Western Animation / Shout Out

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Pinkie Pie: What are we gonna do, Twilight?!
Twilight Sparkle: The same thing we do every time, Pinkie. Try to save the world!

— My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, "The Ending of the End – Part 2" (shouting-out to Pinky and the Brain)

This page lists Shout-Outs seen in Western Animation works.

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Walt Disney

101 Dalmatians: The Series:
- In "Mall Pups," Lt. Pug is knocked into a basket of toys which includes a Woody doll.
- While she doesn't refer to it, by name, Cadpig refers to seeing Cinderella when she suggests that the Pups should make a dress for Amber, Roger & Anita's Niece?
- The mermaid on Captain Ahab's ship is Ariel.
- Pumbaa makes a cameo in "Good Neighbor Cruella".
- Rolly has a doll of Mickey Mouse in "Roll Out the Pork Barrel".
- The episode "The Making of..." has several shout-outs to other shows, movies and cartoons, like The Dearly Bunch, First Bloodhound: Part Two, Doggie Houser, M.D. (Medical Dog), 2001 Dalmatians, a Simpsons-styled couch gag, a Road Runner mockup and The Cruella Show.
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective: In "The Night of the Gorilla", the Big Bad of the episode is Dr. Redrum, and the gorilla he framed (which is dyslexic) keeps signing and writing "murder" to say it was him (Ace finally figures it out when he sees the writing in a mirror).
Bonkers: The two-shot antagonist Flaps the Elephant is an Evil Counterpart of Dumbo.
The cavemen from Adventures in Music: Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom cameoed in 2 episodes of Disney's Marsupilami. The episodes are Hole in Mars, and The Wizard of Mars. Their voices are based on The Beatles. Similarly, the voices and personalities of the Polite Coyotes on the Tex Tinstar segment of The Shnookums & Meat Funny Cartoon Show'' were based on the Beatles.
On Fancy Nancy, Rhonda and Wanda have two hamsters named Venus and Serena, referential of the famous tennis players Venus and Serena Williams.
Fillmore!:
- The series makes a shout out to Pokémon in one episode:
  Cheerleading Instructor: This formation will make you stronger than a Geodude using its Harden attack!
- Spinelli even appears in one episode as a background student with Kim Possible (Which is pretty funny for both of them, as Kim is in high school, not middle school, and had the Recess cast age in real time, Spinelli would've also been in high school by then)
- It's slower than in the original The Court Jester, but in "Two Wheels, Full Throttle, No Brakes", Folsom and Fillmore reprise the "Get it?" "Got it." "Good." Running Gag.
Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers:
- As Pete brings Mickey to the dungeon, he remarks "Hey there, hi there, ho there, you're as welcome as can be."
- As he departs for the At the Opera Tonight finale, he remarks, "It's a little production called "I just can't wait to be king!"
My Friends Tigger & Pooh:
- In the episode "It's Eeyore's Birthday" the gang present Eeyore with red balloons of which Tigger claims there are 99.
- In "Roo's Kite-Tastrophy," Pooh reaches into a hole in a tree and says that the others will never guess what he found. Tigger asks "Is it bigger than a bread box?" which was a well-known question for comparison on the panel show What's My Line?
- In "Lumpy Joins In," Lumpy says that he isn't sure where to start when it comes to learning how to sing. Tigger tells him that perhaps he should start at the beginning. "It's a very good place to start, ya' know." In The Sound of Music, the song "Do Re Mi" begins with the lyrics "Let's start at the beginning / It's a very good place to start..."
On PB&J Otter, Ootsie and Bootsie Snootie's "P-O-O-D-L-E" dance song in "Gotta Dance" is rather reminiscent, especially musically, of the Village People's "Y.M.C.A." Doubles as a Parental Bonus, since older viewers are much more likely to recognize this, especially as the show continues to age.
At the end of Recess: School's Out, the teachers at Third Street School burst through the ceiling of the auditorium to help the kid's stop the ex-teacher from getting rid of summer vacation. They are led by Ms. Finster the playground monitor (a major antagonist throughout the series), who upon making her grand entrance shouts "Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!".
- In "My Fair Gretchen", right before Miss Finster gives everyone their tests, she says, "Do you feel lucky? Well, DO YOU PUNKS?" This is followed up by T.J. saying, "The old lady's been watching too many Clint Eastwood films!"
- The episode "Schoolworld" was a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey
- In "Kurst the Not So Bad", Mikey and Kurst almost have a Spaghetti Kiss.
- Season two (1998) had "The Game", where a new card game called Ajimbo comes out, sweeping the kids into a frenzy. Another reference was "Monstickers" in the episode "Economics of Recess", and Jamacamon in "Me No Know".
- Ashley A. has Hello Kitty on her lunchbox.
Sofia the First: During the song "Blue Ribbon Bunny", Clover briefly does the Horse Dance from "Gangnam Style".
Special Agent Oso has many, many James Bond references, all the way up to hilariously bad titles (ex: Live and Let Dry, Carousel Royale, Goldenfly, A View to a Kitten00, etc.) complete with Homages to the original Bond movies' Title Theme Tunes...
- There was a bonus one at the end of the double-episode For Your Nice Bunny and For Pancakes With Love. "That's not a bunny, it's a stack of pancakes!"
- In "License to Clean," one of the books that Oso puts back on the kid's shelf when helping to clean his room has a cover design that looks distinctly like that which was used for the A Series of Unfortunate Events books.
- In "License to Dress," Oso gets to wear a tuxedo and drinks water that is "fizzy, not flat."
Stanley:
- There are several related to horses. In "Horsepower," both when Stanley first looks up horses in The Great Big Book of Everything and when one comes out of it, a bit of the theme from Green Acres is played. Additionally, Harry and Elsie reference the lyrics from the theme of Mister Ed when they perform the "Great Big Book of Everything" song. And in ''Stanley's Dinosaur Round-Up," when Stanley asks what kind of animals are at the dude ranch, Mr. Griff states "they have horses, of courses."
- When Dennis performs the "Good as Gold" song because he fears he's being replaced with another pet, the shades that he wears and general stylings are definitely reminiscent of Elton John. This seems to be have been confirmed officially in a comment by one of the show's storyboard artists.
TaleSpin: In the first episode, Baloo is seen dancing while dressed as a lady at Louie's place, just like in The Jungle Book (1967).
In the short Get a Horse!, Horace Horsecollar shows up wearing a Captain America t-shirt. Besides advertising a then-upcoming movie, it also fits the 1920s animation vs modern-day CGI theme of the short, as Cap also finds himself a "Man Out of Time."

Warner Bros.

