Mythology Gag/Western Animation

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Examples of Mythology Gags in Western Animation include:

Subpages

• Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Justice League

• An entire page of Superman allusions on the DCAU wiki
• In the first story arc, Superman suggests forming a team of heroes. The Flash responds, "What, you mean like a bunch of...Superfriends?"
• The story arc is titled "Secret Origins," it self referencing the titled of the first Super Friends episode (Secret Origin's of the Super Friends).
• In "The Great Brain Robbery", Flash (Michael Rosenbaum) and Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) switch bodies, but not voices -- allowing Michael to play his Smallville role as Lex.
  • Also, Lex takes advantage of the situation to pull off Flash's cowl and discover his secret identity but is thwarted when he has "no idea who this is." In one Silver Age story, Heat Wave managed to unmask (Barry Allen) Flash and had much the same reaction.
• A political pundit cites a book titled The Innocent Seduced as a source proving the link between the Justice League and juvenile delinquency. This references Seduction of the Innocent, the book which made many of the same claims and sparked the creation of the Comics Code Authority. This pundit, by the way, is G. Gordon Godfrey, who, was a full-on agent of Darkseid in Jack Kirby's New Gods series (better known as "Glorious Godfrey").
• Snapper Carr, sidekick/teen mascot of the Justice League in the comics, gets screen time as a reporter.
• The episode "Legends". That's all that needs to be said (although even those savvy to the comics may not have caught the reference to Roy Thomas in the form of "Roy Thompson").
• Also, "The Savage Time". The writers took the opportunity to cram as much WWII comics nostalgia into the three-parter as humanly possible.
  • Similarly, in another time-travel episode, John Stewart briefly turned into Hal Jordan as the timeline fluctuated.
  • There's even a Marvel Mythology Gag in there, as Superman smashes a plane and is covered with burning fuel, briefly resembling the WWII hero the Human Torch (not to be confused with the later model by that name)
  • It starts even before the setting shifts to World War II. The alternate-timeline Batman refers to the group of freedom fighters he started in the absence of the Justice League as "orphans and outsiders." In the 1980s, Batman left the Justice League to found a new team called the Outsiders. Naturally the background characters include cameos by the B:TAS Robins and Batgirl, and even a young Cassandra Cain.
• Likewise, the episode "Ultimatum" features both the Hanna-Barbera Superfriends characters, and a homage to the Keith Giffen-era Justice League of America via the character of Maxwell Lord.
• "A Better World" started out on paper as an episode featuring the Crime Syndicate of America, an Evil Counterpart Alternate Universe version of the Justice League.
• In the "Justice Lords" storyline, one fight scene includes the destruction of "Bernie's" newsstand. (Er, not really -- it was a gust of wind during a storm in "Paradise Lost".)
• The Royal Flush Gang (first incarnation) are voiced by the actors who voice the main characters in Teen Titans.
  • Another Teen Titans reference in "Patriot Act," when Green Arrow calls for backup versus the Shaggy Man...and his ex-sideki-- err, ex-partner, Speedy shows up (completing the Seven Soldiers homage). Same voice actor, look, and general attitude as his Teen Titans counterpart.
• "Patriot Act" also has a Nazi scientist paraphrase the Golden Age descriptions of Superman's abilities when hyping up his Captain Nazi project. The fact this version of said project uses Super Serum rather than genetic alteration can be taken as another nod to Marvel.
• Also in "Patriot Act". The heroes in the parade and the two backups are the present day versions of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, a World War 2 era team consisting of the Star-Spangled Kid, Stripesy, Green Arrow, Speedy, the Crimson Avenger, the Shining Knight, and Vigilante.
• In a nod to her invisible plane (from which much hilarity has been mined over the years) from The Golden Age of Comic Books, when Wonder Woman's flying a Javelin, she frequently has it cloaked.
• Linda Park, Flash's wife in the comics continuity, is featured in the Day in The Limelight episode "Flash and Substance" as a fangirl busy Getting Crap Past the Radar.
• Speaking of "Flash and Substance", the episode also featured the Flash Museum, featuring more Flash Mythology Gag moments than thought humanly possible.
• One more from "Flash and Substance" -- Mark Hamill, who regularly plays The Joker in the DCAU shows, plays one of The Flash's foes, The Trickster. Essentially, he's reprising his role from |The Flash live action TV show.
• In "Secret Society", the scene of the League and the Society charging towards each other is a reference to the opening of Challenge of the Superfriends. Earlier, Shade jokingly refers to Grodd's Society as the "Legion of Doom".
• Flash's surreal Dream Sequence in "The Brave and the Bold" when hit by Grodd's Mind Control ray features him growing grotesquely overweight and turning into a puppet -- both things featured prominently on ridiculous old Silver Age comic covers.
• Supergirl's villainous clone is modeled after one of Supergirl's Parallel Universe counterparts, Power Girl, including her... "maturity."
• In "To Another Shore," when Wonder Woman needs to switch from civilian clothes to her costume, she performs the spinning "transformation" sequence from the Lynda Carter TV series, complete with lightshow.
• In "Eclipsed," Flash suggests to (John Stewart) Green Lantern that they go on a road trip "looking for America," which (Hal Jordan) Green Lantern once did with Green Arrow.

