot or other notable elements.
      • "The Disenchanted," "Seal in the Bedroom," and "The War Between Men and Women" are based on Thurber cartoons in whole or in part.
      • "Man Against the World," "Christabel," "The Night the House Caught Fire," "The Saga of Dimity Ann," "The Shrike and the Chipmunks," "Rally Round the Flag," "Darn That Dream," and "The Human Being and the Dinosaur" are based on Thurber stories in whole or in part.
    • The opening of "Christabel" shows John lying on his back on top of a doghouse, alluding to the same behavior exhibited by Snoopy from Peanuts. He even references The Red Baron, who is Snoopy's nemesis when the beagle pretends he's a World War I flying ace.
    • In "The Disenchanted," John draws a cartoon in which he imagines his runaway daughter Lydia standing in the snow, pleading to have passerby purchase matches she's selling. It's clearly a reference to the Hans Christian Andersen story The Little Match Girl.
    • In "A Friend of the Earth," John is irritated that Zeph Leggin is busy regaling his friends with witticisms instead of fixing John's fence. He counters Zeph's observation that it's not good wood-sawing weather with a paraphrased quote from Hamlet about being able to tell "a hawk from a handsaw."
      Zeph: Mornin', Mr. Monroe. Didn't know you was there listenin'.
      John: I've been listening all morning, uh, but I haven't heard any sawing.
      Zeph: 'Twern't sawin' weather.
      John: 'Twar.
      Zeph: Oh... you know much about sawin'?
      John: Enough to make me think you can't tell a hawk from a handsaw.
    • John quotes from Hamlet again in "The Fourth Estate," this time splitting the quote up between two different locales. He first tells Patrick, the school newspaper editor, "To thine own self be true" regarding whether to run John's cartoon or not. When Lydia tells John the next morning that Patrick took his advice and didn't run the cartoon, he says, "And it must follow, as the night the day. Thou canst not be false to any man."
    • In "Native Wit," Phil Jensen refers to John's hayseed joke-telling rival Zeph Leggin as "Aaron Slick from Punkin' Crick." It's a reference to the hillbilly title character from the film of the same name.
    • In "The Shrike and the Chipmunks," George Lockhart is a veritable fountain of quotes, citing lines from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, the poem "Casabianca" by Felicia Dorothea Hemons, and the 1890s song "Elsie from Chelsea."
    • The episode "Rally Round the Flag" sees John snarkily criticizing his milkman, who atypically greets him in cheerful fashion around the holidays. He compares him to the character Uriah Heep from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens:
      John: One of the first signs that Christmas is upon us is when your basic, garden-variety milkman, barely civil for fifty weeks of the year, becomes a fawning hypocrite — a milk-bearing Uriah Heep.
    • In "Darn That Dream," the household ghost Jeremiah (supposedly conjured up by Cloudcuckoolander Cousin Horace) quotes A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare while disparaging John's nutty boyhood family.
      Jeremiah: A weirder group of ding-a-lings I never hope to see. Gives a fellow pause to think what fools these mortals be.
    • In "Rules for a Happy Marriage," Hamilton Greeley references the farcical play Charley's Aunt by Brandon Thomas, comparing his not-so-attractive wife to the play's main character, a man who disguises himself as a woman.
      Hamilton: You got your nose out of joint because Blanche Sugarman makes you look like Charley's Aunt!
    • Phil Jensen compares one of his wife Ruth's former boyfriends disparagingly to Ichabod Crane from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. Occurs in "Rules for a Happy Marriage."
      Ruth: I'll have you know I was a very good bridge player in college — when I had an intelligent partner.
      Phil: You mean that puny little Ichabod Crane of a library assistant you had your hooks into at Cornell?
    • In "Monroe the Misogynist," Hamilton Greeley makes back to back references to the 1920s song standard "My Blue Heaven" and the 60s pop hit "Harper Valley PTA" by Jeannie C. Riley. He and John are discussing whether Ellen may be cheating on the latter or not.
      Hamilton: Something's gone wrong at my blue heaven?
      John: Of course not!
      Hamilton: Couldn't be another man, could it?
      John: Impossible — not Ellen! Besides, he's a very honest, straightforward neighbor — a member of the PTA.
      Hamilton: Remember what happened at Harper Valley?
      John: Oh, you are a comfort, Hamilton.
  • The Nanny: In the pilot episode, Fran says to Brighton, "You're a bitter little person, aren't you?" It's word for word what Diane said to Carla on the pilot of Cheers.
  • Nash Bridges: In one episode guest-starring Jan-Michael Vincent of Airwolf fame, Don Johnson mentions his yellow convertible belonged to his brother who was MIA in Vietnam. Airwolf was stolen by Jan-Michael Vincent in order to force the government to return his brother, MIA in Vietnam.
