Referenced By / Bonanza

Films (Live Action)

• A particularly notorious scene in North has two of North's prospective parents break out into a song set to the tune of the Bonanza theme about how they're going to fatten him up because their son who died in a stampede was fat.
• In Mermaid Down, the mental patients watch a Bonanza episode on TV. Most of them look bored, while the mermaid watches the screen in astonishment.
• Barry Levinson has referenced the show in a couple of his movies:
  • In Diner, a customer at the appliance store Shreve works at complains that when he tried watching the show on a color TV, it looked fake.
  • In Tin Men, Sam is obsessed with the show, to Tilley's irritation.

Literature

• Waverly from Viral Nation lives as a hermit in the abandoned Ponderosa Ranch set.
• In My Dark Vanessa, Vanessa's dad watches shows from his childhood like Bonanza in the afternoons after work.

Live-Action TV

• Angel: In the second season episode "Belonging", The Host explains he also goes by the name "Lorne":
  Lorne: Though I generally don't go by that because - green. (he points to his face)
  Cordelia: Huh?
  Angel: (smiles) Right. Lorne Greene. (Cordelia and Wesley stare at him blankly) Bonanza? Fifteen years on the air not mean anything to anyone here? Okay, now I feel old.
• The Goodies and the Beanstalk opens with the burning map of Bonanza before Graham stamps out the fire and puts a map of Cricklewood over the charred remains. "...but in Cricklewood in 1973, the Goodies have fallen on hard times."

Western Animation

• Futurama: In "Where the Buggalo Roam", Bender sings a ditty to the tune of the Bonanza theme while the crew goes to catch rustlers on Mars.
• Garfield and Friends: In "The Lasagna Zone", one of the TV shows Garfield travels through is Bonanas, with a picture of a man riding a banana-like horse.
• The Simpsons: The Couch Gag for "We're on the Road to D'oh-where" and "Rome-Old and Julie-Eh" parodies the Bonanza opening.