Legion of Super-Heroes

• In the Legion of Super-Heroes episode "Phantoms", Brainiac 5 refers to historical data on Superman's origin being lost in "the great crisis". This could be a reference to any number of things in the comics, but most likely, Crisis on Infinite Earths.
  • This is mentioned again by Brainiac 5 in "Message in a Bottle" as an excuse for not knowing who was "The Terror" that shrunk Kandor and put it in a bottle. This references how in The Silver Age of Comic Books it was Brainiac, but Post-Crisis it was a wizard named Tolos. (In this case, he's lying, badly, as it's very obviously Brainiac.)
• "In the Beginning" showcases the original Legion founders and gives us a chance in Flash Back to see key team members in their "Disco Duds" (a.k.a. their classic Silver Age costumes plus epic The Seventies styling)
• In "Phantoms," Drax's pets are modified giant versions of Bizarro Krypto.
• In "Brain Drain," deranged, babbling Brainiac 5 either wants his hot cocoa or his comics-pet-space-monkey Koko.
• He also starts listing off the umpteen colors of Silver Age Kryptonite.
• The mining robots on Zuun are duplicates of the Wayne/Lex robot.
• When Ultra Boy (not going by that name) makes his only appearance in "Champions," Phantom Girl calls him cute. The two are an item in the comics.
• A Kandorian dog and cat getting superpowers? Hello, Krypto the Superdog and Streaky.
• A Superman Robot in the Fortress of Solitude has its human shell heavily damaged, making it resemble the villain Cyborg Superman.
• Dream Girl is said to have been the con artist "Madame Mysterious" in Backstory; apparently a nod to her former comics alias Miss Terious.

Transformers

• In the Transformers Film Series:
  • Bumblebee first appears next to a yellow Volkswagon Beetle, his G1 altmode.
  • Optimus Prime says "One shall stand, one shall fall", lifted from similar circumstances in the 1986 animated movie.
    • In fact several of Prime's catch phrases from the G1 series were incorporated, also including "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."
  • A soundclip from Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds plays on Bumblebee's radio -- Welles provided the original voice of Unicron.
  • Optimus borrows the main gimmick of Transformers Armada for his battle against The Fallen.
  • Megatron goes "Yessss." twice in Revenge of the Fallen.
• In Beast Wars and Beast Machines:
  • Rattrap at one point asks "Who died and made you Prime", a reference to the animated movie in which Optimus Prime dies and Hot Rod becomes Rodimus Prime.
  • Rattrap also mentions his "great aunt Arcee", the G1 pink chick.
  • The conversation about the Ark has a sly reference to changing toy technology:

Rattrap: Aw, man! This ship wasn't built, it was poured! Optimus Primal: Die-cast construction. It's a lost art.

