Shout-Out/Film

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This page lists Shout-Outs seen in movies. Any movie beginning with "A..." or "The..." has been placed under the letter of the next word in the title. Any sequels are under the title of the original.

• The Avengers 1998
• Blazing Saddles
• Cars
• Inception
• Rango
• Scott Pilgrim
• Super 8
• Tangled
• Toy Story
• Zombieland

A

• The Abyss. At one point the characters are talking about the alien encounters Lindsey had, one character says "Hot Rods of the Gods", which was an adventure for the Ghostbusters Tabletop RPG put out by West End Games.
• The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

Fearless Leader: There has never been a way to actually destroy a cartoon character until now. Henchman: What about that movie Roger Rabbit? Fearless Leader: Shut up! This is totally different! [[[Beat]]] There has never been a way to actually destroy a cartoon character until now.

• The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother.
  • The scene where Moriarty tricked his henchman Bruno to his death was a reference to Frank Stockton's short story "The Lady or the Tiger?"
  • Moriarty's being forced to do something evil every 24 minutes was a tribute to Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore, which had a man cursed to perform an evil act every day or die.
• In The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, the Red Lectroids originally land at Grover's Mill, New Jersey in 1938. Their landing was reported in the Orson Welles radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, but they cover it up by arranging for the broadcast to be labeled as fiction.
• In Amazon Women on the Moon when a news reader on a TV news segment is talking about fraternities, a picture of the Delta House from Animal House is shown behind her.
• In Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, when Ron Burgundy is playing jazz flute, near the end he plays the riff from Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" and then shouts, "Hey, Aqualung!"
• One of the scenes in Animal Crackers includes a spoof of Eugene O'Neill's play Strange Interlude and its elaborate asides.
• With the mention of Austin Powers, there's the shout-out that Austin made in The Spy Who Shagged Me to the 1960's James Bond knockoff In Like Flint. While he's watching it, Austin even says "It's my favorite movie!"

B

• Batman (1989) has a Shout Out to The Wizard of Oz (1939). When Vicki Vale throws water in the Joker's face, he says "I'm melting! I'm melting!".
  • Batman Forever has a Shout Out to the 1960s TV series in the scene when Batman and Robin first land on Two-Face's and the Riddler's base.
    • "That circus must be halfway to Metropolis by now."
  • Kind of a weird one, but in The Dark Knight Saga, the Bat-Cycle emerges from the Batmobile.... "Batmobile lost a wheel". And then after that, "Joker got away."
    • During that scene he should have said "Come on you gruesome son of a bitch. Come to me."
    • Gary Oldman's whole look in both Christopher Nolan films is a Shout-Out to Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.
  • Both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight contain shout-outs to The Long Halloween like he rooftop scene where Dent, Gordon, and Batman meet to discuss the mob problem, especially Batman's Stealth Hi Bye.
• A subtle but enormous example -- Peter Sellers was a huge fan of Laurel and Hardy, and the voice he used for Chance the gardener in Being There is an Americanized version of Stan Laurel's; Laurel's work partially informed Sellers's physical approach to the role as well, since it was exactly what the character required (the other part? A gardener who worked for Sellers in The Fifties).
• Black Sheep the Movie, whose special effects are courtesy of WETA, whose leader is named Grant Major: Grant: "This is mine, all mine! I mean, ours!"
  • Some of the footage of maddened sheep herds charging over hilltops on the horizon look suspiciously similar to The Lord of the Rings scenes of the Riders of Rohan.
  • Which is probably because they used the same computer programme while creating it.
  • By the way, this could also be meant to be a shout out to the wild gnu-herd in The Lion King.
  • In addition, the name of the Animal Wrongs Group in the film is a very similar sounding WEKA.
• Blade Runner
  • The replicants are created by the Tyrell Corporation. This is a reference to the Tyrell Institute, which created the android robot Mr. R.I.N.G. in the Kolchak the Night Stalker episode "Mr. R.I.N.G.".
• The Blind Side was released in theaters on the same week as New Moon, the sequel to Twilight. Collins is watching Twilight on television when Leigh Anne brings Michael to the Tuohy's home for the first time.
• Jean-Claude Van Damme's debut vehicle Bloodsport featured Bolo Yeung as the villain, and (almost?) all of Bolo's dialogue is borrowed from Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon (which Bolo was also in, although, hilariously, his only dialogue in that was to shout 'dah!' whenever anyone mentioned him...)
• When Carrie Fisher's character shoots off a bazooka in The Blues Brothers, the sound effect is (essentially) the same noise that blaster weapons make in the Star Wars films.
• Brick has plenty of these, ranging from The Maltese Falcon to Cowboy Bebop.
• An outtake in A Bugs Life features the main character Flik shouting |"to infinity, and beyond!"
  • That's the same trailer with the "Pizza Planet" truck seen in Monsters, Inc. that is also in A Bugs Life.
  • The credits also featured an outtake of some of the characters acting as extras in Toy Story 2.
    • Actually it's an outtake from Toy Story 2, and the Bug's Life characters are alluding to Bug's Life 2 (which doesn't exist yet).
• In But I'm a Cheerleader two people in an institution for curing the supposedly psychologically ill (in this case, gays) which is doing more harm than good have sex when they weren't supposed to, an uptight woman who runs the place discovers them, and they get in big trouble. Does anyone else think this is a One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest shout out?

