Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Homage

Go To

"I was also reminded of Paper Mario. You have NPC party members who aid you in the turn-based battles, like in Paper Mario. They have special abilities which allow you to bypass specific obstacles in the overworld, just like in Paper Mario. You can do more damage or defend in battle by timed button presses, just like Paper Mario. And it takes the piss out of other indie games a lot, just like—come to think of it, it's exactly like Paper Mario."
— Zero Punctuation on South Park: The Stick of Truth

Homage (literally, an honor or tribute) is the deliberate, but respectful, recreation of one work of fiction within the context of another. Usually this is done for comedic effect, but occasionally it is serious. Sometimes it's both. A homage is an extended sequence, significantly more than a simple Shout-Out, but does not actually constitute a crossover even when some of the original stars recreate their roles.

Sometimes — especially when the Homage is blatant, or is part of a comedy series — it's All Just a Dream. But sometimes it's a weird or haunting reflection of the original series that is a native part of the "reality" of the show in which it is found.

A Pastiche is a very common type of homage, which involves trying to copy the style of a work or artist.

If a series is doing anything deliberately evocative of its own past, then it is an Internal Homage.

See also Actor Allusion, Genre Throwback, Homage Shot, Postmodernism, Shout-Out, Trapped in TV Land, Whole-Plot Reference, Homage Derailment. See also Expy, where the homage is a specific character.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertisement 

    Anime & Manga 
  • A two-part story in Ai Kora pays homage to The Kindaichi Case Files, complete with panels introducing the suspects and a mystery involving apparently supernatural causes.
  • The first part of the Mujina Bandits arc on the Boruto Anime is a straight-up Homage to The Shawshank Redemption.
  • Digimon Data Squad:
    • Somewhere between homage, Internal Homage and Mythology Gag is a scene in the second episode where Masaru attempts to hide Agumon by walking him around underneath a box — much like Matsuda Takato from Digimon Tamers before him. Made even funnier in the dub, as Takato and Savers' Agumon are both voiced by Brian Beacock.
    • Citramon, originally BomberNanimon, became an homage to Don Patch of Bobobo-Bobo-Bobo, complete with matching voice actor! The dub writer, Jeff Nimoy, was told that the giant walking bomb had to be censored or the episode was cut; they made the best of a bad situation.
  • Dragon Ball:
  • Excel♡Saga once did an entire episode homage to Fist of the North Star.
  • The OVA Gakuen Tokusou Hikaruon play a homage to Space Sheriffs.
  • Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex practically invented homages. If the episode isn't a homage to an American, French, or Japanese movie, it's a reference to its source material, the Ghost in the Shell graphic novel. Let's just look at it, shall we?
    • "Jungle Cruise" is a homage to two American horror movies, one of them The Silence of the Lambs.
    • "Night Cruise" is a homage to Taxi Driver.
    • "Make Up" is a homage to Open Your Eyes (the original version of Vanilla Sky).
    • "Poker Face" is a homage to Full Metal Jacket (which is even lampshaded with someone saying the story that was told sounded a lot like a movie they saw).
    • "Trans Parent" is a homage to Wings of Desire.
    • "Chain Reaction" is a homage to volume 4 of TGitS.
    • "Fabricate Fog" is another homage to volume 4 of TGitS.
    • "Endless Gig" has two references to GitS.
    • "Interceptor" has a homage to Blade Runner.
    • "Cash Eye" is a homage to Cat's Eye and Ocean's Eleven.
  • GTO: The Early Years has a two-part chapter called "The Onizuka Case Files", which is a homage to The Kindaichi Case Files, which Onizuka is reading at the beginning of the chapter.
  • Haruhi of The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya pays tribute to Phoenix Wright at the conclusion of a murder mystery episode. During the same scene, Koizumi duplicates the mannerisms of Phoenix's rival, Edgeworth, and Mikuru copies poses from Phoenix's sidekick Maya. The Culprit silhouette from Case Closed shows up in the same episode. TMoHS is fairly Reference Overdosed.
  • In an episode of Hayate the Combat Butler, Hayate gets stabbed by three blades. In two different points, the blades change. Each time, they appear to be swords wielded by the Humongous Mecha in the Super Robot Wars series. Really, Hayate, being a series filled to the brim with homages, does this all the time. Most blatantly whenever the homage has something to do with either of the anime's main sponsors (Konami and Geneon).
  • Hellsing:
    • Hellsing Ultimate OVA: Konami Code
    • Seras and Alucard's guns qualify as well, having been named after Baron Vladimir Harkonnen from Dune and the assassin from The Day of the Jackal respectively, with the Baron himself and Edward Fox (and Bruce Willis as a crazy impostor) even making cameos in dream sequences.
  • High School Of The Dead is this for almost every zombie film ever made.
  • K has a serious one, to Code Geass — major spoilers for both. The King is killed by someone who was something of an enemy and love to them, who doesn't want to have to do it. The pose is the same. His last words are heard by a young girl with some degree of psychic ability, who succeeds him. The Sword of Damocles is no longer a threat. The King's Fiery Redhead subordinate didn't realize what was going on until it was too late. The King's closest supporter and companion has accepted this fate and says the final words of the series thanking the King. Top with brilliant, Tear Jerker music.
  • The scene depicting the establishment of the Lippstadt Alliance in Legend of the Galactic Heroes is a homage to Jacques-Louis David's sketch on the Tennis Court Oath, which essentially makes it an Irony, since the Lippstadt Alliance is established to uphold an absolute monarchy, whereas the participants of the Tennis Court Oath were pledging against absolute monarchy.
  • Lucky Star will occasionally break into homage sequences of anything from Yu-Gi-Oh! to Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu to entire extended sequences straight out of Anime Tenchou.
  • MegaMan NT Warrior has two episodes in its second season devoted to these. One is a perfect homage to Speed Racer, and the final one of the season was one to Ghostbusters.
  • In Monster, Grimmer's favorite TV show The Magnificent Steiner which also serves as the basis for his split personality is clearly a homage to The Incredible Hulk.
  • Mouse, has entire chapters of the Manga devoted to recreating series such as Cat's Eye or Galaxy Express 999.
  • In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Kotaro's demon form was intended as a Homage to Inuyasha. There's also a minor character, the mage teacher Seruhiko, who was a homage to Serpico of Berserk. Kentaro Miura even approved the character.
  • One Piece:
  • Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: One can argue that the entire series is just made of a never-ending series of homages...
  • Pokémon: The Original Series once did a homage to Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, believe it or not. The premise of "Showdown at Dark City" is about two rival gangs fighting for domination in a desolate town, only to be thwarted by our wandering hero(es).
  • Princess Tutu is filled to the brim with homages to famous ballets and operas. All the Japanese covers are based on a ballet, several episodes mimic plots of ballets or plays ("Giselle" and "Midsummer Night's Dream" being the most blatant), a large number of the dances performed in the series are based on choreography from productions of actual shows...the list goes on.
  • Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei is full of these of everything from Alias to Sailor Moon, in one episode each of the girls is murdered and their dead bodies positioned to look like characters from various anime.
  • Oddly enough, SD Gundam, the Negative Continuity parody of Mobile Suit Gundam, had a Wacky Races homage.
  • Sgt. Frog is full of these, mainly references to Mobile Suit Gundam and other Humongous Mecha series for the older audience. Examples include Keroro being loaded into a suit a la Mazinger Z ("Pilder on!"), the use of the phrase "Sieg Keron!" (a nod to the phrase "Sieg Zeon!"), and an extended scene where Keroro does his impression of Char Aznable to impress visiting cadet Taruru (the dub even cites the episode they're spoofing: "To appreciate the next minute or so, watch Mobile Suit Gundam episode 12: 'The Threat of Zeon'"). Other, mainly older anime and manga series are paid homage to as well. A Neon Genesis Evangelion homage exploited the fact one of its characters shares the look and voice actor of Kaworu Nagisa. They hang a lampshade on their use of this in episode 24, where after the frogs and Kogoro disappear in the middle of a send-up of Kamen Rider, the following dialogue occurs:
    Natsumi: What in the world was that?
    Fuyuki: It's probably some kind of parody...
  • Basically, the whole story behind Shiki is a homage towards Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot.
  • Summer Time Rendering: Several elements of the story pay homage to the Siren Games, a series of early 2000s survival horror games.
    • The setting is similar to that of Siren 2, which takes place on an island where an entity called Mother tries to escape her underground imprisonment using her army of Yamibito.
    • The shadows' ability to sense each other's location resembles a core mechanic of the Siren series called "Sightjacking", a skill that allows the protagonists to telepathically see through the eyes of the Shibito which they obtained as a side effect of slowly turning into Shibito themselves.
    • Hiruko first appeared as a whale that washed up on shore, copied and devoured the first girl who approached her, and was revered as a deity after turning several other islanders into shadows to save them from a famine. This is a toned down version of the origin of the first game's Datatsushi, an alien that crash landed near a starving village. The villagers mistook it for a fish and ate it alive, so in retaliation it used its dying breath to curse all but one of them to death. The lone survivor was bestowed immortality and started a religion based around bringing Datatsushi back to life.
    • Tokoyo, the setting of the final battle, is a nod to the Yamibito Dimension from Siren 2, as both are alternate dimensions with a red sky, perpetually eclipsed sun, and populated with docile shadows/Yamibito. The scenario itself mirrors the climax of the first Siren game, where Shinpei/Kyoya chases the weakened final boss into an alternate dimension with no way of returning and finally destroys him with the one weapon Shide/Datatsushi is vulnerable to.
    • The author confirmed that the Extra Chapter records were inspired by the documents and snippets that can be collected in the games' Archive system.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is an explicit Getter Robo homage, but is full to bursting with others. There's a reason why people have said that the show parallels trends in the mecha genre:
  • Yakitate!! Japan is so full of references and outright parodies to other series it's hard to list them all. Starting with Gundam over Case Closed unto Naruto, also including minor series.
  • Chapter 4 of Junji Ito's Yami no Koe appears to be an homage to fellow horror author Hideshi Hino note . The two follow-up chapters reveal it's all just a dream, although the kid does seem to have supernatural powers that nonetheless rebound back on him badly.
  • The Duel Monsters game in Yu-Gi-Oh! started as a homage to Magic: The Gathering, but proved so popular, it became the focus of the entire series.

