Reference Overdosed



""Is it just me or am I making a lot of references in this episode?""

- Linkara

Any work where the Homages and Shout Outs are almost too numerous to count. Often these are fan works or comedies (goes triple if the series is a Long Runner), since it would be distracting to have so many of these in more serious works, save for comic relief moments.

But even in the appropriate works, how well this is done depends on most of the references being done well. Sometimes this works, sometimes not.

The references can even turn into multiple Genius Bonuses.

Compare Trope Overdosed, Refuge in Cool, Pastiche, Fountain of Memes, Continuity Cavalcade.

Anime & Manga

 * Pani Poni Dash literally has well over 500 over the course of a 26 episode series and 1 OVA.
 * Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
 * Lucky Star
 * Excel Saga
 * Mahou Sensei Negima
 * Digimon Xros Wars, to the point it needs a separate page for its examples.
 * The first season of the Hayate the Combat Butler anime. The manga too, but not as much. The second season excised most of them away, sadly.
 * Not really, there still a notable amount during Season 2, and the manga does it on Once Per Episode routine.
 * The World God Only Knows
 * Genshiken
 * Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha to several series under the Humongous Mecha genre such as Super Robot Wars, Gundam, and Gao Gai Gar, as well as a few others outside of that genre such as Ace Combat and Kamen Rider.
 * Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
 * Princess Resurrection
 * Keroro Gunsou
 * FoolyCooly
 * While it's always been a tradition for some Humongous Mecha designs in Gundam shows to riff on ones from previous series, Gundam Seed Destiny cranks it to the max. The best example is probably the colossal Destroyer Gundam, a Psycho Gundam knockoff that turns into a Big Zam.
 * Gintama
 * Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt combines this with Cultural Cross-Reference.
 * Kirby of the Stars
 * Maria Holic
 * And, while the main culprits are already listed, practically every other Shaft show counts too.
 * Nyarko San has, besides its Cthulhu Mythology Gags, lots and lots of references to pretty much every Kamen Rider series, Gundam and Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure. Note that those are just the main reference sources (Ichigo Mashimaro, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Monster Hunter, Back to The Future, Macross, obscure JRPGs, Japanese ads... it's a tour de force).
 * The anime for Asobi Ni Iku Yo, known as Cat Planet Cuties in the US.

Comic Books
""Bloom County was awash with pop culture references and celebrity mockery...largely because those beguiling assets were virtually absent from the comedic media at the time. But just look at us now. No, it's not my &@%# fault."
 * Watchmen has a whole load, especially musical references, but also to works of literature, and modern pop-culture.
 * Asterix as well, but like in the Looney Tunes example, some are too old to be recognized, even by the French audience.
 * The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Specially in the latest graphic novels. Seriously, you will be surprised how many British 60's sitcom characters can appear in a number of pages.
 * De Cape et de Crocs is pretty much the French equivalent of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in terms of number of Shout Outs per panel, starting with the title.
 * The Sandman is an unusual serious example; it probably manages to stay serious because its Homages and Shout Outs are usually to myths or the classics instead of pop culture.
 * Scott Pilgrim, particularly in relation to Video Games and music.
 * Kill Shakespeare has a lot of references to Shakespeare, naturally.
 * As you can see in the picture above, the Monica's Gang comic can get so blatant and ridiculous in it's shout outs, it can be called Refuge in Audacity (and that Avatar parody manages to put more blue characters - which include a real person, Zidane... - in another panel). This also applies to other brazillian comics, such as Holy Avenger.
 * A Running Gag on a satirical Tumblr about Monica's Gang is saying "Mauricio's lawyers, get ready..." every time the comic uses No Celebrities Were Harmed. (the caption of the page image was "that panel alone is probably worth two billion in lawsuits, dammit!")
 * The author of Bloom County wrote that:

