Shout Out / The Thrilling Adventure Hour

As it's run since 2005, The Thrilling Adventure Hour has had a lot of Shout Outs and references, a few of which can be found below.

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• Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars:
  • Croach the Tracker is a simultaneous reference to hyper-rational aliens like Spock, as well as Native American stereotypes like Tonto.
  • Keith Gonzales, the Worldivore from the episode "Cosmic Sans", is clearly intended to be Galactus the World-Eater.
  • Similarly, the character Harold of the Galaxium (Bradley Whitford), is mentioned to be silver-plated, a reference to the Silver Surfer.
  • In "Good Jim", Ultra Admiral Miles Kaward mentions fighting in the Second Star War.
  "Well, it was really, like, the fifth in the series if you count it...
  • Also in "Good Jim":
  Pemily Stalwark: "I'm thinking about getting a giant robot to fight in, because... SHINY!"
  • Another one from "Good Jim": when Evil!Cactoid Jim starts tearing apart the bionic Chicky Sullivan, he "counts down from six million dollars."
  • The situation and impossible space marshal academy test described in "Space-iversary" is an obvious parody of The Kobayashi Maru test in Star Trek, featuring a similar unwinnable training simulation involving a rescue of a ship in space with an aggressive race of aliens incoming. In the episode, Sparks resolves it the same way he did when he failed it, and the way Kirk describes doing it in Wrath of Khan and the way he does it in the first film in the rebooted series, by hacking into the system.
  • The episode "Carbonite-mare" is an obvious Affectionate Parody of the original Star Wars trilogy, in particular the scene at Jabba's palace in Return of the Jedi with a bit of the cantina scene in A New Hope.
  • "Emperor on Mars" featured an alien arriving in a giant Flying Saucer with a robotic bodyguard named Gork.
  • In "Sheriff on Mars", when Croach, poorly disguised as a human leaves, Sparks Nevada wonders "who was that masked man?"
  • As Cactoid Jim says his goodbyes, he tells Sparks Nevada he is "the best space western cowboy in the 'verse."
    Sparks Nevada: "'Verse?"
    Cactoid Jim: Short for 'universe', just trying it out.
    Sparks Nevada: Well, it's ridiculous.
    Cactoid Jim: Yeah, I thought so too.
    Sparks Nevada: That... that will never catch on.
  • In "Cosmic Sans", Harold of the Galaxium (played by Bradley Whitford) leads both Sparks Nevada and the Barkeep through Walk and Talk conversations, a reference to The West Wing, on which Whitford and Joshua Malina (voice of the Barkeep) were both regulars at some point.
  • Also in "Cosmic Sans", Planet Eater Keith Gonzales is said to have been the representative of the Galaxium of Sector 2814 prior to becoming a consumer of worlds. In the DC Comics universe, the Green Lantern is the designated guardian of Sector 2814 (the part of the universe containing the Earth).
  • The two-parter episode "Crisis on Infinite Marses" is an obvious reference to the DC Comics story Crisis on Infinite Earths and also features alternate universes. Also, in an apparent reference to its follow-up Infinite Crisis, a character in the story intends to replace the current prime universe with a better one where a dead loved one is still alive.
  • Several aliens mention being from the SK system. In the 1980 Flash Gordon film, Earth itself is "an obscure body in the SK system."
• Beyond Belief:
  • The very premise of this feature (hard-drinking couple in which the husband has a reputation for being a hard-hitter in the field) owes itself to the classic noir novel, The Thin Man, or its film, The Thin Man.
  • Much of Frank's childhood references the works of Stephen King, including the Monster Clown Nightmares, who is a parody of Pennywise.
  • Both the title and plot of "Second Star to the Wrong" refer to Peter Pan, except Peter Pan is replaced with Pan, the Greek God of Mischief.
  • Several of the characters at the party in "She Blinded Me With Seance" are obviously from The Great Gatsby—Daisy Faye, Owl Eyes, and of course, the ghost, whose name is revealed to be Jay.
  • It's not hard to guess what "Rosemary's Baby Shower" is a reference to, although the episode itself is a subversion.
  • "Teenagers of the Corn" folds multiple sources into itself, including Village of the Damned (1960), Children of the Corn, an episode of The Twilight Zone (1959), and...The Wonder Years.
  • The episode "Djinn and Tonic" both uses and lampshades traits from David Mamet's plays and writing style. In particular, almost everything the genie Amir says is a direct reference to Alec Baldwin's character's speech in Glengarry Glen Ross. Frank and Sadie spend almost half of the episode making fun of the genies' use of Mamet Speak, even making a drinking game out of how often the genies repeat themselves.