C

• Pixar's Cars has a number of Shout Outs.
  • The bullying birds from the Pixar short "For the Birds" appear in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment. Making them possibly the only organic lifeforms in that world!
  • Lightning McQueen has "Lightyear" tires - not only a pun on Goodyear tires, but a reference to |Buzz Lightyear. The movie also features an oil company named DinoCo, which is the name of the gas station where Andy's mother stopped to fuel the car when Woody and Buzz get lost, in Toy Story.
  • The name Lightning McQueen's name is a Shout Out to awesome actor and racing aficionado, the late Steve McQueen.
• Speaking of Steve McQueen, Cannonball's showdown is a car chase between the hero in a green Ford Mustang Fastback and the baddie in a black Dodge Charger which crashes and immediately explodes in the end, spiced up with some nice jump scenes. We've seen almost the exactly same thing before in Bullitt.
  • Also, the movie shouts out to a couple of elements from real-life Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dashes. Not as many as The Cannonball Run which was made by actual Cannonballers, but still.
• Casper (1995): The ghostly trio do the "I'm melting!" routine when a kitchen window-shade suddenly flies open, causing the morning sunlight to shine on the ghosts. They dissolve into one ectoplasmic puddle, then disappear through the floor. (Unlike the Wicked Witch of the West, though, the ghostly trio were merely joking with Dr. Harvey and his daughter.) That same scene also contains a shout-out to Apocalypse Now, where the ghostly trio descend into the room vertically, the tops of their heads spinning like helicopter blades while they sing the melody of Ride of the Valkyries. After this, Stretch sniffs the air and exclaims "I love the smell of fleshies in the morning!"
• One of the sequels to Childs Play, Bride of Chucky.
  • When Chucky and Tiffany attack Officer Warren (played by John Ritter) with the nail trap, Chucky takes a look at Warren's face, now covered by nails, and states "Why does that look so familiar?" making a reference to the infamous monster Pinhead from the Hellraiser films.
  • When one of the protagonists ask how the dolls got to being dolls, Chucky responds with "If this were a movie, it would take 3 to 4 sequels to do the whole thing justice." and thus parodying the entire Child's Play series.
  • At the end of the film when Chucky is trapped and killed in his own grave, the way he dies is similar to how he was killed at the end of the first Child's Play film.
  • The police lock-up at the beginning of Bride has Shout Outs to Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Meyers.
• A montage of the protagonist's developmental years plays in the Thai film Chocolate (also called Fury), during which she is shown watching Ong-bak on the television. The same director/martial arts choreographer pair created both movies. Not 10 minutes later, she's watching Tom-Yum-Goong, a.k.a. The Protector, also made by the same director and choreographer.
• Constantine.
  • When Angela Dodson wakes up in her apartment, her black cat meows while standing on her bed - a reference to the scene in The Matrix where Neo (also played by Keanu Reeves) sees the black cat meow and walk by twice.
  • After some demons are destroyed, Angela starts coughing due to the smell of sulfur/sulphur. Constantine says "Happens to everyone the first time", a reference to the "Everyone falls the first time" bit in The Matrix.
• The first scene of Cop Out has Tracey Morgan's character attempting to interrogate a suspect by rattling off a bunch of random movie quotes while his partner watches from the next room. At one point, Morgan shouts "Yipee-ki-yay Motherfucker! and his partner, who is played by Bruce Willis, responds, "I've never even seen that movie."
• Coraline contains numerous shout-outs, mostly to The Nightmare Before Christmas:
  • The pumpkins in Other Mother's garden resemble the Mayor of Halloweentown.
  • The tallest of the three Ghost Children resembles Shock.
  • The cat is the same sort of black, scrawny specimen seen in Halloweentown.
  • A bowl that Other Mother uses resembles Jack Skellington.
  • There's also a few to Pixar:
    • The moving company the Jones's use are the "Ranft Brothers", a tribute to the late Pixar animator Joe Ranft.
    • One of the Shakespeare players has a baby in his backpack who greatly resembles Jack-Jack.
• Hunter in Crimson Tide invokes Star Trek to encourage the radio technician to work as fast as possible.

Hunter: Well I'm Captain Kirk, you're Scotty, I need more power.

• In Wes Craven's werewolf flick Cursed 2005, the design of the night club owned by the protagonist Ellie's boyfriend is one big shout out to classic horror movies. It is lined from wall to wall with supposed memorabilia from the movie sets, including the silver-tipped cane from the original The Wolf Man.
• In the 2005 version of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, a chocolate bar is teleported into a television picture. The scene playing at the time is the prehistoric monolith scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The monolith gets replaced by the chocolate bar, and all the apes jump up and down and hoot at it.

D

• In Die Hard, in the opening scene where John McClane is looking for his wife in the computerized Company Directory, and later where he looks up Hans calling himself Bill Clay on an employee listing, names on the computer screen and names on the board include names of people who worked on the film.
• The 2009 Christmas Doctor Who has a shout out to the Original Star Wars film in the design of the laser cannons on the Cactus People's space ship. They are practically identical to those on the Millennium Falcon.
• Dog Soldiers has the line "There is no spoon" as a shout out to The Matrix, as well as Private Bruce Campbell, and one of the characters suggesting that they were in the Kobayashi Maru test, among many others. Neil Marshall (the writer/director) likes Shout Outs.
• In Dreamgirls, Beyoncé Knowles' character Deena is briefly seen dressed like Carmen from the all-black movie version of the opera Carmen Jones. One of Beyoncé's first acting roles was in MTV's Carmen: The Hip-Hopra.
  • It's probably a coincidence, but Deena is also seen about to star in a movie as Cleopatra. Beyoncé's better-known early role was Foxxy Cleopatra in Austin Powers' Goldmember, which also took place in The Seventies.