Bugs Bunny Builders:
- The house that Taz lives next to in the episode 'Smash House' is very obviously the famous house of another set of cartoon builders.
Histeria! contained several nods to previous WB cartoons:
- Big Fat Baby's jingle (the one where Father Time's chasing him in the desert) is based on the theme song from The Road Runner Show.
- Froggo's room is decorated with merchandise for Batman: The Animated Series.
- A song introducing a sketch about Alexander the Great is sung to the tune of the Animaniacs theme, and the sketch about Florence Nightingale as a Hospital Hottie ends with the boys shouting "Hello Nurse!" In a song about the Gold Rush, Father Time can be seen watching a TV with Yakko Warner on it. Also, the World's Oldest Woman's jingle is sung to the tune of Slappy Squirrel's theme, and Froggo's regular outfit is much like that of Wakko Warner (except that he actually wears pants).
- The Pinky and the Brain theme music can be heard when Chit Chatterson mentions brain removal in a sketch about mummification, as well as part of the background music for the introduction to Nikola Tesla's later life.
- Superman made three cameos himself, including one as William Clark.
- Fetch bares a bit of resemblance to Hunter from Road Rovers.
The Freakazoid! episode "The Chip" has a couple of shout outs to one of the voice actors, Ricardo Montalban. The first is when he threatens to put "ooey gooey worms, that make you go all crazy" in the ears of Dexter and Roddy McStew. The second comes when he uses the phrase "Kirk, old friend..." before apparently realizing he was in the wrong character. Both gags come from Star Trek II.
- In his second appearance, Guttierez gains powers like Freakazoid's, and is quite obviously Khan-inspired, with long white hair and rock-hard abs. Additionally, a Chekov-character appears in a TWOK era spacesuit.
- In one episode, Brain and Wakko appear, after Freakazoid is called "wacko" for mowing someone's lawn. They are seen arguing over which show is Steven Speilberg's favorite. Wakko sings "Wakko's America" right after he appears!
Jellystone!:
- The portion of "Yogi's Tummy Troubles" has Yogi chasing the residents of Jellystone in a Pac-Man sequence.
- The title of "Cats Do Dance" is one to Cats Don't Dance (which was created by Turner Feature Animation, a semi-spinoff of Hanna-Barbera).
- Another one from "Cats Do Dance"; When Top Cat and his gang see Peter Potamus' collection of anime memorabilia, K.K. Slider can be heard in the background.
- Peter Potamus practices "ninjutsu" in an orange gi with blue accents. He even does the series' infamous Ninja Run.
- One of the Clue Club cameos has their dog stating that the culprit was "Old Man Jenkins"; a name frequently used on SpongeBob SquarePants (which CH Greenblatt had previously worked on).
- Speaking of SpongeBob, "Yogi's Tummy Troubles" has Top Cat trying to con the townspeople by drawing a circle around himself as protection from Yogi, similar to the Anti-Seabear Circle from "The Camping Episode".
- "Gorilla in Our Midst" has a very obscure one: at one point Cindy gets in a spaceship and grabs a pinch of the sun, the plot of "The Golden Apples of the Sun" by Ray Bradbury.
- Augie Doggie refusing to move from her position at her father's insistence even after he gets swept up in the chaos and disappears may be an oblique reference to the famous poem ''Casabianca" ("The boy stood on the burning deck...") about a similar real-life incident.
- After waking up from his food coma, Grape Ape simply walks away from the ruined town and into the sea while everyone cheers.
- "DNA, A-OK!" starts with a video of Captain Caveman offering a hi-tech service while dressed in a black turtleneck and putting his hands together a lot.
- In "DNA, A-OK!", Yogi moves in with Top Cat and his gang after a DNA test says he is a cat, and, among other things, Yogi asks them if being a cat means eating lasagna and hating Mondays, which Top Cat brushes off as just cat stereotypes.
- "Catanooga Cheese Explosion" has Yogi doing the boombox scene from Say Anything....
- In a Freeze-Frame Bonus in "A Fish Sticky Situation", Brain's laptop has a tab featuring a stylized yellow lampshade - possibly TV Tropes itself (among many other tabs).
  - Additionally, when the denizens of Jellystone turn into fish after eating the expired fish sticks, they bellow "meep" over and over, much like the anchovies in the very first episode of SpongeBob.
  - Another nod to SpongeBob in "A Fish Sticky Situation": in one scene, Top Cat is flattened like a pancake and lies on the ground in a similar fashion to Squidward in Squid on Strike.
- A joke in "My Doggie Dave" has Doggie Daddy do a very Wrath of Khan style scream.
- A video game-themed episode is titled "Gotta Kiss Them All".
- For that matter, the goal of the game (allegedly) is to go around town and kiss everyone.
Justice League:
- In the World War II episode, Superman flies directly through a German plane and emerges from the inevitable explosion covered head to toe in flames - which makes him a dead ringer for the Marvel Universe's original, Nazi-fighting Human Torch. An unidentified Allied solider later in the episode is shown injured and clutching his eye in reference to Nick Fury.
- In the same episode, the Flash heckles the Nazis by yelling "Over here, Colonel Klink!"
- The Joker once remarked that "they would have gotten away with it, too, were it not for me meddling with the kids!"
- The Joker once also remarked to Batman in "Injustice For All" after Batman beat him up one more time "YOU'RE despicable!"
- In the episode "Legends", part one, the giant robot at the beginning looks like it was commissioned by Gendo. The Justice Guild's sidekick "Ray Thompson" is an expy of Golden Age fanboy supreme Roy Thomas.
- The exterior of Luthor's mansion, as seen in "The Return" looks quite familiar...
- The JLU finale has Captain Steel channeling Captain America by flinging a Parademon's shield.
- The Thanagarians' ultimate goal in "Starcrossed" was to blow up the Earth to make a hyperspace bypass
- In "Eclipsed" Godfrey reads an anti-superhero diatribe from a book titled "Innocents Seduced." by "Dr. Fredrick" This is a riff on "The Seduction of the Innocent" by Dr. Fredrick Wertham, an infamous book about the negative effects of superhero comics on children.
- In "Wild Cards", the Joker buys airtime under the name of 'Gwynplaine Entertainment'. Batman gets the reference.
- The ending of "Panic in the Sky". An orbital laser weapon fails to do its job, then a few hours later a cocky git painfully transforms into a superpowered tentacle-monster. Why does this sound familiar?
- In "This Little Piggy", when Zatanna is trying to grab a rabbit in her hat, she calls out for "Bugs."
- Later in the episode, Circe is crushed by a flung piano. Her feet, which are sticking out from under the piano, go flat and roll up under the piano.
- "This Little Piggy" has numerous references to Bewitched.
- Young John Stewart in "Kid's Stuff" makes constructs that look like the work of Kyle Rayner.
- The final two episodes of JLU, "Alive" and "Destroyer" are deliberate references to KISS albums. Darkseid's outfit is also a direct reference to Gene Simmon's on the cover of Destroyer.
- When Skeets gets spit out of a black hole, he proclaims "My God, it's full of stars..."
- In "Epilogue," the second Royal Flush Gang features a Jack that is also a samurai. His normal human form looks suspiciously like Phil LaMarr. Also, Ten looked like Bo Derek's character in the movie 10 (1979). The Queen turned out to be a male in normal form, and his both forms resemble the deceased actor/performer/drag Harris Glenn Milstead, a.k.a. Divine
- In "The Return" Luthor mentions Heisenberg Compensators.
- When the Flash runs so fast he nearly enters the Speed Force in "Divided We Fall", the rapid montage of the world as he runs around it is reminiscent of Mike Jittlov's The Wizard of Speed and Time, another story about a speedster.
- The giant, flying, turtle that attacks Japan in "Chaos at the Earth's Core" is both a Mythology Gag and a shout out to Gamera.
- So a man named Carter went to Mars, eh?
- In "Dead Reckoning", Superman, currently possessed by Deadman, says when he, Batman and Wonder Woman are transported to Africa, "You know, when they beam down on that TV show, they never miss."
  Booster Gold: [to teleporter technician] Energize!
  Technician: Doofus.
- "Patriot Act" features Vigilante and Shining Knight discussing Dirty Harry.
- In "Twilight", an incredibly powerful AI living in a space base has stumbled into the problem of having developed as far as computers allow, and must now merge with a humanoid alien in order to continue. In other words, same as the climax of Foundation and Earth.
- The two-part episode "The Terror Beyond" is an extended homage to the Marvel Comics team The Defenders. Doctor Fate stands in for Doctor Strange, Solomon Grundy for the Hulk, Hawkgirl for Nighthawk, and Aquaman for Namor. Grundy even refers to Hawkgirl as "Bird Nose", Hulk's nickname for Nighthawk.
  - The villain this team fights? An octopus-headed god known as "Ichulthu".
  - The same team returns in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Wake the Dead", with Amazo now added to the group as a stand-in for the Silver Surfer.
- In "Task Force X", when Deadshot meets Plastique, he says he's 'seen the pictures' to which she flirtatiously responds 'and that's as close as you're gonna get' - possibly reffing her naked humiliation at the hands of Firestorm in her first appearance.