    Comic Books 
  • Many comic book covers.
  • Fables: The entire mini-story, "The Birthday Secret", is a glorious tribute to Calvin and Hobbes. The entire tale is drawn in Bill Watterson's distinctive style and lettering and focuses hilariously on the Wolf cubs acting as bratty as five year olds can be. The real clue-in comes when the cubs are shouting out what they want for breakfast: one yells "Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs!"
  • Scion: One issue honors Prince Valiant by emulating its Sunday newspaper strip format with
a sideways layout accompanied by blocks of text integrated with the Sequential Art.
  • The Ultimates: The first scene of Hawkeye and Black Widow at the building recreates a scene from The Matrix, with Hawkeye as Neo, Black Widow as Trinity and the Chitauri as the Agents.

    Comic Strips 

    Fan Works 
  • Alien/Species Crossover: Return to LV-426:
    • Pike and other AWs are based heavily on the film Soldier, being stoic, disciplined, not speaking unless spoken to and keeping their replies terse, having zero understanding of anything outside military life, and having only one response to anything that upsets them: violence. When preparing to fight the Xenomorphs, Pike almost quotes Todd, stating "We're going to kill them all, sir."
    • When reaching the Senders' homeworld, the only thing they find is an organism left behind by the Senders to communicate with anyone who dropped by and protect the Senders' secrets. This creature is acknowledge to basically be the same as that from The Thing (1982).
  • Always Visible: If not for its legal status, Always Visible could be considered a reinterpreted novelization of the film Omen IV: The Awakening.
  • In Imperfect Metamorphosis's side story, IM: Rhapsody of Subconscious Desire, Kaguya, Mokou and Ex-Rumia are trapped into Dream Land and meet The Zerg. Not a cross-over, because it's only a one-shot scene, and these things are directly coming from Kaguya's memories.
  • Pokémon: The Lost Child is one to the Starter Squad series, with it focusing on starter Pokémon and their adventures. In the case of The Lost Child there are no humans, while in Starter Squad, they exist but have minimal involvement.
  • PONIES The Anthology has homages all over the place big and small. The most notable are a ponified shot-for-shot reproduction of Power by Kanye West, or a ten-minute-long pony version of scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey done in similar detail.
  • Same thing with The Super Pony Power Hour. The best ones are the opening and ending, referencing SpongeBob SquarePants and The Breakfast Club respectively.
  • Examples from the Calvinverse:
  • Chapter 36 of Mario and Sonic: Heroes Unite! is a homage to King Kong.
  • The Legend of Total Drama Island:
  • The scene in The Headhunt where the USS Bajor casually catches up to the USS Enterprise-A and blows it out of warp was directly based on the similar scene in Star Trek Into Darkness, with the Bajor standing in for the USS Vengeance. The author mentioned in the author's notes that the shot of the Vengeance barreling up behind the Enterprise like the latter was standing still was one of the shots that really stuck with him from the JJverse movies.
    "Say what you will about the writing and scale issues, but [J. J. Abrams has] the imagery cold."
  • The scene in "Solaere ssiun Hnaifv'daenn" where Tovan tr'Khev quells a near-riot outside a hospital by handing his power cell-less gun to one of the instigators and staring him down was borrowed from the Babylon 5 episode "A Day in the Strife".
  • Strange Times Are Upon Us is in large part a Whole-Plot Reference to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Also, one segment of the opening space battle, where narration counts down how many Breen transphasic cluster torpedoes were diverted or destroyed by the countermeasures of the HoSbatlh, ending with "One got through", is a homage to one of David Weber's common shots in Honor Harrington.
  • The film Final Analysis has so many references to Vertigo that it almost seems to be a vague remake. Most notable is the climactic lighthouse scene that once again results in the death of the duplicitous female lead.
    • Basic Instinct is laden with references too—Catherine Tramell's outfits and French twist hairstyle are very reminiscent of Kim Novak's.
  • SAPR: Chapter 180, "It's Always Darkest Right Before a Hero Enters," has two notable ones.
    • The first is to monster movies like Kong: Skull Island when when the Atlesian military throws everything they have against the Wyvern and they fail to so much as scratch it.
    • The second is to Battle of the Pelennor Fields in The Return of the King when the Wyvern turns its attention the battle line of Mistral. The homage is so deliberate and overt that not only are the characters going through similar trials, but the book is actually quoted directly when Pyrrha is given courage by Ruby's example to stand with her against the dragon.
      Like a spark that catches to become a flame Pyrrha felt her courage stir once more within her; she should not die, so young, so brave, so desperate; at the least she should not die alone, unaided.
  • Steven Universe fangame Flawed Crystals has several:
    • The method for defeating the Final Boss safely is highly reminiscent of the final battle of UnderTale, complete with the Battle Theme Music changing to softer music and the player character becoming unkillable.
      • Additionally, allowing the player to backstab Steven during the final sequence where he lets down his guard is very reminiscent of a similar mechanic from the battle with Toriel in UnderTale.
      • The author has also stated that the particular mechanic of Steven poofing every character except Jasper with an unstoppable attack is meant to evoke a very similar moment from the final battle of Mother 3.
    • The author states in the postmortem that the star point system was based directly on similar mechanics from Obelisk: Devilkiller and Alter AILA Genesis.
    • The aversion of Arbitrary Headcount Limit was directly inspired by the indie RPG Czarina Must Die.
    • The non-linear nature of the game, and the ability to pick up party members and items in any order, was directly inspired by Teenage Constume Squad and even more directly, Obelisk: Devilkiller.
  • The message of Steven Universe fanfic The Darkness Between Stars regarding the morality of Thou Shalt Not Kill and Save the Villain is highly reminiscent of Trigun, with a pivotal scene even using a direct paraphrase of one quote. The author confirms that Trigun was a major influence on the work in the author's notes.
  • Beast Boy and Raven Join PETA is written in the style of a classic South Park episode.