E

• Enchanted is one long Shout Out to the Disney Animated Canon. Examples are far too numerous to list here, but the Other Wiki has a partial list. There is an obvious shout-out to The Sound of Music during the Central Park sequence, and Julie Andrews was the narrator. There was also a reference to Moonstruck.
• In Evil Dead 2, one shot of the basement shows Freddy Kreuger's glove hanging on a wall. This is a returned Shout-Out, as a clip from Evil Dead was used in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street.
  • Yet another exchange of Shout Outs links the Elm Street franchise to the Critters films. In Dream Warriors, the patient who gets her face shoved through the TV was watching Critters before she dozed off. Later, one of the alien bounty hunters in Critters 2 is narrowly prevented from mimicking a poster of Freddy. This incidentally creates a Recursive Reality situation, where each film franchise exists in the 'Verse of the other.
  • This is taken further in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as Raphael exits a theater playing Critters "Who come up with this crap?" New Line Cinema releasing both Critters AND TMNT.

F

• In The Fall, when Roy is starting off his story to Alexandria, he initially starts it as a pirate story, only for her to object she doesn't like pirate stories and for him to quickly change it. The film is based on the Bulgarian film Yo Ho Ho, which, as the name suggests, did use a pirate story for its Story Within A Movie.
• Fatal Instinct.
  • The title is a combination of Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction.
  • Plot elements are taken wholesale from the above films as well as Sleeping with the Enemy and Cape Fear.
  • When a doorbell rings Lana Ravine says "That's the postman. He always rings twice", a reference to The Postman Always Rings Twice.
• A hallmark of the Final Destination series is its habit of giving characters the surnames of famous horror and thriller directors, including Hitchcock, Carpenter, Lewis, Corman, Romero, and Polanski.
• There's a boat in the Sydney harbor in Finding Nemo named "iBoat" in homage to Pixar/Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and a street named Wallaby Way in honor of Wallace and Gromit's West Wallaby Street.
  • The dentist's office contains a |Buzz Lightyear action figure in the toy chest.
    • Also, the dentist's office is a replica of an office in Emeryville, CA, where Pixar is located.
  • The lead shark, Bruce, is probably a Shout Out to the fact that the shark in Jaws (though lacking a name in the film) was called Bruce on set. Or a Shout Out to the Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch with a half-dozen Aussies, all named "Bruce".
• Flash Gordon (1980): Klytus' line "You have until the sands...run up". In the The Wizard of Oz (1939), the Wicked Witch of the West turns over an hourglass and tells Dorothy "That's how much longer you've got to be alive".
• In Four Christmases, Vince Vaughn's character says something along the lines of, "I'd rather be shipwrecked on a deserted island being hunted down by a crazy millionaire than visit my parents for Christmas." This line is a reference to a short story entitled "The Most Dangerous Game," and Vaughn is describing the plot with his line.
• John Travolta, in From Paris with Love mentions that one thing he has is going to kill him: a "Royale With Cheese". He has a discussion about finding a Royale With Cheese at a McDonald's in Pulp Fiction.
• In Friends with Benefits, Jamie's mother changes the nationality of Jamie's father throughout the movie. At one point the mother mentions a lover, who reminded her of her daughter's father, having a "Cold War" accent. Mila Kunis was born in the former Soviet Union.

G

• The famous tollbooth scene in The Godfather is deliberately patterned after the climax of Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde.
• In the American Godzilla, three entire fishing boats are dragged underwater, presumably because Godzilla just swallowed their catch, nets and all. This is an apparent Shout-Out to the barrel-dragging scenes in Jaws ("Not with three!").
• Grandmas Boy: Among the various poster on the walls in the background promoting Brainasium's future projects are an advertisement for "Gay Robot". "Gay Robot" is Nick Swardson's episode-based film project.
• At the end of Gremlins 2 one of the disintegrating Gremlins is wearing a pointed witch-hat as a Shout Out to the iconic scene in The Wizard of Oz.

H

• A large number of them in the first Halloween film.
  • Sam Loomis was the name of a character in Psycho.
  • H20 contains many references to the Scream series, and includes some of the music from Scream.
• Hellboy 2
  • In a shout out to John Landis, a movie marquee See You Next Wednesday.
  • The plant elemental's death scene bears too much resemblance to the finale of Princess Mononoke to be coincidence.
• In Heavy Metal 2000, when the heroine and her sidekick are chasing the Big Bad through a space station, an advertisement can be seen for the autobiography of Julie Strain, the heroine's voice actress.
• In The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, the original costume for Marvin the Paranoid Android from the TV series can be seen in a queue.
  • The commentary on the DVD claims that one of the actresses who played Trillian prior to the film appears in place of the usual boozehound during the scene in the Bar and Groom. Whether this is Susan Sheridan or Sandra Dickinson is not made clear.
• Hogfather: The noble music which plays when Bilious is being sobered up is Men of Harlech, but is also known to some university students as The Alcoholics' Anthem.
• Hoodwinked does this a couple times. One that really stands out is when the squeaky sidekick picked up a stick of dynamite and read off "dee-nah-mee-tay? Must be italian."
• Hook
  • At the end, Tootles shouts "Seize the day!", a phrase popularized by another Robin Williams film.
  • Smee greets the pirates with a resounding call of "Gooooood Morning Neverland!"
• Hot Shots Part Deux.
  • At one point a radio message is sent to the team to warn them that they're about to encounter an enemy patrol boat. The message is almost a word-for-word copy of a similar radio message in The Guns of Navarone, and the battle that follows is clearly inspired by that movie as well.
  • Martin and Charlie Sheen word for word recreate their internal monologues from Apocalypse Now and Platoon respectively. Then as their boats pass they look at each other and say, "I loved you in Wall Street!" (Where they played father and son.)
• How to Marry a Millionaire: Schatze says: "Look at Roosevelt, look at Churchill, look at old fella what's his name in The African Queen". The 'old guy in the African Queen' was Humphrey Bogart, her husband in real life.