  • New Tricks: The episode "Parts of a Whole" named various characters after comic book creators: the murder victim was named Simon Bisley and other characters included Dillon (as in Steve), Hitch (as in Bryan) and Rucka (as in Greg), as well as Jane Ross (a subtle reference to Jane Goldman, married to Jonathan Ross). There was also a character named Fisk, after Daredevil's nemesis, and a company called Ellis-Finch after Warren Ellis and David Finch.
  • No Heroics is laden with shout-outs both subtle and obvious to the entire history of comic books. For example: Timebomb is a parody of the '90s Anti-Hero. Every sign in the show's superteam headquarters is written in the original Captain America font from the 1940s. The alcoholic beverages drunk by the characters include Gin City, Logan's Rum, and Green Lamp Ale. The show's creator, Drew Pearce, is a comic book fan and claims there are hundreds of other shout-outs worked into the program.
  • The ABC Sketch Comedy No Soap, Radio was an attempt to bring the Surreal Humor of Monty Python's Flying Circus to American audiences, and threw in a few nods to that series:
  • NUMB3RS: The Slobbering David Krumholtz Groupies, a fanclub devoted to the star David Krumholtz, received a shoutout in one episode when a company called "SDKG Electronics" was mentioned.
    • At the end of another episode, Judd Hirsch sits down in his chair and turns the television on, apparently (to judge from the theme music that plays) to watch an episode of Taxi.
    • Bill Nye sometimes appears in NUMB3RS to give a science demonstration — just like the ones he used to do on his classic children's educational program — to help the main characters solve the case.
    • Agent Floyd does the CSI: Miami Quip to Black (minus the "to black") / Glasses Pull gag a couple of times.
  • On the House:
    • After the builders sing "We Shall Not Be Moved" in "Take Me to Your Leader", Old Fred gets sidetracked and starts going on about other songs he likes, namely "Till the Sands of the Desert Grow Cold" and "Baby Face".
    • When Dr. Stanley's henchmen arrive on the building site with spray guns full of nerve gas in "Take Me to Your Leader", Harvey remarks "Blimey, it's the Daleks!".
    • The episode "Will the Real Harvey Micklethwaite Please Stand Up?" gets its title from the phrase "Will the real ____ please stand up?" from the Game Show To Tell the Truth.
  • Only Fools and Horses: Rodney's dream at the beginning of "Heroes and Villains" is in part a send-up of "Cold Lazarus", which had aired earlier that year. The endless references made to The Omen with Damien also qualify.
  • In Orphan Black, Felix's first encounter with female-to-male transgender clone Tony Sawicki prompts him to mutter "Holy Tilda Swinton..."
  • Penny Dreadful: City of Angels: The kidnapping and murder of a girl mentioned in the series is clearly based on the Marion Parker case.
  • Perry Mason (2020):
  • Political Animals: Adrian Pasdar's President character is a sleazy politician named Garcetti from Baltimore; this is almost definitely meant as a Shout-Out to Tommy Carcetti from The Wire, who goes from Baltimore City Council to Mayor and then finally Maryland Governor by the end of the series, and perhaps is a sort of exploration of what would happen if Carcetti were President.
  • Power Rangers in Space:
    • A few to Star Trek and Star Wars, including a holodeck and numerous random lines, such as T.J. saying that they're going down to a planet on the Dagobah system to search for Zordon.
    • The Quantrons are armed with Bat'leths.
    • One early episode had a pair of characters called George and Lennie.
  • Power Rangers Lost Galaxy:
  • Power Rangers Operation Overdrive: In the Season 1 episode, "Way Back When", Mack says "I feel like the Six-Million Dollar DVD player", a reference to The Six Million Dollar Man, playing on the nickname of the title character.
  • Probe:
  • Russell T. Davies, showrunner on Doctor Who, had previously worked references to the classic series into his other contemporary drama series; Vince in Queer as Folk (UK) is a massive fan and gets a genuine K9 for his birthday, and a minor character in Mine All Mine says that her father named her after the Second Doctor's companion Zoe.
  • A number of the posts crawled by Crowley in the opening of the first season finale of Rabbit Hole actually originate from material written on the Fandom wiki for 24, the series for which show star Kiefer Sutherland is perhaps most famous. Specifically, all of the posts seem to originate from the article Los Angeles nuclear attack conspiracy, an event from the second season of 24.
  • Radio Enfer:
    • Several references to Asterix have been made:
      • In one episode, Laplante tells a 'true story' about how the daughter of an Eskimo chief was madly in love with him. Jean-Lou then points out it's similar to the plot of the then-latest Asterix movie, which was Asterix Conquers America. Laplante tries to save face by saying that Albert Uderzo was inspired by Laplante's story to make that movie.
