"The LEGO Movie featured LEGO Batman, LEGO Star Wars, LEGO NBA All-Stars... and Bionicle for like one second..."
Despite being partially credited for saving the LEGO Company from bankruptcy, the BIONICLE franchise never managed to ascend out of Obscure Popularity. Still, it would occasionally make an appearance in mainstream media... even if that appearance was often little more than a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo.
See also BS01
, Toatapio Nuva, and Bricking Up Brad for further information
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- A couple tweaked, CG-animated Rahkshi sets show up in this 2007 TV ad for the Hungarian Post.
- The LEGO Movie: The Toa Mata cameo in Wyldstyle's brief Info Dump about The Multiverse of LEGO realms.
- The LEGO Batman Movie: A movie titled The Bionicle Man appears on a theater marquee.
- The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: A piece of concept art depicts Takanuva alongside Rex Dangervest, although such an occurrence didn't come to pass in the finished product.
- LEGO Marvel Avengers Code Red: The design of the Collector's Mecha-Mooks is a near-direct lift of Tuma and Surge 2.0.
- Photographer Imre Drégely's 2019 exhibition Luna '69 (Moon Relics) showcased photo manipulations combining imagery related to the Moon landing with various toys, including Bionicle sets.
- Green Lantern: Rebirth: The Toa Mata make a small cameo on one of the runes on this page◊ where Abin Sur confronts The Spectre.
- During the "Deadpool" arc of Ultimate Spider-Man, Spidey refers to the Reavers as Bionicles.
- Marvel's Blood Colossus was based on the 2007 Maxilos & Spinax set. Specifically, it's nothing more than Maxilos with Spinax's head.
- Ultimate Fantastic Four Issue #26 features a Super-Skrull robot that highly resembles Tahu Nuva.
- ''Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): the character of Whisper the Wolf is confirmed to be a partial expy of Kopaka, as well as Major and Sniper Wolf.
- An incomplete Rahkshi set briefly appears in the opening of Little Ann, Zsolt Pálfi's deeply disturbing short student film.
- You can spot Gali Mata as a prop in Juni and Carmen's tree-house in Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams.
- In Marriage Story, Henry is seen playing with a Skull Basher toy.
- A Rahkshi appears as a prop in Pass Thru.
- One of the Humongous Mecha from Feast is modeled after Takanuva's 2008 form.
- Even Stevens: Louis and Beans mess around with the Tahu, Lewa, and Kopaka figures in one episode.
- Friends: A few Bionicle figures have been sighted making very small background cameos.
- German documentary report show Galileo dedicated a 15 minute segment to brand's history and the development of the 2008 Mistika series, including prototype creation, focus group testing, marketing and the production process, giving fans an intriguing behind-the-scenes look into how the franchise was made. The report would be repeated on various international Galileo variants as well.
- The King of Queens: In the episode "Friender Bender", several 2001 sets and a standee featuring Tahu cameo in a toy store where Doug and Carrie are stuck looking for a birthday present.
- LEGO Masters: The team of Christopher and Robert (known on YouTube as Duck Bricks) would build a BIONICLE-themed volcano for Season 4.
- Malcolm in the Middle: Dewey plays with the Tahu and Gali figures in one episode, albeit under generic Sci-Fi names.
- Suburgatory: In one episode, Lisa discovers that Bionicle toys is Victor's Unmanly Secret. Lisa admits to being a huge Bionicle fan herself, and proves so by identifying the set she found as Takanuva, the Toa of Light (specifically his 2010 set). Later in the episode, Victor recounts Takanuva's run-in with the Shadow Leeches from the 2008 story-line.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Emergent Human John Henry plays with BIONICLE toys to develop fine motor control. He's also shown to have brushed up on the corresponding fiction, and gives semi-accurate descriptions on the characters of Tahu and Solek, as well as the setting of Mount Valmai.
- The cover art of the Front Line Assembly albums Artificial Soldier and War Mech is loaded with an assortment of Bionicle pieces.
- I Fight Dragons: the Animated Music Video for Oh The Places Youll Go stars two robots built with kit-bashed BIONICLE parts. The animator is the below-mentioned Charlie Rose, who details his process here.
- LEGO City:
- The Passenger Airplane set appears to be depict a flight to Voya Nui (4:08, 8:38)
- Raze from the Wheelie Stunt Bike set has the symbol of Three Virtues printed on her jacket.
- The Passenger Airplane
- Classic LEGO Space: One of the computer screens in the 90th anniversary Galaxy Explorer remake set shows a couple of astronauts observing a Toa Mata canister◊.
- Ninjago:
- In the Ninjago City Docks set, there are posters depicting the island of Mata Nui (15:51) and the Mask of Ultimate Power (10:20).
- In the Ninjago City Markets set, Racer 7 wears a Fun T-Shirt of the Kanohi Hau, and is even holding a small figure and canister.
- In the Ninjago City Docks
- LEGO Friends
- A computer screen displaying Tahu and Kopaka appears in Nova's Room.
- A computer screen displaying Lewa appears in the Heartlake City Shopping Mall.
- Monkie Kid
- A sign displaying the Bohrok symbol appears of the City of Lanterns.
- A replica of Onua's mask (In the Style of the Gift-With-Purchase Bionicle set) is hidden under the sidewalk of Megapolis City.
- Hidden Side:
- A computer screen displaying Onua (referencing the canceled the Legend of Mata Nui video game) appears in the Paranormal Intercept Bus set (3:53).
- The Phantom Fire Truck has a decal of the Kanohi Hau on its side.
- A computer screen displaying Onua (referencing the canceled the Legend of Mata Nui video game) appears in the Paranormal Intercept Bus
- Poptropica held a promotional event for the Glatorian Legends wave. In it, players had to help Raanu get past the Bone Hunters to secure a water supply. Winners would receive a costume of Mata Nui.
