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Shout Out / The Cuphead Show!

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Shout-Out examples from the 2022 Netflix original animated series, The Cuphead Show!, based on the 2017 video game Cuphead.


In general

Specific episodes

  • There are multiple nods to classic Fleischer Bros. cartoons throughout, including the slide scene and the fake door gag in "Carn-Evil" from Bimbo's Initiation. Bimbo himself (or at least an Expy of him) appears briefly in the first episode, as one of the carnival attendants.
  • At one point during the Devil's Villain Song in the first episode, he slithers across the ground in a similar manner to the Grinch.
  • In "Roll the Dice", Cuphead asks King Dice for a helpline, similar to how contestants stuck on a question can ask for a few lifelines in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
    • For that matter, King Dice's walk onto the stage for his studio audience is very evocative of Cab Calloway's dancing style; Calloway collaborated with Fleischer Studios and "appeared" in several Betty Boop cartoons via rotoscoping, probably most famously as a singing dancing ghost walrus in "Minnie the Moocher".
    • At the end of the episode, the Devil lifts King Dice using his magical force that renders him helpless to the point of choking from a distance, similar to how Darth Vader strangles those who displease him in Star Wars.
  • "Ghosts Ain't Real" may as well be renamed to "Shout-Out: The Episode" for how much it crams into its runtime:
    • The singing tombstones that scare Cuphead and Mugman are a reference to Swing, You Sinners!. The setup of the episode itself, where a character (or characters, in this case) ends up locked inside a haunted graveyard for the night, may also be done in homage to the short. Luckily, Cuphead and Mugman fare much better than Bimbo did...at least until they get home.
    • The dancing skeletons are an obvious nod to The Skeleton Dance. The upbeat Hispanic music that plays while the skeletons dance may be a more subtle nod to Coco. The end of the bit has a skeletal bride emerge from a coffin and try to kiss Mugman, a reference to Corpse Bride.
    • Mugman's anxious whistling while waiting for Cuphead to return is likely inspired by a scene from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
    • Mugman's reaction to a spooky tree, as well as the design of the tree itself, are near-directly lifted from the forest scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
    • The ghosts exiting a grave as a marching band recalls both a similar scene from the iconic Mickey short Lonesome Ghosts and the infamous "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence from Dumbo.
    • Jasper's name is probably derrived from Casper the Friendly Ghost. He even uses Casper's shoelace trick from the theatrical film against Mugman.
    • When Jasper introduces himself to Mugman, he removes his hat to reveal his exposed brain, not unlike how Beetlejuice introduces himself to Lydia in Beetlejuice: The Musical.
    • The episode could also have a couple of references to the Ghostbusters franchise. The Big, Thin, Short Trio of ghosts tormenting Cuphead and Mugman remind of the ghost family (short father, lanky tall mother and huge dopey son) from the first episode of The Real Ghostbusters, and among the ghosts chasing them there's a convict still strapped to the electric chair that is reminiscent of the Scoleri Brothers from Ghostbusters II.
  • A living telephone similar to the one from Thru the Mirror appears in "Carn-Evil" and "Roll the Dice". The latter episode also features cameos of an Expy of Flip the Frog and the saxophone from Music Land in the audience.
  • In "Sweater Off Dead", Mugman getting grabbed by a nightmarish Tentacle Rope and pulled out of the dining room through the wall in Cuphead's nightmare is similar to Toaster's nightmare in which the smoke from the electric fire forms a hand that grabs a panicked Master and pulls him out of the kitchen in The Brave Little Toaster.
    • Also, this whole nightmare sequence is a possible homage to Scarecrow's fear toxin-induced hallucination in Batman: The Animated Series.
  • In "Sweater Luck Next Time", the scene in which the Devil uses his magic to paint the fence, leaving the boys to slip out of the house in avoidance of doing chores, somewhat echoes the scene in which Merlin enchants the dishes to wash themselves while getting young Arthur out of doing the chores himself in The Sword in the Stone.
    • In the same sequences, the painting is synchronized to In the Hall of the Mountain King and Danse Macabre, echoing The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
    • Dirk Dangerous, a character mentioned in that episode, and also the basis of a pinball machine in "Dangerous Mugman", is a possible reference to the 1980s arcade game Dragon's Lair, which stars Dirk the Daring.
  • One of the inmates in "Jailbroken" is nearly identical to the Classic Disney Shorts villain, Pete.
  • From "Sweet Temptation":
  • In "Release the Demons!", the fake dead horse head is kind of a callback to the film adaptation of Mario Puzo's The Godfather.
  • In "Dead Broke", Ms. Chalice as a ghost scares the cups the same way Beetlejuice does, by making "something" erupt from her face. The scene is framed exactly like in the movie, with Chalice seen from the back and the frightened cups on the right side of the screen.
    • The cups' scam business of faking a ghost removal service in the first half of the episode is reminiscent of GhostBusters. The episode's second half, meanwhile, draws more from the Luigi's Mansion series, with the heroes having to avoid being eternally trapped in paintings by malevolent ghosts in a spooky manor.
  • In "Say Cheese!", when Elder Kettle crashes against the wall he lands in a similar way to Peter Griffin's infamous "Death Pose".
    • The "Diaper Baby" ad, which Elder Kettle is embarrassed by and tries to destroy, is a parody of the Gerber Baby ads with Ann Turner Cook as the titular baby.
  • In "The Devil's Revenge!", the various tortured souls/ghouls in the underworld bear a striking resemblance to the Goons from Popeye.
  • In "Cupstaged", Cup Rogers vs. the Meteor seems to be a reference to both Buck Rogers and Joe Versus the Volcano.

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