      • After Vincent wrote a children's book, he gets interviewed by Jean-Lou who claims that Vincent, by talking about trees on page 63, plagiarized other works such as Asterix and Lucky Luke simply because those other works also featured trees, much to the young writer's annoyance.
      • Camille becomes obsessed with a pretty boy named Éric during an episode. At the end, she gets over it and apologizes to him for using a perfume he was allergic to while also explaining "When I see a perfume bottle, I'm like Asterix, I have to fall into it." In this case, she made a mistake given that it was Obelix who fell into the magic potion.
      • Another episode focuses on Galgouri thinking he managed to invent a potion that makes anyone invisible. At the end of said episode, Jocelyne sarcastically comments that it's time to make a big banquet and for everyone to eat boars.
    • There are also a few references to Batman:
      • Jean-Lou is trying to lose weight, with Maria suggesting him to follow Michelle Pfeiffer's personal diet:
        Maria: That's a diet for you.
        Jean-Lou: With meat and sauce!?
        Maria: No. No, it's a yogurt-based diet, but it works. Because before this diet, it wasn't Catwoman she was supposed to play in "Batman 2", it was the Penguin!
      • During a Season 4 episode, Carl is embarrassed when the others see him wearing a pajama with Batman's logo on it that his mother bought for him but that he doesn't like.
      • The teasers of Season 6 focus on Jocelyne inside a freezer. In one of them, she says that she is starting to understand what Mr. Freeze's wife must be feeling.
    • In the first episode of Season 3, Maria jokingly comments that, given how often Camille has travelled around the world and if she keeps doing that, there'll eventually be a show called Where in the World is Camille Sandiego?.
    • When Carl and Léo become popular thanks to their comic published in Vincent's newspaper, they start wearing sunglasses to remain incognito, causing Dominique to call them The Blues Brothers.
    • While talking to Carl and Camille about a Goth teenager named Cassandre, Jocelyne refers to her look as an "Addams Family" look.
    • When Laplante claims he had an ancestor who lived in the time period of pharaohs and whose name was Nemesis I, fellow teacher Hervé Duguay asks him from what dynasty said ancestor came from. Laplante, misunderstanding the question, replies that he doesn't know because he doesn't watch that show.
    • After Carl makes a blunder by making fun of a renowned talent agent named Ronnie Angello without knowing who he was beforehand, Maria introduces Carl to Angello by calling the former "Gaston Lagaffe".
    • When Jocelyne is threatening Laplante over his refusal to help Jean-Lou for an upcoming inventor contest, both Maria and Camille hum the Dragnet theme in a threatening manner.
    • Vincent teaches Carl how to behave for his upcoming trial and tells him to take some inspiration from "the guy from Primal Fear". Later in that same scene, Vincent tells Carl, regarding his hesitation, to take some inspiration from Paul Newman in The Verdict.
    • There are two instances where Vincent compares somebody to Freddy Krueger.
      • The first time is in Season 1, when he learns that Giroux is going to be replaced by a guy named Martial Boulet as the principal. According to Vincent, some people say that Boulet is "like Freddy Krueger but without the human side."
      • The second time is upon seeing Dominique's atrocious new haircut during a Season 5 episode, where he jokingly wonders if Freddy was the one who cut her hair.
    • After Mr. Giroux started pulling Carl's right ear because the teenager told a lie about the principal on the air, he eventually stops pulling him by the ear about one minute later after Camille says that Carl is going to look like Dumbo if the principal doesn't stop.
    • After seeing Germain and Jean-David acting like idiots (by dope slaping each other and getting into a Wimp Fight) while trying to build a shelf, Carl refers to them as Laurel and Hardy.
    • There are also several references to The Smurfs, particularly when making fun of Camille's short stature.
      • Maria drinks some potion invented by Galgouri that is supposed to brighten the complexion. Unfortunately, she ends up getting a blue skin for six hours, causing everyone (herself included) to make Smurfs-related jokes:
        Maria: [after screaming in horror upon seeing her blue skin] MY LIFE IS OVER! Carl would never wanna date the Smurfette.
    • Carl gets a job as a waiter in a restaurant, where his uniform includes red pants, a red long-sleeved shirt with several yellow buttons on the front, and a rounded red hat. Upon seeing him in that outfit, Camille jokingly asks why he's dressed like Spirou, much to Carl's annoyance.
  • Raising Hope has a Shout-Out to executive producer/creator Greg Garcia's previous show, My Name Is Earl, in its pilot episode, with a TV anchor introducing a lighter news story about "A small-time hood who vowed to turn his life around. You'll never guess how it ended."