Fan Fiction

 * This can actually be quite a problem in fanworks, especially since (a) the authors are generally pretty geeky by default, (b) there's often an unusually large amount of interaction between writer and audience, and (c) they're derived from pre-established settings anyway. Eventually, the sheer quantity of Shout Outs to other shows can reach critical mass, causing a hitherto coherent story to collapse into a formless heap of references.
 * In keeping with its source material, Decks Fall Everyone Dies has a lot of references.
 * Neon Genesis Evangelion fan fiction tends to include many references.
 * The Dys FU Nctional Pirates
 * Those Lacking Spines has references ranging from Harry Potter to the llama song to Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends to Celine Dion to Katamari Damacy.
 * You should just see how Luna Lovegood is treated in Harry Potter fanfiction. If she's not running her mouth off or a Seer she's referencing pop culture that won't be relevant for around a decade or so.
 * A conservative estimate of Battle Royale fanfiction Seventy Two Hours' reference count would be 500. This is not an exaggeration, considering that each of the eponymous hours has its own chapter, and it's roughly equivalent to a 1300 page book in length. It is, however, testament to the obsession with shoutouts held by the author.
 * Listing the references in Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality has taken up quite a bit of space on its page.
 * By the same author, The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover manages to reference practically everything in the TV Tropes Wiki.
 * Harry Potter and the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus is rife with references to (Muggle, obviously) culture. It contributes to the story's lighthearted, campy feel (Draco Malfoy reading Ernest Hemingway? Who would ever guess?)
 * Kyon: Big Damn Hero, being advertised as a Haruhi Suzumiya Suzumiya/TVTropes crossover (whatever that means), has a lot of references to other works and tropes, with many not being Lampshade Hanging.
 * Sonic World Adventure Rush is considered by some to be a bit too overdosed in its fan service. And it's still going!
 * Its a Small World After All, a Hetalia fanfic, has tons of references, ranging from Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series to 300.

Film

 * Monsters vs. Aliens
 * Seltzer and Friedberg are two infamous examples of doing this wrong.
 * Or the "_____ Movie" parody series in general (Epic Movie, Date Movie, Scary Movie...), in that they are nothing "but" pop culture references and shout outs, without the film makers remembering for a parody the reference has to be the start of the joke, not the end of it.
 * Any Quentin Tarantino film.
 * Many Kevin Smith films.
 * Shrek, not counting the Fairy Tales which are actually part of that universe.
 * Die Another Day referenced every single James Bond film before it.
 * Both Scream and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon are deconstructions of the slasher sub-genre of horror that make numerous references to other horror movies.
 * Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, much like the comic upon which it's based, revels thoroughly in this trope.
 * Most films directed by Joe Dante, including Gremlins, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, The Howling, and Piranha.
 * Rise of the Planet of the Apes was this way, due to a desire for Shout Outs to the original film.

Literature

 * Ready Player One has this as part of its plot, but narrows it to 1980s video games and pop culture in an effort to solve the puzzle left behind by a rich eccentric as part of his will.
 * Finnegans Wake features thousands of references to everything imaginable.
 * A Night in the Lonesome October abounds with references, being a wide-ranging gothic horror pastiche with references to other genres. It contains many Homages and Shout Outs beyond its crossover characters.
 * The works of Philip Jose Farmer are sometimes Reference Overdosed, particularly those set in the Wold Newton universe. A single work may be a Homage to one writer while encoding allusions to the work of many, many others. For example, no name is innocent until all anagrams, obscure linguistic derivations and so forth have been exhausted.
 * Discworld
 * The Dresden Files, since everyone is Genre Savvy and the narrator is a Pop-Cultured Badass.
 * The works of Robert Anton Wilson
 * Most stories by Kim Newman (including those written under his Jack Yeovil pseudonym), especially the Anno Dracula series.
 * The Ciaphas Cain books are absolutely loaded with references to both science fiction and turn-of-the-century juvenile adventures.
 * The author of the Warhammer novels collectively known as "The Vampire Wars" acknowledges his books contain at least a hundred references to classic vampire stories like Dracula. One of his fans sent him a list of references in his novels, but the author didn't have the heart to say he'd missed about another fifty.
 * The first page of Where's Waldo? The Wonder Book. It puts all the other examples to shame.
 * Bret Easton Ellis likes to do this with his characters to highlight how shallow they are. Many pages in Glamorama are just long lists of Victor and his friends name dropping celebrities, and in American Psycho, Patrick has to describe in excruciating detail what everyone is wearing.
 * T. S. Eliot's works, especially The Waste Land. The poem is full of classical literature and religious references, and quotes them in their native language.

