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Advertising
- In the New York area, there's a store called B&H, whose advertisements involve a guy named Dave and a robot named Hal.
- This Caesars Palace commercial
ends with the narration, "What you call the greatest day of your life, we call 'Tuesday'." - There's a Honda advertisement that uses the opening to the Waldstein Sonata by Beethoven.
- Some advertising for Sonic Heroes referenced The A-Team quite heavily, such as a magazine ad◊ aping the famous opening narration or the (now-defunct) website using a slightly changed snippet of the theme.
- Trojan Condoms: In The Aeneid the Greek army gets into a giant horse, which gets through the enemy's defenses. Men inside a horse, inside the enemy's walls. Pure Faux Symbolism. And then, after penetrating the enemy fortress, the horse bursts open and all the soldiers inside start rampaging everywhere. They probably intended for it to be a reference to the Trojan Walls, which were so impenetrable that after ten years of keeping the Greeks out they had to resort to the horse trick, but that's not where peoples' minds end up going.
- Advertising billboards for a flatrate internet package included Doom HUD as seen here◊ and here.
- A Filipino snack ad best described, as one comment put it, as "SACRILEGE TO Lucky Star." In terms of character designs, Sailor Moon wasn't spared either.
- A commercial for Virtual Boy Wario Land ended with Wario saying "Wait till they get a load of me!"
- A Capital One commercial for Christmas 2020 has Santa—played by John Travolta—finishing gift shopping for his elves when pitchman Samuel L. Jackson video-chats in and points out a coupon app. In addition to a reference to Samuel's profuse cursing, there are several references to Pulp Fiction. Samuel is wearing a sweater that says "Happy Holidays With Cheese", and the extended commercial ends with Santa Travolta doing his dance from the film. (Unfortunately, Uma Thurman did not play Mrs. Claus.)
- Bones Coffee:
- "Holy Cannoli" has a skeleton that resembles Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather
- The cover of "Army of Dark Chocolate" is made to look like the cover of Army of Darkness, with the skeleton a clear homage to Ash Williams.
- "From Dusk Till Donuts" is an obvious parody of From Dusk Till Dawn.
- Bones in "White Russian" is dressed like The Dude from The Big Lebowski. It's especially telling because the rug in the background looks like The Dude's rug (the one that was peed on by the Chinama—Asian American), and the flavor is based off of The Dude's favorite drink.
- The skeletons in "Chocolate Orange" are based off of Willy Wonka and the Oompa Loompas from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
- "Bluesberry" is based off of The Blues Brothers.
- Bones in "Oh Fuuudge!" is dressed in the same pink bunny footie-pajamas and damaged glasses Ralphie wore in A Christmas Story. There's even a skeletal version of the iconic leg-lamp and a skeleton with its tongue stuck to a pole.
- "Holy Cannoli
- "American Honda Presents DC Comics Supergirl": The second issue of this seat safety bealt Public Service Announcement has Supergirl and her young wards meet parodies of Humpty Dumpty, Linda Williams' The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, "The Three Little Pigs" and even The Crash Dummies.
- Cadbury's Caramel Bunny: The beginning of one commercial has a white rabbit say "I'm late! I'm late for a very important date!"
Audio Play
- One of the Puyo Puyo drama CDs has a story called "Chain Sentai Puyorangers" that spoofs Super Sentai by having Amitie and her friends be rangers.
Arts
- The Fallen Angel: Alexandre Cabanel illustrated Lucifer as he's reinterpreted in the Narrative Poem Paradise Lost. Hence, the emotional turmoil that his hubris-induced fall causes him. Cabanel got the idea of depicting a muscular, contorted man covering his lower face with his arm from the "Day" sculpture in the Medici Chapels.
- Allegory of the Four Seasons:
- The crown of ivy and tendrils worn by Autumn is made to give him a resemblance to Bacchus, the Roman God of Wine and Fertility. Kind of enforced since the Renaissance drew a lot of inspiration from Classical Mythology.
- Manfredi was one of Caravaggio's unofficial disciples, so it's no surprise that he references said artist's works in his paintings. For example, the arrangement of the characters in the Allegory of the Seasons echoes The Musicians (see here◊). Also, Summer breaking the fourth wall and the brightly illuminated harvests on a table are reminiscent of the Young Sick Bacchus.
- The Lady of Shalott (Holman Hunt): The Lady's room is a parallel of Hercules and the Virgin Mary, who labored through their struggles. Unlike Elaine, who gave in.