• • The Maximals' mantra "I am transformed" is the same as one occasionally used by the Autobot Headmasters in Transformers Headmasters.
  • When Primal is carrying the original Optimus's spark, there's hardly a line he says that Prime didn't say first in G-1.
  • In another episode, when Rattrap is flying on Optimus' back, he complains that if he wanted to fly he'd have chosen a bat as an altmode. Optimus Primal's very first toy transformed into a bat.
• Now-defunct Dreamwave Productions's comic run had a heavily damaged or defeated Megatron say "I still function..." at least three times.
• In Transformers Animated:
  • The series actually begins with footage from the original 80s show (presented in the episode as history tapes)
  • In the first episode, when the Autobots are first attacked, Bumblebee says Rattrap's Catch Phrase "We're all gonna die, aren't we?"
  • He later once called Optimus "Big Bot", like Cheetor did for Primal.
  • When Bumblebee notes how weird it is that Prowl's vehicle form is a motorcycle without a rider, he suddenly makes a hologram rider like the one from the live-action movie (AKA Mustache Man).
  • The new version of Soundwave has eyes that change between the yellow of the original toy to the red of the G1 cartoon, and was first seen in a box resembling his G1 alt mode, and at one point he develops a shoulder cannon, and the fragment of him left at the end is based on the MP3 player Soundwave.
  • There's a double gag in the second season's "Garbage In, Garbage Out" with "I am Wreck-Gar! I dare to be stupid!": it referenced not only Wreck-Gar's Animated voice actor, Weird Al (who sang "Dare To Be Stupid"), but also the appearance of the original Wreck-Gar in the 80s animated movie (where the same song was played). In the same episode, Wreck-Gar throws the motorcycle altmode of his G1 namesake at Bumblebee. And, yet again in the same episode, he mistakes one of Lugnut's weapons for "the universal greeting", reaching for it as he says "Bah weep graaagnah wheep ni ni bong", another reference to his introduction in the G1 movie. At this point, it might be fair to just call the entire character a giant mythology gag.
  • In the same episode, Ratchet gives a ride to a married couple named Spike and Carly, who greatly resemble the late G1/Headmasters characters of the same names. They originally appeared in the background of the first episode, along with their son Daniel who's made a few recurrences himself.
  • Sari has a robot dog named Sparkplug, evidently named after the G1 character (Spike's father). A construction worker who strongly resembles him appears in a few episodes.
  • For Halloween, Sari dresses up as G1 Optimus Prime. Well, okay, she dressed up as Animated Optimus, and ended up looking exactly like G1 Prime.
  • When Megatron is trying to create a new body, he says he needs a substance called 'Destronium'; this is probably a reference to the Japanese G1 continuity, in which the Decepticons were called Destrons (and paralleling Cybertronium, as the Autobots were called Cybertrons in Japanese).
  • Meltdown's organic monsters are based on Decepticon Pretenders from Transformers Super God Masterforce
  • When the Constructicons are brought to life, they appear in the vicinity of a crane that resembles the alt mode of Hook, a G1 Constructicon. This is, of course, a whole season after they pulled a fast one by earlier showing a group of automated construction vehicles/mining equipment in G1 Constructicon colors, which are never seen again.
    • Though Mixmaster and Scrapper do eventually get G1-style paint jobs after officially becoming Decepticons.
  • In the last episode of the first season, the Autobots' ship is partially buried in a volcano, similar to what happened to the Ark at the start of G1.
  • Swindle mentions in passing that he has had dealings with the Vok. The Vok were incredibly powerful aliens that were the secondary antagonists in Beast Wars. Later, in the Season Three episode 'Decepticon Air', he mentions having dealt with the Quintessons, from the original movie and later seasons of the G1 cartoon.
  • And then there's a human villain called Headmaster, with a suit of Powered Armour that works in a very similar manner to the Headmaster suits from the aborted fourth series of Transformers Generation 1.
  • The Starscream clone briefly encountered by Prowl and Lockdown on the moon is brown-coloured in a manner reminiscent of the Starscream seen in Transformers Armada.
  • Starscream's clones (except the female one) all have color schemes copied from the other G1 Seekers -- characters who were essentially Palette Swaps of Starscream or became similar F-15 jets.

The Sycophant: Sunstorm The Coward: Skywarp The Liar: Ramjet The Egomaniac: Thundercracker The Female: Japanese Transformer Overlord (according to Word of God); also resembles Generation 2 Ramjet.

