The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Compilation" references a creepypasta about a Missing Episode titled "The Grieving", claiming it will show scenes from the episode. It shows the Saxophone Chihuahua from "The Uploads".
American Dad!: A number of YouTube videos riff on the opening by having Stan sleeping through his "good morning song." In "A Little Extra Scratch", he's laying in bed, worried about his new financial woes, while the song plays.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "Clash of the Superheroes!" has Superman, affected by red Kryptonite, turn into a Jerkass and recreate some of the most famous moments of Superdickery history. Jimmy actually says that Superman is "turning into a real di-" only for Lois to interrupt "-fferent person".
After senator Fritz Hollings infamously referred to Beavis And Butthead as "Buffcoat and Beaver", other characters calling the duo by the wrong name became a running gag (and yes, Buffcoat and Beaver was actually used in an episode).
Those famous Felix the Cat clocks? They started out as bootlegs. Because of their popularity, the company began selling an "official" version.
The "Fry sees what you did there", "Not sure if..." and "Why not Zoidberg?" memes were used by Comedy Central in commercials for Futurama's seventh season.
The Couch Gag for the seventh season premiere was "Not sure if new episode or just rerun of episode I watched drunk".
Also, "Shut up and take my quarters!" later in the same episode.
A zig zagged example in the Hamster & Gretel episode "Over the Hill" they bring up the "If I had a nickel" meme. While this is technically a Phineas and Ferb meme, the creator of the show also created the latter one, and it's implied the show takes place in the same universe (if not the exact same city) note For example, Doofenshmirtz & Ballooney made a cameo in one episode, though that was more of a joke. so it kind of counts.
From the Cadmus arc episodes of Justice League Unlimited, when most of the big seven turn themselves in:
Guard: Where's Batman? The Flash: Running late. The Batmobile lost a wheel. The Joker got away.
The song had appeared in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series before that, complete with the Joker (who was singing the full song) "getting away"...on a rocket shaped like a Christmas tree. Joker even adds his own lyrics:
Joker: Crashing through the roof, in a one horse open tree, busting out I go, laughing all the WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Various apparel merchandise pieces have paired Prince Adam with the question "What's going on?" and Skeletor with "Myaaah!", a phrase that has been associated with him, but not a canonical quote from him.
During the Classics run of action figures, a "Laughing Prince Adam" figure, giving him one of the facial expressions from the video, was released. The background of the box also had a rainbow holographic design, in reference to the music video.
The grey pegasus with the blonde mane and walleyes had her fan-given name, Derpy, confirmed as canon on Jan 21st 2012, and her fan-created love of muffins confirmed in the ending credits of the movie.
In 2013, the video game changed the pony "Time Turner" to Dr. Hooves, which is as close to his fan name, Doctor Whooves, as you can get without getting sued. Of course, he exists as a character in the first place due to Memetic Mutation. He was a background pony with no characterization and a totally different voice portrayal every time he got to say a word or two, and would have wings or a horn depending on where they were, but fans latched onto him because he had David Tennant's hair cut/color and an hourglass as his personal symbol. Now, he has merchandise, an official name and description, and there are other background ponies with identical hourglass marks looking like other Doctor actors. No word on if they're the same guy. In "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies", he appears alongside Rose(luck) wearing 3D glasses; Rose being the name of the 9th and 10th Doctor's first companion, and in A Royal Problem there's a Dream bubble featuring him in the middle of a hedge maze with him looking fearfully at a stone statue in one corner. Come the 100th Episode Special"Slice of Life", he's very clearly a full Expy of the Doctor, even to the point where Tennant was even in consideration to voice him.
The toys have a good amount of these as well; a good example is Heartstrings, who very closely resembled the popular background pony nicknamed Lyra, resulting in the fans deciding that "Heartstrings" was Lyra's surname. Sure enough, every subsequent wave of toys names the pony as "Lyra Heartstrings". Similarly, Lulamoon resembled minor antagonist Trixie, so Lulamoon was believed to be a stage name or a surname. Later toys named her Trixie Lulamoon. Another example is DJ-Pon3, who despite appearing for only a few seconds in one episode, proved so popular that the name ended up being canonized in The Hub's "Equestria Girls" TV commercial, and like Lyra she ended up getting her own toy. In this case, the other name (Vinyl Scratch) became her real name with DJ-Pon3 being a stage name.