- In the episode "Divided we Fall," Green Arrow dissuades Superman from disbanding the Justice League, and gets ready to ride off into the sunset. Just before he does, Batman stops him, saying "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" To which, GA translates as "Who guards the guardians?" Most comic fans know what they're really talking about, though.
- Another Watchmen reference appears in the episode "Paradise Lost," where we see Bernie's newsstand.
Loonatics Unleashed:
- The most significant planets in the show's cosmology are Freleng (after Looney Tunes director Friz Freleng) and Blanc (after virtuoso voice artist Mel Blanc).
- The exact words that Optimatus uses to describe what to do with their new powers of exploration are, word for word, "Explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations..."
Pibby: Two shots in the trailer have backgrounds resembling SpongeBob SquarePants' house and the city from Rocko's Modern Life. Notably, these are the only references to cartoons that Warner Bros. does not own.
Super Friends (1973) episode "Dr. Pelagian's War". Dr. Pelagian's submarine the Sprite looks very similar to the submarine U.S.S. Seaview in the film and TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
In Superman: Doomsday, there's a scene of Superman (actually his clone) fighting Toyman's giant mechanical spider. This was a shot at how movie producer Jon Peters wanted a giant spider in Superman Lives, written by Kevin Smith. Smith even voices a citizen in Doomsday that remarks, "Like we needed him to take care of a giant spider."
Superman: The Animated Series:
- In the third episode, Martha Kent tells Clark, "I don't want anyone thinking you're like that nut in Gotham City."
- In "My Girl," Lex Luthor is overheard explaining to his henchman that he wants him in Central City by that night.
- In the episode "Mxyzpxlated", the Daily Planet comics page◊ has a couple of Shout Outs. One strip is "Dini the Meany", which sounds similar to Dennis the Menace (US), but with an art style similar to Calvin and Hobbes. It's attributed to "Bill Wemissu^note". Also on the page is "Gleen", with an art style directly lifted from Peanuts. "Dini" of course is a reference to Paul Dini.
- In an example mixed with a Take That!, another episode has Supergirl reading a comic book about a spider-themed superhero before disgustedly stating that the character is gross.
Although lots of shows poked fun at older video games of their respective eras, Tiny Toon Adventures brought out the hilariously direct Super Plucky-o Bros, featuring a side-scrolling landscape that all but matched the original game's colors and patterns, and sounds lifted straight from Super Mario Bros. and 2.
- Another video game reference was seen in the episode "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian". For some reason, Montana Max is the pilot of an airplane. The terminal used for piloting the plane is an arcade cabinet with the game "Plane Man", where a plane is moving around a maze while eating dots. In reality, the actual plane is eating clouds]].
- The Parody Episode A Quack in the Quarks is one big shout out to Star Wars. "Duck Vader" is the Big Bad, and Buster ends up dressed like Han Solo, while Babs has her ears curled like Leia, and Plucky is dressed like Luke. It's not just Star Wars, though — if you look closely at the loading bay, you can see the TARDIS!
X-Men: Evolution:
- One episode had Blob watching a cartoon with characters that suspiciously looked like The Powerpuff Girls.
- "Survival of the Fittest", which introduced Juggernaut, also introduced us to the Danger Room program Logan's Run.
- "On Angel's Wings" gives us a brief glimpse of Warren reading a Daily Bugle newspaper, as well as a Stark Industries building. Might be a Mythology Gag due to the fact that pretty much 90% of the major Marvel Universe players are based in New York City.
- A scene of "Impact" has Toad knocking on the head of the petrified Mystique shouting "Hello? McFly?"
- The Season 2 episode "Retreat" has a Bigfoot Watcher showing off his Bigfoot Caller to a buddy. He says what store you can get them in, and tells his friend to ask for Mulder. To cement the reference, a clip of The X-Files theme is played before the scene transition.
- In "Cruise Control," on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, Bobby is goofing off using his ice powers. His trump card is to make an iceberg in front of the ship, jumps right on the stern, and shouts "I'm king of the..."
- In the episode "Uprising" when Spyke makes his return, Xavier uses Cerebro to find him. He says he's on the corner of "Lithia" and what sounds to be "Ashland" streets, a possible reference to the town of Ashland, Oregon: the town has lithium oxide (or "lithia") in a stream found in the center of town which is pumped into certain water fountains.
- Scott and Kurt make a very dorky and completely out of place reference to Star Trek in an early episode. Justified though, as Kurt is a fan of fantasy in the comics and the Ultimate version of Scott is a Sci-Fi fan.
- Jean is a soccer star, and during an awards ceremony for the team we get to see their logo, a phoenix that lights up in flames.
- In "Walk on the Wild Side", the Bayville Sirens (X-Girls + Boom-Boom) do the "super-jiggle-sexy-slo-mo" walk down the hall a la The Craft, complete with Kitty blowing a kiss just like Nancy◊.
- In "Spyke Cam" the dance that Spyke gets Rogue and Kitty to do is a clear reference to Buffy and Faith's dancing in "Bad Girls", complete with Suspiciously Apropos Music.
Young Justice (2010):
- To that other comics franchise:
  - Kid Flash taunts the villain in the pilot by calling him an "incredible bulk."
  - Doctor Fate is called "Earth's Sorcerer Supreme."
  - The villain Black Spider was retooled to resemble Spider-Man, and is voiced by Josh Keaton who played Spider-Man in The Spectacular Spiderman cartoon, which was also created by Greg Weisman.
  Black Spider: I don't suppose you'll let me finish off Jones and let me go on my web-slinging way?
  - Not only does T.O. Morrow resemble Tony Stark, but Red Volcano resembles Iron Man.
  - Possibly why the latest group of superpowered teens is called the "runaways", including an episode title. They were more properly alien abductees and only ran away from League supervision.
  - Possibly unintentional, but the season finale of a two season super hero show involves the Heroes Unlimited cast coming together to break into teams and disable alien doomsday machines affecting the weather. Where have I seen that before?
- Guardian: "These aren't your normal meddling kids."
- Wally: "Guy knows a little advanced science and Dumbledores it up to scare the bad guys and impress the babes."
- Psimon: "Simon says: forget!"
- Robin: "You need to hack our minds in order to grok what happened to us. Got it. Go."
- Wally: "Get your hands off her you darn dirty ape!"
- Wally's Halloween costume in "Secrets" has the same letterman's jacket and pattern of hair as Teen Wolf.
- In "Secrets", Miss Martian's "Martian" form is a slightly distorted Marvin the Martian with Godzilla's roar. The prankster that she is counter-pranking is even named Marvin.
- When Miss Martian finds out that Billy is Captain Marvel, Kid Flash remarks "Yeah, and I'm Speedy Gonzalez."
- In "Disordered", Superboy pilots the Super Robot Infinity-Man by docking his Super-Cycle on its head, just like how Kouji Kabuto pilots Mazinger Z with the Pilder. (The feature isn't in the Jack Kirby comics where Infinity-Man first appeared.)
- Green Arrow and Artemis use a blue police box as their Justice League teleporter. Later, Miss Martian uses a similar police box located in a junkyard.
- In "Schooled", Miss Martian briefly uses her shapeshifting powers to become a four-armed green-skinned Martian, reminiscent in form (though not in dress) of John Carter of Mars.
- In "Secrets", the magical sword of Beowulf (made up for the show) is sheathed in Grendel's arm, which Beowulf famously tore off.
- In "Performance," when Miss Martian catches the flu that has been affecting so many of the people around her, Robin mentions that H. G. Wells predicted there could be such a cross-species disease.
- In "Earthlings", Adam Strange quotes Lewis Carroll in order to get some Rannian policemen to chase him, specifically "Jabberwocky" and Alice in Wonderland. Later Alanna, who obviously has never heard this tale and does not speak English, tries to do this to Kroleteans:
  Alanna: Bewore tha Jabarwok!
- Bumblebee's line after discovering the ancient ruins in "Beneath":
  Bumblebee: Can you say "Temple of Doom?"
- The Terror Twins are named Tommy and Tuppence Terror.
- In "True Colors", the Justice League logo that appears on Godfrey's show is identical to the logo for the DCAU series. Also the Green Beetle's name is B'arzz O'oomm, which when spoken sounds like Barsoom, the name for Mars in Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series.
WB animated shorts are notorious for including crew names on background objects such as billboards or boxes. "Friz" shows up a lot, an homage to director Friz Freleng. In the short Rocket Squad, Porky and Daffy play future cops in a parody of Dragnet, and a list of "known criminals" they use to find the bad guy includes everyone working in the animation department at that time. A more complete listing of the various inside jokes can be found here.
- In the short "Daffy Duck Slept Here", Daffy claims to be friends with a six-foot tall invisible kangaroo named "Hymie".