  • Every episode of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville ends with him playing the Merrie Melodies closing theme on his piano.
  • Red Dwarf: The episode "Queeg" has two references to classic mutinies (one fictional, one real but fictionalised). The title and name of the backup computer come from Commander Queeg, the tyrannical commander in The Caine Mutiny, and when he takes over the ship, Holly says "This is mutiny, Mr Queeg! I'll see you hang from the highest yardarm in Titan Docking Port for this day's work!", which pastiches a line from Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty. In addition, when Holly glides up the corridor to challenge Queeg, the background music is "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling" in reference to High Noon, and when he's "deleted" he sings "I'll Say Goodbye To Love," which gradually gets slower and slower, just like "A Bicycle Built For Two" in 2001: A Space Odyssey (speaking of which, it's no coincidence that Holly is often referred to as "Hol").
  • The Red Green Show: In his first appearance, Graham Greene had a Shout Out to Dances with Wolves. He was nominated for an Oscar for his role in that movie. Giving his opinion of the film, Greene's character stated that "the Native guy was okay, should have got the Oscar."
  • La reina del sur, a Mexican soap opera about a poor girl who becomes the biggest drug trafficker in Mexico, hides a subtle shout out in the first episode; in the scene where Brenda and El Chino are discussing, a radio is playing Negro y Azul, a. k. a. Heisenberg's villain song. Even better, you can clearly hear the part about "the color is blue and the quality pure." Truly awesome.
  • In the "Pilot" of Resident Alien, Max Hawthorne has a poster for ET The Extraterrestrial on the wall of his room and his father is mentioned as having let him watch E.T. E.T. was an Amblin Entertainment production and Resident Alien is from Amblin Television''.
  • The Rookie (2018): "In Justice" has an underground meth lab Nolan discovers through Hugo, a construction worker he knows who gets tricked into working there, then enslaved. This bears a strong resemblance to plots from Breaking Bad and also sequel Better Call Saul.
  • The title of Room at the Bottom (1967) is a play on the 1957 novel Room at the Top.
  • Sanctuary: In episode 8, "Edward," the titular Edward has a sheaf of drawings of monsters. The team flip through it, and after three or four generic monsters there's a drawing of an Unas, which also appears pinned up on a wall a little later. Amanda Tapping starred in both Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, and has the lead role in Sanctuary.
  • Saturday Night Live: The parody of Insane Clown Posse's Miracles calls them the Thrilla Killa Klowns, a reference to Industrial Band Thrill Kill Kult.
  • Saving Hope: The second episode has a small boy by the name of Cal. That might just be short for Calvin if it weren't for the fact that the lead character is played by a former Lois Lane.
  • Seinfeld and Blossom weirdly both did frequent mutual Shout Outs to each other. Suddenly that explains a lot about Elaine's wardrobe in the early seasons...
  • Seven Days: The episode "Déjà Vu All Over Again" has been inspired by the German movie Run Lola Run: Frank ends up reliving several minutes of his life until he does his mission right. And what's the name of the psychologist who visited the facility to study what influence the time travel has on him? Dr. Lola Manson.
  • Shadowhunters:
    • In "The Mortal Cup" when discussing Jocelyn's overprotectiveness towards Clary, Simon compares the situation to the scene from Aliens where the alien queen was defending her eggs from Ripley.
    • "The Descent Into Hell Isn't Easy":
  • Shine a Light: Lionel from "The Great Relief" is always reading Charles Dickens' work.. from memory, as it isn't possible to take a lot of luggage to Bachelor Rock.
  • Smallville:
  • The opening credits of The Spoils of Babylon includes David Spade as an actor called "Joseph Soil." In other words, Joe Dirt
  • Sports Night by Aaron Sorkin has a fairly subtle one. When the Executive Meddling starts in season two, the execs suggest that Dan and Casey write their show "more like Keith and Kenny" or "Craig". The present tense suggests that in the Sorkin universe, Keith never left Sports Center - maybe, if he's hosting with Kenny Mayne, Dan Patrick left instead?
  • Stargate Atlantis: Carson Beckett commented at one point that he felt like "a dog's breakfast," the title of an independent film made by Paul MacGillion (Beckett) and David Hewlett (Rodney McKay).
  • Stargate Universe: Colonel Young spinning his wedding ring in a dream is a shoutout to Inception.
  • Stepby Step: The series makes numerous references to Full House and other shows but it may be Retcon or just gag jokes because both shows take place in the same universe.
  • Strange: One episode has a pair of animal rights activists named after the Doctor Who companions Jamie and Zoe. The same episode also has a book whose author's name is very similar to the Brigadier's.