    Films — Animation 
  • The music and visuals of Blood Machines were deliberately made as a throwback to Science Fiction and progressive rock from The '80s. The technology has an aged Zeerust quality one would find in Dune (1984) and the Alien franchise, lasers look like a lighting effect, all of the music is synth-based and the entire film has a grainy film quality that makes it look like it's being watched on a VHS tape.
  • Chicken Run is one great big homage to The Great Escape.
  • Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise has Shiro, a fictional astronaut in a fictional nation's space program, become the first man in space — launched on what looks an awful lot like a real-life Russian rocket.
  • Toy Story 2: When the toys are at a toy store and driving around in a toy car, Rex at some point falls off and starts running after them to catch up. Mr. Potato Head spots Rex in the side mirror with the text "Warning: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" written. This is clearly a parody of a scene in Jurassic Park where the island visitors tries to escape a T-Rex in the same manner, mirror warning and all.
  • In Turning Red, the Wolf Whistle Mei does at Devon is an homage to Tex Avery and Looney Tunes according to the director's commentary.
  • Up has numerous references to Star Wars throughout the climactic sequence in the dirigible.
  • Wallace & Gromit:
  • WALL•E paid some obvious homages to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The autopilot is clearly inspired by HAL, and the scene where the passengers learn to walk uses "Also Sprach Zarathustra".
  • Wreck-It Ralph serves both as a lighthearted underdog story for younger audiences and one huge homage to nostalgic video games for older gamers. It includes everything from real screenshots of games turned into scenes to character cameos, and even includes dummied content and glitches as actual plot points.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Almost Famous contains two examples. The first is a scene where the band members think their airplane is going to crash — it's a played-for-laughs homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd. The poignant second example involves a musician passing out after he receives a shock from his microphone — this references Keith Relf of the Yardbirds, who actually did die in very similar circumstances.
  • Basic Instinct is one to Vertigo. Both are about a Defective Detective who becomes obsessed with a beautiful mysterious blonde woman in San Francisco. Catherine's white coat and white dress with black gloves and her French twist hairstyle are very explicit references to Madeline's appearance.
  • Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey has a homage to this fight as well, lampshaded by having the episode playing on a TV in the background earlier in the film. In the battle with their evil robot doubles, they (briefly) fight for their lives on Kirk's Rock, where the Gorn fight was filmed.
  • Cloud Atlas: The name of the dystopia-dwelling Somni-451 is a partial nod to the dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451.
  • Doomsday is a scifi/action/thiller flick almost made of homages. The lead villain, Sol, has the same haircut as Wez from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, and leads a road gang to match. The director describes the hero's Eyepatch of Power as a Snake Plissken homage. The cannibal gang includes a random Baseball Fury. They also use a bus which pursues the heroes in a neat recreation of the attack of the Turnbull ACs from the same film.
  • Dressed to Kill is a Hotter and Sexier homage to Psycho, with an added twist. There's the Hitchcock blonde Dead Star Walking, who commits a "crime" (although Kate's isn't illegal, she's cheating on her husband) and then gets brutally murdered by a mysterious woman for her sexuality who actually turns out to "really" be a man with a female split personality - Bobbi is the psychiatrist's alter ego, though, not the Norman Bates character, killing off woman he is attracted to. Marion's death scene also gets entirely re-enacted, although in an elevator and not a shower.
  • The East: the initiation test for eco-terrorist group called The East is a take on the allegory of the long spoons, except with straightjackets instead of arm splints.
  • Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) pays homage to the Roger Corman B-movies of the 50s, 60s and 70s. They even went to Corman's old company, New World Pictures, so they could use footage from some of the movies they had. Elvira even says to Bob at one point "Haven't you ever seen any old Roger Corman movies?" when he express confusion over what a Familiar is.
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once:
    • The "raccacoonie" universe where Chad is controlled by a raccoon who helps him cook is a straightforward reference to Ratatouille.
    • The universe where Evelyn is a famous actress is a twofer:
      • The Training Montage where she becomes a master martial artist trained by a mysterious silver-haired mentor (think Pai Mei from Kill Bill) is a homage to the kung-fu films of the 70s and 80s.
      • The plot of this world ends with her and Waymond having a deep conversation in an alleyway at night, with the moody colorful lighting, cinematography, and yearning dialogue echoing Wong Kar-wai's turn-of-the-millennium filmography like In the Mood for Love.note 
  • Friday the 13th (1980) is one to Psycho. The "kikiki" breathing that signals the killer's arrival is similar to the famous "Psycho" Strings and the character who is set up to be the Final Girl is killed first. Then there's the fact that the killer is a deranged mother who believes that her dead son Jason is talking to her and telling her to kill sexually active people, which is the same situation as Norman Bates, just with the roles reversed.
  • Grindhouse and both of its segments, Planet Terror and Death Proof, pay homage to classic 70s B-movie exploitation films, noting that they contained huge amounts of violence and sex and were played in certain American cinemas referred to as grindhouses.
  • The Indiana Jones movies themselves are one big homage to the classic adventure films of the '30s and '40s.
    • The now-iconic "rolling boulder" sequence at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark was, according to George Lucas, a homage to a similar scene in the Carl Barks comic book The Seven Cities of Cibola.
    • The nuclear testing scene in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a homage to the first draft of the Back to the Future script, in which Marty McFly manages to power the time machine, not with a bolt of lightning but with the radiation from an atomic blast. The entire fake town, complete with mannequins and a television playing the Howdy Doody Show, is ripped straight from the BttF script. Oh, and the time machine? Was originally, not a car, but a refrigerator.
  • Interception: The Short Film is this to Inception, as it also deals with the subconscious, as Joe's wife goes into his mind to get him to get over his sports obsession.
  • It Follows: The film's Stepford Suburbia aesthetic and synth-heavy soundtrack feel like an homage to Halloween (1978). The scene in which 'It' comes after Jay as she looks out of the window of the classroom at her school is very similar to the scene in which Laurie looks out of the classroom window and sees Michael Myers staring at her. There's also the use of old movies on the television, which was a memorable feature of Halloween. It also homages the invincible killer like Michael Myers who hates sex, although It is literally supernatural and passed along via sex.
  • Joker (2019) has been described by director Todd Phillips as a homage to Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver.
  • The Love Witch pays homages to 1960s horror and technicolor films.
  • Mars Attacks!. The flying saucers are modeled after the saucers in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and the War Room was made to look like the War Room in Dr. Strangelove. The aliens land in Parrumph, Nevada. That's a homage to Art Bell, who for many years broadcast Coast to Coast AM out of that city.
  • The scene from The Northman where the Vikings lock all the villagers unfit for slavery into a church before setting fire to it is one to the most infamous scene in Come and See.
  • Pacific Rim is a walking homage to just about anything related to Giant Robots or Giant Monsters in recent memory, but especially towards Mecha Anime and Giant Monster Movies.
  • Pandorum is a scifi/horror/thriller has loads of these as well.
  • The confrontation on the sand bank in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is straight out of Once Upon a Time in the West, even featuring the iconic music from the movie.
  • Play It Again, Sam is Woody Allen's homage to Casablanca.
  • The fight scene between Nemesis and Alice near the end of Resident Evil: Apocalypse plays out almost exactly like the fight between Kirk and the Gorn in the Star Trek episode "The Arena". Both are fights that are forced on participants that don't want to fight each other. Both contain one combatant who's human, and another who's not human. Both contain a combatant who's fast and agile against one's that's large and strong. Both are a person fighting someone in a rubber suit. The part where Nemesis breaks off a pipe is almost an exact homage to when the Gorn breaks off a limb of a tree. It also ends nearly exactly the same, with the large, muscular one impaled through the chest (with a pipe rather than the diamonds in Star Trek), but refusing to finish him despite urgings from whoever forced the fight. The homage ends when rather than complimenting the human on the virtues of mercy, the fight's forcer instead chides the human for being weak.
  • Polly Perkins' phoned-in report on the invasion of New York by robots in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow bears a striking resemblance to the Hindenberg coverage and actually includes lines lifted directly from a similar scene in The War of the Worlds (1938). Just to add a little extra fillip, the robots emit a sound effect stolen from the Martians of The War of the Worlds (1953).
  • Slither is a scifi/horror/comedy flick almost made of homages of to gory B-Movie horror films.
  • Star Trek Into Darkness has been described as an inverted version of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The inversion works on multiple levels.
    • The shuttle chase through the Klingon planet is very reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon's run through the Death Star in Return of the Jedi.
  • Ditto with Star Wars and the similar sci-fi serials of the time such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.
  • In Superman Returns, Superman rescues a runaway car (used as a diversion by Lex Luthor). The shot where Superman stands on the ground, leveraging the car in mid-air, is a direct homage to the cover of Action Comics #1, the first Superman comic book.
  • Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning: The last third of the movie is one long homage to Apocalypse Now, as John travels upriver to confront the insane baldheaded former soldier (Deveraux) and his private cult deep in the hot jungle/swamp.
  • Many movies (The Untouchables (1987) and Brazil amongst them) contain a homage to the Odessa Staircase scene from The Battleship Potemkin, in particular the Baby Carriage.