Transformers

Beast Wars:
- A scene in Gorilla Warfare is inspired by Robocop.
- In Victory, the scene where Optimus is falling from the Axalon after being shot by Scorponok in his Beast mode resembles a scene in King Kong.
- There's also this one to Superman, complete with a Suspiciously Similar Song version of Supes' Main Theme:
  Dinobot: Wait! Look! Down in the sky! Is it a bird?
  Rhinox: Maybe a plane!
  Rattrap: Nah! IT'S OPTIMUS!!
- In Dark Designs, Cheetor's "Better dead than Pred" is a pun on an anti-communism message from The '50s.
- Another scene, where Optimus brandishes his swords before Megatron shoots him down is reminiscent of the duel between Indiana Jones and the Cairo swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dinobot pushing Scorponok into his rotor blade weapon echoes the demise of the German engineer in the same movie.
- Airazor's pose in "The Low Road" (as seen in the page image) is a direct reference to the famous Star Wars poster.
- The sequence in Season 3 where Megatron is using the Transmetal Driver to create the new Dinobot II from a blank Protoform draws heavily from the classic film Frankenstein (1931).
- In the episode "The Probe", the search and rescue probes sent out from Cybertron, shot for shot, mirror the imperial probe droids from the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back.
- Several to classic Looney Tunes, mostly involving Waspinator getting scrapped.
- Rock'em Sock'em Robots battle between Rhinox and Inferno in Season 2. Colors even match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvbbQyFWrDI
- The head writers involved were very active in the online fandom. As a result, these cropped up all the time, often in the form of locations. Subsector Hooks and Grid Joona, for example, are named after fans who posted on the alt.toys.transformers usenet group at the time.
  - At one point a concussed Waspinator refers to himself as "Wonko the Sane". While this was originally a name of a minor character in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, the specific reference was evidently to another Beast Wars fan who used this name as an online alias. That fan, Benson Yee, went on to be recruited as a continuity consultant for the second season finale. The Beast Wars crew recognized the value of the fandom.
- What may have been a very subtle Shout Out was Cheetor's weapon sound effect. It sounded just like Mega Man's from the cartoon. Both were voiced by Ian Corlett.
- Rattrap and Optimus' dialog about the Ark, how "that ship wasn't built, it was poured" and "die-cast metal, its a lost art" are both about how the original Gen 1 Transformer toys (well, the better, larger ones) all had die-cast parts for at least half the body.
- Also Megatron's first appearing to Optimus after he gets his new dragon body? "Enter the Dragon!"
In the Transformers: Armada episode "Cramp", Fred exclaims "The horror! The horror!" when Unicron begins attacking Cybertron.