  • The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: The ditzy heiress is named London Tipton. Take in the fact that the hotel is named the Tipton, and you get three guesses as to who she's named after.
    • An On Deck episode features an IMVU-like game, and in that game is an old-timey video arcade. One of the machines visible in the background of said arcade is running Cave Story, with Quote clearly visible. Evidently, someone on the team was a fan...
    • Later on in On Deck, we get an episode called... Snakes on a Boat. And, even though it's partly censored, Moseby quotes THAT line WORD FOR WORD, except for, obviously, plane.
  • The Sunny Side Up Show:
    • The opening of a video made to promote the block's move to New York was based on the opening of Saturday Night Live.
    • One segment has Kaitlin and Chica writing thank you notes to letters of the alphabet in a manner similar to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show.
    • A Noddy plush toy was seen in the Sunshine Barn.
    • Dennisha and Chica once made a Good Night Show-esque "Sprout-o-scope."
  • Taiyou ni Hoero (Bark at the Sun) is a Japanese Seventies Cop Show and an extremely popular source of Shout Outs in Japanese TV. It's probably easier to list the drama, comedy and variety series that have not referred to Taiyou's characters, clothes, hairstyles, or music.
  • Teen Wolf:
    Stiles: "Why is it starting to feel like you're Batman and I'm Robin? I don't wanna be Robin all the time!"
    Scott: "Nobody's Batman and Robin ANY of the time."
    Stiles: "Not even some of the time?""
    • Also in season two episode seven.
    Stiles: "You wanna play Catwoman? I'll be your Batman."
    • And then, later:
    Erica: "You make a good Batman."
    • Stiles says he would make a better Yoda than Derek.
    • Scott compares himself to The Incredible Hulk.
    • So far, at least one to The Wolf Man (1941) in the second episode when referring to Wolfsbane.
    Stiles: "Haven't you ever seen The Wolf Man?"
    Scott: "...No."
    Stiles: *sighs* "You're so unprepared for this."
    • There was also a shout-out to the original Teen Wolf in Lunatic, in Scott asking for "the bottle of Jack" back, instead of a kegger.
      • Another shout-out to the original is when the Alpha says that when he was in high school they played basketball.
      • And again in the second season when the lacrosse they're playing against is the Beavers, the name of the team from the original film.
  • Temps de chien:
    • In the second episode, one scene has Jean-Philippe talking to his plane pilot named Maverick.
    • After Antoine manages to save Maggie (one of the fishermen's dog), Stéphane tells him "I don't know any veterinarian who would have done what you did today for a dog." before adding "Except Doctor Dolittle. But, for that matter, he doesn't even need an echography. Animals talk to him."
    • After realizing that Manon betrayed Antoine just for the sake of a business deal regarding the hospital the two of them own, Jean-Philippe calls her "Lady Macbeth".
  • In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, "The Turk" is a chess playing computer, named after "The Turk", an eighteenth century hoax. The original was a box with a mechanical human upper torso that would move chess pieces, within the box a midget would sit and manipulate the arms with levers.
  • The Thick of It has a Shout Out to The West Wing that acknowledges the two shows' polar opposite depictions of politics:
    Olly: (trying to rewrite a speech in an hour) "It's The West Wing!"
    Nicola: "You're not Josh, Olly, just write the fucking speech."
    • ...though the best example of this trope is probably among Hugh's nicknames for Malcolm's 8.30am press briefings. "The Lair Of The White Worm" is also the name of a dodgy low-budget horror film Peter Capaldi appeared in long before he played Malcolm Tucker.
  • Time After Time: Stevenson refers to his struggle with Wells as a "war of the worlds" in 1918 Paris, because they arrive in many different "worlds" across time.
  • Titans has quite a long list of shout outs:
    • Rachel is seen watching Game of Thrones and Full House.
    • Hank and Don made a reference to The Lion King (1994) ("Hakuna Matata").
    • In a romantic moment, Rose and Jason start to quote a song from West Side Story.
    • When Jason is staring off into the distance, Rose calls to Jason “Earth To Major Tom”, a shout-out to Space Oddity by David Bowie.
    • At some point, Garfield could be seen sporting a Toei Animation shirt, which is a Japanese animation studio that produced an animated Superman series in 1988.
    • Jason seems to be a fan of the film Escape from New York (1981) as he attempts to use the name Robert Plissken as an alias to enter a bar, which was the real name of Kurt Russell's character Snake Plissken.
    • Apparently Jason is also fan of a British folk rock band called Mumford & Sons, as he calls mockingly a guy 'Mumford', before starting a Bar Brawl.
    • In 2x02, after the training session, Gar and Rachel share some intimate moments and make fun of Dick being obsessed with training as if he was Mr Miyagi himself.
