Shout Outs, Homages, Allusions and other References
- Bungo Stray Dogs: Louisa May Alcott is named after American author and poet Louisa May Alcott, and her ability is named for Alcott's most famous novel, Little Women.
- Burst Angel: The three younger characters share names with characters from Little Women. Sei is the Odd Name Out.
- Girls und Panzer: In the sixth OVA Hippo Team kept on inserting historical references into their production of Little Women.
- Glass Mask: Maya learns how to knit and play the piano to play Beth from Little Women
- Lucky Star: When Konata talks about how you can do more with a bigger cast, she mentions a story in "olden America" about a woman and her four daughters waiting for their father to come home from war; while she doesn't mention the title by name, she's clearly referring to Little Women.
- Sweet Blue Flowers: The recurring bonus segment is called "Little Women".
- Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe: The sisters of Little Women manage to force Dreadpool to use a weapon he planned to use against stronger opponents.
- W.I.T.C.H.: In a later issue, there are five countesses named Josephine, Margareth, Elizabeth, Amy and Louise
- In the Encanto fanfic Couch Surfers
, Stefanie has a copy of the book. In it, she keeps the first love letter that her girlfriend Denise ever wrote her.
- 10 Cloverfield Lane: When the three bunker survivors are playing a guessing game together, Emmett has a pretty simple card: Little Women. Howard gets the first part right, but even when prompted with "Michelle is a...", guesses just about everything but "Women" — as if the word "woman" itself in reference to a female adult and not words related to little girls and little princesses, is physically painful for him to acknowledge. It doesn't sound like much, but his hemming and hawing and the noises he makes are incredibly creepy. Then when it's his turn... it gets much worse.
- Father of the Bride (1950): There's a casting gag tied to two adaptations of the novel. Both Joan Bennett and Elizabeth Taylor had previously played Amy March in different film adaptations of Little Women (Bennett in the 1933 version and Taylor in the 1949 version). Here, they play mother and daughter.
- The Seven Year Itch: Richard's wife always asks him what happened at the office when he comes home. When he's alone, he considers answering this: "I shot Mr. Brady in the head, made violent love to Miss Morris and set fire to 300,000 copies of Little Women. That's what happened. What can happen at the office?"
- In the live-action film version of Dudley Do-Right, the narrator says of the Mounties at one point, "Not since their all-male version of Little Women had the Mounties faced such a hostile audience".
- The Baby-Sitters Club:
- In several books, especially in the early part of the series, Sam Thomas disrupts club meetings by making prank calls asking for fake sitters.
Hello, this is Marmee March. I need a sitter for Amy this afternoon, someone who has experience with little women.- It's also one of Mary Anne's favorite books. In Baby-Sitters Remember, Mallory's memory is about meeting a particular author, and she recalls that when she wanted to send the author a letter, Mary Anne suggested she send the letter to the publisher and ask them to forward it to the author, recalling that she'd done the same thing before, only... the author she wrote to was Louisa May Alcott, and the publisher wrote back to her explaining that Alcott had been dead for many years. In another book, she's upset and needs a good cry, so she finds the book in the school library and rereads Beth's death.
- Chalet School: Joey bears more than a few similarities to Jo March of Little Women fame, what with the dark hair, being a bit tomboyish and a wannabe writer, and not wanting to grow up. She even quotes Jo at one point. There's also a Margaret (Bettany, and several other characters), an Amy (Stevens) who starts off as a blonde-haired Bratty Half-Pint, and later a Beth (Chester).
- Lolita: Humbert Humbert says that Little Women was the only work of classical literature that Lolita was curious to read, but she considered it too intellectual to read it during her holidays.
- March is, believe it or not, a Fanfic of School Study Media classic Little Women.
- The Poisonwood Bible: More than a few critics of the novel have noticed its similarities to Little Women. Kingsolver asserts in interviews that her novel is not meant to be a deliberate re-working of Alcott's novel, though the homage is clear.
- The Terra Trilogy: The fk'shn from Earth that gets translated into Fnrrn includes "Which Sister Will Die?", "Crazy Monoped Can't Stop Chasing Sea Mammal", and Rth's most-popular play, "The Grumpy Adolescents Who Fall In Love and Kill Themselves".
