Highborn/Shout-Out

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I'd like to make a Jimmy Hoffa joke, but I think most of the people playing this game are kids who are getting tired of running to Google every other line to figure out what we're talking about. —Floyd the Arch-Lich shows us how to lampshade, break the fourth wall, and make another Shout-Out all in one.

Highborn has so many shout-outs, they earned their own page!

• There is a ridiculously long one to Gilmore Girls in the Sorceresses encyclopedia entry. See Overly Long Gag on the main page.
• Icky's background in his encyclopedia entry is an homage to Alan Moore's Swamp Thing work.
• Trillian is a shout-out to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - her journal claims that "Trillian wasn't always the Rogue with the Heart of Gold." Heart of Gold is the name of the ship in Hitchhiker's Guide with the infinite improbability drive.
• The tutorial's description contains a shout-out to Portal, as stated on the main page under The Cake Is a Lie. There is an even longer one in Chapter 3; see Whole-Plot Reference on the main page.
• One imp in the tutorial claims he passed up a lead role in an Old Spice commercial for this game.
• After you kill an imp in the tutorial, another one comes out and says a famous line from The Princess Bride before attacking you: "My Name Is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die!"
• "I tried to think of a really funny Dune reference regarding the worm, but I couldn't."
• Archie claims that Trillian got her daggers enchanted before a raid in World of Warcraft.
• At one point in chapter 1, when looking for Enzo, Archie claims that Enzo wears too much Brut cologne.
• In one Chapter 1 mission, Foglio assumes that a villager is a farmer, and the villager replies that he's actually a junior accounts executive for Sterling Cooper.
• The dragon in the Chapter 1 mission "Time for Council" compares the tower to a Pez dispenser, popping out wizards.
• The journal entry for both the Keep and the Wizard Tower have references to related Dungeons and Dragons modules. “B2: Keep on the Borderlands” and “C2: Ghost Tower of Inverness"
• "...and a squadron of flying things that escaped from the latest Da Vinci Code movie."
• The dragon in the "Time for Council" mission in Chapter 1:

Dragon: Have a little fire, scarecrow! I love the smell of dragon fire in the morning. It smells like... VICTORY! Enzo: Okay, make up your mind. Pick one movie reference and stick to it.

• Enzo threatens to "whoop" the dragon "back to the Atari 2600".
• The name Foglio is a reference to Phil Foglio of Studio Foglio fame.
• Foglio based the Flyers on some of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings.
• With the way he speaks, Cabus appears to be channeling Foghorn Leghorn, going so far as to even use some of Foghorn's lines. Looking deeper, Cabus even uses some of Elrod the Albino's lines from the print comic Cerebus the Aardvark where Elrod is a Affectionate Parody of both Elric and Foghorn Leghorn.
• Two imps in one of the chapter 1 missions are named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
• Some specters threaten to "Feast on your soul!" Enzo comments that they should hide his James Brown records.
• In one of the later Chapter 1 missions, there are two old men named Statler and Waldorf.
• One to The Beatles in chapter 1:

Enzo: Okay, dude, but how do we get to the island? There's no boat and my yellow submarine is infested with Beatles.