• • • The female clone's name is officially Slipstream, I believe.
  • Susan Blu, voice of the original Arcee is now voice director for Animated, and got to briefly reprise her role in a flashback.
  • The Decepticon team introduced in season three is named "Team Chaar", after the planet the Decepticons moved to after finally being expelled from Cybertron after The Movie in G1. (Aptly enough, the Autobot team that fights Team Chaar is headed by Rodimus Prime, who didn't exist until after the movie.) It's unknown if Animated has it's own planet Chaar, however.
  • The ending of Predacons Rising has Blackarachnia encountering a rat, a cheetah, a gorilla and a rhino. She responds to this with "gimme a break", which could be yet another reference: that exact phrase was used in Transformers Energon. Over. And over.
    • Speaking of that episode, Waspinator is seen pulling himself back together while commenting "Waspinator has planzzz...", both trademarks of the oft-exploded original Waspinator in Beast Wars. However, while the original did both these things in a cute or humorous manner, Animated made them seem a lot creepier.
  • In Human Error Part Two, Scrapper has a Dinobot pet, and named him Snarl. When Sari asks, Scrapper answers, "Well, I was going to name him Slag, but I think he took it as an insult." Probably a double callback, as the original character was named Slag, and this was both a curse in Cybertronian and, in the UK, a lesser-known word for "slut," meaning the toy was not sold there much and necessitating a name change.
  • And now as of "Decepticon Air," Ramjet (Liarscream) and Sunstorm (Sycoscream) have shiny new helmets courtesy of Swindle -- helmets that just so happen to match the heads of their G1 predecessors.
  • In "Endgame, Part 1", the Omega Clones resemble the Dark Guardians, the giant robots that the Quintessons used in Generation 1 to keep the ancestors of the Cybertronians in line. Fitting, seeing as how G1 Omega Supreme was a surviving Dark Guardian reprogrammed and made sentient as an Autobot.
• In Transformers Energon
  • The mysterious alien Alpha Q is based the G1 Quintessons, although he only has three faces (G1 Quintessons had five). In fact, in the comic, his full name is Alpha Quintesson.

Other Works

• In X-Men: Evolution, one episode features the theme song from the original X-Men animated show remixed as a sort of tropical poolside jazz piece.
  • Also, in the episode "Under Lock and Key", the five members of the original X-Men team from the '60s (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Angel, and Iceman) are sent on a mission together.
  • Wolverine's second costume was the same one he wears in the Ultimate continuity.
  • In one episode, Kitty is shown hugging a purple dragon toy before bed, referring to her friend/pet Lockheed in the comics
• Superman the Animated Series; where to begin...
  • "Mxyzpixilated" is extra-extraordinarily meta: Superman mispronounces Mr. Mxyzptlk's name exactly the way that the Superfriends production team decided to pronounce it. Mr. Mxyzptlk himself all but crosses the Fourth Wall, turning Jimmy into a turtle, making the Kents' cat flight-capable, and starring in his own private newspaper comic strip by "Siegel and Shuster," the creators of Superman.
  • "Little Big Head Man" shows Bizarro's created a model of a square planet, namely Htrae, Bizarro Earth from The Silver Age of Comic Books. Then Mr. Mxyzptlk's girlfriend Ms. Gsptlsnz summons up a real-life Action Comics issue advertising Mr. Mxyzptlk on the cover.
• Teen Titans, while not as mythos-heavy as the DCAU (being separate from it), has its share of Mythology Gags as well.
  • In "Apprentice", Slade forces Robin to become his apprentice, and then states that he'd eventually become like a father to him. Robin's response? "I already have a father," while the camera pans up to a group of bats flying away.
    • Music that sounds awfully like the B:TAS opening plays as well, iirc
    • The big fight scene for the episode takes place around a large neon sign, toppling an A and a Y, until the final wide angle shows what's left to read 'W_ _NE Enterprises'.
  • When a never-revealed mystery person takes up Robin's old Red X costume, Beast Boy speculates on who it could be--his board-o'-theories includes Jason Todd, an ex-Robin who'd similarly appropriated the identity Red Hood in the comics.
    • Another suspect is "Robin's Long-Lost Brother". Robin has an older brother who died along with his parents in Batman Forever.
  • In one episode they meet a magical kid from another dimension who is a huge fan of Robin. His name is Nosyarg Kcid. They decide to call him Larry instead.
    • Larry is of course an Expy of Bat-Mite, a similar Batman character now removed from comic book continuity...maybe.
  • In the episode where Mumbo captures the Titans and turns all but Beast Boy into animals, Starfire is turned into a cat. The original comic established that Starfire's people evolved from cats.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 likes to do this, particularly in regards to the older cartoon. Among the most prominent:
  • In the episode "Secret Origins" April O'Neil poses as a TV reporter to infiltrate a building, wearing a very familiar yellow jumpsuit; when she tries to "interview" the soldier supervising the blockade around the Utrom building (it's complicated), she explains that she's from "Channel 9 News--Channel 6 News". Later, once the smoke clears, Donatello says April would make a good reporter, to which she replied "In another lifetime, maybe." These are, of course, all references to the previous Ninja Turtles cartoon, where April was a reporter for Channel 6 News.
  • The van is kept in a warehouse on "the corner of Eastman and Laird"
  • Not to mention Turtles Forever, full stop!
  • In the same episode, as the alien Utroms escape the under-siege T.C.R.I. building, one makes a complaint, to which the other says "Oh, shut up, Krang."
  • A season four episode features anthropomorphic rhino Gennosuke, exploring NYC when he becomes taken with a muscular punk's outfit. One "shopping" trip later, he is seen wearing the outfit: a tight yellow wifebeater, cargo pants, and an ammo belt strapped across his gut--the outfit anthropomorphic rhino Rocksteady wore in the original TMNT series. To complete the look, Casey Jones slaps a helmet on him as he leads the rhino away.
  • Leatherhead's lair is taken from the turtles' second lair in the movie series.
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut actually has one for an early South Park short. The "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" musical is a reference to "Jesus vs. Santa", the second short the series was based on, where the boys asks this of Jesus and can't think up an answer.
  • An episode of the show had Tweek being afraid to put a carrot on a snowman's face because it might come alive. In a reference to the first short, "Jesus Vs. Frosty"...

