Michelangelo Buonarroti's sculpture David has been Referenced by...
Anime & Manga
- Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto: The 2013 gaiden depicts the incident where Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were commissioned by the city of Florence to paint murals of battles on facing walls, shows David when Niccolò Machiavelli makes the case to his superiors in the government that Michelangelo should be hired.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: Word of God states that Giorno's hair locks are meant to resemble the David's hairdo.
- Nisekoi: Marika makes a gigantic chocolate statue of Raku for Valentine's Day, with the same size and pose as the David.
Films — Animation
- The Tigger Movie: In the "Round My Family Tree" number, a quick montage of Tigger-fied sculptures includes one based on David, with Tigger conveniently holding a leaf over the crotch.
Films — Live-Action
- Alien: Covenant: A sign of Peter Weyland's immense wealth is that he has David as a private ornament in his house. His eighth generation android decides to name himself after it.
- Children of Men: The protagonist's cousin, a high-ranking government official, runs a Ministry of Arts programme called "Ark of the Arts", which "rescues" works of art. The David is among said works, albeit with a broken leg that's been replaced by an ugly prosthetic.
- Sin: Michelangelo stumbles upon his own work at the Piazza della Signoria when wandering in Florence at one point at the beginning.
Live-Action TV
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: In "America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest", Dennis states that his musculature is in exact proportion to Michelangelo's David as a way to outline how superior he is to Frank.
- Leverage: The plots of "The First David Job" and "The Second David Job" revolve around the two David historical copies, which have been bought, sold, lost, and found several times.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000: In the first segment of "Devil Fish", Crow makes a perfect (bigger) replica of Michelangelo's David using just four ice cubes.
Music
- The Stupendium: In the music video of "Rogue's Gallery" appear several artworks, including the David, with its crotch covered by a leaf. At that moment, Crazy Redd sings "got a sweet deal on a real Michelangelo", indicating he owns (aka, stole) the original statue for his art business.
Pinball
- Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity: The deep dive shows an sculpture of Al in the David pose. The only difference is that his loins are covered by what appears to be green-and-pink shorts.
Video Games
- Alphabear Two: "Statue of Bearvid" is an imitation of the David, albeit with leaf underwear for modesty.
- Animal Crossing: In Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, David appears as the Gallant Statue, one of many art pieces that can either be displayed as furniture or donated to the Museum. Notably, it is uncensored, even in its forged versions, which depict David wearing a cloth on both shoulders in New Leaf and holding books under his arm in New Horizons. In the latter game, this detail is lampshaded by cranky villagers who visit the museum, commenting that the "poor guy has to stand there without any shorts for all eternity".
- The Battle Cats: In CotC 2, Cat God the Great is essentially a muscled young man in the David pose with a cartoon cat's face plastered on its head, a mane of wild blue or gold hair, and a cloth covering its groin.
- Conway's Game of Life: This
Discord conversation about the game discusses how the final steps of glider syntheses are akin to cartoon characters chiseling a marble block once and immediately obtaining a fully-shaped David. - Criminal Case:
- Criminal Case: Mysteries of the Past: In the Gold Crates scene of "Case 28: 3:10 to Death", there's a David sculpture lying around.
- Criminal Case: Pacific Bay:
- "Case 16: Killing Time": In the Little Italy Street scene, there's a picture of the David.
- "Case 31: The Young and the Lifeless": The sculpture itself appears in the Ivywood Sign scene.
- Criminal Case: World Edition: The David is present in the Rooftop Terrace scene of "Case 55: Down to the Wire".
- Super Punch Patrol has a naked enemy who fights you nude, introduced disguised as a David replica before leaping off his pedestal to attack.
Western Animation
- Family Guy: In "Death Has a Shadow", Peter uses new newfound riches to buy the David, but Peter mentions that the penis broke off when he was loading it into the car, after which he tosses it away and right into Mr. Weed's house.Mr. Weed: I shall call you Eduardo!
- Futurama: In "Bender's Big Score", the scammers send Bender back in time to steal a host of famous pieces of art, including an unfinished copy of the David.
- Johnny Bravo: In the pilot, Johnny asks a young woman whether she considers him "as studly as the statue of David". She replies that he's as studly as David Brinkleynote .
- Miraculous Ladybug: In "The Puppeteer 2", Adrien emulates the David's pose while he's pretending to be a wax sculpture. Both Adrien and Michelangelo's David are Pretty Boys.
- The Simpsons:
- "Itchy & Scratcy & Marge": The David is brought to Springfield, and the local anti-indecency group, empowered by Marge leading them to victory over Itchy & Scratchy's violent content, wants to protest it because it depicts Male Frontal Nudity. To their outrage, Marge admits that she likes the statue, which gets her branded a hypocrite and leaves her credibility in tatters.
- "Ice Cream of Margie with the Light Blue Hair": Marge's giant popsicle stick sculpture of Homer has him pose like Michelangelo's David.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Artist Unknown", Squidward goes on a rampage, destroying his art studio. It turns out that, in his rampage, he created a replica of Michelangelo's David, the same statue SpongeBob had created earlier in the episode.