In addition to the comic, even television listings descriptions refer to the main characters as the Mane Six by now.
Background pony Bon Bon was named after the My Little Pony Tales pony with a similar cutie mark, but renamed "Sweetie Drops" when the trademark was lost. She has been given a line or two in several episodes over the years, and like Dr. Whooves, her portrayal was very different from one time to the next. Fans decided she must be one heck of a voice actress. Now at least one of her toys mentions her talent for changing her voice.
Minuette, another recurring extra, was nicknamed "Colgate" due to her toothpaste-striped mane, and became a frequent subject of the "Brushie Brushie" meme. In "Luna Eclipsed", she dresses as a dental surgeon for Nightmare Night.
The 100th episode is an entire episode devoted to ascended memes, including but not limited to Derpy Hooves (now called Muffins), Dr. Hooves, Lyra Heartstrings and Bon Bon, and Vinyl Scratch and Octavia (roommates). Doctor Whooves gets many scenes with Derpy (fanonically the Doctor's companion and/or love interest) and one with Roseluck at the end (after the Revival's iconic first companion Rose Tyler; Roseluck is, in fact, never called anything but "Rose" in the show.)
After 98 episodes, the purple sea serpent the mane six helped out during the second episode of the show appears again. The fans had nicknamed this (then un-named character) as "Steven Magnet" thanks to Youtube's automated subtitles somehow misinterpreting Rarity's line "Your fabulous manicure" and his line "It's so truuuuue!"◊. Come "Slice of Life", this is now his canon name.
Lyra and Bon Bon also get special mention for that episode. The fandom's OTP constantly call themselves "best friends..." and have the maximum amount of Les Yay you can give two characters short of having them make out onscreen. This both pleases and angers both shippers and non-shippers to a degree that's quite hilarious. Also, both names for her are now canon; Sweetie Drops is her real name but she goes by Bon Bon since she's actually a secret agent. It was definitely a love letter to us all.
"Make New Friends But Keep Discord" gives a moment to Celestia. One popular fan portrayal of her is that she is the ultimate prankster, even giving Discord a run for his money. Canon Celestia has been known to have a slight mischievous side, often used to put people at ease. Well, in this episode, she was in full Trollestia mode, finding all the chaos quite glorious.
Phineas and Ferb has a minor character named Balthazar Horowitz, but his real name was not revealed in-show until the Season 4 episode "Troy Story". Before that, he was informally referred to as "The Ballpit Kid," a nickname granted by the show's wiki. In the same episode, after stating his full name, Balthazar says, "But you can call me 'The Ballpit Kid'."
In the penultimate episode "Act Your Age" during the song "What Might Have Been" Isabella says the line "They would've called us 'Phinabella'" a reference to their most popular Portmanteau Couple Name.
Robot Chicken's "Mo-Larr, Eternian Dentist" sketch was so popular, that Mattel gave him an action figure in their fan-oriented Masters of the Universe Classics line; he came with all his dental tools, and a toothless Skeletor figure; the back of the box further referenced the skit, showing Beast Man tied up with the dental floss and Grizzlor with the "&@#$-ing drill" in his eye.
Scooby-Doo: During the run of Dragon Ball Super, there was a popular fan video that took the scene from Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur, where Shaggy beats up an entire biker gang without breaking a sweat, and set it to the Ultra Instinct theme. This video then lead to a meme Shaggy being the most powerful cartoon character, with his fear is his limiter. This meme has then gone on to be referenced a few times in official Warner Bros. productions.
In response to an update for Dragon Ball Legends, the official Twitter account for SCOOB! posted an image of Shaggy behind a blue fireball, meant to invoke the Ultra Instinct transformation, along with a comment about Shaggy using "five percent of his power".
Multi Versus has Shaggy as one of the playable characters, using powerful physical attacks and being constantly surrounded by a Battle Aura in reference to the meme.
In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, one character, Frosta, was given an Age Lift from a teenager to 11 (and three quarters). Cue many references to the "I'm 11, so shut the fuck up" Vine. In the recap rap, they state "keep in mind, Frosta's not 9 she's 11 and 3/4".