- AniMat reviewed Bionicle: Mask of Light, noting that the film comes off as diet The Lord of the Rings, but otherwise has a certain charm to it.
- Hollywood News Agency: LEGO Kritika (LEGO Review) is where Gergely Szirmai says LEGO is the "best thing humanity ever created in the universe" because people can run their creativity wild with it, followed by a rant about Bionicle because its pieces are too specialized, taking away what LEGO was originally about.
- I Hate Everything reviewed Bionicle: Mask of Light, finding it So Okay, It's Average and wishing that it focused more on the Toa with his only real criticisms being its heavy influences from The Lord of the Rings and Jaller's ill-fitting voice, but otherwise praising it for avoiding some of the more pandering cliches and ultimately sparing it a spot from the list.
- LEGO Rewind: The franchise would receive occasional mentions throughout the series before getting a full, in-depth review proper for the Grand Finale.
- Mother's Basement in his review of Sword Art Online: Alicization, refers to Quinella's Sword Golem as a BIONICLE. The thumbnail for the video also features Mata Nui in it, which he theorizes is why that video got as many views as it did in a later video.
- Pico: The "N.G. Showdown" short opens with the very same SFX that opened the Toa's promo animations.
- PhantomStrider:
- Strider gave Bionicle: Mask of Light an honorable mention in his Top 3 Best and Worst LEGO Movies, praising the atmosphere and voice acting.
- BIONICLE (2015) placed #3 in Lego's 10 Worst Failures due to its Uncertain Audience.
- Strider gave Bionicle: Mask of Light an honorable mention in his Top 3 Best and Worst LEGO Movies
- Really Freakin' Clever: In "64 Things WRONG With Final Fantasy VII", Joshua says this:
"Shoutout to Square Enix for securing a brand deal with Bionicle for this first Boss Battle."
- RebelTaxi: In addition to the above quote, Pan-Pizza would draw Fan Art of Tahu, Machete, and Sayaka Kanamori For a drawing challenge.
- Super Butter Buns discusses Bionicle: The Game and Bionicle Heroes in one installment of her "Do You Remember" series, lamenting the franchise's struggle with The Problem with Licensed Games when its extensive Worldbuilding should lend itself well to a halfway decent game.
- One joke RiffTrax has made about Edward Cullen in The Twilight Saga is that he collects BIONICLE, which they have him ramble on about in a nasally nerdy voice when he first invites Bella into his room.
- Despite representing a rival toy franchise, TFWiki.net has referenced Bionicle in a few of its captions:
- One image in Scorponok's page is captioned "Beware My Stinger Tail!", and is even linked to BS 01 for good measure.
- The protoform article includes a caption about how "Six canisters washed ashore on a golden beach, and new and powerful legends were — wait, wrong franchise!"
- Their page on Lee Tockar not only mentions his role as Makuta in the Direct to Video trilogy, but also captions his picture with said character's Signature Line. note
- Two images in Obsidian's page are captioned with an exchange between Nidhiki and Lhikan from Legends of Metru Nui, complete with links to their respective BS 01 articles. note
- One image in Arcee's page is captioned "In the time before time..."
- One image in Ultra Magnus' page is captioned "Cleanitallitmustbecleaned...", the Madness Mantra associated with the Bohrok.
- Their article on Construct-Bots is captioned "Okay, now we actually DO have toys that look like Bionicle. Happy now, Movieverse haters?"
- Their article on LEGO itself naturally has a small mention of BIONICLE, as well as a caption referencing the Toonami promo.
- One image in Scorponok
- TJ Omega: Despite not having any interest in the series, TJ would review the Protector of Jungle as part of Toycember: Spring Break.
- Unus Annus: Markiplier briefly mentions BIONICLE as an example of toy-lines with lore.
- The Clangers: Several BIONICLE parts (such as one of Pohatu's Feet Additions) could be seen in a pile of junk in the Iron Chicken's nest.
- Johnny Test: One episode spoofs the toy-line in the form of "the Mega Roboticles".
- Some of Stoopid Buddy Studios works feature random pieces from sets in them, such as in early Robot Chicken sketches where limbs serve as set dressing, and in M.O.D.O.K. (2021) where a customized Onua Nuva leg can be seen as a spare part for M.O.D.O.K..
- One of the animators who has worked for Stoopid Buddy Studios, Charlie Rose, is admin of the popular Bionicle Maskposting shitposting group on Facebook; and independently produces his own stop motion films (including BIONICLE) under the banner of Mootroid X Productions. Several of the more recent appearances of BIONICLE parts in Robot Chicken or M.O.D.O.K. can be attributed to him sneaking them into the production design. Behind the scenes photos show more BIONICLE figures "visiting" the Robot Chicken set, such as this photo of Tahu posed next to Kingdom Hearts characters. He'd later sneak Good Guy in the background of this sketch.
- One of the animators who has worked for Stoopid Buddy Studios, Charlie Rose, is admin of the popular Bionicle Maskposting shitposting group on Facebook; and independently produces his own stop motion films (including BIONICLE) under the banner of Mootroid X Productions
- LEGO Dreamzzz: The episode "Dream Team" is a crossover with Ninjago caused by a kid dreaming about the series after a marathon. In the end, he lists off several shows for future marathons, one of which being BIONICLE.
Other
- In February 2024, BIONICLE would appear on several news outlets when a 14-karat gold Kanohi Hau (originally distributed for a contest held by Cartoon Network) would show up in a jewelry box donated to goodwill in DuBois, Pennsylvania. The mask would be auctioned off for $18,101.
