- The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis: Fry claims to Smitty and URL that the Simpsons in the Planet Express are just his life-sized Simpsons action figures. The two cops fall for it, but URL comments that Fry having action figures at his age is just as sad as the end of Old Yeller.
- In Inside Out, Joy tries to get Sadness happy by asking what she thinks is funny. Sadness replies "Remember the funny movie where the dog dies?"
- Air Buddies (2006): A poster for the film can be seen at the drive-in theater that is showing One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961).
- RocketMan (1997): Lead character Fred thinks crewmate Julie is doing an Old Yeller impression when she's foaming at the mouth from accidentally eating toothpaste.Fred: Oh look! Julie's doing her Old Yeller impression! 'Please, Pa! I don't want Yeller to die!'
- The Mask: While Mask!Stanley stages a melodramatic death scene, he pleads "Tell Auntie Em to let Old Yeller out..."
- Stripes: While trying to inspire his platoon before their graduation, Winger asks them if they cried when Old Yeller got shot.
- Ben from Dogs Don't Talk used to watch the movie as a little kid, but he always fell asleep within the first half hour. Once he heard his mom mention "the sad part." When he asked his mom what happens, she answers, "In the end, he is the father of a cute litter of puppies!"
- The Season 6 finale of Arrow has Big Bad Ricardo Diaz talking about the iconic Shoot the Dog scene but couldn't remember the name of the film. Dinah Laurel Lance later gave him a loud reminder.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "Doppelgangland", Old Yeller is mentioned in a Chain of Corrections:Willow: [sarcastically] "Old Reliable"? Yeah, great. There's a sexy nickname.
Buffy: Well, I-I didn't mean it as...
Xander: She just means, you know, the geyser. You're like a geyser of fun that goes off at regular intervals.
Willow: That's Old Faithful.
Xander: Isn't that the dog that the guy had to shoot..?
Willow: That's Old Yeller.
Buffy: Xander, I beg you not to help me. - Breaking Bad: In the aptly named episode "Rabid Dog", Saul cites Old Yeller as a comparison to try and convince Walt to have the rogue Jesse killed.
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: In "Grumpy Young Men", Will and Carlton watch the movie on their double date.
- Friends: In "The One Where Old Yeller Dies", it's revealed that Phoebe never saw the real ending to the movie because her mother always turned if off early so she wouldn't get traumatized.
- Home Improvement: In "The Colonel", Jill mentions that her family used to think that Old Yeller was about her father.
Music
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's Boastful Rap spoof, "All About the Pentiums", has the line "I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller!"
- During the lead up to Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels' match at WrestleMania XXIV in which the former's career was on the line, Michaels cites the iconic Shoot the Dog scene and likens it to him retiring Flair.
- The Nostalgia Critic:
- In his "Top 11 Saddest Nostalgic Moments" video, scenes from various Disney movies are placed in the #1 spot, including the killing of Old Yeller.
- In his review of Rover Dangerfield, the Critic gets annoyed by the title character and tells the movie to "go Old Yeller on his ass".
- In Slimebeast’s story, Lost Episodes, it's said that the first time Sid edited a tape was to change this movie so that the dog instead recovers from the rabies. It's implied that seeing the real ending contributed to Sid's Start of Darkness.
- In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, as Freeza is giving a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Vegeta, he mockingly claims that getting around to actually murdering him will be ''sort of like putting down Old Space Yeller".
- American Dad!:
- In "Surro-Gate", Stan says that a lesbian couple's son reminds him of the kid who shot Old Yeller and suggests they go find a dog to shoot.
- In "The People vs. Martin Sugar", Stan rattles his list of his ten favorite fictitious dogs; Old Yeller is #3.
- Animaniacs:
- In "Bumbie's Mom", Slappy helps a traumatized Skippy learn that a tear-jerking death from a certain movie wasn't real, and the episode ends with the two watching an in-flight movie. Unfortunately, it's Old Yellow and instead of having Travis provide the Mercy Kill, it is somewhat implied that "Old Yellow" got killed (offscreen) by hunters.
- In "Hello Nice Warners", the Warners have Mr. Director play the unlucky dog in their film Old Screamer.
- Family Guy:
- A cutaway from "He's Too Sexy for His Fat" shows that Old Yeller got put down for failing to relay a phone message.
- In "Inside Family Guy", it's revealed that the show's infamous arc of Brian getting killed off was a result of him acting in an Old Yeller remake. We then watch a scene from the movie in which Brian-as-Yeller grabs the gun and kills the boy.Brian: They miscalculated the number of dogs who buy movie tickets.
- Rick and Morty: Near the end of "Lawnmower Dog", a teary-eyed Jerry compares saying goodbye to Snuffles to the end of Old Yeller.
- Robot Chicken: A sketch from "Babe Hollytree in: I Wish One Person Had Died" has Travis shoot Old Yeller for contracting rabies, only for Travis to get a bit too excited about it and wear Old Yeller's skin as a cape, leading to his parents to put their son down.
- The Simpsons:
- In "Dog of Death", Homer tries to tell his kids about "doggie heaven" and says that Old Yeller and "about eight Lassies" are there.
- There is an episode titled "Old Yeller-Belly".
- The Quack Pack episode "The Germinator" had Daisy read a parody of Old Yeller to Donald in order to make him cry out the shrunken Huey, Dewey, Louie and Dr. Tovar.
- Garfield Gets a Life has Garfield and Jon at a video store in one scene. Garfield asks if they can rent Old Yeller because he likes a movie with a happy ending.
- In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Wake the Dead", Hawkgirl is forced to put Solomon Grundy out of his misery, and references the movie.Green Lantern: What are you saying?
Shayera: Your favorite movie is Old Yeller, you know exactly what he's saying!