Others

Hanna-Barbera's The Adventures of Gulliver episode "The Dark Sleep". The witch Malagar was inspired by the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
- She lives in a huge forbidding castle.
- After she captures Gulliver, she holds up an hourglass and says "You have until the sand runs out, young Gulliver. Then, if you do not give up the map, I shall deal with you in my own fashion".
- At one point she says "All in good time", a line spoken by the WWotW in the movie.
Angry Birds: Summer Madness:
- Neiderflyer's name is a reference to Douglas C. Neidermeyer of Animal House fame.
- The title of "Chill Hard" references the Die Hard films.
- "Pillow Fight Club" is a parody of Fight Club.
Avengers Assemble:
- Molecule Kid looks like Rex Salazar from Generator Rex, another Man of Action Studios production. He also has the same voice actor.
- At one point, Hyperion steals Thor's red cape and wears it as a trophy. This causes him to look even more like the DC Comics character he is a Captain Ersatz of.
- In "Prison Break", Princess Zarda believes in crushing her enemies, seeing them driven before her, and hearing the lamentations of their men. Also when Typhoid Mary uses her mental powers on the guards, Zarda calls her a "merciless Minerva", and later during the inevitable betrayal, she says Mary is a "suffering savage". These are both references to the Oh, My Gods! exclamations of the DC character she's a Captain Ersatz of: "Merciful Minerva!" and "Suffering Sappho!"
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes:
- "Iron Man Is Born!" contains an extended parody of Cloverfield involving Iron Man fighting Ultimo while onlookers record the whole thing.
- "Masters of Evil" has a scene of the title team of villains rushing into battle against the Avengers in a scene mirroring the opening of Challenge of the Superfriends.
- Peter Parker's outfit looks a lot like that of Ben Tennyson. Man of Action Studios created the Ben 10 franchise and did most of the second season episodes of Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
- The Grand Finale, "Avengers Assemble!", seems like a Whole-Plot Reference to "Destroyer", the Grand Finale of Justice League Unlimited.
- Blizzard was redesigned to look like The Flash's foe (as well as Blizzard's Alternate Company Equivalent), Captain Cold.
"Eleanor Rigby" from Beat Bugs has two bugs searching for Eleanor Rigby named "Skölly" and "Mildew," which Buzz corrupts as "Skilldoo" and "Molly."
When The Beatles come across the cave of a hermit in "Nowhere Man," Ringo quips "I've heard his records." A reference to Herman's Hermits, a band from the British Invasion days.
- In "I'm Only Sleeping," the boys are confronted with a fire-breathing dragon. George nervously quips in sing-song, "The fans are getting tougher all the time," which shouts out to the 40s standard "My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time" by Les Brown.
Ben 10:
- Ben 10:
  - Way Big's look resembles more like Ultraman.
  - Ben and Gwen's cousin-in-law Lucy has whiskers similar to Naruto's and her casual clothes remind people of Cassie Sandsmark.
- Ben 10: Alien Force is fond of these:
  - "No juice for you!"
  - Worst. Roadtrip. EVER!
  - Upchuck, the Extreme Omnivore alien, is a Gourmand from the planet Peptos. Matter-Eater Lad, the Legion of Super-Heroes member with the same power, comes from the planet Bismoll.
  - Paradox's "I walk in eternity" is a direct quote from Doctor Who.
  - "The Con Of Rath" to The Wrath Of Khan.
  - One of the Forever Knights yells ""RUN AWAY!" when Ship breaks their mind control and turns on them... while still outfitted with their weapons.
  - "My name is Kevin Ethan Levin. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
  - Vilgax has homing Eye Beams like Darkseid.
  - Ben's command to self-destruct the Omnitrix is a shout out to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Kirk gave the same command to destroy the Enterprise.
  - When Ship surrounds Julie and becomes her armor, she ends up looking a lot like Samus Aran from Metroid.
  - The Vreedle Brothers, lets see, a pair of idiotic twins, with a last name that begins with V, that are killed multiple times and are brought back to life by cloning them? Sounds kind of familiar
  - In The Secret of Chromastone, Kevin references Alien when he tells Ben that "In space, no one can hear you sneeze."
  - Raff, the Inkursian commander, looks a bit like Psimon, purple colors cheme and My Brain Is Big.
  - At the beginning of "Undercover", Ben is wary of Kevin testing the teleporter with a banana, questioning what would happen if a fly landed on the banana during the test, turning it into a "killer banana fly", a direct Shout-Out to The Fly (1958).
  - Kevin tries to make it off an alien planet with a stash of treasure, but winds up dropping it on the way out, where a poor girl picks it up. Think they'll name the place Levinstown?
  - Charmcaster dons a similar tiara as Scarlet Witch.
An episode of Bump in the Night had Mr. Bumpy and Squishington competing to scare each other. In one instance, Squishington is looking beyond an open door, averting and saying "Get back! Get back to where you once belonged!"
In "Stella Sprinkles!" from Butterbean's Cafe, Cricket invites Stella Sprinkles to a cupcake decorating party, then sets up the party without waiting for her acceptance. When Stella doesn't show up at the scheduled time, she goes outside the cafe and shouts "Stella! Stelllla!".
In the Capelito episode "Daddy", Capelito shows his cap-changing ability to some Mexican tourists. When he changes his cap to a Mexican sombrero, one of the tourists responds with "Arriba, arriba!" To drive the point home further, another tourist outright says the name "Speedy Gonzales" only a second or so afterwards.
In Carmen Sandiego, Paper Star's hair is styled like Juri Han.
On Celebrity Deathmatch, Flea beats Kenny G with Nick Diamond stating "Flea killed Kenny G!" A kid in the audience then shouts, "You Bastard!"
City Island (2022):
- Terra says "I'm ready for my closeup."
- According to his voice actor, Watt's dad's full name is Frank Lloyd Light. This is a pun on Frank Lloyd Wright, a famous architect.
Codename: Kids Next Door is full of these.
- "Nugget": There is a placard for "Mr. Warburton's Flim Flam Elixir"◊ in the background. It is a reference to the series creator Tom Warburton (who on this show is always credited as just "Mr. Warburton").
- "It's another glorious day in the Kids Next Door! A day in the KND is a day out of school! Every meal is ice cream, every show's a cartoon, every formation's a dodgeball game. I looooove the Kids Next Door!"
- And lets not forget the episode "Operation Archive", which plays out almost scene-for-scene like a family-friendly version of "The Second Renaissance".
- In one mission, Numbah Two and Numbah Five have to rescue a younger class' pet before he is dipped in chocolate. His name is Mr. Snuffleupagus.
- The main antagonists, The Delightful Children From Down the Lane, seem to be based on the antagonists in co-creator Mo Willem's 1996 KaBlam!, sketch, The Off-Beats, known as "The Populars".
- I was hungry (slap), I was thirsty (slap), I was hungry (slap), I was thirsty (slap),..., I was hungry and thirsty.
- The Delightful Children are turned into sheep in one episode. The middle one resembles Sheep from Sheep in the Big City. Also, in "T.H.E.-F.L.Y.", one of the stuffed animals shown in Numbuh 3's room is Sheep.
- Dexter appears as a balloon in a Zombie Apocalypse episode.
- Operation: H.O.M.E gives us the origins of Rainbow Monkey Cereal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IKVj4l5GU4 IT'S MADE FROM RAINBOW MONKEYS!
- Numbuh Four's version of Op. R.E.P.O.R.T. is a huge one to Dragon Ball. At one point he blows a chewing gum bubble into his hands to make what looks like a Chewing Gum Kamehameha. Operation R.E.P.O.R.T. does five parodies in one episode.
- When the Dodgeball Wizard says that he's not a magician, Numbuh 4's dad says, "All right, you're an illusionist then!"
- Father appears to be based off of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs.
- In Op. E.N.G.L.A.N.D., one of the British KND operatives actually one of the Rowdy Hooligans from Across the Square repeatedly says to Numbuh One "Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more, say-no-more!"
- Ash Ketchum makes an appearance for one second in a crowd scene.◊ Yes, that one. Yugi, too.
- Numbuh One: "By your command, Mr. President." the president was a robot duplicate
- When a baby makes a hole in a locked door to get to Numbuhs One and Five, he yells, "Heeeere's Jackson!"
- Numbuh 86 is possibly a Shout-Out to Rosa Klebb, another hot-tempered, red-headed, boy-hating operative with a grating accent and a grudge against a British agent.
- The Tommy's costume (wide-brimmed hat, mask and cape), hammy poses and catch phrase ("I am The Tommy!") reminds of another animated superhero. Probably also a shout out to The Shadow.
- Operation P.L.A.N.E.T. features a planet of rainbow monkeys similar to the first Planet of the Apes.
- Two of the England KND members are a Shout-Out to the The Avengers (1960s) and Doctor Who respectively.
- Numbuh 11-Teen is based off of Jane Goodall
- When Numbah One is turning into a moose in "Operation S.A.F.A.R.I.", his voice starts to sound like that of Bullwinkle J. Moose.