Live Action TV

 * The Middleman, usually with a different theme each episode (one episode is full of Dune references, another Back to The Future references, another Ghostbusters references, and so on...)
 * Spaced. There's even a bonus subtitle track on the DVD that notes all the references.
 * Community. Abed is stated to be incapable of communicating through any other medium than movies.
 * Psych CONSTANTLY references obscure 80s and 90s pop culture.
 * NCIS: Tony is a movie buff, and McGee is a gamer, among other justifications for this.
 * Gilmore Girls is famous for its abundance of references. Each DVD even has a little booklet explaining the more obscure ones.
 * Monty Python's Flying Circus: many encyclopedic references to historical and cultural figures, exotic animals and places. Most of these jokes could make sense to intellectuals, but then there are also many references to British culture, especially politicians, TV hosts and programs that were famous during the late 1960s and early 1970s. They are usually completely incomprehensible and obscure to international audiences and even to the English, especially while Time Marches On.
 * Mystery Science Theater 3000
 * Supernatural, particularly when it comes to music.
 * Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger is this towards the Super Sentai series.
 * Doctor Who. Good Lord. Its almost fifty years old, so its accumulated a lot over that time. Some of the older episodes reference things like Beatles lyrics, while New-Who has referenced things like Star Trek, Ghostbusters, Harry Potter, Teletubbies, and way, way more.
 * Red Dwarf often makes reference to films such as Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and Blade Runner. For instance, the episode Back To Earth is considered by most to only be enjoyable if you know the Blade Runner references, to most other fans it is a horrible episode.
 * Leverage is so reference overdosed that its shout outs had to be moved to their own page.

Music

 * The Wu-Tang Clan: cursory examination of the first two tracks on Enter the Wu-Tang/36 Chambers turns up, in addition to the samples and references to old Kung-fu movies for which they're famous, overt references to Steven Seagal and his film Out for Justice, Voltron, and The Warriors.
 * Also, Ghostface Killah had a song from the 1996 album Iron Man (which was when he started using the alias Tony Stark) entitled "Daytona 500" (named mostly for its fast pace) which used clips from the original Speed Racer to make one of the first Anime Music Videos which is still considered a favorite by many.
 * The song itself contained samples from Bob James' "Nautilus" and "Crab Apple" by Idris Muhammad whle the chorus from "Turn The Beat Around" by Vicki Sue Robinson sped up and reworded for the hook. And even featured two samples from previous Wu singles, "Mystery of Chessboxin" and Raekwon's "Incarcerated Scarfaces" which also had an obvious Shout-Out in title as well as the lyrics.
 * The mileage varies, but this opened the AMV flood gates, being one of the first AMV's showed on TV and predating YouTube and self-made AMV's.
 * Half Man Half Biscuit. Their website has a section dedicated to explaining some of the references.
 * No More Kings. When describing them most places refer to them and funk/pop mixed with 80s references. Though there are more references, the 80s are just the most prominent.
 * Destroyer. Dan Bejar's main band has its own wiki and drinking game.
 * Frank Zappa: his music was deeply personal and references several aspects of the society of his time, including music, commercials, politics, TV and even inside jokes in his own band and anecdotes from his own life. Zappa once claimed that he doubted if his lyrics could make sense to anyone but himself.
 * The entirety of Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny is Shout-Out after Shout-Out from beginning to end.
 * Sage Francis, a rapper from Providence, RI, makes tons of references to "classic" hip hop songs. He'll often re-use classic lines, substituting a word here or there or reversing the word order as a kind of wordplay homage; he'll also re-use the cadence of certain iconic lines in a subtle nod.
 * R.E.M.'s music would frequently make references to ancient mythology in order to conceal the true meanings of the songs (namely Michael Stipe's bisexuality or political events). This had the side effect of making people think he spoke gibberish. To clarify, the first time he admitted to writing a song with straightforward lyrics was in 1992 when the band recorded "Everybody Hurts" - 12 years after they started.

