Shout Out / Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time

• Ancient Egypt has an enemy called the Tomb Raiser Zombie.
• Ancient Egypt also has a Zombot called Sphinx-Inator.
• The Seagull Zombie's upgraded form is the Pelican Zombie. Perhaps a coincidence, but this seems very similar to a certain Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire evolution line.
• The unique effect of the Chili Bean in the second game is probably a Shout-Out to the most notorious scene in Blazing Saddles, since the plant is first introduced the Wild West.
• Poncho Zombie resembles The Man With No Name from the Dollars Trilogy. His metal grate under the poncho is a reference to A Fistful of Dollars, where The Man With No Name fashions a Bulletproof Vest out of a metal plate hung around his neck.
• On the Gargantuar Battle podium in Far Future's level map, the Gargantuar is shown frozen in carbonite.
• The Citron's Breath Weapon is clearly "CHARGIN' MAH LAZER!" while the Laser Bean's Plant Food power is "IMMA FIRIN' MAH LAZOR!"
• The almanac entry for the Future Zombie says "Future fact #23: Nothing bad ever happens to red shirts."
• Future Buckethead is apparently nostalgic for the year 2008, when "brains were brains, zombies were zombies, and those punk plants kept to themselves". The original Plants vs. Zombies was released in 2009.
• The trailer for Dark Ages features a Knight Zombie miming riding a horse, followed by an imp banging two coconut-shell halves together.
• Peasant Zombie's Almanac entry:
  "Someone shouted, 'Bring out your undead!' And then Peasant Zombie found himself here. He simply doesn't remember anything that happened before that."
• The Ghost Pepper is, in real life, one of the hottest varieties of edible chilli. It may also be a reference to "Pepper's Ghost", the famous Victorian theatre special effect for creating a transparent apparition of a character using an angled pane of glass and careful lighting.
• The Deep Sea Gargantuar looks like a very muscular version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
• The Zombot Sharktronic Sub looks and acts very similar to the robot shark from James and the Giant Peach. Both involve a robot shark that attempt to drag plants into its mouth to grind them up with a blender inside.
• Frostbite Caves has references to the Ice Age series, with dodos (from Ice Age) and weasels (Buck from Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs).
• Before the map overhaul, there's the appropriately named "Star Gate" that has keyhole which, once opened by collecting enough stars, you can use it to travel to the next world. Except for collecting stars instead of using keys (which ironically have other functions in this game) to unlock the keyhole and travel to the next world, doesn't it remind you of certain video game? As of 1.7 update, you actually do use World Key to unlock new worlds.
• The Relic Hunter Zombie and Turquoise Skull Zombie are very obviously based on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
• Glitter Zombie is based on the roller-skating muses with rainbow trails from the '80s film Xanadu.
• Boombox Zombie is based on Lloyd Dobler from the '80s film Say Anything... except for appearance, his Almanac Entry references a line from the film, and he also holds a boombox that plays love songs.
• One of Gold Leaf's costumes is a Super Saiyan hair.
  • That's not the only costume-based reference, though— there's also Infi-nut's ghost trap costume, Bloomerang rocking the Hylian hero look, Tile Turnip's Bjorn cosplay and Spikerock's Cool Shades (referencing a certain code from the original PvZ).
• In Big Wave Beach, Crazy Dave paraphrases Bill O'Reilly's infamous "You Can't Explain That" quote:
  "The tide comes in, the tide goes out. Who can explain it?"
• Sometimes, after defeating a Fisherman Zombie, after sinking into the water, his arm resurfaces for a while to do a thumbs-up.
• The French name for Jurassic Marsh is Mesozoique Park. Sounds familiar to you?
• The All-Star Zombie and the Super-Fan Imp is obviously based on the All-Star and the Imp Punt respectively from Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, one of PopCap's games.
• Gold Bloom's name is an obvious Shout-Out to Jeff Goldblum, and its Almanac even references a quote by Goldblum's character, Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park.
  • One scrapped costume for it is Goldblum's hair and sunglasses.
• Several of the Achievements:
  • Planting 10 Snapdragons in a level give you the achievement "Dragon Age".
  • Blowing away 30+ Jetpack Zombies with a blover gives you the achievement "The Jettisons".
  • Firing off 500 sun via Magnifying Grass gives you "Grass Effect"
  • Beating Dark Ages Night 10 gives you "Hammer Time"
  • On a level with Weasel Hoarders, if you don't let any weasel jump over floes, you will get "Run Weasley".
  • Planting Thyme Warp three times gets you "Back From the Future 3".
  • Beating a level containing All-Star Zombies without any of them tackling your plants nets "You're an All-Star?"
• Modern Day's Endless survival level is called Highway To The Danger Room.
• Chinese exclusives:
  • Ballerina Zombie's Almanac entry has the lyric "旋转, 跳跃, 我闭着眼" to refer to her favorite song, which is "Dancing Diva" by Jolin Tsai, a popular Chinese song.
  • Onmyoji Zombie’s Almanac entry references Lucky Star.
  • Concept art for Heian Age involves the Player's House resembling the Palanquin Ship.
  • Kiwifruit is based on the Monkey King from Journey to the West

---