    Literature 

    Live-Action TV 
  • One episode of 2point4 Children consists largely of a homage to The Prisoner set in Portmeirion, Wales, complete with appropriate costumes and giant bouncing ball.
  • A Season 1 episode of 8 Simple Rules has dad Paul (played by John Ritter) dreaming his daughters and the boy both are pining for are in an episode of Three's Company.
  • The end of the episode "The Brave and the Bold" of Arrow, where Green Arrow and Flash square off to spar with no one watching, with the episode ending before the viewers can see who wins, certainly seems like a homage to the episode "Grudge Match" from Justice League Unlimited, where, at the end, Huntress and Black Canary square off to spar with no one watching, and the episode ends before the audience sees who wins.
  • Ashes to Ashes (2008) (sequel to Life on Mars) pays homage to classic 80s shows, particularly The Singing Detective and Miami Vice, as well as famous 80s films, like James Bond in the pilot and Taxi Driver in episode 6, among others.
  • The Brady Bunch episode from the last season of The X-Files ("Sunshine Days", broadcast 5/12/02). (Not to mention any number of other Brady Bunch episodes on sitcoms in the 1980s and 1990s.)
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "School Hard" is a homage to the original Die Hard, complete with Buffy sneaking around in the ceiling.
  • Tons in Community. Example from just one episode, Modern Warfare:
    • The "ONE HOUR LATER" scene where Jeff wakes up echoes the same scene in 28 Days Later. It also has quite a similar feel to the ending of the first Resident Evil film.
    • The line "Stu-dy grooo-up! Come out and play-y-y!", a paraphrase of Luther's taunt in The Warriors. And it's used by a group of retro disco students who are very reminiscent of some of the film's weirder gangs.
    • Jeff's wardrobe, his anticipation of Britta trying to shoot him ("No paintballs, Hans?"), and his final retaliatory gesture at the Dean are all taken directly from Die Hard.
    • Chang's paint bomb plays out like the end of Predator.
    • Chang's entrance to the study room is straight out of a John Woo movie... minus the doves. Word of God says they didn't have the budget for them.
    • Abed's entrance was stolen from a certain leather-clad action girl.
    • Abed's also stole his goggles from Riddick.
    • The music cues come from the island.
    • "Come with me if you don't want to get paint on your clothes."
    • Shirley spouting bible verses while kicking ass has a variety of influences including The Boondock Saints.
    • Troy's football pads referencing all the way back to Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.
    • The Brita/Chang scene results in two paintballs colliding, a straight from a scene in the 2009 film Wanted.
    • For other basic examples on the series, see "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" (an extended stop-motion homage to Rankin-Bass Christmas specials) and "Basic Lupine Urology" (a long take-off on Law & Order).
  • Countdown With Keith Olbermann: Signs off with "Good night and good luck", in openly stated homage to Edward R. Murrow.
  • Crusade (the short-lived sequel to Babylon 5):
    • In the episode "Visitors From Down The Street", the Excalibur discovers a world of English-speaking aliens with a UFO/conspiracy culture/mythology similar to that of late 20th-century Earth — only humans are cast in the role of the saucerfolk! But it's the appearance of alien versions of Mulder and Scully (and Cancer Man) — and the conspiracies around them — that turns the episode into a clever homage to and satire of The X-Files.
    • The whole series is something of a homage to Blake's 7, which J Michael Straczynski is a known fan of. The design of the Excalibur is remarkably similar to that of Liberator in the earlier series, Max Eilerson is a blatant Expy of Kerr Avon, right down to being cast with an actor who has some facial similarities to Paul Darrow, and Dureena is a Composite Character of Cally (Broken Bird alien woman whose species were victims of a catastrophic biological warfare attack) and Vila (proud professional thief with a Master of Unlocking role in the team).
  • CSI: NY:
    • Season 3's finale, "Snow Day" is a straight-up nod to Die Hard, complete with Mac writing "Find the Bullet" on a dead bad guy's forehead before sending him down the elevator to Sheldon in the morgue.
    • Season 6's "Point of View" had several nods to Rear Window, including an injured Mac spying on his neighbors across the way with his foot propped up, seeing suspcious activity (which leads to the capture of a murderer), and a potential love interest assisting with his snooping.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The ending to "Doomsday" is a homage to the ending of the His Dark Materials trilogy. The setting is the same (beach) and the issue is also the same (two lovers about to be separated forever across different dimensions).
    • "The Stolen Earth" echoes the ending of West Side Story, when the Doctor and Rose see one another across a street and start running... You know where this is going.
  • In "Shitagi Nashi...", the first-season finale of Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, June shows Chloe a comic strip she supposedly drew (complete with Parody Sue versions of herself and a friend) in high school that seems like a homage to Teen Girl Squad.
  • Fame! did a whole-episode homage to The Wizard of Oz, partly inspired by the fact that it filmed on the same soundstage where the 1939 movie was shot. (According to the cast, a last remaining fragment of the original yellow brick road was enshrined in the stage, and was shown to them with almost religious reverence.)
  • The Fall Guy: One of the undisputed leaders in homages, Fall Guy has done episodes saluting numerous movies, including James Bond (two episodes, "Bail and Bond" and "Always Say Always", the latter bolstered considerably with Bond girls Britt Ekland, Joanna Pettet and Lana Wood as themselves), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (the episode "Finders Keepers"), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (episode "Spaced Out"), the Beach Party series of movies ("Beach Blanket Bounty", where, instead of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, we get cameos by...Pat Boone and Sha Na Na?), The Sting (the episode "Bite of the Wasp"), and quite a few others.
  • iCarly:
    • "iBelieve in Bigfoot" is a direct homage to Scooby-Doo (further lampshaded by Freddie) sans the dog. There's 2 males and 2 females; they are investigating a certain creature; they have a vehicle; and also turns up that the said creature is actually a guy they know, in a costume.
    • Dan Schneider stated himself that Sabrina's thrashing of Carly's project in "iBeat the Heat" is a reference to Godzilla.
  • The King of Queens was explicitly designed as homage to the 1950s classic sitcom The Honeymooners, to update the characters and settings to the 1990s. Perhaps in deference to modern sensitivities, Doug Heffernan never threatens violence to Carrie, although the ungracious "Shutty!" gets a lot of the way there...
  • Being a Time Travel show, Legends of Tomorrow occasionally takes the opportunity to pay homage to classic films and TV:
  • The original draft for Life On Mars was essentially to be "a redo" of The Sweeney, plus a Lost/The Prisoner type mystery.
    Matthew Graham (Life on Mars DVD extra): What if there is way we can fool people into thinking we've come up with an original idea and still give them The Sweeney? note 
  • The season four finale of Monk, "Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty", was a homage to 12 Angry Men, with a b-plot and the ending making it avert Whole-Plot Reference.
  • One of the animated sequences from the Monty Python's Flying Circus episode "A Book at Bedtime" is a recreation of the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey... until the music winds down and the space station falls out of the sky and hits the ape on the head.
  • The Murdoch Mysteries episode "Anything You Can Do..." pays tribute to the Due South episode "Hunting Season". In addition to being Mounties, Sargeant Jasper Linney's personality and physical build are quite similar to Constable Benton Fraser's. Linney discovers that Detective William Murdoch—with whom he shares many traits in common—is his half-brother. This is very much like Fraser's situation when he learns that Constable Maggie Mackenzie — who is essentially a female version of himself — is actually his half-sister. Both pairs of half-siblings share a scene with their respective biological father.
  • One episode of NUMB3RS is a homage to Scooby-Doo. An abandoned Air Force base is thought by local Conspiracy Theorists to be hosting UFOs or the ghosts of World War II veterans, and when they catch video of balls of energy raining down from the sky and killing a person the FBI gets involved. It starts to look like an Area 51-type Government Conspiracy (the strange "Department 44" agent who tags along doesn't help in that regard—though he's surprisingly helpful with the investigation) until it's discovered that the energy was from a Lightning Gun a tech company was working on for the government (the UFO lights people saw were actually from the drone carrying it). The ray was only meant to work like an EMP, and the project's engineers were conducting secret tests to try to make it nonlethal.
    • Lampshaded by Colby when he says, "Why do I feel like I'm in a Scooby-Doo cartoon?" while they search the base for clues.
    • After the mystery's solved, Charlie muses that the company could have wasted billions more dollars stringing the government along in their refusal to admit the project was a failure. Floyd replies, "Yes, and they probably would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids," referring to Charlie, Amita, and the CalSci plasma physics engineer Charlie asked for help on the case.
  • Power Rangers:
    • "Countdown to Destruction", the season finale of Power Rangers in Space, contains a poignant homage to the "I Am Spartacus" scene of Spartacus, which may have earned the episode its fan-nickname of "Crisis of Infinite Rangers".
    • The very next episode, that being the premiere of Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, pays homage to a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, complete with Blue Danube playing.
    • The Time Force premiere demonstrates the new suits' space-time abilities by having the Rangers Matrix-ically duck under bullets.
    • Of course, this show's been around long enough that by now it can make cultural references to itself:
      • SPD homages Time Force with occasional use of Bullet Time and sending 'destroyed' monsters to containment. Even one Ranger's battle cry was a homage to Time Force, matching the title of the TF premiere. Also, one brand of Mecha-Mooks carries swords identical to those of the Time Force Rangers. Theories abound about how the organization in Power Rangers SPD evolves into the one in Time Force over the years.
      • Mystic Force and Overdrive each contain a Sealed Evil in a Can who says something akin to season one's famed "After ten thousand years, I'm free!" upon emerging. The evil in Mystic Force isn't connected (probably), but Overdrive's is.
      • Or they could be both referencing the opening credits of the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, in which original sealed evil Rita Repulsa says the line.
      • Speaking of Rita, Mystic Force has the Mystic Mother, a sort of deity of Magic. In passing, she is said to have "been known as Rita in the dark days," implying that said character is the purified Rita. What's more, all footage of the character was dubbed-over sentai footage. This is possibly because the actress who portrayed that character, who also played the sentai equivalent of Mighty Morphin's Rita, had recently passed away.
  • The episode "Meltdown" of The Pretender is a homage to the film Reservoir Dogs, albeit with a more network-TV-friendly level of mayhem and an ending featuring The Cavalry.
  • Psych's 100th episode was a homage to the movie Clue. Lampshaded in the opening credits, which use a visual motif of flipping cards from the board game rather than the usual clips.
  • Scrubs addressed the constant comparisons between Dr. Gregory House of House and Dr. Cox by actually having an episode where Dr. Cox hurt his leg and had to walk with a cane while he was faced with three bizarre mysteries in the hospital. And one of those mysteries was even the same as the clinic case in the very first House episode! Also, the 100th episode "My Way Home" was riddled with references to The Wizard of Oz. There was also an episode that homaged the standard sitcom format, titled "My Life in Four Cameras".
  • Stargate:
    • Stargate SG-1 has the episode "200" which little more than a series of homages to Star Trek, The Wizard of Oz, and Magnum, P.I. among others along with references to more. One of the producers, Brad Wright's portrayal of Spoof!Scotty was so spot on, his own parents didn't realize it was him.
    • The Stargate Atlantis episode "Vegas" is a homage to CSI.
      • We also gets a chestbuster scene (with an iratus bug) in episode "Doppelganger", with the characters mentioning the movie Alien by name.
  • Stranger Things: Many that are not explicit shout-outs:
    • The show's title typography was heavily inspired by the way Stephen King's name used to be presented on his book covers.
    • An inversion of the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial flying-bike shot, where rather than make the bikes fly, Eleven just launches a van over them instead.
    • Many fans of The X-Files were delighted to find similarities between scenes: when Hopper and Joyce save Will from the Upside Down, it bears a striking resemblance to a similar scene in the 1998 movie Fight the Future. Near the end of the final episode of Season 1, Will coughs up a miniature of whatever had been pulled from his throat in the Upside Down, a scene that is almost frame-by-frame a copy of a scene from Season 2's "The Host." The Duffer Brothers have said in interviews that they were fans of the series during its original run, though it was not credited as having a direct impact on Stranger Things.
    • Eleven's origin story is very similar to Firestarter. One character even explicitly likens the experiments Eleven's mom took part in to something out of a Stephen King novel Her actual abilities are more like Carrie, though.
    • A group of geeky, ostracized middle school kids, joined by some teenagers (including one kid's protective big brother), discovers a secret beneath the surface of their seemingly quiet hometown, while (most) adults remain blissfully ignorant of what's going on... The premise of the series was inspired by The Goonies, and the main protagonist kid in both works is even named Michael. In fact, the actor who played the protagonist in The Goonies has a major supporting role in Season 2.
    • The overarching plot of a missing child being trapped in another dimension who is nevertheless able to contact his family goes all the way back to "Little Girl Lost", an episode of The Twilight Zone (1959). Also to Poltergeist (1982), a movie mentioned in Episode 1 that also includes the dimensionally lost child communicating through electronics.
    • Hopper's Properly Paranoid scene is lifted straight out of Coppola's The Conversation.
    • When Will says he's sure his Christmas present is an Atari, Joyce responds with "An A-what-i?"
    • There are quite a few references to Stephen King throughout the series, including one notable scene of the kids traveling along train tracks. A government experiment that opens a rift to another dimension that lets human-hungry monsters into our world also brings to mind the Stephen King story (and later film) The Mist - it even involves a character going out while attached by a line or cable, the line getting violently thrown around, and nothing on the end once it is reeled in.
    • A girl named Nancy sets booby traps for a supernatural killer she intends to lure into our world and then set on fire.
    • The writers are confirmed to have also taken inspiration from videogames such as the Silent Hill series and The Last of Us. The Upside Down's foggy and creepy design shares a lot of similarities to Silent Hill's Otherworld, while the spores in the air and fungus growing around the Upside Down's entrances is reminiscent of the Cordyceps fungus in The Last of Us. One of the biggest similarities would be how, just like Joel, Chief Hopper is a divorced, gruff man still occasionally haunted by the death of his daughter. Named Sara. Also, both Joel and Hopper have scenes where they fight their way through a hospital to reach an elevator, the pursuers close on their heels.
    • The simple visual explanation in Chapter Five for the Upside Down takes the "move across dimensions like a pencil punching through a folded piece of paper" used in Event Horizon.
    • At the climax battle in Season 2, Eleven pushes her psychic powers to the point her eyes turns dark and she starts levitating, a very similar scene to when Jean Grey from XMen summons her "phoenix" form.
    • Grigori the hitman in Season 3 is one to The Terminator.
    • The music at the end of S3E6, played during the "zombie march" and end titles, is a homage to Philip Glass, particularly his well-known soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi.
    • A lot of this in Season 3 for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 and 1978). Part of the Mind Flayer's plot to take over Hawkins.
    • Steve's bat twirl is lifted from Willie "Pops" Stargell. Stargell played for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1962-1982 when that team was a perennial title contender. With Indiana having no professional baseball teams, it is likely Steve was either a fan of the Cincinnati Reds from neighboring Ohio (who were division rivals of the Pirates and in the middle of their "Big Red Machine" dynasty during Steve's youth) or the Pirates themselves. Either way, Steve had ample opportunities to see Stargell and absorb Stargell's bat twirl.
    • In yet another Stephen King related example, Season 4's main plot seems to be heavily inspired by King's It. Both feature a monstrous Big Bad who kills children by feeding on their fears and lives in a spooky old house.
  • Supernatural:
    • The Apocalypse storyline includes a demon named Crowley.
    • And another one called Alistair.
    • The aptly named episode "Monster Movie" was a homage to classic monster movies. It was filmed entirely in black and white and featured a shapeshifting villain who took the forms of a Mummy, a Wolfman, and Dracula.
  • Twin Peaks is full of nods to the Film Noir genre in terms of its style and storylines. A particular example is to the 1944 film Laura, in which a detective becomes infatuated with an alleged murder victim through the prominent portrait in her apartment, and whose presence in the story is reinforced by a particular musical theme. Agent Cooper similarly contemplates photographs of Laura Palmer throughout his investigation, a still shot of her prom photo makes up the entire closing credits for each episode, and much of the music on the show is based around "Laura Palmer's Theme".
  • The "Connecticut" house set of Who's the Boss? was made to strongly resemble the Connecticut house in the last season of I Love Lucy, with only those changes that might have reasonably been made to a real house between 1959 and the mid-1980s.
  • Les Nesman's broadcast of the "turkey bombing incident" on WKRP in Cincinnati was a line-by-line homage to the famous "Martian Attack" sequence from Orson Welles's broadcast of The War of the Worlds (which was itself inspired by the Real Life Hindenburg broadcast) right down to the abrupt cutoff.
  • Wolf Hall has Cromwell sitting for his portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger◊ in one episode. Every element in the shot corresponds to the historical painting◊.
  • The X-Files Season 7 episode "X-Cops" was filmed in the style of the show COPS.