I

• In Pixar's The Incredibles, Mr. Incredible calls his wannabe Sidekick Buddy "Brodie," a reference to voice actor Jason Lee's previous role in Mallrats.
  • Bob Parr is seen having dinner with Mirage. He's wearing a blue suit and tie, but he still has his domino mask on. This is a shout-out to Will Eisner's The Spirit, a favorite comic book of director Brad Bird (in The Iron Giant, he also mentioned The Spirit when Hogarth showed his comic book collection to the giant robot, adding that the Spirit was "very cool".)
• A snickering Shout-Out was one scene in Independence Day where a frazzled cable TV worker is attempting to empathise with an enraged customer by saying "Yes, I love X-Files too."
  • Even funnier was a scene in The X-Files where Mulder is seen urinating directly underneath a promotional movie poster for Independence Day.
  • Independence Day is chock full of homages and Shout Outs to classic sci-fi movies.

J

• In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Federal Wildlife Marshal Willenholly is a reference to the characters Marshall, Will and Holly on the 1970's children's TV show Land of the Lost -- a shout out reinforced by the subsequent appearance of the Sleestak Diner sitting in the shadow of Kirk's Rock.
  • In what might be some kind of odd backwards Shout Out, Will Ferrell -- who played Marshal Willenholly -- will be appearing in the upcoming full length movie of Land of the Lost.
  • And that is just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to shout outs to Kevin Smith's previous movies, the movie makes references to ET the Extraterrestrial, Scream, Good Will Hunting, Star Wars, and the collected work of Jason Biggs.
  • And Daredevil, in which Kevin Smith later had a cameo role.
• Judge Dredd had a shout out to ABC Warriors in the form of a non-functional model for sale in the weapons shop.
• In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, there is a Shout-Out to Godzilla: while the T. Rex rampages through the streets of San Diego, one of the groups of people running in terror is a group of Japanese businessmen. Translated, they're shouting, "We left Japan to get away from this!"

K

• Kill Bill: In the scene where The Bride flies to Japan, the deliberately artificial shots of the airliner flying in front of the backdrop of an orange sky were based on similar scenes at the beginning of Goke, Bodysnatcher from Hell.
  • Everything in Kill Bill is a shout out of one kind or another to a martial arts movie that Tarantino enjoyed at some point.
• In the Peter Jackson version of King Kong (2005), Carl Denham criticizes RKO Pictures, as they are supposed to be rival companies. The 1933 version, which almost everyone knows, was shot and produced by RKO. Also in the 2005 version, Carl is surprised Fay Wray isn't available for shooting. She played Anne in the 1933 version.
  • They also make fun of some dialogue from the original, having Jack Driscoll being quite sexist towards Anne, with actually making this exact scene a part of Denham's movie. It's quite nice how they did acknowledge the older work while (by giving them to a narcissistic jerk) pointing out that these lines are hopelessly out-of-date today.
• Near the end of Kung Fu Hustle, one particular moment in the fight between the hero and the Axe Gang is a visual homage to the Burly Brawl in The Matrix Reloaded.
  • The baker Donut's dying words include "WHAT ARE YOU PREPARED TO DO!?"
• In The Kentucky Fried Movie in the final scene of the movie skit, "Fistful of Yen" the bad guy has water splashed on him and melts, saying "I'm melting, I'm melting" from The Wizard of Oz.
• German movie Kleine Haie makes a Shout-Out to Woyzeck when one aspiring actor is playing the doctor for the acting teachers. "Yes, good, but now play him with a Speech Impediment!"

L

• In The Lord of the Rings, Boromir's comment upon cutting his finger on the shards of Narsil: 'Still sharp'
• Lost in Space had the following line which was a reference to an oft used line by Dr. McCoy in Star Trek: The Original Series:

Dr. Zachary "Spider" Smith: I'm a doctor, not a space explorer.

• • Doppler uses a similar line in Treasure Planet

"Dangit Jim, I'm an astronomer, not a doctor! I mean I am a doctor, I have a doctorate, but you can't do anything with a doctorate!"

• • • According to the director's commentary, after Bones collapsed they wanted Doppler to say "He's Dead, Jim". The Powers that be said no.
• In the Peter Jackson film, The Lovely Bones, there is a scene with the main character in a bookstore, and a poster advertising The Lord of the Rings book trilogy is on display as an obvious homage to the films Jackson is famous for directing.