Code Lyoko:
- Kadic Academy was named after Philip K. Dick (look at his middle initial and last name); this is confirmed by MoonScoop themselves.
- Several times, a Totoro plush toy can be seen in Yumi's bedroom.
- At the end of episode "Vertigo", Odd comments that he would love to turn invisible, like Susan of the Fantastic Four. This is quite a direct shout-out since French animation company MoonScoop also produced Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes.
- In the episode "The Secret", the demolition worker controlled by XANA distinctly looks like Mario. William even calls him a "super-plumber".
The Crayon Box: In "The Three Piggies", the pigs are named Lester, Chester, and Sylvester. Sylvester changes his name to Bob because Sylvester's a name for a cat.
The Chocolix: In "The Truffle Family Arrives at Chocoland", when Mrs. Truffle is explaining how her square eggs come from the Square Kingdom, she's imagining what it looks like. It looks like Minecraft, especially the square person who looks like and has the same clothing as Steve.
The Crumpets:
- Pac-Man is spoofed in "Save Granny" when Pa chases Granny in an 8-bit maze and sound-quality. The Crumpets' adopted cousin Cordless explicitly wants a Pac-Man game as part of his video arcade proposal in the Crumpets' house in "Gambled Gables". Cordless also wears a shirt with a Space Invaders sprite; more sprites would appear in the show's sequel Teen Crumpets.
- In "Ransoming Dad", the Wicked Witch of the West is mentioned to demand the ransom in the forged letter.
- One of Li'l One's plushes is an UglyDolls character.
- In "Booty for Beauty", the words "Fifty Shades of Grey" are heard.
- Pfff's bedroom has parodies of real bands such as a poster reading "RAGE CRUMPET THE MACHINE".
- In "Disassister", Marylin calls a crocodile "Wally Gator".
Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood:
- When cooking soup for Mom Tiger in "Mom Tiger is Sick," Mr. Daniel Tiger adds "Just a little Mrs. Salt and some Mr. Pepper." While it was Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper on Blue's Clues, it still seems very close, especially when consider that series creator Angela C. Santomero has a story credit on the episode.
- Daniel Tiger's fantasy sequence in "Mom Tiger is Sick" in which he imagines himself as a superhero fighting germs features the same style and general appearance as Super Mario Bros..
- In a tribute to Fred Rogers, "After the Storm" features a song that includes the phrase "Look for the helpers," which was a phrase that Mister Rogers became known for.
- Another installment features the characters singing to each other "I like you / I like you / I like you just the way you are." Fred Rogers would end his program by telling viewers "You've made this day a special day by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you. And I like you just the way you are," inspired by his grandfather who once told him "Fred, you made this day a special day, just by being yourself. Always remember there's just one person in this whole world like you — and I like you just the way you are."
- The book Let's Play Together! features activities and crafts for parents to do with their children or teachers to do with their students. One of these is called "Handprint Cards" and involves having the child cover their hand in paint and make their handprint on a sheet of folded paper. However, the illustration accompanying doesn't depict a handprint, it depicts a blue pawprint.
Danny Phantom: To comic books, crewmembers, The Fairly OddParents!, Doom, and Star Wars.
- Also, after forcing Danny to Walk the Plank from Youngblood's flying pirate ship:
  Ember: So...where's the splat?
- The name of the male who wears the amulet to become a dragon is '' Aragon, aka The Lord of the Rings.
- The high school is named Casper High School.
  Paulina: So you're like, a friendly ghost?
- "Urban Jungle" has Danny on an ice world floating in a defrosting tank in his underwear... just before he prepares to beat the Monster of the Week voiced by Mark Hamill.
- The movie posters in Sam's basement: Citizen Kane, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, A Clockwork Orange and Jaws.
- "Darn! Right at the part where he says, 'you complete me.'"
  - "Man, when she sings 'Wind Beneath My Wings', I just go to pieces."
- At the end of Pirate Radio, some very familiar music plays: Popeye's theme.
- From "Fanning the Flames": Take any requests? How about "Beat It"?
- At the end of "Reality Trip", Danny tells the Guys in White to leave his human self and his family alone, because he's not the ghost they're looking for, complete with a wave of his hand (which is currently sporting a reality warping gauntlet) to make them believe it. Also, the whole movie revolves around the villain Freakshow assembling magical gems to be placed into the Reality Gauntlet that, when complete, allows the bearer to rewrite reality at his whim. This is a huge reference to the Marvel story The Infinity Gauntlet, only with Freakshow in place of Thanos, and three gems instead of five.
- In "Public Enemies" when Danny fights overshadowed Kwan, the latter twirls a ghost guard's stick threateningly. Unimpressed, Danny just blasts him.
- "What You Want" features the extremely popular (at least among Paulina and her cohorts) new movie "Sayonara Pussycat".
- In "Memory Blank" gender flipped expies of the Predator, Terminator, and Freddy Krueger appear as movie monsters brought to life by Desiree.
- Ghost Rays in general look like the energy blasts from Dragon Ball, even the way Danny fires the extra-strong ones looks like a Kamehameha.
- The chariot race in "King Tuck" is a reference to the famous scene in Ben-Hur, complete with Messala's wheel-cutting spoke spikes.
- There are also a few shout-outs to Back to the Future. Marty McFly himself appears in a brief, pause-or-you'll-miss-it cameo in "Masters of All Time" and "Splitting Images". George McFly's book "A Match Made in Space" is seen in "Double Cross My Heart". And the coolest; the clock tower in the University of Madison (in "Masters of All Time") reads 10:04.
- There's an obvious nod in the episode "Lucky in Love" to Gone with the Wind. The Once per Episode title card was a parody of the famous movie poster of Rhett holding Scarlett in front of the burning city of Atlanta.
- In one episode, Danny plays a "Crash Nebula" arcade game, a reference to the Show Within a Show on The Fairly OddParents!. Which leads to another one: in the Poorly Disguised Pilot for Crash Nebula, the young Crash is seen reading a Danny Phantom comic book.
Denis and Me: The episodes have titles like "Five Nights At Pinchy's", Paranormal Cativity", "I Think I'm A Clone Now", "Skunk'd", and "Home A Clone".
Dexter's Laboratory:
- At the beginning of "Monstory", Dexter is examining what appears to be a microscopic civilization on a small speck, a deduction he calls "Horton's theory of Who".
- In "Filet of Soul", Dexter prepares to get rid of the ghost of the family's pet goldfish and boats "Who ya gonna call?"
- In "Sport's a Poppin", Dexter is set to kick a football Dee Dee is holding. Just before Dexter kicks it, Dee Dee puts it over Dexter just like Lucy from Peanuts does, stating she always wanted to do that. The next time Dad is seen, he has a piece of gum in his mouth so that he talks like the adults in Peanuts do.
Dinosaur Train:
- The usage of "time tunnels" to travel through time might be a reference to the classic 60s TV show The Time Tunnel.
- Ned in the episode "Night Train" notes "dinosaurs come and go so quickly here," similar to Dorothy's remark about Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz.
- King Cryolophosaurus is just one big Elvis Presley reference.
- The title of "Remember the Alamosaurus" is a reference to the phrase "Remember the Alamo!" from after the Battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar, killing most of the Texians and Tejanos inside. However, the Alamosaurus was not named after the Alamo and was not found in Texas until after its naming.
- In "Stargazing on the Night Train," Sidney says that there are "billions and billions" of stars.
- In "Get Into Nature!" Don suggests calling the club "The Outsiders."
Dora the Explorer: In "Dora's Christmas Carol Adventure" the Grumpy Old Troll makes Dora and Sniper solve three Christmas-related riddles. The answer to the second is Frosty the Snowman, though the image they use is of a generic snowman.
Dragon Tales:
- In "Very Berry," when Ord gets stuck in a hole, Max speaks of his daddy reading him a story about a bear who got stuck in a hole from eating too much honey.
- In "Ord's Unhappy Birthday," when Ord sees the Surprise Party everyone has put together, he declares "You like me! You really like me!," referencing Sally Fields's famous Oscar speech, though this particular reading of the line is actually a Beam Me Up, Scotty!.
In "A Change of Art" from Elinor Wonders Why after completing a painting, Mr. Lion tells Elinor and her friends "And that's the joy of painting." (The Joy of Painting also aired on PBS.) Furthermore, the character actually looks vaguely like Bob Ross, sporting an afro and goatee.
In one episode of Face's Music Party, the gold chain that Face wears has the old Nick Jr. logo.
Because of the sheer similarities between the two shows, it was an inevitability that Filly Funtasia would be drawing a few allusions to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