- The Lady of Shalott (Waterhouse): The painting is about one of the Arthurian Legend's characters, Elaine of Astalot. She wasn't that prominent there and most of her characterization in the painting comes from what is essentially a fan poem but is a reference nonetheless.
- Marriage A-la-Mode:
- The castrato singer in The Toilette is believed to be either Giovanni Carestini or Farinelli, both regulars in the operas of Hogarth's good friend George Frederic Handel, while the flautist is believed to be either Karl Friedrich Wiedemann (music teacher to the future King George III) or King Frederick II of Prussia. (However, as Hogarth never mastered flattery in portraiture, their physical appearances suggest that the music the duo are performing is as horrible as the Countess' taste in art!)
- Among the Countess' guests in The Toilette, the woman in the white dress leaning appreciatively toward the two musicians is Mrs. Elizabeth Fox Lane, later Lady Bingley after the death of her husband. Said husband is also one of the guests at the Countess' levée; he is the man in the background with the riding crop who has dozed off (being far more interested in fox hunting than music).
- Las Meninas:
- The mirror in the background telling more to the story is considered by art historians to be due to the influence of The Arnolfini Portrait.
- The darkened paintings hanging on the back wall are versions of sketches by Peter Paul Rubens.
- Johannes Vermeer:
- Dirck van Baburen's The Procuress◊ appears as a painting on the wall in two of Vermeer's paintings, The Concert◊ and Lady Seated at a Spinet◊.
- Jacob Jordaens' Crucifixion◊ appears as a painting on the wall in Vermeer's Allegory of Faith.
- Dirck van Baburen's The Procuress
- North America: Portrait of a Continent: Among other things...
- Paul Bunyan and Babe appear on northwestern California.
- The red-legged frog in central California references the Mark Twain short story that was its claim to fame.
- Dorothy's Ruby Slippers appear in southwest Kansas.
- A great white shark lurks off the coast of Cape Cod.
- Albany, Georgia is depicted with its famous statue of Ray Charles.
- Superman stands proudly in southern Illinois.
- The Kool-Aid Man appears in Nesbraska in reference to the drink's origins in Hastings.
Magazines
- Analog:
- In the October 1939 issue, Harold A Lower begins his nonfiction article "Hunting Big Game" by thanking Dr. Zwicky for allowing them to use the information on supernovae data published in Astrophysical Journal
- In the October 1939 issue, Willy Ley's nonfiction article "Earth's Second Moon" references Jules Verne's Round The Moon (and From the Earth to the Moon), even quoting part of it, because it Verne was inspired by Frederic Petit's calculations of a captured satellite around the Earth.
- In the October 1939 issue, Willy Ley's nonfiction article "Earth's Second Moon" references Gulliver's Travels, which predicted that Mars would have two moons.
- The April 1940 issue column "In Times To Come" talks about the recent death of Phil Nowlan and his dedication in writing the Buck Rogers cartoon strip.
- The September 1940 issue nonfiction article, "Universe for Lenses" by RS Richardson, says "the juiciest plums in physical science always seem to be just a little beyond our reach", a reference to Tantalus from Classical Mythology.
- The January 1941 issue "Book Review" column reviews Life On Other Worlds, a Non-Fiction book that explains how non-terrestrial life might look based on modern scientific knowledge.
- The March 1941 cover includes the Statue of Liberty.
- The May 1942 issue's "Book Review" column is by Robert A. Heinlein, praising Willy Ley's The Days Of Creation, a Non-Fiction book.
- The June 1942 issue's "Book Review" column is by L. Sprague de Camp, praising Biography Of The Earth, a Non-Fiction book.
Puppet Shows
- Bear in the Big Blue House:
- In "I've Gotta Be Me," Bear dons a grayish sweater and tells us that "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood." Some familiar music plays and he suggests that maybe he should get a pair of sneakers.
- At one point in the episode "Let's Get Interactive," Bear is looking for dirt, water and seeds to help solve a puzzle. He says "You know, these things would be a lot easier to find if we had a couple of guides to help us" and then Pip and Pop show up. When he says this, closed-captioning reads "You know, these things would be a lot easier to find if we had a little blue dog to help us."
- At the end of "I've Got Your Number," Luna states that "numbers go on and on forever, to infinity and beyond!"
- According to this, the "What If?" song from "A Beary Bear Christmas" was patterned after the film It's a Wonderful Life, down to it being presented in black-and-white.
