Referenced By / Charlie Chaplin

Advertising

• An expy of Chaplin's Tramp appeared in a series of '80s commercials for IBM Personal Computers.

Films — Live-Action

• In Benny & Joon, Sam does the "forks and buns" bit from The Gold Rush at one point.
• Idiocracy: Joe finds out that the time machine is really an amusement park, the "Time Masheen", with a laughable misunderstanding of history, e.g. it confuses Chaplin with Hitler.
• The Professional: Mathilda impersonates a few celebrities to Leon to try and get him to loosen up, and one of them is Chaplin.
• Sunset Boulevard: Norma dresses up as Chaplin for Joe at one point.

Literature

• Fate/strange Fake: Sigma lies to everyone and claims his Servant is Lancer whose true identity is Charlie Chaplin. Sigma is mentioned to be a fan of old British films.

Live-Action TV

• Batman (1966): In the Cold Open of the episode "Death in Slow Motion", the Riddler impersonates Chaplin, while his Mooks dress up as the Keystone Kops, so they can rob a movie theater during a silent film festival.
• In Living Color!: One sketch from Ted Turner's Very Colorized Classics has Ted Turner (Jim Carrey) introducing a "colorized" version of The Kid, starring Redd Foxx, Aunt Esther and Emmanuel Lewis.
• Jeopardy!: The final episode from the original run hosted by Art Fleming ended with "Smile" from Modern Times playing over a now-darkened set.
• M*A*S*H: In the two-part season 10 opener "That's Showbiz", one of the subplots involves Father Mulcahy trying to help a USO musician get back a Tragic Keepsake that belonged to her brother. He decides to get in touch with the chaplain at the 8063rd, and calls him by his first name, "Charlie".
• Sesame Street: Maria (Sonia Manzano) appeared as Chaplin's Tramp character in a series of comedic sketches in the '70s and '80s.

Western Animation

• Baggy Pants and the Nitwits: The title character of the Baggy Pants segment is basically the Tramp as a cat.
• Classic Disney Shorts:
  • A caricature of Chaplin appears in Mickey's Gala Premier and Mickey's Polo Team.
  • The climactic fight from The Klondike Kid was partly inspired by the teetering cabin scene from The Gold Rush.
  • In Santa's Workshop, one of the toys marching into Santa's bag is a Chaplin doll being followed by a toy policeman.
  • In Mickey Plays Papa, Mickey pretends to be the Tramp to entertain his new Doorstop Baby, to no avail.
  • The scenes of Donald Duck working at a Nazi munitions plant in Der Fuehrer's Face are inspired by Modern Times.
• Family Guy: In "80's Guy", after Lois tells Peter to get over his obsession with the 1980's, he becomes fixated on the 1910's, complete with dressing like Chaplin.
• Felix the Cat: In the 1923 short Felix in Hollywood, Felix tries to audition before a producer by imitating Chaplin, only to get caught by the real deal. Coincidentally, Pat Sullivan produced a series of Chaplin cartoons prior to the Felix seres.
• Looney Tunes: A Chaplin caricature appears in Buddy's Show Boat, Hollywood Capers, and Porky's Road Race.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot: In "Weapons of Mass Distraction", new kid Travis is afraid of mechanical things (like Jenny) because his father (who resembles Chaplin) got caught in a factory's assembly line; the flashback is a spoof of such a scene from Modern Times.
• The Pink Panther briefly imitates Chaplin's Tramp during the Animated Credits Opening of The Return of the Pink Panther.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?", one of Herb's fellow hobos is a caricature of the Tramp, who's about to eat a shoe.
  • In "Lady Bouvier's Lover", Grampa tries to entertain Jaqueline Bouvier by imitating the "forks and buns" dance from The Gold Rush, only for the Blue-Haired Lawyer to tell him to knock it off lest he get sued.
  • In "Million Dollar Abie", Grampa thinks he's died and gone to Heaven and encounters a sign-holder dressed like the Tramp. Grampa thinks he's actually meeting Charlie Chaplin, and is surprised that "he" can talk.
  • In "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words", Lisa solves the crossword clue "Young wife (age 18) of Charlie Chaplin (age 54)", referencing the May–December Romance scandals that plagued his latter years in Hollywood.
  • In "Monty Burns' Fleeing Circus", Chaplin appears in a flashback as an audience member laughing at Mr. Burns when his pants fell down.
  • In "The Trouble With Trillions", Mr. Burns shows Homer around his mansion, showing him that he has the suit Charlie Chaplin was buried in, suggesting that Burns was the one who stole Chaplin's coffin in 1978, a few months after Chaplin's death and funeral.