- One of the main Filly Characters, Will, has a distinctly black color, strange-looking green wings, and his actual race in-universe is Fairy Filly. Very reminiscent of the Changelings in Friendship Is Magic.
- One of the Fillies looks like Fluttershy.
- There's a Filly character named Twilight, and another Filly character named Sparkle. If that wasn't enough, Twilight has wings and Sparkle is a unicorn. Put the two together and what do you get?
The Generator Rex episode "Breach" has Rex telling Holiday he was fighting a little girl, and she wasn't "made of sugar and spice!"
- The entire episode (or at least Rex's segment) seemed to reference Silent Hill, foggy town filled with monsters, a creepy school, and the possibility of Alternate Dimensions being involved, not helped by some of the questions about Breach's psyche.
George's aunt(?) in George Shrinks tends to respond to shocks with "What in the name of (Insert Groucho Marx Character Here)..." - this has included such luminaries as Hugo Z. Hackenbush, Jeffrey Spaulding, and Rufus T. Firefly.
Get Blake!: In "Get West!", the Squalliens disguise themselves by inhabiting the form of a black clad, robotic gunslinger that looks an awful lot like Yul Brynner's character in Westworld.
The episode Invasion from Below from the Hero Factory cartoon seems to be LEGO's take on Pacific Rim, which came out half a year prior. It has Kaiju attacking from a mysterious underground place, the Heroes riding mechs to fight them, the discovery that the beasts can communicate with each other, and one of the Heroes ejecting his escape pod upwards when his mech gets sucked into a chasm. Its animation studio Ghost VFX has also worked on Pacific Rim.
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi:
- In "Were-Kaz", Kaz's transformation via lap dissolves parodies The Wolf Man, complete with an old, grainy, black-and-white film effect.
- In "Ami Goes Bad", Ami says "Smokin!" after getting possessed.
In the fifth episode of The Hollow they find an Abandoned Laboratory that has benn taken over by an aggressive alien creature. Among the slime and destruction they find a clawed-up military-style helmet labelled "Pte. Hudson".
In Holly Hobbie and Friends: Christmas Wishes, Amy describes Mr. Beech's display of little drummer boy dwarfs as "Attack of the Little Drummer Clones."
In the Inspector Gadget episode "Focus on Gadget", Gadget gets his nose caught in an airlock door, which is a callback to the closing sequence of Don Adams' earlier show, Get Smart.
Jade Armor: In Black Tiger's lair, there is a Yoshi egg.
Jimmy Two-Shoes: Aside from a Whole-Plot Reference to I Am Legend, the title for one episode, "Jimmy, Don't Be a Hero", is a reference to the 1974 song "Billy, Don't Be a Hero".
Johnny Bravo has few episodes starting and ending with narrator announcing that Johnny is now "in the zone, where normal things don’t happen very often."
Let's Go Luna!:
- "Not Home on the Range" is a reference to the song, "Home on the Range".
- In "House Music", Andy does a dance similar to Michigan J. Frog.
- "Lizardzilla!" briefly shows poster parodies of Japanese movies like Kiki's Delivery Service. Lizardzilla is also a very obvious parody of Godzilla.
- In "Story Story", The Hairy Games book series is a reference to both Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. Said series has Districts, like Hunger Games, but they're organized more like Harry Potter houses.
- In "Robo Kid", the gang visits a 60-foot tall robot statue. There is one in real life, and it's of none other than Unicorn Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn.
- "Beetlemania":
  - Andy has a digital tomato pet, an obvious Bland-Name Product of Tamagotchi.
  - The episode title is a pun on the Beatlemania craze.
- In "Loco for Cocoa!", Luna sings about Montezuma II, an Aztec king who loved chocolate. He is shown going through a Pac-Man-like maze eating chocolate treats, complete with the sound effects.
- In "Old School", the school mascot does the Pennywise jig. You can see it here.
- In "Blanket Decision", Andy's favorite baseball team is the Rochester Hot Wings, a parody of the Rochester Red Wings.
In one episode of Lolirock, the main characters reach a sunken ship to rescue a character who had previously been there. After they fill the ship with air, that character asks them how they did that. Iris states that it was really complicated and that they had to use ping-pong balls. This is a reference to a Donald Duck story where a sunken ship was risen by lowering a hose from the surface and pumping it with ping-pong balls.
The Dandies from Long Live the Royals are introduced in a spoof of the opening shot of A Clockwork Orange.
Monster Buster Club:
- In one episode, Cathy is sent to detention, and it's specifically mentioned that it will be in Room 101.
- Two-dimensional art in the series, such as on posters, is generally rendered in the Animesque style used for fellow Marathon series Martin Mystery and Totally Spies!.
My Little Pony:
- My Little Pony 'n Friends, while not as Shout-Out-y as My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, does have a few.
  - "The Glass Princess" has a couple of examples:
  - The title and refrain of "Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave", is taken from Marmion, an 1808 poem by Sir Walter Scott.
    "Oh! what a tangled web we weave
    When first we practise to deceive!"
  - As the raptorians celebrate their approaching victory and the prospect of taking a vitrified Ponyland as their new homeland, they run around in circles while shouting "there's no place like home, there's no place like home!"
  - On one occasion, the Moochick and his rabbit assistant Habbit are seen playing three-dimensional chess. Amusingly, Habbit is winning.
- My Little Pony: Make Your Mark:
  - In "The Traditional Unicorn Sleep-over", a unicorn version of Notting Hill is briefly shown.
  - In "Top Remodel", Hitch says that he's "not afraid of no ghosts" as he explores the abandoned CanterLogic factory, only for a winged rat to scurry behind him and startle him.
Over the Garden Wall loves its fairytale, Fleischer, Disney, Dante, Miyazaki and Tex Avery references. Notably:
- The name for the series itself comes at least partially from a lost silent era film of the same name.
- Greg's frog at the piano, seen at the beginning and end of the series, resembles the title card for Flip the Frog.
- Beatrice acts as a guide through the woods for the kids, just like her literary counterpart.
- Befitting his status as a Satanic Archetype, The Beast's name references one of the names of the Antichrist in The Bible.
- The Gorilla in Chapter Three looks an awful lot like the Bumble.
- The ferry is called the McLoughlin Brothers Ferry, named for a children's storybook publishing company that operated from the 1800s to the 1920s.
- Another comes in the Beast turning his victims into Edelwood trees either through either trickery with Greg or despair with Wirt. The representation of the Beast for suicide and how he manipulates it harks back to Canto XIII of the Inferno, where victims of suicide are turned into trees and suffer the abuse of harpies within the seventh circle of hell.
- The "Babes in the Woods" episode shares its name with a fairytale about two lost children in the woods. In the original story, the children die, setting a grim tone for those who get the reference.
- The rock tune that opens episode 9 is a sound-alike of the T. Rex song "Ballrooms of Mars."
- Sara was named after the eponymous Fleetwood Mac song.
- The comic miniseries has Holly Hobbie-esque girls in the first issue.
P.C. Pinkerton: In the episode "Slipper", when P.C. Pinkerton ands his family are trying to decide the name of their new puppy, Peter suggests that the puppy's name be "Skeletor".
Peppa Pig: In a Christmas Episode you can see, of all things, a picture of Suzumiya Haruhi.
Planet Sheen features the planet Zeenu.
Popeye:
- In Big Chief Ugh-Umugh-Ugh, Popeye quips to the chief "Hey, who made your bows? An amateur?". The way he says it makes it a reference to the popular radio show Major Bowes' Amateur Hour.
- Nix on Hypnotricks and She-Sick Sailors make references to Superman.
"Mary Pop-pop-Poppins is my hero! ~giggles~"
One episode of Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders opened with a bored fairy lamenting that her town was "boring" while her pet tried to talk her out of it. It was almost line-by-line taken from one of the best Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers episodes. Turns out that it was the same voice actress, and Jewel Riders used most of the same writers and staff as Galaxy Rangers!
Pucca has a sequence during a costume party where the band dresses up like Devo.
Rainbow Brite: The wizard in episode 11 resembles Mickey from Fantasia.
Razzberry Jazzberry Jam: Cesar and Nestor’s names are a clear reference to The Mambo Kings.
The Real Ghostbusters:
- One episode had a wangsty villain whose sidekick/best friend was named DiTillio, after one of episode writer J. Michael Straczynski's former colleagues from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983).
- Peter Venkman is a fan of The Bob Newhart Show. Doubles as an Actor Allusion: his voice actor, Lorenzo Music, was Newhart's executive producer.