    Magazines 

    Music 
  • "Leonard" by Merle Haggard, which pays homage to songwritter Tommy Collins, the pen name of Leonard Spies. Spies wrote several of Haggard's early big hits.
  • The music video of "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood. The rampage scenes – where Carrie flies into a rage upon learning that her boyfriend had cheated on her – recalls Carrie's rampage in the movie (and 2002 remake) Carrie, in particular explosions and destruction on a small-town city street as Carrie walks calmly by.
  • Barenaked Ladies' "Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel": "Slow Motion Walter, the fire engine guy" (a common mondegreen for "Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky").
  • Veruca Salt's "Volcano Girls:" "Well, here's another clue if you please...the seether's Louise"
    • A parody/homage to the Beatles "Well, here's another clue for you all...the walrus was Paul"
  • The Blue Öyster Cult's Cult Classic album carries back cover art which is clear homage to Terry Pratchett's novel Reaper Man. Pratchett previously homaged the BOC by using their only British hit Don't Fear The Reaper as a running gag in his books - in dog-Latin, it is the motto of the extended Death family, Non Timetus Messor. Death, as a Reaper not to be feared, has a novel of his own in Reaper Man. Pratchett homage-references other BOC songs in the Discworld cycle; elements of the front cover of Cult Classic may also reference his work. (The two stained-glass windows in the weird chapel)
  • Jimmy Eat World's "A Praise Chorus" contains the following verse, each line of which is a line from another song:
    (Crimson and clover Over and over)
    Our house in the middle of our street,
    Why did we ever meet?
    Kick start my rock 'n' roll fantasy.
    Don't don't don't let's start,
    Why did we ever part?
    Kick start my rock 'n' roll heart!
  • Motion City Soundtrack's "L.G. Fuad" takes lyrics from "Forget Me" by the Promise Ring, then lampshades it:
    I want to thank you for being a part of my
    Forget-me-nots and marigolds
    And other things that don't get old
    Is it legal to do this? I surely don't know
    It's the only way I have learned to express myself
    Through other people's descriptions of life
  • Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster" is a homage to "Jammin'" by Bob Marley.
  • Kimya Dawson's "My Rollercoaster": towards the middle of the song the chorus to Willie Nelson's "On The Road Again" get thrown in, and then for a while it becomes a series of nods to everything from Metallica to Bette Midler.
  • The music video to David Bowie's "Look Back in Anger" pays homage to the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, with Bowie playing both the painter and the subject of the cursed painting.
  • The song "I Like to Rock" uses both the riffs of The Beatles' "Day Tripper" and The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" and intertwines them.
  • The video for Keri Hilson's "Pretty Girl Rock" is a homage to various African-American female singers throughout the years. They include Josephine Baker, wartime singers, The Supremes, Chaka Khan, Janet Jackson, TLC and Mary J. Blige.
  • Inspired by a similar set of releases by KISS, the Melvins once put out three solo EPs in the same year, which were credited to the band but titled after the member who wrote and performed the music. Where the homage comes in is the artwork, which directly parodied the style of KISS releases in question and had the Melvins logo stylized after that of KISS. Compare the Melvins' King Buzzo with KISS' Gene Simmons
  • The Foo Fighters video "Walk" is a humorous retelling of Falling Down.
  • Hanson's video for "Thinking 'Bout Somethin'" is a near shot for shot recreation of the "Shake A Tail Feather" scene from The Blues Brothers.
  • The video for A1's version of "Take on Me" pays homages to TRON and The Matrix, complete with Bullet Time and Matrix Raining Code.
  • The retro group Big Daddy based their entire routine on this trope. They did mashups of contemporary hits (they were active in the 80s and 90s) not just in a generic style of the 1950s, but with a carefully reconstructed homage to a specific artist's signature riffs and vocal stylings, such as "I Want To Know What Love Is" with Ritchie Valens' rapid bass accompaniment, complete with a chorus in Spanish.
    • Also a complete cover of the Sgt. Peppers album, replacing the 60s pop kitsch on the cover with 50s icons. Hearing "A Day In The Life" in Buddy Holly's hiccuppy voice was good, but replacing the end-of-track noise with a plane crash and a recording of the radio broadcast announcing Holly's death was sheer brilliance.
  • Rainbow's "Can't Let You Go" video is a homage to the silent film The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. Guitarist/bandleader Ritchie Blackmore plays Caligari and singer Joe Lynn Turner plays Cesare.
  • Paula Abdul's "Coldhearted" video is a homage to Bob Fosse's All That Jazz.
  • Billy Joel's An Innocent Man album is a homage to the music he grew up on in the 1960s.
  • OutKast's video for "Hey Ya" is a blatant homage to The Beatles' American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, right down to the retraux black and white opening with an old-fashioned TV set around the border.
  • The video for Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" is one for Clueless — several scenes from the film, such as the debate, outfit selection, party, and the driving test are recreated in the video, with Iggy herself playing Cher Horowitz and Charli XCX playing Tai Frasier.
  • The album cover for Adam Ant's Strip is fashioned after the film poster for The Outlaw.
  • Daniel Amos:
  • David Hasselhoff's "Guardians Inferno" gives the Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) theme the same disco treatment that Meco gave to the Star Wars theme in 1977. It also received a video inspired by a TopPop dance number set to the disco Star Wars theme.
  • Avenged Sevenfold wrote "This Means War" as a homage to Metallica's song "Sad but True", adopting a similar structure, vocal melody and lyrical subject but giving it a more melodic and melancholic tone.
  • BTS's music video for "Boy With Luv (feat. Halsey)" makes a lot of references and occasionally outright recreations of scenes and shots from Singin' in the Rain.
  • GFRIEND's Summer Rain uses a sample from Schumann's Dichterliebe, Op.48. An other example is Navillera, a neologism created by the Korean poet Cho Chi-hun in the poem “The Nun’s Dance” to describe a fluttering action similar to the movement of a butterfly.
  • TWICE's most popular songs, "Cheer Up", "TT" and "What is Love?" are just full of homages.
  • The video for "Faster than Light" by Unleash the Archers is an Affectionate Parody of The Long Walk by Stephen King.
  • Sabaton's "Man of War" is a song written in the style of Manowar, with lyrics composed almost entirely of the titles of Manowar songs.
  • Radio Tapok: "Battle for Moscow" is patterned after Sabaton songs, while "Tsushima" leans on Sabaton for the refrain and Manowar for the verses.