M

• The Marine As John Cena's title character doggedly chases the bad guys, one of the mooks likens him to the Terminator. To which Robert Patrick responds with a glare.
• Mars Attacks!!
  • There are a number of references to old science fiction movies.
    • The Martian saucers, the saucers' beam weapon and their attacks on human civilization (particularly the attack on Washington) are an homage to the alien saucers in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.
    • The Martian saucer crashing into a river near the end is a reference to the end of This Island Earth, where a saucer crashes into the ocean.
    • During the Martian attack a saucer shoots a bell tower, a scene taken from the Martian attack on Los Angeles in the 1953 film version of The War of the Worlds.
  • The fat clown executed by the Penguin in Batman Returns can be seen in stasis inside a Martian ship.
  • Also, whenever Lisa Marie's character appears, she's followed by The Bride's theme from Bride of Frankenstein.
• In The Mask, the police frisk the hero, whose pockets turn out an endless stream of junk. A pair of funny eyeball glasses gets the response "I've never seen those before in my life." A BAZOOKA gets a calm "I have a permit for that", the exact response given by Frank "the Enforcer" Nitti when frisked and found to have a gun on him in The Untouchables. The same scene also includes a photograph which is a nod to actor Peter Riegert's previous work on Animal House.
• A cynic could call the multitude of Biblical references in The Matrix (including the names and ID numbers of the various hoverships) a series of classy shout outs.
  • At least two to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
    • "Follow the white rabbit."
    • "You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
  • Trinity: "The answer is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to." => The X-Files' slogan, "The truth is out there".
  • At one point while running from the Agents, Neo yells, "Mister Wizard, get me the hell out of here!"
  • The video screens in the Architect's room show some clips from Baraka.
  • The Bring It hand gesture Neo and Morpheus are fond of using to their opponents is a Shout-Out to Bruce Lee.
  • The Matrix Reloaded. During the freeway chase, just before the Agent jumps down onto the truck carrying Morpheus and the Keymaker the police radio says "One Adam-12 please respond", a reference to the old U.S. Adam-12 TV show.
  • The Matrix Revolutions. Smith calls the Oracle "The great and powerful oracle", a reference to the line "The great and powerful Oz" in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
  • In keeping with the movie's philosophical subtext, some of Zion's military personnel are named after famous philosophers. There's Commander Locke, Captain Soren (after Soren Kierkegaard), and Captain Ballard (after science fiction author J. G. Ballard).
  • Also, there's Captain Mifune. There are two possibilities here.
    • In the original Japanese version of Speed Racer (which the Wachowskis are huge fans of), "Mifune" was the main character's last name. Fittingly, the brothers would go on to direct the live-action film of Speed Racer just a few years after finishing the Matrix trilogy.
    • It could have also been a reference to the famous actor Toshiro Mifune.
• In Maverick, Maverick (played by Mel Gibson) rides a bicycle belonging to his friend Chief Joseph, who explains that he won it in a card game. This is a reference to another Western movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In that movie, Butch Cassidy owns (and rides) a bicycle, and is a rotten gambler - so Chief Joseph won his bicycle from Butch!
  • Furthermore, Maverick is at one point robbed in a bank. Halfway through, he pulls the bandit's mask down to reveal Danny Glover, Gibson's co-star in the Lethal Weapon series. They look at each other as though in recognition, but then shake their heads saying, "Naaah..." As Glover exits the bank, he murmurs, "I'm getting too old for this shit!"
    • And, the guitar track at that moment becomes suspiciously like the Lethal Weapon theme.
• During the opening sequence of Mirror Mask, there is a brief shot of one of the circus performers "contact juggling" with a set of four crystal balls, a homage to the crystal manipulations done in Labyrinth.
• Pixar's Monsters, Inc.
  • The restaurant is named Harryhausen's after famed animator Ray Harryhausen.
  • Near the end of the movie, Boo shows Sully her Jessie the Yodelin' Cowgirl doll (Jessie first appeared as a character in Toy Story 2).
  • In the same scene, Nemo has his Early-Bird Cameo.
  • When the villain gets sent to a trailer that has the Pizza Planet truck parked out front.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail: the Trojan Rabbit (Trojan Horse) and Lancelot's squire Concorde (the jet), among others.
• In the James Bond film Moonraker, James is investigating a laboratory of the Big Bad, and is watching one of the scientists using a sound lock to open the door. The sound used to open the door? The first five notes of the Close Encounters of the Third Kind alien theme.
• Something quite hard to spot in The Mummy Returns. When the log is blown up and the pygmies drop into the river, only one of the pygmies remains on one half of the log. He straddles it and waves his hand round, while one end of the log glows, in a brief shoutout to the famous scene from Dr. Strangelove.
  • And another short one in The Mummy Returns, when Rick and Evey return from their Egyptian trip, Rick is wearing a suspiciously familiar fedora.
• The Muppet Christmas Carol: In the musical number after Scrooge's change of heart, the ensemble passes a shop called Micklewhite's. Scrooge is played by Michael Caine, whose real name is Maurice Micklewhite.
  • Another storefront bears the names "Statler and Waldorf," after the two old cranks who routinely heckle the Muppet performances (and who appear in the film as the Marley brothers).
• Mystery Team: "I wanted to see if it felt like pussy, like in that movie!

N

• National Lampoon's European Vacation. In the part of the movie set in England, the Griswald family accidentally runs over a bicyclist. The bicyclist, played by Eric Idle, waves off the Griswalds' concern over his injuries, stating that it's just a flesh wound and he'll be alright once he goes down to the chemists'.
• In something as random as The Number 23, there's a possible shout out to Ace Attorney, where a minor character's name plaque reads Phoenix Miles, referencing Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth.