- In "Lost and Foundry," Ray asks what all the possessed objects have in common, to which Venkman responds, "Is it bigger than a breadbox?"
- "Adventures in Slime and Space" has shout-out after shout-out, with references to 2001: A Space Odyssey and King Kong.
ReBoot runs on this trope, so much so that the Other Wiki's episode guide has a column devoted to listing them all. Some of the most notable ones include The Prisoner (which got an episode to parody it) and The X-Files, in the form of minor characters Fax Modem and Data Nully (voiced by Gillian Anderson herself, no less). Other shout-outs include Mortal Kombat, Evil Dead, Braveheart, Pokémon (and anime in general), James Bond, Star Wars, The Last Starfighter, and Star Trek.
In the Rocket Monkeys episode "Trick or Trixie", Gus is watching his pet space squid Inky make paintings on the wall out of ink. When Wally asks it to paint for him it shoots ink in his face that results in him looking like Gene Simmons, complete with hanging tongue.
Rocky and Bullwinkle has this shout out to Burma Shave:
Do not go back
Go on instead
Your friend the moose
Is just ahead
Boris Shave
Shelldon:
- In "Alien Encounter," the musical sound coming from the U.F.O. (unidentified floating object, and clearly actually a human fishing vessel), while not the same, is clearly intended to evoke the tune from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
- In the same story, a black crab wearing sunglasses neuralyzes two police officers before absconding with the "U.F.O."
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Light Hope, the AI that assists Adora as She-Ra, attempts to give her a pat on the shoulder while saying "There, there". It fails, as she is intangible, but it's the thought that counts.
Solar Opposites: Yumyulack's name is likely a reference to the name of the Coneheads' home planet of Remulak.
Soupe Opéra: After it's created, a rabbit checks its pocket watch and runs away.
One episode of Storm Hawks had two characters who were a Shout-Out to Statler and Waldorf.
One of the episodes of Strawberry Shortcake is called "Angel Cake in the Outfield," which is referential of the film Angels in the Outfield.
The 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series has some of these:
- When stranded on an alien planet and looking for transport, the turtles find Captain Ersatzes of Han and Chewie. They conclude, "We can do better."
- In the previous episode, Michaelangelo says, "Not today, Chung Lee." A triple entendre in that he references not only Wang Chung and Bruce Lee, but Chun Li.
- In a fight, Donatello realizes, "A bo staff? And a bunch of guys who all look the same? Time to try one of my favorite movie stunts!" He spins around his staff Ã la Burly Brawl, but it doesn't work. Raphael (I think) reminds Donny that "This ain't the movies."
- One episode has Donatello find wayward computer data in the systems of a Texas paper factory — likely a Shout-Out to Heroes, where The Company uses a paper factory in Texas as a front. Makes you wonder what other kind of data he'd find there if he looked...
- The episode "Reality Check" takes place In a World… where the Turtles are super-powered heroes. The "Shell of Justice" is a shout-out to the Hall of Justice from Super Friends, and "Shelletron-1000" probably references the Autobots computer in Transformers: Generation 1, Teletron-1. An early episode has similar shout-outs, where Mikey's fantasies of the Turtles as superheroes get mocked as "the Ninja-stice League", "the Shelltastic Four", and "the Legion of Sewer-Heroes".
- In one episode, Mikey meets a superhero named Green Mantle. His civilian name is even "Al Gordon" after Hal Jordan.
- The episode where Donatello meets an artist named Kirby and traveled with him to a world with people living in a city at the end of a rainbow bridge protected by warriors with godlike powers and cosmic technology. This episode's name was "The King"
- In the Battle Nexus Tournament Mikey faces Kluh from the dimension "Levram". His father is Ammag.
On the subject of the Ninja Turtles, the old cartoon tended to have the Turtles (usually Raphael) use a reference to The Wizard of Oz in conversation.
A Thousand and One... Americas: The series' name is inspired by that of The Thousand and One Nights.
ToddWorld:
- There's a beetle named Twingo who speaks using The Beatles references and seems to have the power to make others speak this way too when talking to him.
  Twingo: Help. I need somebody to help me cross this stream. It's so wide and vast.
  Pickle: We can work it out. Climb into my hand. I'll help you across.
  Twingo: You've really got to hold on to me. ... I got over it with a little bit of help from my friend.
- In "Super Sophie," the scene changer with the wing logo that represents superhero identity is displayed in a similar way and with a similar musical theme as the bat logo seen in Batman.
T.U.F.F. Puppy: I know it was you Fredo!
In an episode of the Turbo Fast cartoon for Netflix, White Shadow, and Skidmark stay back in Turbo Town so they can watch a Gossip Girl parody titled "Gossip Snail" and are egarly awaiting the reveal of the titular Gossip Snail in question.
Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) has a number as well:
- In the Cold Open for "Venom" we get a very Looney Tunes-esque recapping of Spidey's adventures with the robots of the Marvel Universe.
- Peter tells Osborn that maybe Spider-Man sits close to him in Spanish class. Cue to Spidey singing "Donde esta la biblioteca" from Community.
- In "For Your Eye Only", there is a James Bond riff involving Spidey in a tuxedo on a snowboard.
  - Fury's magic number is "007" and the "Doctor Octopussy" title card at the end of the episode.
- Spider-Man falls into the trash compactor of the SHIELD Helicarrier.
  Spider-Man: What a wonderful smell I've discovered!
- And Spider-Man mutters sarcastically to himself in the air vents, à la Die Hard
- The use of the Scare Chord during "Snow Day" seemed awfully familiar...
- In "Spidah-Man" , the city of Boston provides Spidey with a gadget-filled cave, an English butler, a Spider-Mobile, and even an eager Kid Sidekick. Three guesses as to who these Shout Outs are aimed at.
- "The itsy-Bitsy Spider-Man" has J Jonah Jameson airing an interview in response to accusations of the Bugle not being "fair and balanced" about Spider-Man. This references the tagline of Fox News.
- In "Guardians of the Galaxy", Spider-Man quotes Daffy Duck's Robin Hood short as Rocket Raccoon tries to evade enemy lasers.
  - The same episode has a cutaway gag parodying the training sequence from The Empire Strikes Back, with Nova and Rocket Raccoon standing in for Luke Skywalker and Yoda.
- In "Game Over" Spidey, Cap and Wolverine face off against LMD Doppelgangers of themselves, when they are about to square off the "Versus" image is a lot like Capcom vs.; the doubles are even a lighter shade of Palette Swap.
- From "Ultimate Deadpool":
  Deadpool: You can't handle the truth!
- In "Awesome" Spidey steals the Awesome Android from a SHIELD lab to pass off as his science fair invention. Among the items he passed on stealing are the Ultimate Nullifier ("too tiny"), the Cosmic Cube ("too bright"), and Howard the Duck ("too weird!").
- The "Spider-Ham" segment of the "Spider-Verse" story arc:
  - The fight between the two Spideys and the Goblin is one long homage to Looney Tunes.
  - When Goblin tries to get a DNA sample from Spider-Ham, Peter Porker declares "Not by the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin!" The Goblin plucks said hairs and replies "That'll do, pig. That'll do."
  - As Spider-Man catapults himself back to the wormhole, he passes some taking crows. "Did you just see a Spider-Monkey fly?" "Well, now I've seen everything!"
2 Stupid Dogs once had a really weird episode where they were trained in using cartoon-violence. When they were asked to show some, very first thing they thought was to imitate The Little Mermaid (1989). Afterward, they imitate Beany and Cecil and Ren and Stimpy.
Wallykazam:
- "How to Bathe Your Dragon" is referential of How to Train Your Dragon.
- One of the characters owns a doll that looks a lot like Totoro.
- The Bathmobile from the episode by the same name is obvious reference to the Batmobile from the Batman franchise, particularly when Wally calls out "To the bathmobile!"
What About Mimi?: The two bully characters were called Brock and Buddy Wickersham.
W.I.T.C.H.:
- In the second intro Will owns Kermit the Frog merchandise and her room's wallpaper is of the Hoenn starters.
- In episode 1 Cornelia mocks Taranee's star-covered Mary Janes by asking if she's going to Oz.
- In episode 2 Hay Lin references George of the Jungle.
Work It Out Wombats!:
- The episode title of "Measure for Measure" a reference to the William Shakespeare play, Measure for Measure.
- The sliding bike stop Zadie does in "The Mighty Zeke" is a reference to AKIRA.
- "Summerweenie Halloweenie": The concept of a Halloween in summer is a reference to the Gravity Falls episode "Summerween." In fact, the wombats even carve out jack-o-melons, exactly like in Gravity Falls.

Shout Out / Western Animation

Alternative Title(s): Shout Out Western Animation

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Alternative Title(s): Shout Out Western Animation

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