- In the fourth Diary of a Wimpy Kid book Dog Days, Little Women is among the books offered in Susan’s “Reading is Fun” club.
- Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World: When Karen is a teenager, Isabelle sees her reading a tattered copy of Little Women, which was the first book Isabelle ever read. Isabelle asks her if she liked it, but Karen, who has never reacted emotionally to fiction, doesn't know how to respond.
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when The First confronts Faith as Mayor Richard Wilkins III, he tells her to ask him something only he (Wilkins) could know. Like who his favourite character from Little Women is. ("It's Meg. Everyone assumes it's Beth. But no, it's Meg. Such a proper young lady.")
- Club Dorothée: Presented a couple of the adaptations.
- On Dance Moms, Holly hosts a book club featuring this book with the other moms. Most of the other moms complain about either its length or the fact that it doesn't have pictures.
- Doctor Who: In The Mind Robber Christine Pirie contributed a voice-over reading from an extract from Little Women for the scene in episode three where Jamie climbs through the castle window only to find himself in a hi-tech control room.
- On Donny And Marie, when Patty Maloney says that the house she wants to sell is a storybook cottage, Paul Lynde retorts, "What's the story? Little Women?"
- Downton Abbey: Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, contrasts the novel with her reality of raising daughters"No one ever tells you about raising daughters. You think it’ll be like Little Women, and instead they’re at each other's throats from dawn til dusk."
- The Facts of Life: Jo's name is a Shout-Out to Little Women, since the cast reminded the writers of the book.
- It is Rachel's favourite book on Friends and the only book she ever re-reads. Joey reads the book and, surprisingly, he loves it.
- Supernatural: Crowley watches Casablanca and reads Little Women under the influence of human blood.
- Whose Line Is It Anyway?:Josie: "I've chosen Louisa M Alcott; for those of you who don't know, she wrote Little Women, Little Men and Little Wives."
Clive: "Yes... and little else..."
Manhwa
- Dear My Girls is based on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, with some significant changes such as the girls being incredibly rich.
Video Games:
- The names of the four Poe sisters in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (and who also show up in Majora's Mask) are Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy.
- In Fantasy Life, the landlady Pam's three sisters are named Jo, Beth, and Amy. It's a shame she's named Pam instead of Meg...
- The Hotel Mario theme tune is actually a 1933 composition by Max Steiner used in a ball scene from the 1933 film adaptation of Little Women.
- Tales of Symphonia: In the beach sidequest of the first game, the names of the four girls you're supposed to find easily remind you of a certain book series that is beloved by the Japanese. Amy, Jo, Beth, and Meg make cameo appearances. Seriously. Bonus points to Jo apparently being a Bokukko here, and having Amy be blonde
Web Original
- Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party: A parody version of Louisa May Alcott is one of the guests, despite Poe saying he can't stand Transcendentalists. She keeps on coughing during the scene after Dantes' death, before running out of the room and collapsing before she can make it to front door, hinting that she was poisoned. Like all the other deaths, this is an Ironic Death referencing the famous Incurable Cough of Death when Beth died of scarlet fever in Little Women. A subversion: she was actually injected with cyanide by Anne Brontë as soon as she was out of sight.
- Skin Horse: The strip titled Yes, Virginia: "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus" was originally titled "Playing Pilgrims", which is a Little Women reference.
Western Animation
- Looney Tunes:
- In the books-come-to-life musical Have You Got Any Castles, a copy of Little Women is seen with three identical girls singing, who are then joined by three "Little Men".
- The book is also referenced in Book Revue, where the book contains a bunch of bobbysoxers swooning to Frank Sinatra's singing.
- As Told by Ginger: "Ms. Foutley's Boys" references the Little Women sequel Jo's Boys.
- The Simpsons:
- In "Homer Loves Flanders", Moe is seen reading the book to men at the homeless shelter.
- In "Eeny Teeny Maya Moe", Moe discovers that his new beau Maya is a little person and tries to hide various items to avoid offending her, including a copy of Little Women.
- In "The Man in the Blue Flannel Pants", Bart is forced to read the book to Lisa when Homer is out late and ends up getting invested in it, even reading it to the bullies, who force him to do character voices.