    • In 2x12, Kory and Rachel have heated quarrel, in which Rachel calls Kory 'Truth-Claw', which is a reference to 4th book "In Truth and Claw", of the urban fantasy detective series Mick Oberon.
    • When Kori tells Dick that she is working for the FBI in his hallucinations, she mentions avoiding "the guys in the basement".
  • Torchwood:
    • In the episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," James Marsters, Spike of Buffy and Angel fame, shows up as Captain John Hart, Captain Jack Harkness's Evil Counterpart, and essentially plays Spike to Jack's Angel. When Jack introduces him to the Torchwood 3 team, he asks if they have a team name, and then after Jack says, "Torchwood!", he says, "What, not Excalibur? Alright, Torchwood." This is a Shout-Out to a fifth season episode of Angel where Spike asks Angel if he and his gang have a name.
    • He also thinks there should be a blonde.
    • Also, a few minutes after that scene, back in the Torchwood hub, Gwen asks if she should call him "John" or "Captain," and Captain John smoothly replies, "Love, with eyes like yours, you can call me Vera;" a Shout-Out to another cult hit created by Joss Whedon.
    • Also a shout-out to Torchwood itself, as 'Excalibur' was the original name under which Russell T. Davies developed the series idea.
    • And when Captain John appears in a hologram on Jack's wrist-strap, he says: "Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."
    • Also in Captain John's appearance, after clearing out a bar through weapons intimidation and drinking his way through the alcohol lineup, he says, "Bored now." a la Dark Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
    • In the later episode "Dead Man Walking," an alien being seeking to enter the world through Owen's animated corpse speaks a phrase in an alien language, over and over. This phrase is eventually translated as "I shall walk the Earth and my hunger shall know no bounds." However, the actual words are "Melenkurion abatha, duroc minas mill khabaal"—the seven words of Earthpower used in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
    • The Torchwood novel Bay of the Dead contains a Shout-Out to Shaun of the Dead:
    Ianto: It's crazy, Jack. It's horror-movie hokum. You know it is.
    Jack: And you know what we're up against here, don't you?
    Ianto: No, I don't. Don't say it, Jack. Don't use the-
    Jack: Zombies!
    Ianto: -zed word.
    • There are shout outs to other series and mediums, such as in the Torchwood Online Mission game...
    Gwen: Oh my god. Ianto, do you realise everything just got broadcast right across Cardiff?
    Ianto: Meh. No one will believe it's real. In 1938 the government convinced the entire world that an alien attack on New Jersey was just a radio play. Relax.
    • John Hart playing "Starship Trooper" when Jack comes to confront him at the end of series two. The same song was used for a funeral in Queer as Folk (UK), Russell T. Davies' breakout series
    • The notorious "Cyberwoman" costume was a blatant Shout Out to the work of the Japanese cyberfetish and BDSM erotic artist Hajime Sorayama.
    • Gwen's old partner, Andy, has a habit of calling Jack "Mulder"
  • Tracker (2001): Had a shout out to Adrian Paul's Highlander role when Cole used a katana to escape from a museum vault.
  • True Blood:
    • One episode in the first season had Sam sitting on the stairs to his trailer, lamenting Bill's existence, saying "Where's Buffy when you need her?"
    • In one episode, Eric mistakenly called Sookie Snooki.
    • Also, in the same episode, Sookie is seen reading a Charlaine Harris book...
  • The Twilight Zone (1959):
    • In "Cavender is Coming", the title character, like Clarence Oddbody in It's a Wonderful Life, is assigned to help someone so that he can earn his angel wings.
    • In "In His Image", Alan Talbot is named after Lawrence Talbot, the title character of The Wolf Man (1941), who also discovered that he wasn't human and had intense homicidal urges.
    • In "He's Alive", the idea of Neo-Nazism requiring a martyr just as the original movement did is a pretty obvious reference to Horst Wessel, a Nazi SA member who was shot in the head by Communists and died later of his wounds. The Nazis used his death to help themselves, not only lionizing Wessel personally, but naming a song after him, the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" (it was made into the co-national anthem after they took power). Of course, here it's his comrades who killed him, and it doesn't work how they wanted this to, but the goal was the same.
    • In "The Bard", Julius Moomer describes Jeremy, the protagonist of the rewritten version of The Tragic Cycle, as "kind of a Dr. Kildare, Dr. Casey type." He tells William Shakespeare that doctor shows are very big this season.
    • In "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain", Flora Gordon refers to her brother-in-law Raymond, whom she hates and vice versa, as "the poor man's Kildare" and later says "I ask for Vince Edwards and look what they send me."