Radio

 * Any Dennis Miller rant.

Tabletop Games

 * Dungeons the Dragoning, which mashes together the rules of several pen-and-paper systems, uses the setting of others, and gives shout-outs to everything else.

Theater

 * Any given Tom Stoppard play, dipping into Genius Bonus levels.
 * Eric Overmyer's On the Verge. Between the shout-outs and uncommon vocabulary, it's a dramaturg's delight. Or nightmare!

Video Games
"Floyd: I'd like to make a Jimmy Hoffa joke, but I think most of the people playing this game are kids who are getting tired of running to Google every other line to figure out what we're talking about."
 * Nethack is quite possibly the most reference overdosed game to ever be created. It boasts hundreds of literary quotes regarding topics as mundane as doorways and a wide reference pool that encompasses a large variety of topics: ancient mythology, fantasy, geek culture, mathematics, physics and other games.
 * The Ace Attorney series is filled to the brim with Shout Outs, ranging from television to internet memes.
 * Disgaea increases the number of Shout Outs with every game. As of the fourth installment, nearly every spell, special attack and item description is some sort of reference to anything from H.P. Lovecraft to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann to Penny Arcade. Anime Tenchou is even a Summon Magic... No, not a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Anime Tenchou -- the actual one.
 * World of Warcraft originally used to have a handful of Shout Outs in the form of traditional Easter Eggs, but since Burning Crusade, almost every character, quest name, and area is a reference to something, probably blatantly.
 * Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime has loads of references to other Square Enix games.
 * Dungeons of Dredmor is so brimming with Shout Outs, from the item descriptions to the monster taunts to the achivement names, that it has its own Shout Out page.
 * Borderlands
 * The web-based MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing is simply brimming with references to other works, particularly They Might Be Giants songs and music in general. This is one of its main draws.
 * Spore has more than a few.
 * Touhou. Even the attack names can be references to Japanese mythology, and obscure ones at that. One game had a plot that referenced three separate Japanese myths...and UFOs. It also had references to older games in the series and Space Invaders.
 * Absolutely everything by Artix Entertainment Games. Adventure Quest, Dragon Fable, Mechquest... everything.
 * No More Heroes and the sequel No More Heroes 2 Desperate Struggle.
 * Runescape, being a long-running MMORPG, has them everywhere from Whole-Plot Reference to small texts when examining things.
 * Meat Boy games. From chapter intros to level titles.
 * Retro City Rampage will feature tons of Shout Outs to not just old-school games, but movies and TV shows, as well.
 * Tons in the Sam and Max Freelance Police games, ranging from Super Mario Bros. to Planet of the Apes to The Beatles to the Cthulhu Mythos...
 * Three D Dot Game Heroes
 * Billy vs. SNAKEMAN Nearly every NPC is at least one Captain Ersatz, the pre-Cerebus Syndrome plot is mostly Whole Plot References strung together, and countless incidental references are found everywhere you look.
 * Lego Universe seems to love referencing internet memes.
 * The entire Fallout series, especially Fallout 2 and New Reno.
 * Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game is practically built on this trope.
 * Epic Battle Fantasy is packed with tons of Shout Outs to anime, manga, and other games.
 * Civilization: Look at 5's achievements and see how many Shout Outs you can find.
 * The Simpsons Hit and Run is loaded with references both to the show (beyond the usual stuff in a Licensed Game) and other works.
 * Pokémon
 * The Umineko no Naku Koro ni visual novels are packed to the brim with references- from mystery novels and scientific concepts, to Shout Outs to various anime and video games.
 * The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword does this to the Logical Extreme: as a Prequel, almost everything is a direct reference to some other game in the series. You really do have to be a Zelda fan to fully appreciate the game.
 * The Saints Row games have references and homages coming out of its ass. Assassin's Creed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Call of Duty, Ducky, Evangelion, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Golgo 13, Happy Days, Inu Yasha, Jaws, Battlestar Galactica...
 * Abobo's Big Adventure is so jam-packed with references to the NES games, and to various aspects of '80s pop culture, it is impossible to list them all.
 * Highborn is an iOS game that includes references to anything from The Wizard of Oz and Mountain Dew to James Brown and My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. There are even missions with Whole Plot References to Star Wars and Portal.