Stan: Tweek, when that has that ever happened, except for that one time?

• • The other short, "Jesus vs. Santa", is the one the boys are working on in "A Very Crappy Christmas".
  • In the episode "The Passion of the Jew", when Stan asks for a refund over the phone, he says that he;ll get his money back like he did for Baseketball, a movie that Matt Stone and Trey Parker both starred in.
• In Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, there's a scene where Fred is going through his clothes while dressing... and comes across a bright orange ascot. "Nah", he decides. Animated versions of Fred haven't touched the ascot since the late 1990s.
  • The Movie of Scooby Doo was likewise loaded with them.
  • An episode of What's New, Scooby-Doo? has a flashback to young Velma's birthday party to explain why she is afraid of clowns. In the flashback, the whole gang is animated in a style very similar to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
  • Not to mention at least The Mystery Begins redoing the intro to Scooby Doo: Where Are You, and Scooby Doo and The Monster Of Mexico, being completely filled with references to the old show, including much of the soundtrack being redoings of the background music from that show.
    • The Halloween episode of What's New, Scooby-Doo? had shoutouts to everything from Scooby Doo and The Reluctant Werewolf to Hong Kong Phooey, and ends with what's most likely a reference to Scooby Doo And The Witch's Ghost.

Velma: An ancient ghost coming back after a hundred years to get revenge? Yeah right, who'd believe that?

• • Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase has the whole last section as a hurricane of references to the series, such as the outdated clothing, the monsters being fake, and obviously the returning monsters from the original series.
  • In Scooby Doo And The Legend Of The Vampire, the movie starts with the original opening ON A CRUISE SHIP, complete with a random flock of bats using the exact same sound effect as that original opening.
• The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Sax". "Tracey Ullman was entertaining America with songs, sketches, and crudely drawn filler material." That filler, of course, being the early Simpsons episodes.
  • In "Treehouse Of Horror XIII", Homer makes clones of himself. One of them resembles his old design from "The Tracey Ullman Show".
    • With the same voice.
      • And catchphrase (the 'Frosty Chocolate Milkshakes' line)..
        • Another episode has the family recreating their family photos, including one that says "Happy 1987." Bart, Homer, and Lisa look like their Tracy Ulman counterparts before shaking their heads and reverting back to normal.
  • In another episode, the family is watching FOX's latest round of animated programming. Homer comments that animated shows are great "cause they don't have to pay the actors squat!" Flanders then walks by, speaking with a different voice. At the time, the Simpsons' cast had been engaged in very bitter salary disputes with senior management.
  • As in many animated shows, the characters have frequently made reference to their unchanging wardrobes.
  • In one episode Homer says to Bart "where's your blue shirt?" and Bart responds "I don't have a blue shirt" referencing the blue shirt Bart tends to wear in knock off merchandise.
• In Code Lyoko Season 4, the large room in Sector 5 that houses the Skidbladnir is called "Garage Skid" by Odd. This is a reference to Garage Kids, a short film by the creators of the show that was a test pilot for the series.
• On SpongeBob SquarePants, Krabs refers to SpongeBob as, "Spongeboy, me Bob!" rather than "SpongeBob, me boy!" in the episode "Squeaky Boots". On a later episode, "Frankendoodle", the titular doodle is first named Doodleboy, then later is called DoodleBob. These are references to SpongeBob's original name, Spongeboy, which was changed for legal reasons.
• The Batman features a bunch of references to classic Batman comics.
  • The future-based episode "Artifacts" has a scene where an aged Batman steps out of his Batmobile to fight Mr. Freeze. Freeze greets him with the words: "The Dark Knight Returns!".
  • Alfred also resembles his counterpart from the story, being a lot older and needing to use a cane to walk around.
  • There's also a tank-like Batmobile ala TDKR.
  • In the same episode, Robin and Batgirl assume their present-day comic identities of Nightwing and Oracle respectively.
  • Ellen Yin seemed to be based off on Ellen Yindel from The Dark Knight Returns and is hinted in "Artifacts" to have replaced Gordon as Commissioner like Yindel did in TDKR.
  • In the same episode during some speculation, Robin and Batgirl are referred to respectively as Red Robin and Batwoman.
  • Mr. Freeze suffered a similar, though less severe, deterioration as his Batman: The Animated Series incarnation and hence has replaced his legs with robotic spider legs.
  • The Bat-Bot resembles the Bat-Knights from Kingdom Come.
  • The design for Commissioner Gordon is very reminiscent of how Tim Sale drew him in The Long Halloween.
  • The season one finale gives the Joker some very similar lines to those in The Killing Joke.
  • The Batman vs. Dracula was probably somewhat inspired by Batman and Dracula: Red Rain.
  • In the episode "Team Penguin", the other members of Cobblepot's Legion of Doom keep suggesting different names for the group. Ragdoll comes up with "Villains United", the title of the book that introduced the Secret Six.
• An episode of Batman: The Animated Series features one huge mythology gag. It's a bunch of kids telling their Rashomon Style stories about the Batman, one being 60's campy, one being Miller's Dark Knight, and at the crowning moment of funny they stumble upon a very feminine boy stroking a feather boa saying, "I love Batman, that rubber costume, the car that can drive up walls," and another kid remarks something along the lines of, "oh please give me a break Joel," an obvious reference to Joel Schumacher and his Batman movies.
  • And another one was all-but an homage to the 1960's "campy" Batman starring Adam West... who, appropriately, voiced himself as "The Gray Ghost" and his actor.
• Kim Possible alluded to how the show was going to end in the episode "Bad Boy", as Kim and Ron are watching their favorite prime-time soap, "Agony County", and complaining about the status of one couple. A few episodes later, "So The Drama" ended with Kim and Ron getting together, and was supposed to be the Grand Finale, until the producers decided to bring the show back.

Ron: Oh please, are they still teasing that Charity and Dannie are gonna get together? Kim: Like that's ever gonna happen. It would end the series.