    • In "Ring-A-Ding Girl", when Bunny Blake sees her teenage nephew Bud Powell for the first time in several years, she asks if this is Rock or Cary.
    • In "Black Leather Jackets", Stuart and Martha Tillman are watching the game show To Tell the Truth when the signal cuts out due to the aliens' transmissions next door.
    • In the opening narration of "What's in the Box", Rod Serling says that Joe Britt is in for a really big show, pronouncing "show" as "shew". This is a reference to Ed Sullivan's catchphrase and his distinctive pronunciation of "show" on his long-running variety show. Like The Twilight Zone, The Ed Sullivan Show aired on CBS. The phrase "really big shew" is also used by Caesar in "Caesar and Me".
    • In "Caesar and Me", Caesar's name is a reference to Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello, the gangster titular character of Little Caesar. He also has a prominent scar on the right side of his face, as is the case with the Scarface (1932) title character Antonio "Tony" Camonte.
  • Twin Peaks was filled with Shout Outs to numerous sources, some trivial, some inextricably bound to the plot (such as it was) of the series. In no particular order:
    • The name of FBI Agent Dale Bartholomew Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) references the infamous DB Cooper who disappeared after parachuting from the plane he hijacked in 1971.
    • Sheriff Harry S Truman rather obviously references the United States President of the same name, complete with a stuffed deer head in his office labelled "The Buck Stopped Here" in reference to the famous sign on President Truman's desk. He also allegedly references Harry R. Truman, an 83-year-old resident of the slopes of Mount St. Helens who refused to evacuate and was killed when that volcano erupted in 1980.
    • Dr. Jacoby is based on late ethnobotanist Terrence McKenna; the two have a striking similarity in appearance and style of dress, and share a connection to Hawaii. Jacoby's mushroom-shaped lamp references McKenna's theories on the role psychedelic mushrooms played in the evolution of man and culture.
    • Madeleine Ferguson (Sheryl Lee) is named for two characters from the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo — Kim Novak's Madeleine Elster and Jimmy Stewart's John Ferguson. Furthermore, Kim Novak plays two roles in this film, a blonde and a brunette, just as Sheryl Lee does in Twin Peaks (Laura Palmer and Madeleine).
    • David Lynch has acknowledged that the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard is a major influence on his work. In the case of Twin Peaks, the name of Lynch's own character, FBI supervisor Gordon Cole, came from a minor character in that film.
    • The insurance agent who comes to see Catherine is named Walter Neff, after the crooked insurance agent played by Fred MacMurray in 1944's Double Indemnity.
    • Hank Jennings' prisoner number was 24601 — the same number worn by Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables.
    • The pattern of tiling on the floor of the Black Lodge is the same as the lobby of Henry's house in Lynch's 1977 film Eraserhead.
  • Two Sentence Horror S Tories: In "Hide" the killers turn out to be teenage girls, with similar disguises as those in Tragedy Girls. It could double as a Take That! given how easily they're taken down, unlike in the film.
  • Veronica Mars: The writers and stars were fans of Television Without Pity and in one episode the set dressing department included a TWoP shout-out in the form of an activity flyer on a student bulletin board advertising a meeting of the Teenage Women of Propriety. (TWoP later returned the shout-out, making a Teenage Women of Propriety T-shirt available from their line of TV shout-out merchandise.)
  • Vintergatan 5A (Milky Way 5A), a Swedish children's series, ends with Alien revealing that he has been possessing Mira's fish Zoogin for the entire journey. He then leaves, still in the fish, "So long... and thanks for all the fish" being his last words.
  • The Wayans Bros. does this several times:
    • Pops comes out of the bathroom at his diner and tells the boys to not use it for at least 35 to 45 minutes. This is a line from the movie Friday, which John Witherspoon (Pops) says the same thing to Ice Cube.
    • Dee gets mixed up with some unscrupulous guy and Pops and the Brothers rescue her. At the end of the episode, she says that she will be more careful next time, and they respond with a loud "Amen." This is in reference to the 80's sitcom of the same name that she starred in.
    • The best example is the episode "Unspoken Token" where Shawn dreams that he is on an episode of Good Times. He plays JJ, Marlon is Michael, Pops is James, and Dee is Florida. Willona, Thelma, and Bookman appear and they reprise their characters. They add elements from the show (James throwing the chair, Florida saying Damn, Damn, Damn, Michael being a revolutionary, Thelma's non-cooking skills, etc) while parodying the same episode were JJ is invited to attend a prestigious art school because they needed to enroll a black person in order to keep their government funding.