O

• Ocean's Thirteen has at least two shout-outs to The Godfather.
  • The first of these is spoken by George Clooney to Al Pacino, when he says "What I want- what's most important to me..." (this being the exact phrase Pacino himself used when speaking to Sollozzo in the restaurant).
  • The second shout out was when Reuben, the bedridden casino executive, uses the same lines spoken by Vito Corleone just before Vito learned of his son's death from Tom Hagen ("I hear cars coming and going..."). They were both very subtle; probably meant as inside jokes by the actors, who didn't expect anybody to actually catch them.
  • One of the James Bond movies, George Lazenby's brazen fourth wall breaking in On Her Majesty's Secret Service after he fails to get the girl in the opening sequence:

Bond: This never happened to the other fellow.

• One, Two, Three has several: To Little Caesar, Gone with the Wind, Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Public Enemy, Ninotchka.
• Our Man Flint. After the three Galaxy leaders try to convince him to let them rule the world for its own good Flint says "All I have to do is take a bite of your apple?", a reference to Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden.

P

• In Phantasm II, an undertaker is shown filling a bag labeled "Mr. Sam Raimi" with ashes. Possibly also a Stealth Pun, since the protagonist of Raimi's Evil Dead series is named Ash.
• In The Pink Panther during a car chase near the end, Sir Charles and George meet in the town square. One says "You take the high road, and I'll take the low road" from Loch Lomand.
• Inverted, kinda, in Pope Joan, though probably by pure chance. Joan (Johanna) is played by Johanna Wokalek.
• Some people believe the Katanas Are Just Better Butch uses in the pawn shop scene in Pulp Fiction is a reference to an idea that Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman had been talking about on the set.
• Planet 51 Takes place on a distant world, where the equivalent of dogs are animated, short-legged, altogether cuddlier versions of a certain Xenomorph species made popular by the Alien franchise.

R

• At the end of the Reefer Madness musical, President Roosevelt makes reference to a "little orphan girl" who once gave him some trite advice.
• The "Repo Code" from Repo Man ("I shall not cause harm to any vehicle nor the personal contents thereof, nor through inaction let the personal contents thereof come to harm") is a takeoff on Asimov's First Law of Robotics.
• Requiem for a Dream has a few.
  • Marion curled up in a ball in the bathtub and shrieking is taken straight out of Perfect Blue. Aronofsky even secured the rights to a live-action version of the film just to justify including this scene in this movie.
  • During the scene when Tyrone and Harry are in the crowd, trying to get the drug shipment from Florida, one of the dealers is shown peeling an orange. This is a reference to The Godfather and the use of oranges as foreshadowing to something bad about to happen. They don't get their drugs, and the next sequence is Winter.
  • Averted by the recurring image of Marion standing at the end of a small pier, which is extremely similar to the recurring image in Dark City that also features Jennifer Connelly. Word Of God says that this was unintentional.
• A Shout Out exists in every scene of the movie River City Rumble, a fan-made tribute movie based on River City Ransom, be it to the game itself, other classic video games, anime, or western cartoons.
• Mel Brooks does it to his own films as well. "A BLACK SHERIFF!?" "Hey, it worked in Blazing Saddles!!"

S

• * In The Santa Clause 2, the evil toy santa, voiced by Tim Allen, says "You are a sad, strange little man" while fighting the real thing. This is a shout-out to the |other famous toy voiced by Tim Allen.
• The Scream Trilogy are laden with shoutouts from a wide range of Horror movies.
  • The murdered school principal in the first Scream is played by Henry Winkler, better known as Fonzie in Happy Days. As he goes into his office, the Fonz's leather jacket can be seen hanging up on the back of the door.
  • If you took all the movie references out of Scream there wouldn't be anything left! Billy Loomis is named after Doctor Loomis from Halloween (who in turn was named after Sam Loomis from Psycho), and Craven even peppered it with references to his own A Nightmare on Elm Street, not all of them complimentary.
• Miho from Sin City uses a pair of Hattori Hanzo swords. According to Rodriguez and Tarantino, Miho wouldn't use anything less than a Hanzo blade to chop vegetables.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger's The 6th Day has a probable shoutout to Replicant (as well as referencing Freud): The holo-psychiatrist's first sanity-test question in the event that a person thinks they've been cloned is the first question in the Replicant test, but with two turtles.
• In the miserable A Sound of Thunder, Charles Hatton tells the travelers after the first successful time traveling expedition, "Gentlemen, and lady: today, you stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Columbus discovering America, Armstrong stepping on the moon, Brubaker landing on Mars." The director, Peter Hyam, also filmed Capricorn One, where Col. Charles Brubaker (James Brolin) is the first man on Mars in the faked landing.
  • In the backstory of Total Recall, Quaid/Hauser stayed at a hotel on Mars under the name "Brubaker".
• When Peter Parker is trying to figure out a phrase to shoot a web in Spider-Man he tries "Up, Up, and Away" and "Shazam"!
• George Lucas' Star Wars films contain a reference to his first movie, THX 1138, when Luke Skywalker explains away their presence on the Death Star by claiming it's "a prisoner transfer from cellblock 1138". Interestingly enough, when Mark Hamill improvised that line, George Lucas actually told him not to do it in another take, as the original script just had a random combination of numbers.
  • Not the first time this happened. One of the protagonists in American Graffiti has a car with the license plate THX-1138.
    • The character was Bob Falfa, played by... Harrison Ford.
  • In Raiders of the Lost Ark, you can hear "Ein-tausend-ein-hundert-acht-und-dreißig", 1138 in German.
    • Not the last time, either. In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the nightclub Dr. Jones first goes to is named "Club Obi Wan".
    • Almost every Star Wars movie has some reference to THX-1138. On Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, General Rieekan says, "Send Rogues 10 and 11 to sector 38." In The Phantom Menace, the droid killed by Jar Jar Binks at the end has serial number 1138 on his back. In Attack of the Clones, the LED lights on the back of the clone trooper helmets display a serial number. Although illegible, they all read "THX 1138". Finally, in Revenge of the Sith, Clone Commander Bacara's number is 1138.
    • In Lucas' Novelization of Star Wars, one of the stormtroopers who was assigned to guard the Millennium Falcon after its capture on the Death Star was THX-1138 (changed either to or from TK-421 in the movie).
    • Almost everything Star Wars has a reference somewhere. Don't forget the stormtrooper unit in Galactic Battlegrounds would state "THX-1138 ready, sir," when selected.
      • In Attack of the Clones, the scene of the clones being trained via helmet is an identical visual reference to a flashback scene from Akira.
    • The once-ubiquitous THX mastering standard is a Shout-Out to same, making it possibly the most common one of all time (if you count every single movie, TV show and video game where the logo appears).
      • Actually, that THX stands for "Tomlinson Holman's eXperiment."
    • The protagonist of Republic Commando, Boss, is Delta 1138.
  • In A New Hope, just before Vader starts choking one of the Death Star commanders, a shout out is made to one of Lucas' influences:

