Referenced By / The Twilight Zone

Ron Resling, huh?

Anime and Manga

• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, after Tamami commits a Heel–Face Turn for Koichi, Josuke finds the sudden generosity makes them feel like they are in The Twilight Zone.

Comic Books

• In the 2019 reboot of Ghost Rider 2099, a man who introduces himself as "King of Hell" tells Zero that he'll bring him Back from the Dead in a better body as part of a deal, without getting into specifics. Once Zero saw said body was the android which got him killed, now covered in fire, his reaction was priceless.
  Zero: Shoulda known this creepy dude was gonna Twilight Zone me on the deal.

Fan Works

• Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space. Gneelicks likes to cook as a hobby, and Captain Proton sees "To Serve Man" among his books.

Film — Animation

• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa: Alex sees Mort on the wing of the plane and mistakes him for a gremlin.
• UglyDolls: The mass-produced and near-identical Perfect dolls are model number 12, in reference to the copied and popular body in "Number 12 Looks Just Like You".

Film — Live-Action

• Austin Powers: Dr. Evil's habit of putting his pinky to his mouth was a reference to the character Dr. Rex from the episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You".
• Blazing Saddles: Jim's recollection of how he went from a famed gunfighter to an alcoholic wreck is a parody of Al Denton's from the episode "Mr. Denton on Doomsday."
• Bridesmaids: While on a plane, Annie gets drunk becomes paranoid at the apparent sight of colonial woman churning butter on the wing.
• Good Morning, Vietnam: Part of the first monologue Adrian Cronauer does when he's on the air is a spoof of the show ("He's left Crete. He's entered...the De-Militarized Zone"), and he even hums the theme music.
• Masters of the Universe: When Detective Lubic gets caught up in the final battle, when he asks what is going on and has to dodge ray guns, he says, "I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone!"
• Meadowland: At the grief support group Phil attends, a man compares his feelings of unreality to The Twilight Zone.
• The Naked Gun 2½. In the midst of a panicking crowd, actor Lloyd Bochner appears clutching a large book and shouting, "It's a cookbook!"
• Vanilla Sky: When David has his nightmare at the beginning of the film of running through the deserted Times Square area, there's a large screen behind him showing the second season episode "Shadow Play", about a convicted man about to be executed who tries to convince everyone they're all part of his recurring nightmare. This also counts as a nice bit of Foreshadowing.

Literature

• The Dark Tower. Susannah Dean mentions it as an obscure tv show from her era and is amazed when Jake Chambers and Eddie Dean (who come from The '70s and The '80s respectively) know what she's talking about.
• InCryptid: In the short story "Blocked", Elsie says Annie would be happy if she was "that dude on The Twilight Zone who lived through the bomb being dropped and then had all the books in the world and no one to tell him to put them down". Annie points out that he broke his glasses.

Live-Action TV

• All in the Family: In "Archie and the Computer", a computer error results in Archie being declared legally dead, and Mike comments "Or maybe you're in the Twilight Zone, and you really are dead!"
• Angel: When the group learns that Jasmine has been pacifying the human race so she can eat them, a horrified Gunn comments that this is the plot of the episode "So Serve Man".
• Frasier: In "Mixed Doubles", Daphne starts dating Rodney Banks, a man who looks and acts exactly like Niles. Upon seeing both Niles and Rodney and their startling parallels, Martin jokes to a friend over the phone that "I can't talk right now, I'm in the Twilight Zone!"
• Gilmore Girls: In "The Long Morrow", Rory's boyfriend gives her a model of the rocket ship from the Twilight Zone episode of the same name as a parting gift before he moves away.
• In Living Color!: One skit based on the show was called Vortex of Fear. It featured a man (Jim Carrey) who was trapped with the mind and speech of a chicken due to going to a magic show and the magician who did the trick on him promptly died of a heart attack before reversing it.
• Muppets Tonight: In one episode, Miss Piggy sees something on the wing of a plane and tells someone about it. That someone being William Shatner.
  Shatner: Oh, that guy? I've been complaining about him for years; no one does anything about it.
• The X-Files: Senator Robert Matheson is named after one of the writers for The Twilight Zone.