 * Epic Mickey has loads of Mythology Gags on the various Disney products. One area has old NES and SNES cartridges of Disney Licensed Games strewn about.
 * Aqua Rhapsody, The developer notes that a lot of small things are "shoutouts" to video game, anime, etc. These are as obscure as the level transitions that fade out in a similar manner to Space Harrier.
 * Asura's Wrath has tons of visual Shout-Out's to a lot of anime as well as other video games. See them here.

Web Comics

 * Xkcd
 * Cat and Girl - and many of the references are to philosophical notions unknown to the average reader, in a particular appeal to the Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness crowd.
 * Exterminatus Now has plenty of Shout Outs ranging from Top Gear to Monty Python and The Holy Grail, and plenty of Product Placement to boot.
 * Freefall, given where it stands on Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness and how long it's been going (March 30, 1998 being the first strip, 1871 strips ago).
 * During the robot meeting arc, it had robots from other sources, both pop-culture and real-life, appearing in the background of nearly every strip.
 * Homestuck makes quite a few of these. Due to its nature, many of these references are inserted after the fact - for example, Bro's shades and Lord English were only established as references after the fandom noted that they were references.
 * Nearly every single thing in Erfworld is some sort of a Shout-Out or horrible pun.
 * Sarah Zero references everything from Metallica to Sarah Palin to Zero Punctuation.
 * Second Empire has Shout Outs of everything from Doctor Who comics and Doctor Who TV series, to Star Wars, James Bond, Doom, and all sort of things.
 * Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
 * Our Little Adventure.
 * Square Root of Minus Garfield references over 100 different works in its 1,031-strip run.

Web Original

 * Any Abridged Series. Especially the one that started them all.
 * Special mention goes to Naruto the Abridged Comedy Spoof Series Show, which, as a Deconstructive Parody of the Abridged Series genre, makes practically everything into a reference of some kind.
 * Almost every show on That Guy With The Glasses.
 * Kickassia
 * Suburban Knights
 * Skippys List
 * This phenomenon was a constant in the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, and given that the players involved included ordained ministers, a professor of quantum physics, a member of the British House of Commons, several professional writers, a television producer, a movie special effects expert, a chef, three lawyers, active duty soldiers, artists, actors, attorneys, doctors, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, a librarian, a stock broker, computer programmers of various types, a Roman Catholic priest, a biochemist, the mayor of a small Florida, and a professional dominatrix, amongst others, all of whom were highly educated and all of whom were widely read, this was to be expected. Some stories were so thick with various references (from pop-culture to legal to scientific to political) that the story itself was lost in the mix.
 * Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do In An RPG
 * The Whateley Universe, especially the story "Tales of the MCO", where the kids watch a television show and give it the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.
 * Everything about it, since it's a superhero universe which has Marvel and DC as superhero comic publishers within it. People constantly refer to this, talking about a girl who leaps in front of teammates to protect them as having 'superman syndrome' or arguing about what is needed for Marvel to make an Iron Man movie or even talking about why 'real' supers can't swipe copyrighted/trademarked superhero names.
 * Unskippable
 * Youtube Poop is chock full of random references to pop culture.
 * A Very Potter Musical. Of course there's references to the books, but between that you've got things like Zac Efron. Furthermore, entire parts of the dialog are just homages to Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * SF Debris
 * Survival of the Fittest: Due to being a collaborative work between the board's members, it qualifies. While there have been Shout Outs to previous versions and the original canon, a few others are to... less expected works, such as a character suddenly talking like Kefka, and a few characters being an Expy of characters from other works. Honestly, if one were to list every single reference in SOTF, it would take a while. It has been a minor issue on the board, however, in how many Shout Outs are okay.
 * Homestar Runner, mainly to '80s and '90s pop culture.