    Pinball 
  • Guns N' Roses (Jersey Jack): The mode "Shall We Play a Game?" is heavily modeled on WarGames – instead of the WOPRnote  supercomputer simulating nuclear war, however, it involves POPRnote  spreading American values to Red China while fending off their own propaganda. The name and aesthetics are also lifted directly from the film.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Hunter: The Vigil: Each of the Slasher Undertakings homages an archetypal Slasher Movie villain. In alphabetical order:
  • The Necrons in Warhammer 40,000 started as a clear and blatant homage to the Terminator films: mysterious robotic skeletons, who carried on trying to kill you even if reduced to crawling torsos with no legs, and a special rule called "I'll Be Back". Later changes departed from this, focusing more on their image as impossibly ancient servants of even more impossibly ancient monsters. Essentially now a bunch of Ancient Evil Determinators with a lot of Implacable Man and Omnicidal Maniac along with rather too much scalpel imagery, they maintain the robo-skeleton and "I'll Be Back".
    • The Praetorian Guard regiment is a homage to the soldiers of the British Empire who fought at the battles of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift in 1879, as depicted in the classic war film Zulu. A regiment of criminals from a notorious hive planet, renowned for their red uniforms, white pith helmets, conflicts with Orks and iron discipline in the face of overwhelming odds. It was created for the "Massacre At Big Toof River" Mega Display which appeared at UK Gamesday '97 in 1997.

    Toys 
  • As a Merchandise-Driven franchise with legions of rabid adult fans with long memories, Transformers tends to feature quite a lot of homages, to itself or to others, even in its toys (never mind in its plot-driven media). A simple example is when one toy is rereleased with a new paint job to look like something else (e.g., the mold for Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen toy Ransack, who turns into a biplane, got a repaint into a robot named Divebomb...using the Red Baron's colors). Alternatively, given the number of names that are re-used, a character that has the name of a character from a different iteration of the franchise as a namesake might have design touches meant to emulate the older character. Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen Bludgeon has two toys; one which is a repaint of an older mold, and another that is a screaming homage◊ to a G1 character of the same name.

    Video Games 
  • Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl is a game-long homage to old side scrolling beat 'em ups such as Streets of Rage or Final Fight, with an atmosphere and story telling style similar to Sin City.
  • The last stage of the arcade version of Astyanax is a techno-organic hive straight out of Aliens, complete with Face Huggers, and the Alien Queen as the Final Boss.
  • Baten Kaitos incorporates an extended homage to The Tower of Druaga in a sublevel with oddly familiar 8-bit look and sound. The "Golden Hero" near this area is implied to be Gilgamesh, and all the items you need to get through here are from that game.
  • According to Word of God, the general setting of the Blazblue games is a homage to the cult anime series Trigun. Just like Trigun, the Blazblue games primarily focus on a rather comical spiky-haired man with a red Badass Longcoat and a worldwide reputation as The Dreaded, fighting off all kinds of people who are all after him for the ridiculously huge bounty the government has placed on his head.
  • The story from Bomberman Hero was an obvious homage to Star Wars.
  • Bug Fables is an homage to the Paper Mario series, particularly the first game and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. It has a similar "paper cutout characters roaming diorama-like worlds" aesthetic, it has the same turn-based combat with Action Commands, and its plot is similar to The Thousand-Year Door with the search for Plot Coupons that will unveil a mythical treasure tied to some dark secrets from the past.
  • Call of Duty 1 & 2 seem to owe a lot to The Longest Day.
  • Champions Online (and presumably the Tabletop Game it's based on) is a homage to the Silver Age superhero comics, bordering on Affectionate Parody in its lighter moments.
  • The opening cinematic for the Company of Heroes campaign looks a lot like the Omaha Beach landing in Saving Private Ryan... which it then subverts by having the boat full of men first seen by the player get mowed down, including the sergeant-type character who's the only one to have spoken so far in the game. Every WWII game produced after Saving Private Ryan does this. Call of Duty, Commandos, Medal of Honor, in fact the Frontline/Allied Assault games are essentially the game of the film, replete with a Tom Hanks soundalike commanding officer. Not surprising when the man behind the games is Steven Spielberg.
  • The Contra series has many homages to Alien, eg Giger-esque Womb Levels, facehuggers, the giant Xenomorph head miniboss, the "Queen Alien" in Super Contra and Contra III: The Alien Wars, Xenomorph-type mooks in Super C's alien stage, and the Space Jockey skulls lining the walls in the same stage.
  • Though few appear in the game proper, the Crusader games had more than a few homages and Shout Outs to other media of a similar bent, such as a terminal designated NCC-1701D, or a base of operations for the Resistance in Echo Sector.
  • A Dance with Rogues, being a fanmade module for Neverwinter Nights, was, according to Word of God, inspired by many fantasy series, particularly A Song of Ice and Fire and The Icewind Dale Trilogy. As such, it contains many similarities and references to some of those series, especially in terms of characters and names:
    • The Princess' story seems to be a mix between those of the sisters of House Stark and Daenerys Targaryen (a Broken Bird princess, the last survivor of her family, joins a thieves/assassin guild, etc). Her character can also be developed with characteristics typical for those three women. An optional, downloadable pre-made Player Character Princess is also named Lyanna Stormborn, further confirming this.
    • Vico is very similar in his bloodlust and Jerkass behavior to Sandor Clegane, but also carries some of the characteristics of his much crueler and vicious brother Gregor.
    • Bran and Rizzen Do'Vrinn are a barbarian, who has been imprisoned for years, and a drow outcast respectively, who form a friendship, likely a reference to Wulfgar and Drizzt Do'Urden.
    • Bran's enchanted greatsword is called Frost, possibly a reference to Eddard Stark's sword of rare steel, called Ice.
    • Bran and Pia also share their names and some minor traits with characters from A Song of Ice and Fire.
    • The Dhorn Empire seems to be named after the Kingdom of Dorne.
    • Similarly to the books of A Song of Ice and Fire there are many scenes of gratuitous nudity, (optional) sex, rape and references to rape, slavery, and often cases of Anyone Can Die.
  • Upcoming beat-em-up Dancin' Divas is a throwback to early 1990s comical arcade brawlers with four selectable color-coded characters with different powers/abilities, most notably Ninja Baseball Bat Man, The Ninja Kids, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game and The Simpsons.
  • Dark Souls was heavily influenced by Berserk, which director Hidetaka Miyazaki is an admitted big fan of. The Greatsword looks very similar to Guts' Dragonslayer, Knight Artorias looks and fights like Guts wearing the Berserker armor, there's a blacksmith named Rickert, several enemies and bosses have armor and weapon designs lifted straight out of the manga, and the overall theme and tone of the game is similar to that of Berserk: being a dark fantasy with themes revolving around struggling against fate, no matter how inevitable it seems. Some code examination even reveals that one of the bosses, Ornstein, is nicknamed "Griffith" in the game's files (though the two characters have very little in common overall).
  • Amelie's beach at the end of Death Stranding looks very similar to the one Shinji and Asuka find themselves on in End Of Evangelion.
  • Several moves in the Devil May Cry series are callbacks to past Capcom games, mostly from the Street Fighter franchise. For example, Dante's uppercut moves such as the Rising Dragon resemble the Shoryuken with bits of the Shinryuken added in, Divine Dragon resembles the Shinryuken even more, Nero's Devil Buster against the Alto Angelos in Devil May Cry 4 is identical to Zangief's Ultra Final Atomic Buster, Killer Bee/Starfall is Akuma's Tenma Kujinkyaku, Volcano appears to be Akuma's Kongo Koretsu Zan from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, and Tornado is the Shinkuu Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku. There are also callbacks outside of Street Fighter though, such as Hyper Fist being a reference to the Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken from Fist of the North Star.
  • Disgaea 3 has, among others, a magichange skill of the Reaper monsters class which is identical to Starlight Breaker.
  • The Distorted Travesty series is rife with homages to various old-schooled games. The third installment takes this to a whole new level, going so far as to let the player gain abilities from games like Super Mario Bros. and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link by entering them.
  • Doom Eternal: The scene where Doom Guy walks through a space station as it's crew circle around him in awe is a recreation of Murphy entering the police station after his transformation in RoboCop (1987).
  • Eternal Darkness is partially styled after the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. The chapter of Dr. Maximilian Roivas, "The Lurking Horror", plays out the closet to how one of Lovecraft's stories would, ending with Max locked up in an asylum.
  • The Fabulous Fear Machine: The entire game pays homage to the works of EC Comics - from a similar art style to comeuppance stories about villain protagonists. The main menu of the game even resembles an EC Comics cover.
  • Fallout 3:
  • Final Fantasy IX is full of explicit references and other various thematic connections to earlier games in the series.
  • The freeware game Genetos is a homage to the entire genre of Shoot'em ups from Space Invaders to Radiant Silvergun and Rez.
  • Ghost of Tsushima is a big love letter to old Samurai films, with plenty of Dramatic Wind and an optional black-and-white film grain mode to make it look like a Akira Kurosawa-esque samurai flick.
  • Ghostrunner: The protagonist being a Cyber Ninja is named Jack in reverence to one of the most popular examples of the trope, Raiden from Metal Gear Solid.
  • Popular freeware game Hero's Realm is a distinct homage that harks back to the old school Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games and combines what they have to offer in one package. It flows together as smoothly as what an optimistic gamer would expect.
  • In the video game Impossible Creatures, the scientist Lucy is captured by a giant gorilla called The King.
  • While I Wanna Be the Guy was already Reference Overdosed, the sequel is noticeably based more on Bionic Commando — the new protagonist is named The Lad (ala Ladd Spencer) and is colored green, and has a grappling hook. The first two levels are based off the game as well.
  • B. Orchid from Killer Instinct is practically a homage of Cheshire from DC Comics. If you think that is unbelievable, then check out the pictures of B. Orchid and Cheshire here and here.
  • Kingdom of Loathing, already Reference Overdosed in its own right, has an area with several situations (including the name of the place itself) lifted straight from Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
  • The (true) end cutscene of Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is, in essence, a shortened recreation of the ending of A New Hope, from the heroes' near-escape of the enemy's hideout to said hideout's dithered explosion to the later awards ceremony wherein the heroes receive medals to the male lead getting a kiss from the female lead.
  • La-Mulana is one big homage to classic MSX games, particularly Konami's MSX games, the entire library of which appears as collectible items. The gameplay is principally based on Knightmare II: The Maze of Galious (with a secret Nostalgia Level based on it) and Castlevania (which is referenced in all the ways to upgrade Lemeza's whip).
  • Last Alert is a clear homage to Rambo.
  • MadWorld is an obvious homage to Sin City and the ultra-violent black-and-white independent comics of the 80s which influenced it.
  • The vintage economics-edutainment game M.U.L.E. offers players a chance to go Wampus hunting for extra cash, which is a reference to an even earlier game, Hunt the Wumpus.
  • The Zeppelin in Ninja Gaiden Xbox heavily resembles the Hindenburg, and goes down in flames in a similar manner. "Oh, the humanity!"
  • Near the end of Resident Evil – Code: Veronica there's a location that's a nearly identical replica of the main hall from the mansion of the original game. There's an in-plot explanation for this.
  • A Hidden Object Game called Robinson Crusoe and the Cursed Pirates, created by a Russian developer, contains at least one homage to Monkey Island in each and every scene! The game goes so far as to start with the words "Deep in the Caribbean", have an undead pirate villain with a crew of ghosts, and ends with a cutscene where the two main characters are looking out at their new ship when the mainmast suddenly breaks off. Several scenes in the game are directly redrawn from the old VGA backdrops. The list goes on and on and on. The sheer number of homages is so vast, that it's likely tantamount to copyright infringement on a grand scale. Fortunately for the developers, Lucasarts has done nothing against it. Yet.
  • The Katina mission from Star Fox 64 was an obvious homage to the movie Independence Day.
  • 'Sword of the Stars has the "Upstart Apes" scenario, which has been admitted by the creators to be strongly inspired by Imperium.
  • The Tekken series has King, the jaguar-masked wrestler, as a homage (mostly) to the titular character of Tiger Mask.
  • TimeSplitters is shock full of this. In TimeSplitters 2 the level Siberia is a homage to GoldenEye. The level is set at a dam in Siberia, 1990. One might add that Free Radical are made up of the core team of GoldenEye and TimeSplitters is regarded as the Spiritual Successor to that game. But it doesn't stop there. NeoTokyo (2014) is set in a rainy Tokyo 2019, that is a copy of the style in Blade Runner (also set in 2019). The Machine Wars levels in TimeSplitters Future Perfect are based off the Terminator franchise.
  • VOIDFACE takes immense inspiration from Chippy. Each stage pits you against a multitude of different phases, you don't have many Hit Points to start with, you can use a sneak mechanic to move slower and steadier, your bullets have an Arbitrary Weapon Range, swirling and suction are used similarly to two of Chippy's Crossfire minibosses, and VOIDFACE's bosses are given simple names, like Chippy's bosses' beta and internal names.
  • The Witness: Blow said that this is one to Myst and first-person 3D adventure games in general. Much of the imagery also brings to mind many classic Surrealist paintings.
  • World in Conflict Soviet Assault has the Russian player character named Romanov, the same name of a certain Premier of the Soviet Union from another wacky universe, although this could be coincidental as well.
    • Probably either a coincidence or yet another derival from the once-existed Romanov dynasty.
  • World of Warcraft is full of homages, the most notable being pretty much the entire Un'Goro Crater zone, featuring:
    • Linken, main NPC of a long chain of quests inspired by The Legend of Zelda themes.
    • Larion and Muigin, using hammers to deal with a pest of plants, a clear Homage to Super Mario Bros..
    • Apes that often drop barrels for no real reason other than a homage to Donkey Kong's origin.
    • The entire zone is full of references to "Lost World"-type movies, including the Warcraft equivalents of Tyranosaurs, Pterodons and Dimetrodons.
    • The zone is also full of references to Land of the Lost (1974), including NPCs with names similar to those on the show (the major travel hub run by Williden Marshal), the aforementioned dinosaurs, and red, green, yellow and blue crystals littering the landscape.
    • The Valkyr Twins boss fight in the Trial of the Crusader raid is heavily inspired by Ikaruga. It features the same color change light/dark mechanic where you have to absorb orbs of your color, and swap colors on demand to avoid special attacks.
    • The Titans, Benevolent Precursors of the setting, are heavily inspired by Marvel Comics' Celestials, being highly advanced, gigantic space aliens that seeded life on various planets in The 'Verse. Later expansions reveal their ulterior reasons for doing so was creating defenders strong enough to protect the world-souls from which more titans are born - a detail taken from the Earth X version of the Celestials.
  • Yooka-Laylee's Icymetric Palace, as its name suggests, is a homage to isometric 8-bit computer games like Knight Lore and Alien 8, with tile-based room transitions reminiscent of the Flip-Screen Scrolling used in those games (though normal 3D graphics are used here).

