Teen Titans (animation)/Shout-Out

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Teen Titans features plenty of Shout Outs. Here's the list:

  • There are many references to FLCL and Battle of the Planets, as Glen Murakami's a fan of both.
  • "257-494" is pretty much twenty-two minutes of references. They even got in the Star Wars Kid.
  • "Fear Itself" is the introduction of Control Freak, as well as some awesome Star Wars and Star Trek references. Not only is Control Freak's sole reason for attacking a video rental store because he found out that they had not made 'Warp Trek 5'(with the original cast from the TV show!) one of their top suggested movies to rent, starring an alien with pointy ears, the sound his remote makes is the same sound the transporter makes. He even calls the salesgirl a tribble! He then goes on to assure that although the Teen Titans are not afraid of him, they will be soon by quoting Yoda.
  • Look hard at Thunder and Lightning's style, their artwork resembles Osamu Tezuka era Anime character models, and for that matter, look at how stylized the episode in general was, if I recall, when Beast Boy lectures Thunder for the second time, it looks similar to Japanese Mythology (Appropriate, considering how the designs and mannerisms of Thunder and Lightning resemble Japanese legends), and the end of the episode, look at the horizon, it's also very stylized.
  • In "Winner Take All", the background music bears a distinct resemblance to Mortal Kombat's theme. Granted it's not exactly the same, but the influence is there.
  • In "Bunny Raven, or How to Make a Titananimal Disappear", among other shout-outs (including a Statler and Waldorf shtick), there's a shout-out to "Yes! We Have No Bananas", a part of a -- what else? -- 20s Broadway revue.
  • In "For Real", Control Freak's Hacker Cave contains multiple computer screens with Matrix Raining Code.
  • In "How Long Is Forever?", the punks tormenting Beast Boy have similar designs to the Mutants. Coincidence?
  • Beast Boy briefly turns into Chewbacca in "Stranded". Then later carries Cyborg as if he were C-3PO!
  • Immediately after the Chewbacca shout-out, he turns Cyborg into Giant Robo (and himself into Daisaku Kusama)!
  • Watch just after the first commercial break in "Fractured"; Larry turns Robin's arm into a chainsaw.
  • Possibly jumping the line between homage and plagiarism, the episode "Car Trouble" copies the entire minutes long chase scene from The Castleof Cagliostro, down to the level of detail visible in each shot.
  • In "Betrothed", the scene where Robin yells Starfire's name through a glass window is very reminiscent of The Graduate.
  • "The Prophecy" has Slade stopping time using the same visual effect as the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure OAVs.
  • What about the fact that Robot Chicken made a parody of the show? Then not long after, in "Stranded", Beast Boy accidentally rebuilt Cyborg as a chicken? Even funnier when you know that the creators of Robot Chicken have credited Cyborg as the basis for their Chicken design.
  • The inside of Kitten and Killer Moth's house is suspiciously similar to the house from The Brady Bunch.
  • "Mad Mod" features a plethora of shoutouts; including the Sea of Holes from Yellow Submarine, a door sequence ripped straight out of Scooby Doo, mind-boggling paintings by M. C. Escher and mind control devices not entirely unlike the ones used in A Clockwork Orange.
  • "Revolution" has several Monty Python's Flying Circus references, including: shrill old women discussing shopping, the Terry Gilliam look of the illusions he uses, and, of course, a giant foot crushing all of the team except Robin.
  • The opening scene of "Masks" parallels the cave scene of The Empire Strikes Back.
  • The design of Red X is very similar in tone, motif, and look to Skull Man. It's a bit tough to call, though. Skull Man does predate this show by a lot, but that specific design didn't come until the 2007 version by Bones.
  • Brain's robot body and voice in "Homecoming" suspiciously similar to that of a Dalek.
    • This was intentional, funnily enough.
  • In "The End, Part. II", Robin and Slade both dance like they want to win.
  • In the last episode of the fifth season, "Things Change", a kid who resembles Napoleon from Napoleon Dynamite is also attending Terra's school and can be seen passing by in front of the camera in a few scenes, notably in the library and at the end of the episode in the hallway.
  • In the new short "Movies" Control Freak is painted as a Navi from Avatar riding a mecha suit from either the same movie or Aliens, which appears to be the movie the Titans are watching.
  • The computer virus Cyborg is infected with in "Crash" is clearly Keramon, the baby form of the Big Bad of the second Digimon movie, Bokura no Wargame.
  • The title of the first Raven-centric episode, "Nevermore", is a reference to the famous Edgar Allan Poe poem The Raven.
  • Ho boy. In the New Teen Titans short "Turn Back The Clock", Mad Mod is turning back time with a red TARDIS. As time goes backwards, the teams' costumes go through their previous iterations from the comics, including pants-less Robin and Stripperific Starfire. When they reach the 70's, they get the costumes from the Scooby Doo gang, complete with B.B. Snacks. When Robin cranks time forward too far, he's turned into "Robin the Toy Wonder" from DC One Million; the other four titans are replaced with the futuristic heroes of Titans: Scissors, Paper, Stone[1], with the designs done by the series' character designer Derrick Wyatt for fun in 2006 (which helps explain why "Witchie-Poo" looks remarkably like a post-upgrade Sari Sumdac[2]).
  • The Brain looks like a Dalek from the "neck" down.
  1. ↑ (an Elseworlds series by Empowered author Adam Warren)
  2. ↑ (Another series with designs by Wyatt)
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