On The Simpsons, Milhouse was always known for failure. But since the association with a Forced Meme, he has a habit of spouting them and trying to force memes. It fails every time.
"D'oh!", "embiggen" and "cromulent" were all added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
The scene of Homer walking back and disappearing into some bushes from "Homer Loves Flanders" became a popular reaction meme online. It was then used by Homer as a response to Lisa in the Season 30 episode "The Girl on the Bus". Bart does it himself in "Wad Goals", followed by his friends.
Being a long runner, the show has had so manyHilarious in Hindsight moments or Harsher in Hindsight that fans like to say the Simpsons "predicted" various things. This was acknowledged at least twice: Disney+ has a "predict" collection of episodes with such moments, and one Bart blackboard gag notes, "If we're so good at predicting, how come my dad bet on Atlanta?".
Brian Boitano has, in at least one occasion during an exhibition, skated to the song "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
At one point in time, Food Network gave Boitano a cooking show, which he called What Would Brian Boitano Make?, and it does use a cleaned-up version of the song as its theme song.
The (rather disturbing) "Are You Happy Now?" episode is apparently this to the "Squidward's Suicide" creepypasta. Why they chose that, of all memes to ascend...
There's been no word as to whether it was an intentional Call-Back to the first movie or a case of this trope, but Season 11 episode "Scavenger Pants" at one point features Patrick making the same exact face he made back in the first movie◊ (which, incidentally, became a massive meme in the 2010s).
The "Mocking SpongeBob" meme from "Little Yellow Book" is referenced in "Pat the Dog". When Squidward tells Patrick to act like a chicken, he imitates the same pose and starts clucking.
Star Trek: Lower Decks is built on a mix of ascended memes and memberberries. Like literally dozens of examples per episode. One of the more memorable examples is the joke question of "who cleans up the disgusting bodily fluids that people leave in the holodeck?" Turns out it's ensigns on Punishment Detail.
In the Steven Universe episode Together Alone, Steven has a dream in which Yellow Diamond has a stretchy, snaking neck. This is inspired by ongoing fandom jokes about Yellow Diamond's neck being absurdly long and giraffe-like — these jokes in turn stem from her onscreen introduction in "Message Received" having deliberately gone Off-Model for the sake of expressiveness, which resulted in her having an unusually long neck in some shots.
After fans discovered Deedee Magno-Hall (Pearl's voice actress) used to be in pop group "The Party", they would make videos of characters reacting to Hall's verse in their song "LA", titled "X reacts to Pearl's Secret Rap Career". One of them ended with a clip of Hall herself reacting, along with her new group The Mama Bares.
In Cartoon Network's rebooted Thunder Cats 2011, during Panthro's debut episode he tells Lion-O "You're standing on my sammoflange"; later on, Tygra asks what exactly a sammoflange is. This is a reference to the infamous Hilarious Outtakes video from the original ThunderCats, where one clip has Panthro say "And keep your foot off that blasted sammoflange!", which makes Tygra's voice actor break character, cracking up and asking "What the fuck is a sammoflange?!"
While Transformers: Animated has been using a lot of Mythology Gags, the portrayal of the medic Ratchet as old, cranky, and not inclined to put up with other people's slag is not from the earlier series. It is, however, the most common portrayal of Ratchet in fanon. (It's also worth mentioning that Animated Ratchet bears great resemblance to Kup from The Transformers: The Movie).
Rhinox's signature weapon from Beast Wars, a pair of machine guns, gained the nickname "Chain Guns of Doom", a name that was later mentioned in the Ultimate Guide.
It also showed up on the back of the box for the 10th Anniversary reissue of his toy.
This has also happened for a fan edit of a Transformers: Armada promotional comic that portrayed Hot Shot as a mentally challenged lunatic obsessed with "JaAm". Mention of it creeped into Hot Shot's 2009 universe bio, and he also has it on his license plate.
In X-Men: The Animated Series, a Running Gag was of Jean Grey fainting. In X-Men '97, her fainting is what helps reveal that she was the real Jean Grey when she shows back up in front of another.
Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem.