• When Enzo first meets the Wraith Lord, he claims that the Wraith Lord should be trying to defeat Steve Rogers. This is a reference to Captain America (comics) - Steve Rogers is Captain America's real name, and Enzo is saying that the Wraith Lord looks like Red Skull, the main Captain America (comics) villain.
  • Enzo later wonders in Chapter 2 if anyone got that joke.
    • Monty the Dragon did.
• Archie evidently likes Taylor Swift, since he supposedly played her CDs full blast after Chapter 1's end.
• The festivities after Chapter 1 apparently involved lots of Diet Dr. Pepper.
  • And if Diet Dr. Pepper is the Highborn's beverage of choice, then Diet Mountain Dew is one that they dislike (or at least, Enzo dislikes.)
• According to Archie, the Highborn sing Village People's "In the Navy" when sailing.
• During Chapter 2, Cabus retools the smithies to produce Twilight action figures, because his girlfriend Lola loves Twilight. The heroes are distraught.
• Lola is a reference to Barry Manilow's song "Copacabana" and The Kinks' song "Lola". The mission she appears in is even called "At the Lococabana".
  • Archie even Lampshades this, singing "Copacabana" and blaming Cabus for getting the Barry Manilow song stuck in his head.
• Trillian exclaims once that "Jeff Goldblum was right!"
• One of the Highborn (Archie? Enzo?) somehow wound up as a backup dancer in a Lady Gaga video.
• Monty the dragon hid a teleporter to stop "the Stargate people" from claiming copyright infringement. He also claims that they stole the graphic from the SNES game Young Merlin.
• When some archers keep popping out and shouting "Die, defilers!", Enzo tells them it won't start trending on Twitter no matter how many times they do it.
• 60 Minutes and Wikipedia are mentioned in Monty's encyclopedia entry in chapter 2.
• The Wraith Lord, when defeated in the second chapter, quotes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz's "What a world!", saying it's the only final line he can think of.
• Archie claims he wants to do a reenactment of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• The Wraith Lord bought the Frobozz Inter-Dimensional Portal Controller on EBay.
• Floyd the Arch-Lich used to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
• Game of Thrones is mentioned a couple times in chapter 3. Floyd is apparently a fan.
• A monk in the first mission of chapter 3 thinks that Floyd was setting him up for a Star Trek joke. Floyd was actually doing a Terminator reference.
• The world of Highborn has a television show called Highborn Idol. Archie is going to be a judge.
  • They also have a show called Dancing With the Leprechauns.
• Some dwarves, at one point, appear to be playing some sort of Dungeons and Dragons game.
• "After all this time, we finally know who let the dogs out" - a reference to the Baha Men's song "Who Let The Dogs Out".
• The Massive Doors' journal entry mentions The Daily Show.
• When Floyd first mind-controls a Dire Wolf, he says "Sit, Ubu, sit! Good dog." This was the closing tag of every Ubu Productions show.
• Icky owned a Commodore 64 computer when he was a kid.
• Floyd accuses Icky of being a geek, then proceeds to mention Thor and The Avengers.
• One mission in Chapter 3 is a shoutout/parody to the escape from the Death Star in Star Wars a New Hope.
• Floyd threatens to post a picture of two of the Worgons at a Justin Bieber concert on Facebook.
• The Worgon, Connor, broke his iPod.  A man in a nearby village fixed it.
• A boat captain, ferrying around the Worgons, is named Captain Stubing, a reference to The Love Boat.
• Quidditch is a sport in the Highborn world.
• One monk is named Kwai Chang Caine after the protagonist of Kung Fu.   He quotes Sun Tzu.
• Cabus mentions Sesame Street when doing some counting.
• Highborn Gold Vault security guards are so dim, they can't tell a staff badge from a Pokémon card.
• Floyd threatens to "go all Odysseus" on MadOS, since she's got one eye like the cyclops.
• A monk compares himself to Milk Bones when discussing his fears of being eaten by Dire Wolves.
• Foozle's journal entry of how he was "discovered" is a Highborn parody of Justin Bieber's rise to fame: Foozle auditioned for a signing contest, his father uploaded a video of it to "MyTube, it was discovered by Archie, who arragned for Foozle to meet with Enzo, who signed Foozle to his record label. Foozle's songs are parodies of Bieber's songs as well.
  • The song Foozle sang was "Mandy" by Barry Manilow.
  • Foozle formed a band with "Barbie's Boyfriend, Wolverine, LeBron, and The Jackal" to form a band called "Small Town Lazy". The band was later broken up by Yoko Ono.
  • The full entry is explained: The names of the band members in Big Time Rush are Kendall, Logan, James, and Carlos. Each member in Foozle's band has a connection to one of those names. Barbie's Boyfriend is a Ken doll (Ken Doll.... Kendall), Wolverine's real name is Logan, LeBron's last name is James (the writer was considering going with Bond James Bond instead), and "Carlos The Jackal" is an international terrorist and assasin who got his name from the movie The Jackal.
• Because Jessica got a scholarship to Acme Looniversity, we can assume that somehow, the Highborn world has some overlap with the Tiny Toon Adventures world.
• The Wraith Lord collects many things, including:
  • An autographed picture of Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus.
  • A boxed set of The Guild.
  • A Glory Gilmore action figure - Glory Gilmore is from a book called One Con Glory by Sarah Kuhn; it isn't another Gilmore Girls reference!
  • Twilight merchandise. He apparently even has a life-size Edward and Bella in his bathroom.
  • Wicked merchandise.|
  • My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic merchandise.
  • Trillian hopes that he has a Hello Kitty backpack somewhere in his collection for her to take, but he doesn't.

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