Admiral Motti: Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebel's hidden fortre...

• • Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is full of them. The alien body that the Russians are looking for at the beginning was reportedly an old prop from Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Near the end of the scene in Area 51, Indy smashes through a number of crates with a truck, including one holding the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark. There's even a Star Wars reference, with Indy quipping near the end, "I've got a bad feeling about this".
    • According to an Ain't it Cool editor, there were a bunch of shout outs to the Indiana Jones EU Books - Indy's resistance to telepathy, alien hunting, etc.
    • Indy also tells Mutt about his time in Pancho Villa's army--that's a reference to events that took place during The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
  • The Empire Strikes Back contains a Shout-Out to The Aeneid. Chewbacca carrying the broken C-3PO on his back in the escape from Cloud City is an unmistakable reference (well, unmistakable to people who've studied classic literature, anyway) to the most identifiable image in the work; Aeneas, escaping from the sacking of Troy, carrying his father on his back.
  • In Raiders of the Lost Ark, in the chamber where Indy finds the Ark, you can see your two favorite droids drawn among the hieroglyphs.

T

• Tank Girl. Tank Girl fires her tank's gun and causes a bucket of water (and the bucket itself) to fall on Kesslee's "head" and kill him. A cartoon has Kesslee saying "I'm melting!"
• Toy Story. And quite a few also count as a Parental Bonus. Some of our favorites:
  • The "Pizza Planet" truck has showed up in almost every Pixar-created work.
  • While trying to escape Sid's house Woody yells "There's no place like home!".
  • The toy repairman in the second movie is Geri from the Pixar Shorts Geri's Game, where he plays a game of chess against himself. While he's repairing Woody the music from the short plays and one of the drawers in his toolbox is filled with chess pieces.
  • Each movie in the trilogy contains a shout out to its corresponding film in the original Star Wars trilogy: See Once Per Episode above.
  • Also, Zurg’s blaster goes up to eleven.
  • Rex with "Objects are closer than they appear" in the toy car's rearview mirror in Toy Story 2, to the scene DEAD ON from the T-Rex Chase in Jurassic Park, Hilarity Ensues.
    • Rex’s roars in Toy Story 3's opening are standard Jurassic Park T-Rex roars as well.
  • In the chase scene at the end of Toy Story, you get a quick glance inside the car, and the radio's playing Hakuna Matata.
  • Lassie (in first two movies).
  • In Toy Story 2, there are A Bugs Life toys in Al's Toy Barn.
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey at the beginning of Toy Story 2.
  • After calling Woody "a sad, strange little man", he does the Live long and prosper hand thingy, known as the Vulcan salute.
  • A Brainwashed and Crazy Buzz’s "spend a night in the box" monologue, "the box" being a covered sandbox.
  • Woody’s head spinning all the way around.
    • Big Baby doing the same in Toy Story 3.
  • Toy Story: "The white zone is for eating pizza only."Toy Story 2: "The white zone is for loading and unloading of passengers only." Followed, five minutes later by: "The red zone is for loading and unloading of passengers only."
    • "We can't park here! This is a WHITE zone."
  • A plush Totoro toy appears as one of Bonnie's toys in Toy Story 3. (Pixar has done the English dub of every Miyazaki movie since Spirited Away, and Lasseter is close friends with Miyazaki himself.)
    • Miyazaki is referenced even in the credits with a "special thanks".
  • Both the Alien Slime soda dispenser and the Whack-a-Alien game from the first movie are a reference to the titular monster from Alien.
  • Third movie: Right before the preschool kids burst into the room, some smaller toys are hiding and quivering under a cabinet, mirroring Tin Toy
    • Big Baby looks a lot like Billy, the terrifying, doll-like baby in Tin Toy. They even make the exact same sounds!
    • In the first film when Woody is holding the staff meeting before Sarge and his men are sent out, there's a book on the shelf behind Woody called Tin Toy. Its a thin green one.
  • In the opening sequence of Toy Story 2, listen close and you'll catch at least half a dozen classic sound effects from Star Wars, including the Darth Vader breathing, the lightsaber sound, and the blaster sounds from both the X-Wing and TIE Fighter.
    • And the Luke, I Am Your Father moment between Zurg and Buzz.
  • Pay close attention as they flip through the channels in Toy Story 2 and you'll see snippets from several Pixar Shorts on the TV.
    • The titles of several Pixar Shorts appear on books on Andy's shelf in the 1st film.