- In "A Wagon of a Different Color," after Ojo, Pip and Pop reveal the newly painted wagon, Ojo says that she thinks it has every color in the world. Bear says that it does and Pip and Pop comment "And we helped!" in a manner that seems very reminiscent of the classic Shake 'n Bake commericals.
- One of the episodes is titled "The Great Pretender," which is a golden oldie by the The Platters.
- In "Listen Up!", Pip and Pop's code name for Bear on their phone cup walkie-talkies is "Smokey." Smokey the Bear is a U.S. mascot for fighting wildfires.
- Tutter declares a "red alert" in "Buggin'" after Ojo reports that the bug has entered the Big Blue House.
- In "Nothing to Fear," Bear gets a skunk clock from "L.L. Bear," an obvious reference to L.L. Bean.
- In "The Yard Sale," Doc Hogg is a member of a charitable organization called the "Swiners" whose members wear unusual hats. This is a reference to the real-life group Shriners International, whose members are known to wear special fez hats.
- Strange Hill High: The audio-visual room, the most feared room in the school, is located in Room 101.
Theme Parks
- Disneyland is full of these to former attractions. To whit:
- In The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, just as you leave the Heffalumps and Woozles part, if you look behind you, you can see three trophy heads - Max, Buff, and Melvin, from the attraction that once occupied that spot: Country Bear Jamboree. In Florida, at Walt Disney World, turning around at the right moment you will be able to see a picture of Mr Toad handing over a deed to Owl as an homage to Mr Toad's Wild Ride which used to occupy that space.
- Somewhere in the projector room in the queue for Indiana Jones Adventure, there is an Eeyore signnote - that spot used to be the Eeyore section of the old parking lot.
- In Autopia, there's a bronzed Midget Autopia car, referencing the long-gone attraction.
- Swiss Family Treehouse, based off of the movie Swiss Family Robinson, once occupied the spot where Tarzan's Treehouse is now. A gramophone in Tarzan's Treehouse still plays the Swisskapolka
- The Mighty Microscope from Adventure Thru Inner Space is still there - you can see it across from a mechanical arm that almost hits the Starspeeder 3000 in Star Tours and the comet scene pays a subtle nod to the snowflakes from Adventure.
- The new Star Tours once again features the Mighty Microscope on left hand side of the screen in a lit corridor just before the Starspeeder 1000 leaves the unfinished Death Star 1 through a docking bay.
- An actual engine from the Mine Train thru Nature's Wonderland sits at the edge of the Rivers of America
- Similarly, one of the first rooms of Big Thunder Mountain is a cavern with pools of multicolored water utilizing forced perspective. This is a reference to the Rainbow Caverns section of Nature's Wonderland which partly occupied the area of Big Thunder Mountain.
- Mike Fink Keel Boats transported guests along the Rivers of America until 1997. One boat, the Gullywhumper, is moored as a prop along the rivers.
- There are four shout-outs to the House of the Future in Innoventions alone.
- The audio-animatronic critters from the old America Sings attraction were mostly moved to Splash Mountain (a lot of them are on the riverboat at the end of the ride, which can also be seen from the train between New Orleans Square Station and Toontown/Fantasyland Station). Two of the ducks from America Sings were stripped of their outer coverings and turned into the small robots in the Star Tours queue.
- Universal Orlando Resort's new water park, Volcano Bay, includes a subtle Shout Out to the resort's previous water park, Wet 'n Wildnote . The new park features a pair of water slides named Maku and Puihi. Maku means "Wet" and "Puihi" means "Wild" in the Maori language.
- Being famous for its mermaid show, one of Weeki Wachee Springs' regular shows is an adaptation of The Little Mermaid.
Toys
- The BIONICLE web serials contain small references to The Wizard of Oz and Jaws. The Mata Nui On-Line Game meanwhile hid a quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the Cypher Language on one of the Ko-Koro temple walls and the statue from Tintin: The Broken Ear can be seen in Vakama's hut.
- In G.I. Joe, the redheaded Shana O'Hara was born in the South (specifically, Atlanta, Georgia). She is, indeed, a fierce and attractive Southern Belle. Her codename? Scarlett.
- Gogo's Crazy Bones:
- Squishmallows:
- Hans the Hedgehog shares his name and species with the protagonist of a story collected by the Brothers Grimm.
- The first line of Buzz the Sloth's bio is "If you give a sloth a donut, he's sure to want more!"
- The Star Monsters series has characters in it that can go through evolution in the following fashion: A Star Monster evolves into a new Star Monster, and can then evolve into another new Star Monster from there, if possible. Sound familiar?
