Referenced By / Die Hard

Yippee-ki-ay Mr. Fuzzy

See also "Die Hard" on an X.

Anime & Manga

• Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals: In the episode "The Amazing True Story of the Leaf Village Film Festival!", there's a skit where Rock Lee reenacts a few scenes from the original Die Hard.

Comic Books

• The Last Annihilation: During the Cable one-shot, Wiz Kid ends up quoting the first film after turning a Humongous Mecha into a BFG.
  "Now I have a planet-sized super-gun. Ho, ho, ho."

Film — Animated

• The Incredibles has a scene where Frozone tries to convince a cop pointing a gun at him he needs to drink some water. Given he is voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, it's a clear reference to Zeus going "I have to answer this phone" in the third movie.
• The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: Wyldstyle runs into Bruce Willis while navigating through an air vent.
  Bruce Willis: I spend a lot of time in air ducts. I definitely don't live up here. I have a home.

Film — Live-Action

• G-Force: While fighting the robotic coffee machine, Darwin shouts "Yippie-ki-yay, coffee maker!"

Literature

• Will from If I Fall, If I Die likes action movies like Die Hard, which his mother calls "bullet ballets" and limits to special occasions.

Live-Action TV

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: It's Jake's favorite movie, and is referenced constantly by him. The episode "Yippee Kayak" is a "Die Hard" on an X plot where Jake constantly squees over living the movie, with an In-Universe bungled version of the film's famous line providing the title.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The episode "School Hard" is partly based on the film.
• CSI: NY: The episode "Snow Day" has a number of references as well.
• The title of the series Die Hart is a direct reference to the film. The proposed second season even has the title Die Hart 2: Die Harter.
• Friends had both Chandler and Joey discussing rewatching Die Hard in "The One With The Invitation" and them actually watching the movie in "The One With The Nap Partners".
• Lois & Clark: The episode "Fly Hard" is a parody of the movie; the Daily Planet staff (save for Jimmy Olsen) are taken hostage by criminals looking for a Prohibition-era vault hidden on the premise. Part of the humor comes from a mix of Jimmy Olsen trying to basically be John McClane while Clark has to find ways to protect his colleagues without exposing his identity.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: In the episode featuring Gunslinger, Dr. Forrester ends his introduction to the experiment with "Yippie-ki-ay, mama jama."
• The Office (US): Michael mentions this as one of his favorite films. In one episode, Michael discusses the franchise's Sequelitis with Live Free or Die Hard.
• When Will finds himself crawling through the vents in an episode of Sanctuary, he quotes McClane's iconic lines.
• In an episode of Stargate SG-1 entitled "Bad Guys", where the team find themselves mistaken for the villains of a "Die Hard" on an X scenario, the leader of the team refers to the bumbling security guard trying to catch them as "a bit of a John McClane". When one of the team members (Earthling, born and bred) doesn't get it, the resident alien of the group namedrops the film.
• Young Sheldon: In "Mitch's Son and the Unconditional Approval of a Government Agency", Missy and Georgie are watching the broadcast version of Die Hard and Georgie has to explain what John McClane is really saying when he says "Yippie-kay-ay, Mr. Falcon!".

Music

• Guyz Nite did a Filk Song telling the story of the movies. Fox was quick to embrace it, and it's even on the fourth movie's DVD.

Video Games

• The Darkside Detective: The episode "Buy Hard", set in a shopping mall, features a sequence where the protagonist has to crawl through the building's air vents with no shirt and no shoes.
• Death Stranding: The director of Bridges goes by the nickname "Die-Hardman", an allusion to his previous military service during which he would come back from all of his missions alive, no matter how dangerous. Even more fittingly, his real name is eventually revealed to be John Blake McClane.
• Civilization: In the fourth instalment of the series, one of the hostile greetings when entering diplomacy with rival leaders is "Now I have a (unique unit). Ho ho ho."
• Entropy : Zero 2: While crawling through an air vent in the prologue, Bad Cop mentions that he feels "like a TV dinner".
• Half-Life: Several action sequences, such as John climbing elevator shafts and crawling through vents and Karl shooting out the vent with John inside, inspired similar setpieces for Gordon's adventure.

Web Comics

• Knights of Buena Vista talks about this film using estranged people in love having to overcome their estrangement. One character also gives Fanon Discontinuity to the fourth and fifth films.

