Comic Books
- The book is referenced at the end of Whatever Happened to The Caped Crusader?, contextualized as a young Bruce Wayne's favorite book. Both of them end up sharing a surprisingly similar metaphorical meaning, that of ritual and eternal recurrence, with Bruce always growing up to become Batman.
- In one Peanuts strip, Sally asks Charlie Brown, "Why would anyone want to say 'good night' to the moon?"
- One Zits collection included a bonus illustrated poem called "Goodnight Dude".
- Danganronpa: Paradise Lost has Shion Nanashi express interest in Goodnight Moon, remarking that it served as a comfort story for her throughout her troubled childhood. Indeed, after surviving the Killing Game, Shion, or Monaca Towa as she turns out to be, takes a copy of the book as her memento.
- In Creed II, Donnie and Bianca receive a copy of Goodnight Moon that they can read to their new daughter.
- In Life (2017), Dr. David Jordan mentions that his father used to read "Goodnight Moon" to him. Later he quotes from the story to Dr. Miranda North, when saying goodbye to everything might have an entirely darker meaning.
- Before Cody from Language Arts went mute, he used to recite along to Goodnight Moon when his father read it to him.
- The cover of The Dumb Bunnies parodies the cover of Goodnight Moon.
- One SpongeBob SquarePants book, titled Goodnight Lagoon, parodies the story.
- Full House: In "It's Not My Job" and "Rock the Cradle", Danny reads Goodnight Moon to Michelle.
- Good Luck Charlie: In the Series Finale, "Goodbye Charlie", Bob reads Goodnight Moon to Toby, his youngest son.Bob: Goodnight, Moon. And Goodnight to a whole bunch of other stuff.
- In the Mad Men episode "The Other Woman", Pete Campbell reads Goodnight Moon to his daughter Tammy.
- The Wire: In the fifth season episode "Took", at the end of the episode, when Kima is putting her son to bed, she takes him to the window and does a variation of the book ("Goodnight, fiends. Goodnight, hoppers. Goodnight, hustlers").
- The Dinosaurs episode, "If You Were a Tree" begins with Ethyl reading Goodnight, Rock to Baby.Ethyl: And so it was time to say goodnight. Goodnight, rock. Goodnight, stone. Goodnight, stick. Goodnight, another rock. Ugh! Goodnight, dirt. Goodnight, yet another rock. Ugh!
Baby: This is a classic?
Ethyl: Goodnight, book!
(Ethyl tosses the book aside.)
Baby: Good! - In a live-action insert from Eureeka's Castle, a baby named Peter has Goodnight Moon read to him by his older sister before his nap.
- Sesame Street:
- Kathleen Turner reads Goodnight Moon to Alice Snuffleupagus in a 1989 sketch.
- Gina reads Goodnight Moon to Miles and Elmo in Episode 2625.
- Gordon reads Goodnight, Earth to Elmo, Big Bird, and Miles in Episode 2689. It features the three of them as astronauts travelling back to Earth from mars, the Ending of which references the cadence of the Brown book.
- In Episode 3160, Luis reads Goodnight, Moon from memory to "baby" Elmo, having memorized it due to it being the book he'd read to put Gabi to sleep.
- In Episode 3267, Ruthie shows Goodnight, Moon as one of the books she might like to read in addition to The Very Quiet Cricket.
- In Episode 3785, Oscar reads Goodnight, Mud to Slimey
- The Trash Gordon segment from Episode 4091 features Oscar offering Slimey Get Lost, Moon as a book to read for bedtime.
- The closing sponsor tag for Episode 4137 features Oscar reading Scram, Moon to Slimey. Gordon voices the Moon (who has his trademark mustache).
- Animaniacs (1993): The first episode ends with an Affectionate Parody of the book called Nighty-Night Toon, narrated by Jim Cummings doing an impression of Sterling Holloway.
- Blue's Clues: Goodnight Moon is among the books that can be seen in the show's opening credits sequence.
- Family Guy:
- In "Screwed the Pooch", it's mentioned that Goodnight Moon is Stewie's favorite book.
- In the last segment of "Family Guy Viewer Mail #2", Lois reads Stewie a bedtime story called Goodnight Town from Footloose, leading Stewie to ask who its intended audience is.
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023): The title season one episode “Goodnight, Moon Girl” is a reference to the book.
- Robot Chicken: A sketch from "May Cause An Excess of Ham" involves the rabbit from the book saying goodnight to everything, only for someone to tell him to shut up and go to sleep, as he does this every night.
- The Simpsons
- The short Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare" has one of the books in the daycare called "Goodnight Cocoon: Not Really a Poem, Not Really a Book".
- In "Insane Clown Poppy", one booth at the book fair has Christopher Walken reading the story out loud to children, a reference to his infamous reading of The Three Little Pigs.
- In the "Treehouse of Horror XXXI" segment, "Be Nine, Rewind", as Lisa prepares for her ninth birthday, she decides to put Night Night Moon in the box of books that she plans to hand down... to Bart, her older brother.