    Web Animation 
  • DEATH BATTLE!: "Yang Xiao Long vs. Tifa Lockhart" is an apparent homage to the now-tragically no longer with us web animator Monty Oum, with two characters from his most popular works, his own creation RWBY and the fan animation Dead Fantasy (which prominently featured Tifa). The fight scene is very similar at times to the "Yellow" trailer. Yang wins.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • American Dad!: "Independent Movie" is one to American independent cinema, and doubles as an Affectionate Parody of it. It takes the usual Road Trip Plot movie premise that is so popular in the genre and makes a lot of fun of it by having Steve overreact to everything, but it goes out of it's way to be played as much as one as it can, even using a different art direction than the rest of the series, such as a sepia-tone overlaying the episode and camera angles that are common to them.
  • Animaniacs also did these. The hilarious Who's On Stage scene is a clear homage to the original Abbott and Costello sketch. Also, Rita and Runt's version of Les Misérables.
  • Archer sees fit to do this in one particular episode, The Placebo Effect. Archer himself and undoubtedly the writers themselves were so blown away by the famous Magnum, P.I. episode Did You See The Sun Rise that they honored it in their own little tribute.
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Season 1 episode "The Deserter" seems to be a homage to Apocalypse Now, what with the ex-elite soldier leading a guerilla resistance in the jungle and being spoken of in nigh-worshipful tones by his follower. It would probably be a little too much to expect the line "I love the smell of firebending in the morning," but other than that the resemblance is, if not uncanny, at least enough to make one think.
    • In "The Great Divide", the Zhang leader's story is expressed in an animation style strikingly similar to Dead Leaves.
    • A later episode was probably a homage to The Rashomon Gate.
    • The introduction of the first Avatar, Wan, in the episode "Beginnings Pt. 1" of the Sequel Series, The Legend of Korra is a homage to the "One Jump Ahead" musical number from Aladdin.
  • The Ben 10 franchise contains an alien called Way Big◊ who is a hundred feet tall, has a blank face with a crest on the top of his head, and can fire beams of cosmic energy by crossing his arm in front of him. Sound familiar? Ben 10: Ultimate Alien takes the homage even further◊. even the name of the species- To'kustar is a reference. Things get truly weird in Ben 10: Omniverse, with a mutated female To'kustar◊ designed as a homage to, of all things, Scanty.
  • CatDog:
    • "It's A Wonderful Half-Life" is mostly a homage to Ink Blot Cartoon Style 'toons of the 1930s, in the form of a shared dream had by Cat and Dog after an argument.
    • "Silents, Please" pays homage to silent movie comedies, handwaved by an outbreak of laryngitis and temporary color blindness.
  • Several episodes of Code Lyoko contain direct Homages to various movies:
  • Codename: Kids Next Door has done several of these. Some of them, especially any homages to Star Wars (in "Snowing" and "Elections"), are so close to the originals that they verge on copyright infringement. There's also one (A.R.C.H.I.V.E.) that's a homage to The Animatrix of all things. Incidentally, it was once posted on their blog that they had to scrap a homage to "The Lorax" for being too close to the original.
  • An episode of Dexter's Laboratory was done as an episode of Wacky Races, complete with an opening sequence based on that of Wacky Races, and a narrator who was a sound-alike for the late Dave Willock, the narrator on the original show. Another episode was done as Speed Racer. Yet another was done is the style of The Pink Panther cartoon series, complete with silent characters, jazz music, and DeeDee doing the panther's unique walk.
  • The series Duck Dodgers does this regularly.
    • One example involves a Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer lookalike Martian ship, features a version of the Death Star trench run, and even has Marvin complaining about people getting themselves killed trying to recreate the scene. Later, just to make sure that no-one missed the reference, the deceased Duck Dodger and Space Cadet appear at the end as glowing blue ghosts wearing Jedi robes.
    • Another notable episode features an uncannily spot-on parody of Samurai Jack.
    • Another one is in the "Fudd" episode it ends with a huge The Wizard of Oz homage. The icing on the cake is that Duck Dodgers breaks the fourth wall and informs the audience "This is not copyright infringement, it's a tribute" when they dress up as the head Fudd's guards (who even do the Winkie chant from the 1939 movie).
  • Family Guy is absolutely built on these.
  • Futurama features a homage to one thing or another in almost every other episode.
  • On the topic of Godzilla, the episode "Trust No One" in Godzilla: The Series is a full-on homage to The Thing (1982): something that can mimic a living being perfectly, the paranoia of who to trust, and a game of Spot the Impostor. "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been" is pretty much Fantastic Voyage.
  • Histeria! did a few theme songs parodying the intro sequences to other TV shows, including The Addams Family, The Simpsons, and I Spy. One episode also had a framing device featuring the characters in a Star Trek setting.
  • Il Était Une Fois... la Vie (Once Upon a Time... Life): In this edutainment show about the workings of the human body, to reflect how iodine is a rare but precious element for the organism, one character inspired by Molière's The Miser is seen hoarding iodine, like Harpagon was hoarding gold. More specifically, he looks like the version of Harpagon played by Louis de Funès in his film adaptation of the play.
  • The Johnny Test episode "Johnny Dukey Doo" is, as you can probably tell, a spoof of your typical Scooby-Doo episode, right down to the Laugh Track and "if it wasn't for you meddling kids!" line. This is lampshaded several times, when Johnny remarks that "he's seen this somewhere before".
    • A later episode homages Tom and Jerry.
    • Don't forget the two Tinymon episodes. They even made the antagonist's name sound like Ash Ketchum!
  • Miraculous Ladybug: "Dark Owl", an episode of Season 2, is a homage to Batman (1966).
  • The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "The Return of Harmony, Part 2" ends with an almost shot-to-shot homage to the ending of Star Wars: A New Hope.
    • Discord himself is a big one to Q. This was the case even before they got Q's actual actor to take up the role (they originally intended to use a sound-a-like) and Lauren Faust admits she created him after a Star Trek Archive Binge.
    • "Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" has a musical number that homages "Trouble in River City" from The Music Man, right down to the crowd chanting "Cider! Cider! Cider!" like the original song's "Trouble! Trouble! Trouble!"
    • There is also the book series Daring Do, a homage to Indiana Jones.
  • Over the Garden Wall:
    • The first scene in the woods, showing a tall ominous tree in the dark, nearly mirrors a similar scene with a tree in a Hedgehog in the Fog.
    • The first episode sees Wirt and Greg in the middle of a journey, lost in a dark forest where they encounter a vicious animal who blocks their path. This is just how the The Divine Comedy starts.
    • The Beast's "Chop the Wood to Light the Fire" song is based on a song from act 1 scene 3 of the Hansel and Gretel opera.
    • The song about the Beast takes on the style of the Headless Horseman song from Disney's adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and even imitates a few shots of the sequence.
    • In the same episode, the Highway Man's dance is a reference to the rotoscoped Cab Calloway segments used in Betty Boop shorts (it was not rotoscoped, though, it's just... weird).
    • Auntie Whispers's design looks similar to that of Yubaba from Spirited Away, and she too keeps a young girl in bondage to maintain her dwelling. And, like Yubaba, she's also one of two sister witches, one good and one evil. Being the "good" one, Auntie ultimately ends up more like Zeniba.
    • Greg's Disney Acid Sequence is animated like a cross between The Wizard of Oz, Little Nemo, "Wynken, Blynken and Nod" from Disney's Silly Symphonies, Harvey Toons, and Minnie the Moocher. Many scenes from the sequence itself are direct lifts from Alice's Wonderland, the first of Disney's Alice Comedies.
    • The scene where The Queen of the Clouds appears is similar to Dante's description of Mary as the Queen of Heaven in the Paradiso and illustrations of that scene by Gustave Doré.
    • The fact that Wirt and Greg meet the Beast, a Satanic Archetype, first on a frozen lake and then in the middle of a blizzard calls to mind the ending of the Inferno, where the Devil is frozen in a lake of blood and tears in Hell's Ninth Circle.
  • The Owl House episode "Follies at the Coven Day Parade" has an in-universe example where Luz models her Faked Kidnapping plot after her favorite chapter in book 5 of "The Good Witch Azura". This is what tips off Amity to Luz's involvement since that particular volume is what led to the two of them becoming friends back in season 1.
  • Pinky and the Brain did plenty of whole-episode homages, including ones for The Third Man, Winnie the Pooh, Around the World in Eighty Days, and The Prisoner.
    • TV show doing a homage to a stage musical: Pinky and the Brain includes an episode parodying most of the memorable songs in the musical "Man of La Mancha".
  • Both versions of Pound Puppies are homages to The Great Escape and Hogan's Heroes, with Cooler being a direct reference to The Great Escape's Cooler King, and both groups of dogs escaping the pound in similar fashions to the prisoners. (Paul Germain and Joe Ansolabehere produced the first season of the 2010 series, who also created another homage.)
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998) does this a few times. The episode "Boogie Frights" contains an extended sequence based on the Death Star run in the original A New Hope. The episode "I See a Funny Cartoon in Your Future" was done in the style of Rocky and Bullwinkle. "Meet the Beat-Alls" pays homage to several Beatles films (in particular Yellow Submarine and Let It Be) as well as the older Beatles cartoons.
  • ReBoot:
    • In the first episode, Bob and Phong play a tennis-esque game using a floating disc and energy-paddles on their hands and feet. Then the camera angle becomes a view from above, and it's instantly obvious that the game is Pong.
    • Another episode, "Number 7", was a homage to The Prisoner, complete with farcical trial scene, seesaw-camera-chair, and use of the phrases "Who is Number One?" and "Be seeing you".
    • The third season also had an episode (written, appropriately enough, by D.C. Fontana) that was a homage not only to classic Star Trek (including a log entry, a tricorder, and original series sound effects) but also superhero teams such as the Legion of Super-Heroes; the death of their leader (who acted and spoke suspiciously like William Shatner overemoting) was due to having something dropped on him... and giving a version of Spock's final lines from The Wrath of Khan.
    • In fact, the third season was full of these, including references to The Six Million Dollar Man, Braveheart, Xena, Mars Attacks!...
  • Recess has a few homages to Hogan's Heroes, one episode going so far as to take the pilot episode of Hogan's Heroes and adapt it to the playground. Similarly, TJ and Hogan both have a trademark hat and jacket and walk into the principal/warden's office with fairly regular ease and often never getting into trouble.
  • Rugrats' Reptar, a giant green dinosaur with bumpy blue spines is such an obvious homage to Godzilla it's a wonder Toho hasn't sued Nickelodeon for profiting off of Godzilla's likeness.
  • The Simpsons also has several, from time to time, albeit mostly during the couch gags and/or the non-continuity "Treehouse of Horror" episodes.
  • The South Park film, Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, is structured with numerous homages to the structure and musical style of the musical Les Misérables. In fact, South Park does this a lot.
  • In Steven Universe episode "Beach City Drift", The car race homages Initial D, including [CGI] cars, anime speed lines, and Eurobeat-inspired music. Stevonnie and Kevin's cars greatly resemble those driven by that manga's protagonist and his first opponent, respectively.
  • In the Superman: The Animated Series episode "New Kids in Town", in which Brainiac travels back in time to kill Clark Kent before he can become Superman, a scene set in a diner is lifted almost whole from the bar scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
  • In the Teen Titans (2003) episode "Revolution", British supervillain Mad Mod took over America and turned it into a Britain heavily inspired by the style of Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam. They even threw in the crushing foot!
  • Time Squad: In "White House Weirdness", a mission to investigate a haunting at the White House that's keeping Woodrow Wilson from taking office turns into a parody of Scooby-Doo.
  • One episode of Tiny Toon Adventures featured a parody of the film Voyage of the Kon-Tiki, complete with a "making-of documentary" parody to fill out the second half of the episode.
    • "Ahh, mango juice" THUD!
  • The Transformers: Animated episode Decepticon Air is a homage to both Con Air and the first Die Hard movie, complete with Optimus using the explosives down the elevator shaft and the "air vent rant" scene.
  • The Wallace & Gromit short A Close Shave has a To the Batpole! sequence very reminiscent of Thunderbirds (and with a similar epic drum roll).