Western Animation
"Phineas: Why yes. Yes we *puts on shades* ... ARE.
 * Family Guy, although it has gotten out of hand for a lot of fans, and nowadays the show frequently includes references that are nothing but Padding, without a joke to justify their inclusion.
 * "He watched TV in the '80s. We get it."
 * Family Guy Presents Laugh It Up Fuzzball
 * American Dad tends to throw them in through dialog or character actions.
 * The Cleveland Show. Sensing a pattern yet?
 * The Simpsons
 * Futurama
 * Many Looney Tunes and Tex Avery cartoons, but as Time Marches On fewer and fewer people get the references. This is especially caused by references to film actors, radio shows, songs, and commercials that were very popular in the United States during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, but are nowadays completely obscure for modern audiences. Examples are:
 * "Turn off that light!" (reference to air raid wardens during World War II)
 * "It's a possibility!" (reference to Artie Auerbach's catchphrase as Mr. Kitzle during Al Pearce's radio shows)
 * "I love that man!"
 * "Don't you believe it!"
 * "Aha! Something new has been added!" (reference to Lucky Strike cigarettes)
 * "B.OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" (reference to a commercial for spray against B.O. (body odor))
 * "I'm a baaaaad boy!" (Abbott and Costello)
 * "Ah, yes! (Insert statement here), isn't it?" and "Greetings, Gate! Lets osculate!" (Jerry Colonna)
 * "I dood it!" (reference to Red Skelton's character "Mean Widdle Kid")
 * "Of course you realize this means war!" (Groucho Marx)
 * "Which way did he go, George? Which way did he go?" (reference to John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men)
 * "That ain't the way I heard it!" and "'T ain't funny, McGee!" (reference to Fibber McGee and Molly)
 * Tiny Toon Adventures
 * Animaniacs
 * Megas XLR has an extremely large amount of references to other shows, and not just of the Humongous Mecha genre (Wave Motion Gun, anyone?).
 * Transformers Animated. Without interfering with the plot or making it so that you can't follow it if you don't know what's being referenced, it manages to fit in a zillion little easter eggs into every episode. Its "Allspark Almanac" guidebook is this taken to its logical extreme. Every single thing references something, no matter how deeply the reference is buried or how obscure the things being referenced are Oh, and a second volume is on the way.
 * The short-lived Spaceballs series was nothing but Whole Plot References. No original storylines or jokes to be found anywhere. Probably explains why it was short-lived. Yes, the whole concept is a Whole-Plot Reference to Star Wars, but you'd think the writers could come up with at least a few new plots and gags in the 15+ years it took to get the cartoon made.
 * South Park series have tons of these in almost every episode.
 * The Imaginationland episodes of South Park, which feature virtually HUNDREDS of fictional characters.
 * Robot Chicken is based on referencing works.
 * Phineas and Ferb. Though aren't they a little young to know about all those older references?

Background Music: YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"


 * Re Boot makes references in almost every episode ranging from the obvious computer technology to 70s pop music and beyond.
 * Rango
 * Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers manages to fit a lot into only 65 episodes.
 * My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic doesn't allow the references to overwhelm the story, but just about every episode includes shout outs and references to topics like Blazing Saddles, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Benny Hill Show, X-Men, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. See the show's Shout-Outs page and episode guide for a complete list.
 * The Venture Brothers. The show references music, history, art, literature, politics, pop culture (from the 1890s through modern), comic books, pulp fiction, film, television, philosophy, religions, etc. Each episode is approximately 22 minutes long and every single one includes dozens of these.
 * Kim. Freaking. Possible. Her targets include James Bond, Resident Evil, The Lion King, Toy Story, Psycho, Splinter Cell, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tomb Raider, and that's the obvious stuff.
 * Aladdin, the film with Robin Williams makes this especially the case. Many of his scenes and lines were done on the fly, and when he's in full flow it becomes a 'how many references can you spot' game.
 * Recess. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Hey Arnold, Hogan's Heroes, Rugrats, The Absent Minded Professor, Dirty Harry, The Wall, Barney and Friends, Maximum Overdrive, Hello Kitty, A Goofy Movie, the list goes on.