  • The episode "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang You're Dead" manages to combine Stephen King's novel Christine with the NPR show Car Talk. The title, of course, references Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
  • The entire episode "The Yesterday Shop on Today Street" is done in the style of an episode of The Twilight Zone.
  • In the Kickstarter episode "Forged in Flame", one of the characters is a man named Norville with a pet Great Dane that he believes can talk. The same episode's themes - taking place on a very hot day, revolving around a small family's drama - are a reference to the works of Tennessee Williams.
  • The episode "Prelude to a Fish" seems to be a parody of The Little Mermaid, as it involves a love affair between a mermaid and a surface dweller and is encouraged by a host of talking animals. Except here it's all freshwater creatures and not sealife. Oh, and the surface dweller has been transformed into a lagoon creature. Also, the "Oolee oolee oolee" songs sung by the animals is similar to the Little Mermaid song "Kiss the Girl".
  • In the episode "Werewolf of Wall Street" (which doesn't contain any references to the obvious film), the werewolf of the episode gives a spin on Gordon Gekko's "greed is good" speech from Wall Street, except he talks about being a werewolf and not greed. Sadie says the same things of gin.
  • In "Three Strikes, You're Dead" Frank describes the experience of watching Civil War ghosts play baseball as being "like watching two documentaries at once", referring to the Ken Burns documentaries The Civil War and Baseball.
  • In "It's A Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad World", a talking frog who is going somewhere with Frank and Sadie asks if they will be crossing a lot of streets since that's very dangerous for frogs.
    • In the same episode, Nightmares the Clown has apparently traded his Pennywise-esque appearance to resemble the title character of Pagliacci, leading Sadie to laughingly reference the famous joke from Watchmen.
• Captain Laserbeam:
  • Philip Fathom is a barely disguised version of Batman from The Dark Knight Trilogy, except aquatic themed and thrust into a Silver Age setting.
  • In "Three Sides to Every Story", after the villain, Shape Ape, is frozen by Captain Laserbeam, he quotes, almost verbatimly, Kurtz's "snail on a straight sazor" line from Apocalypse Now.
  • In "Try, Triangle Again", a Running Gag is the fact that Captain Laserbeam has become black. When someone finally asks about it, he says he's "just filling in". This is likely meant as a reference to a recent Marvel storyline where the original Captain America, Steve Rogers, is replaced as the Cap by the African-American Sam Wilson, a.k.a. Falcon. Later in the episode, one of the Adventurekateers wonders if thee will be a lady version of Captain Laserbeam next. In a then recent Marvel Comics storyline, Thor became a woman.
• Tales From the Black Lagoon:
  • Every single character in the show acts like one of their famous roles- Bela Lugosi maintains his Dracula accent, Jimmy Stewart sounds quite a bit like he does in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Harpo Marx only speaks by honking a horn.
• Amelia Earhart, Fearless Flyer:
  • In "Forward to the Past", when a Nazi is trying to prevent Amelia's parents from becoming a couple, he says it will probably affect her guitar skills, an obvious nod at the first Back to the Future movie.
  • The setup of "Brother Vs. Brother Vs. Nazi", whith two Civil War-era brothers, one fighting for the North and the other for the Confederacy, is an obvious reference to a certain Patrick Swayze series.
• Down in Moonshine Holler:
  • "The Lottery" is an obvious reference to the short story of the same name, except this one has a somewhat less tragic ending.
• The Cross-Time Adventures of Colonel Tick-Tock:
  • His "confederates" are a thinly veiled reference to the Doctor's companions, complete with a reference to "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" time travel.
  • Nikola Tesla is played by James Urbaniak... doing an impression of David Bowie.
  • Sacco and Vanzetti are voiced as though they were voiced by Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.
  • In the episode "Electric Park", a great deal of the dialogue between Ben Franklin, who is in the process of his famous kite experiment, and other characters is quoted almost verbatimly from the first Jurassic Park movie, except it replaces "life" with "lightning".
• Other:
  • Jumbo the Elephant (pronounced "yum-bo") is an obvious reference to Disney's Jumbo, with a bit of a twist.
  • The "This American Wife" segments are references to NPR's "This American Life," complete with pitch-perfect imitations of Robert Siegel and Audie Cornish, two prominent NPR hosts.
  • The Algonquin Four are obviously modeled after another famous foursome, with Woodrow Wilson as Woody Woodpecker/The Invisible Woman, Alexander Woolcott as The Human Torch/ Oscar Wilde, Harry Houdini as Mr. Fantastic, and Dorothy Parker as The Hulk/ The Thing.