  • The overall plot and tone of the series (especially the third film) has more than a glancing similarity to The Brave Little Toaster -- the first feature-length film Lasseter and Ranft worked on.
  • The evil Cymbal-Banging Monkey had to have been at least partially inspired by Merlins Shop of Mystical Wonders.
  • The little binocular wind-up toy could be a reference to the same character appearing way back in the cute Disney documentary Where The Toys Come From.
  • Look quick at the books Andy packs away and you'll spot the title of another sad movie about a nonhuman who loves his owner unconditionally and went to great lengths to find her again.
  • In the 2nd movie Mr. Potato Head takes off his hat and throws it at the door of Al's apartment building to keep it from closing. Oddjob from Goldfinger couldn't have done it better.
  • In the first film, perpetually-anxious Rex spouts "I just don't think I can take that kind of rejection!" then later "I don't like confrontation!", two lines from perpetually-anxious George McFly.
  • When Buzz (excuse me, "Mrs. Nesbitt") is having tea, he says he's "sucking down darjeeling with Marie Antoinette and her little sister." The dolls are both headless, so which is which doesn't matter so much, but this is (potentially) referencing both Marie Antoinette's fate of beheading and Wednesday Addams's doll.
• In Michael Bay's Transformers movies, Revenge of the Fallen has at least two shout outs to Armageddon, a previous Bay film. The first is the Decepticon meteorites striking Paris, along with people running from collapsing buildings.
  • The first one has a bystander claim that the Autobots landing on Earth is "10 times more awesome then Armageddon."
    • And ten times zero is...
  • Three Star Trek shout-outs in Dark of the Moon;
    • Sentinel Prime states that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
    • Also, counting as Foreshadowing as well, Wheelie watches on episode of Star Trek: The Original Series in Sam and Carly's apartment and says; "I've seen this one. This the one where Spock goes nuts". Hinting at Sentinel Prime's later betrayal.
    • Bumblebee when talking to Sam Just before "leaving" the planet uses "I am and always shall be your friend" referencing Star Trek III.
• In Transformers: The Movie, one scene has Grimlock asking Kup to "tell Grimlock about petro-rabbits!", a clear reference to the classic Of Mice And Men.
• Tron has at least two Shout Outs:
  • On a computer monitor in one scene, a tiny Pac-Man can be seen briefly.
  • A silhouette of Mickey Mouse is visible in the landscape during the Solar Sailor escape. This one is part of an extensive tradition of "Hidden Mickeys".

U

• Undercover Brother
  • Sistah Girl initially calls Undercover Brother "Bruce Leroy".
  • While looking at a picture of Danny Glover, Da Chief says "I'm getting too old for this shit.", Glover's famous Lethal Weapon line.
  • The theme song from Shaft.

Undercover Brother: "Smart Brother, you a bad mother..." Smart Brother: "Shut your mouth!"

• • • Lances above-mentioned beatdown is only short a FATALITY!
    • Penelope Snow White She Devil: "I'm all the Single White Female you'll ever need!"
• Unstoppable: A shout out to Silver Streak - an AWVR official named Gene Devereaux is interviewed at one point. Gene Wilder starred in Silver Streak, and the villain was named Roger Devereaux.

W

• The Restaurant Shenanigans in the movie Waiting is a restaurant that was mentioned in Super Troopers that Officer Rodney Farva likes to eat at complete with Goofy Shit on the wall

O'Haggan: I'm gonna pistol whip the next guy who says shenanigans Mac: Hey Farva what's that restaurant you like so much with the mozzarella sticks and the goofy shit on the wall? Farva: Shenanigans? Shenanigans Right?

• The animated movie WALL-E's collection contains a |Rex toy, as well as the head of a baby doll that looks suspiciously like Jack-Jack.
• A song from the Marx Brothers Animal Crackers accompanies the opening credits of Woody Allen's Whatever Works (2009).
• In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Judge Doom yells "I'm melting!" as he dissolves into a pool of Dip just like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz.
• Wild Wild West. The dog that looks at General "Bloodbath" McGrath's ear trumpet is a reference to the "His Master's Voice" ad on the Quizzical Tilt page.
• Whip It has a pretty cool one, 7maybe unintentional, but after Bliss and Oliver's Night Out, Bliss is walking back up to her house, wearing Oliver's Green Jacket, a Black Skirt, and Black Boots (with Long-ish Brown Hair). See? ^{[dead link]}

X

• In X2: X-Men United, Mystique scrolls through a list of mutants on a computer, searching for Magneto. A few entries above Magneto's file, one of the names listed is Remy Lebeau, or Gambit.
  • In fact, all of those names are from the comics.
  • While all of those names were in a single folder, Franklin Richards had a folder all his own.

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