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

A Wave of Violence

When the members of Police Squad are staking out a train station, they are faced with a surfeit of innocent bystanders who must be removed or shielded from danger.

Example of:
Odessa Steps

X-Men '97

Kim Possible: S...

Lassie as Jack ...

Homer Sees an A...

Simpsons Break ...

Bret Hart vs. t...

Simpson, Homer ...

The Death Star ...

New Stars In Ho...

"NNNEEERRRDDD!"

"Be Afraid, Be ...

Jinx

Papa Spank!

WandaVision- Be...

Radio Tapok - "...

Thought Slime's...

WandaVision- 80...

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top

A Wave of Violence

When the members of Police Squad are staking out a train station, they are faced with a surfeit of innocent bystanders who must be removed or shielded from danger.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (7 votes)

Example of:

Main / OdessaSteps

Media sources:

Report

A Wave of Violence

X-Men '97

Kim Possible: S...

Lassie as Jack ...

Homer Sees an A...

Simpsons Break ...

Bret Hart vs. t...

Simpson, Homer ...

The Death Star ...

New Stars In Ho...

"NNNEEERRRDDD!"

"Be Afraid, Be ...

Jinx

Papa Spank!

WandaVision- Be...

Radio Tapok - "...

Thought Slime's...

WandaVision- 80...