  • White Collar: In the episode "Brass Tacks," one plotline involves Jones and Mozzie going to see a man called "The Keymaster." Jones makes a reference to the Keymaker from The Matrix series. On top of that, when the Keymaster appears, he's played by Peter Scolari who is known for being The Other Darrin to Rick Moranis who played the Keymaster in Ghostbusters (1984).
  • Who Wants to Be a Superhero?: The Defuser, one of the contestants in the second season, is also an avid City of Heroes player. At his request, one episode depicted him flying through a giant donut on top of a donut shop, in a reference to a similar structure in the New Overbrook (aka Faultline) zone which is the site of an exploration badge that can only be gotten by going through the hole.
  • Wild Palms: As a Shout Out to Animal Crackers, the song "Hello, I Must Be Going" became a theme in Oliver Stone's miniseries. It was also the title of the final episode, and sung by villain Senator Kreutzer (Robert Loggia) as he died.
  • Wings: Many of the episode titles are paraphrases of film titles, common sayings, or song lyrics. Also, the opening and endings of "Joe Blows" are similar to Sunset Boulevard.
  • The Wire similarly features characters from Homicide and the book from which it is based.
  • Without a Trace: In one episode, there's a mention of Hudson University—the campus where students are regularly murdered on Law & Order. Hudson University predates Law & Order — it was the college attended by Dick Grayson.
  • Wizards of Waverly Place:
    • The address for the Wizarding World's city hall is 1313 Mockingbird Lane.
    • Franken-Girl is powered up with 1.21 gigawatts of electricity.
    • The school principal is named Mr. Larritate, while Alex's art teacher is Ms. Majorhealey.
    • To Bono and Harry Potter.
    • Alex's boyfriend's name is Dean Moriarty.
    • The vampire father in the special is named Alucard. Alucard has been used as an alias/Captain Ersatz for Dracula many times, a shout out to the Count himself.
    • Also from the vampire special, could they get any less subtle than naming the girl Juliet?
    • To Michael Jackson in "Wizards and Vampires vs. Zombies":
    Justin: *bad fake Cuban accent* "Say hello to my little surge protector!"
    • From the taxi episode: the cab company is called the Sunshine Cab Company.
    • Jerry talks about his childhood, hanging out with John Bender and Ponyboy. Ponyboy gets mentioned again in a later episode, along another friend, Ben Kenobi.
    • Notice how the portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Russo is moving in the theme song.
    • This little gem.
    Justin: "We have to be ready for the robot uprising, They'll rebel, they'll evolve, and They'll have a plan!"
    • To Harry Potter in "Saving WizTech."
    • To The Twilight Saga in "Wizards vs. Vampires" and "Wizards vs. Werewolves."
    • Mason shares the same last name as another British werewolf, Fenrir Greyback.
    • The spell to create an outlaw in the Old West dream Alex created is "Bad bad Leroy Brown, run Laritate out of town," a reference to an old Jim Croce song.
    • The name of the Baseball Episode: The Supernatural.
    • The name Harper Finkle could be a Shout-Out to Harvey Kinkle.
    • More Sabrina Shout-Outs: Plastic being the weakness of magic and a Secret Chaser named Brad who suffers from Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.
    • The spell to have a picture frame show you what's happening in other places is a reference to Duran Duran.
    • In "Hugh's Not Normous," Alex and Justin mimic an exchange from The Breakfast Club:
    Justin: "What was that ruckus?"
    Alex: "What ruckus?"
    Justin: "I heard a ruckus."
    Alex: "Can you describe the ruckus?"
  • An episode of The Woodwright's Shop from 1987 has Roy Underhill mention Bob Vila and Norm Abram from This Old House when it gets a bit noisy while he's trying to talk about an important component of outhouses.
  • Xena: Warrior Princess actually had quite a few of these.
    • "For Him the Bell Tolls" when Aphrodite enchants Joxer to become a debonair swordsman at the ring of a bell, frequently, because the episode had many bells. Shout out to The Court Jester, in which the same happens to Hawkins, except with the snap of a finger.
    • "In Sickness and in Hell" when fungus-ridden Gabrielle tries to catch a rabbit for dinner. The rabbit then attacks her neck, and an epic battle ensues. You should be able to figure this reference out for yourself.
    • In the episode "The Play's the Thing" a play is going disastrously and someone walks out declaring they've heard the play next door is much better. The play is called 'Buffus the Bacchae Slayer'. Possibly an acknowledgment of Buffy's shout out in "Halloween" where Willow wails about Buffy "What? She couldn't have dressed up as Xena?"
  • The Young and the Restless: Many elements of the storyline leading up to Victoria Newman and Billy Abbott's September 2010 wedding were shout outs to Father Knows Best, culminating in the casting of Elinor Donahue as the presiding judge.

Alternative Title(s): Shout Out Live Action TV

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