• Hey Arnold!! features a few nods to Craig Bartlett's original Arnold comics. For example, the ending of the episode "24 Hours to Live" is based on the strip "Arnold Narrowly Avoids a Thrashing".
• The opening scene of one episode of Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders had a guest character lamenting how boring her place of residence was and how much she was hoping for something exciting to happen. The speech itself was almost a line-by-line re-creation from an episode of series creator Robert Mandell's previous show, Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers -- and Corrine Orr voiced the characters both times.
• In the Batman Beyond episode "Out of the Past", Ra's Al Ghul attempts to use the Lazarus Pit to restore Bruce's youth before putting his mind in his body. He mentions that he will take over Bruce' empire by claiming to be the long-lost son of Bruce and Talia, which is a reference to Batman: Son of the Demon where Bruce and Talia conceive a child (who, since the end of the series, was reintroduced to the comics as Damian Wayne).
  • "Heroes" had three superheroes using the name "the Terrific Trio", which was originally used in the campy 60's series, which was basically the Dynamic Duo, plus Batgirl.
• In the series finale of As Told by Ginger, she shows all of her friends the book she's written about her life. The picture of her on the book is the original character design.
• Danger Mouse: In "Penfold Transformed," Greenback dresses Stiletto in a Penfold costume to counter Dr. Crumhorn's Penfold robot (planted with DM to replace the kidnapped real Penfold). Stiletto makes a reference to Greenback's ill-fated Penfold duplicator (or magnetic molecular molder) from the earlier episode "Tiptoe Through The Penfolds."
• In their early days, Hanna-Barbera would make outright stars of characters either referenced earlier or appearing earlier. Quick Draw McGraw's name was first seen on a note on a door in a 1957 episode of Ruff And Reddy (the studio's first series), Snagglepuss was an antagonist on the Quick Draw show, Ricochet Rabbit (from The Magilla Gorilla Show) first appeared as an antagonist on Touchè Turtle, and the Ant Hill Mob was first seen as a gang on insect bikers in an episode of Atom Ant.
• The first episode of Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles Inverted Trope Raczak's "Do you wanna live forever?!" catchphrase from the film, having him instead solemnly order his men: "Live forever, Apes."
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has various references to the first generation of My Little Pony. The series as a whole was supposed to be a reboot of the first generation, complete with G1 Ponies, but copyright issues with the names didn't allow it. Twilight Sparkle's mom is the original Twilight, who Twilight was actually supposed to be before they changed her coloring. In one episode Twilight is changed into stone, which parallels a scene ^{[dead link]} where the original Twilight was turned into stone. There's also an episode where Pinkie's birthday comes up, which also happened in Generation 3 but had the opposite result. The two Spa Twins may be a reference to two G1 toys from Europe ^{[dead link]}, and the gang used a Rainbow attack in one episode that resembled something from the G1 pilot.
• The Problem Solverz references its Adult Swim pilot Neon Knome in some episodes. Kevin, the magic cup, can be seen in Horace's room, and the pictures on the wall are screenshots from the pilot. Roba also has a collection of Narrator dolls, and the giant Rollerblade appears in a few backgrounds. In "Hamburger Cavez", Roba unrolls his long sleeping bag the same way he did in Neon Knome.
• Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur gets a lot, since it's based on a Marvel comic book:
  • One of the buildings in the Lower East Side is an arcade named "Battleworld", the name of the planet where the original Secret Wars took place.
  • One of the girls at Lunella's family rink resembles Gwen Stacy.
  • "Moon Girl Landing":
    • Casey calls Devil Dinosaur "Clifford", much like Kamala Khan in the comics.
    • Lunella's second option for a costume resembles Shatterstar's suit.
    • Lunella returning Devil to his home dimension before he returns is an event that happened during the original comic book run.
  • In episode 2, upon seeing the symbiote Syphonator grow, Lunella exclaims "Oh. My. Gamma Rays". Doubles as an Actor Allusion for Devil's voice actor, who is Hulk's regular voice in animated media.
  • The opening scene in "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" where Lunella's mother tells her to take better care of her hair is a moment lifted from the comics.
  • "The Beyonder":
    • Lunella wants to win the science fair so she can go to a Wakandan Outreach Center, a cobcept first introduced in Black Panther.
    • One of the concepts the Beyonder dosen't understand are bathrooms, which Spider-Man had to explain him in the Secret Wars II comics.
    • Lunella and Devil save people from a fire by having them roll in Devil's back, a nod to the third issue in the original comic book run.
    • When the Beyonder uses an orchestra to seemingly destroy Earth, the melody is named "Beyonder's 616 Symphony in B minor"; 616 is the designation of the main Marvel universe.
    • After Lunella loses the science fair, the winners do the Wakandan salute from the MCU as a sign of respect.
  • The mind-switch plot in "Goodnight, Moon Girl" is an homage to Moon Girl's Inhuman ability to change minds with Devil in the comics.
  • At one point in "Skip This Ad...olescense", Lunella time-travels to a future very similar to the one from X-Men's "Days of the Future Past" storyline.

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