Web Video

• The Angry Video Game Nerd has reviewed the Licensed Game of the movie for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Activision.
• Freeman's Mind: Gordon Freeman attributes all his knowledge of firearms to having watched Die Hard "like fifty times". He also cites it as his guide when he crawls into a vent for the first time.
• One episode of Red vs. Blue has Grif trying to pass John's story as his own, but Huggins has seen the movie.

Western Animation

• Close Enough: The second half of "Man Up" is a full-on parody of the film, with Josh using his skills from being "manned up" by Pearle to the test when a holiday party Emily is attending gets held hostage by European terrorists. Josh even calls the situation "like Die Hard 2, but on a building".
• The Cleveland Show: The episode "Die Semi-Hard" involves Cleveland telling the story of Die Hard to help pass time while posing in a holiday nativity scene.
• Darkwing Duck: There is an episode titled "Dry Hard".
• Dexter's Laboratory: Several moments from "Trapped with a Vengeance" spoof the film, including a scene where Dexter has to walk barefoot on littered potato chips.
• DuckTales (2017): In "Louie's Eleven!", a high-end party is interrupted by a heist, Donald travels through air ducts, and he shouts "Yippie-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon!" (which was how the original line was bowdlerized for TV).
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • The episode "Action Packed", a parody of action films in general, features several allusions to Die Hard.
  • In "Chip Off the Old Chip", Timmy auditions for a school musical based on the film.
• Family Guy:
  • In "Brian's Got a Brand New Bag", Brian mentions to Rita that he had a bit part in Die Hard, and then shows her an actual clip from the film with an animated Brian inserted into it.
  • In "German Guy", the scene where Herbert fatally knocks down Franz is based on Gruber's death.
  • In "Christmas is Coming", the James Woods High School holiday pageant features some students singing a version of "Silent Night" themed to Die Hard, which Principal Shappard argues is a Christmas movie.
• The Incredible Dennis the Menace: "Hospitality" features a scene where Mr. Wilson dangles from the windowsill of the hospital by a fire hose that Dennis tries to save him with, a reference to the scene in Die Hard where Bruce Willis jumps off a tower with a fire hose wrapped around his waist.
• The Loud House: In "Cereal Offender", Lynn rides through the supermarket while shouting "Yippie-ki-yay, market shoppers!"
• Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart: The episode "Try Hard" is one big parody of "Die Hard", from the title, to the premise (Adorabat fighting off the Sky Pirates one by one in an enclosed location where the other heroes have been taken hostage (in this case the Sky Pirates' airship)), to key scenes like the glass scene (in this case, it's Orangusnake using his "Omega Shield", which is a broken glass bottle).
• Robot Chicken:
  • A sketch from "Eaten by Cats" spoofs the "Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho." scene.
  • A sketch from "Secret of the Booze" has Hans Gruber figuring out the bathroom situation while taking hostages.
  • A sketch from "Things Look Bad for the Streepster" has the Nerd being forced to push down a chimp while appearing on Nick Arcade, with the chimp's fall styled like Gruber's death.
  • A sketch from “May Cause Lucid Murder Dreams” parodies the final confrontation between John McClane and Hans Gruber.
  • A sketch from "May Cause a Squeakquel" has a mash-up of the film with the comic strip Dilbert.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment", Bart watches a pirated cable channel and says "This is where Die Hard jumps through the window."
  • In "My Mother the Carjacker", some FBI agents go through Homer's outgoing mail and find that he writes letters not to movie stars, but to movies.
    "Dear Die Hard: You rock, especially when that guy was on the roof. P.S. Do you know Mad Max?"
  • In "Left Behind", one of Homer's ideas for a date night is to watch all the Die Hard movies.
  • In "And Maggie Makes Three", Homer imagines himself taking on German terrorists that have taken over the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, the leader of whom sounds like Alan Rickman.
    German Terrorist: Attention, American workers: your plant has been taken over by an all-star team of freelance terrorists.
    Homer: Not on my shift! (jumps into an overhead vent, jumps out of another one and proceeds to kick terrorist ass singlehandedly while tied-up Lenny, Carl and Burns swoon over him).
• The Rick and Morty episode "Rick: A Mort Well Lived" deals with an alien terrorist deliberately invoking "Die Hard" on an X due to coming from a culture that reveres Die Hard (which he explains is a universal monomyth created by various cultures, including the sequels). The Stinger of the episode shows his brother planning to avenging him to continue the schtick.

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