Megas XLR/Shout-Out

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Megas XLR is a show that proudly wears its giant robot heritage on its chassis, even as it's tearing it to shreds. So it's no surprise it's filled with references to the media it lovingly eviscerates.

Anime

  • The Glorft mothership transforms SDF-1-style in the first season finale.
  • Speaking of the SDF-1, Coop fires the Reflex Cannon from Megas' chest in Viva Los Megas.
  • There is a mannequin in episode 11 that looks exactly like one that appears in Macross: The Movie.
  • The S-Force are Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (more specifically, to the Gatchaman English dub Battle Of The Planets, hence why the small pilot speaks in clicks), with Super Sentai combining animal robots.
  • And the Ultra Chicks in the episode of the same name are clearly the Sailor Moon girls, complete with ridiculously long Transformation Sequences. And an additional special ability to boot!
  • Megas has the original Wave Motion Gun, complete with the Yamato's bow in its chest.
  • In the opening credits, Megas dives onto something sporting a Gundam's crest.
  • Captain Warlock is so obviously not based off of Captain Harlock.
  • A planet of sentient robots feature lookalikes of Mazinger Z and Reideen.
  • Mazinger also gets a shout-out when Coop hits the "This Better Then" button - it launches a Rocket Punch with the twist that twin axe-blades sprout out of the side of the robot's fist after launch. That's Mazinger Z's trademark "Iron Cutter" attack.
  • In addition to Star Trek, the series finale is also a giant Shout-Out to Chars Counterattack, with Evil Coop's Mecha #14 bearing a strong resemblance to Sazabi with an army of Zaku lookalikes. For more Gundam goodness, Evil Kiva's mecha has back extensions reminiscent of the V2 Gundam's Wings of Light emitters.
  • In "Universal Remote", when Coop declares he'll just "hit him with something bigger," Megas folds out an arsenal that looks just like a Destroid Monster, right down the the quad shoulder cannons.
  • Shortly afterward, Coop turns the Megas' heater up to "DANG", which causes the robot to link its arms together at the wrists and retract both hands to create a flamethrower - just like Combattler V used to do.
  • During Coop's fight with S-Force, Megas sends their mecha flying with a guitar.


Transformers

  • Megas' original head unit looked almost exactly like Soundwave's.
  • It's seen with the Autobot Matrix of Leadership in its chest -- which Coop promptly fills with processed cheese. The cheese, incidentally, comes to life.
  • The ice planet episode had an army of robots resembling green-colored Shockwaves, while their leader looked like Onslaught, leader of the Combaticon unit.
  • The villain Skalgar looks like a miniature Unicron.
  • Speaking of Unicron, how about the planet-sized monster from "TV Dinner"?
  • A yellow Volkswagen Beetle appears in practically every episode, sometimes TWICE in the same episode - usually getting smashed somehow.
  • The control unit of Mecha-Megas, despite being silver instead of black, is otherwise an obvious nod to Nemesis Prime.
  • The alien planet from "Coop D'Etat", which features Peter Cullen and Frank Welker as guest voices, bears a striking resemblance to Cybertron.


Kaiju movies

  • You could make a drinking game out of the Godzilla shout outs in "Breakout".
  • The movie monster Bugra shrieks like Mothra and vaguely resembles Megalon.
  • The Glorft send a silver Megas clone to attack the city. It makes a roar like Mecha Godzilla. It's referred to as Mecha-Megas. Because Coop is dumb. In the end credits, Megas is walking out into the sea. Several Godzilla movies end with Godzilla doing this.


Video Games

  • Episode 5 had the gang visit a ringworld with hostile, ancient life forms living on it. Sounds an awful lot like Halo, doesn't it?
  • Most of Megas' controls are rewired video game controllers. The "manual control" backup is Dance Dance Revolution. It also involves a pair of Power Gloves.
  • "Breakout" showcases expies of many video game consoles, including but not limited to: NES, Sega Genesis, Sony Playstation, and Nintendo Gamecube. Also, the title of the episode is a reference to an old arcade game of the same name.
  • At the end of "Bad Guy", the leader of S-Force is playing Rampage.
  • At the gaming convention in Vegas, Goat plays a knockoff of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball.
  • Megas even throws a Hadouken at the invincible R.E.G.I.S. mk. V.


And the rest

Magnanimous: Send in everyone.
Drone: Which one?
Magnanimous: EVEEEERYONE!

  • In "Ultra Chicks" Jamie was imagined to be like Ming The Merciless from Flash Gordon.
  • Evil Future Coop's army appears to travel through time via Stargate.
  • Season 2 episode 3 had Coop flipping through channels on his monitor, and it briefly flashes Al's Toy Barn with a man in a chicken suit on the ad.
  • Lets not forget the Sonic and Mario Brothers look-a-like parade floats from the Thanksgiving episode.
  • And Jamie dressed as the Joker with two Harley Quinn assistants.
  • "BEST. THANKSGIVING. EVER."
  • The first season finale features three separate shout-outs to The Blues Brothers: the Facing the Bullets One-Liner; and a car chase through the Glorft mothership set to a blues-rock tune, complete with a dispatcher saying the line "Use of unnecessary force in capturing the Earthers has been approved."; and finally "This place has everything..."
  • T-Bot is the daringest, the uncaringest, the most belt-wearingest Mr. T parody in all of fiction! Specifically, to Clubber Lang in Rocky III.
  • In the pilot, Coop disintegrates a shed using a digitizer weapon like Lord Dread's robot soldiers have in Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
  • One episode is basically an episode of The Prisoner. But with robots. Megas is Number 12.
  • The two part finale "Rearview Mirror, Mirror" is basically the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror" in terms of title and premise.
  • The secondary command bridge is a shout-out to the battle bridge of the Enterprise-D.
  • And another classic Star Trek reference:

Magnanimous: It's about hurting you, and I wish to go on hurting you.

  • In addition to the Gatchaman, Voltron, and sentai homages that fly left and right in "Bad Guy", Jax's unintelligible alien speech noises are possibly a nod to Copper Kid from Silverhawks.
  • One of the ending gags with the thrash pickup community service was taken from an episode of MTV's Downtown.
  • If you keep an eye out, quite a few people from Downtown make an appearance, including the guy who ran the comic shop, and the nerd Wedge. You know, the one who was missing the Laid figure.
  • Coop's main rival in the hot dog eating contest is an Expy of real-life world eating champ Kobayashi Takeru.
  • The alien huntress Darklos from "DMV" seems to be an homage to Predator, only, you know, a hot alien chick and lacking the face-pussy.
  • Jamie" "Note to self: when crazy space chicks ask if you're an ace robot pilot, YOU SAY NO!!
  • The head and torso of RECR look an awful lot like the Martian ships from War of the Worlds.
  • Megas has buttons for Cruise Control, "Cruise Out-Of-Control", "Cruisin' USA", and "Kelly Crews".
  • "All I ever wanted was a Mega Slush. Just one Mega Slush. But you wouldn't give it to me."
  • The premise and name of the episode "Terminate Her" both reference Terminator.
  • In episode 12 Jamie has an imagine spot where he's Emperor and Coop says the line "You are the Duke. A! Number 1!"
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