Music

• The song "Strictly Business" by EPMD vs. Mantronik (from the Blade soundtrack) features the lyrics "You now enter the dimension called the Twilight Zone".
• The Manhattan Transfer have a song called "Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone", which starts out with the theme music from the show and a monologue straight from the beginning of the show, except substituting "tone" for "zone".
• Golden Earring has a song called "Twilight Zone", though it's somewhat of an aversion in that the song itself is actually a Whole-Plot Reference to The Bourne Identity.

Pinball

• Jack*Bot: One of the robots from the pinball game appears during the Match Sequence.
• Red & Ted's Road Show: The invaders from the episode of the same name appear as an alien fleet invading Seattle and as robots appearing in New Orleans. Their appearance is specifically taken from a pinball game based on the 1959 series; both games were designed by Pat Lawlor.
• One Alternate Dimension in Rick and Morty is named "TW-z0n3". Referencing the black and white footage associated with the franchise, it turns every light on the playfield white.
• Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Triggering a tilt causes Ripley to say "Skate with the penguins at your own risk in The Ripley Zone." This is a riff on the quote that plays when tilting Twilight Zone — "Dance with the devil at your own risk in The Twilight Zone."
• The Simpsons Pinball Party: When Mystery Spot is ready, Professor Frink will say, "You have come to the end of your journey," referencing the line at the beginning of "Lost in the Zone" in Twilight Zone's licensed pinball table.
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: One potential achievement that's tied to adding time to a mode as it's running is titled "Time Enough at Last", referencing the episode of the same name.

Video Games

• In A Hat in Time, the Twilight Bell section of Alpine Skyline changes the skybox to a starry void and replaces the music with a fittingly eerie-sounding track.
• One darkness-themed Blackout Basement stage in Monster Hunter (PC) is called "The Twilight Zone".
• In Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, once Tatsuya finishes his exposition, which involved stuff like rewriting reality and alternative dimensions, Katsuya angrily complains that this isn't the Twilight Zone.
• In The Adventures of Willy Beamish, the show was used as a tunnel that leads to a Non-Standard Game Over where Willy navigates a tram through tunnels to reach the final area.

Webcomics

• Freefall: When Florence is trying to escape a hurricane, she complains that the rain is knocking all the scents out of the air. "I'm operating in a dimension of sight. A dimension of sound. There's a signpost up ahead." And then, when that sign reads, "mad Veterinarian", she concludes that her next stop is the Twilight Zone.
• The Nib: In one comic featuring The Gaslight Zone, a leftists gets on her soapbox about how socialism would improve things for everyone. She promptly gets yelled at the "terminally online masses".

Web Original

• The Nostalgia Critic: In his review of Howard the Duck, Critic says that the Duck universe looks like an episode of The Twilight Zone that began with the twist ending.
• Babylon Bee has several animations that take place in "The Woke Zone" that lampoon Political Overcorrectness.

Western Animation

• Family Guy:
  • The plot of "Love Thy Trophy" is partially inspired by "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", complete with Rod Serling appearing.
  • The ending to "Wasted Talent", in which Peter's last living brain cell breaks his glasses, parodies the ending of "Time Enough at Last".
  • At the end of "HTTPete", Rod Serling appears to provide closing remarks about people being too preoccupied with their phones to notice the restaurant they're in going up in flames, just like FOX's Tuesday night lineup.
  • In "Family Guy Through the Years", a still from "The Eye of the Beholder" appears on a screen behind Peter as he introduces the show.
• Futurama:
  • The in-universe program The Scary Door is a parody of the show.
  • In "Anthology of Interest I", the title of the story Terror at 500 Feet parodies that of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".
• Garfield and Friends: The episode "The Lasagna Zone" is a parody of the series.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: The episode "Runaway Pants" is a spoof of the series, ending with the cast about to beat up the Rod Serling expy for making everything up.
• Harvey Street Kids: The episode "The Monsters Are Due on Harvey Street" is partially inspired by the similarly-named Twilight Zone episode.
• Johnny Bravo: One episode had all three segments spoofing The Twilight Zone episodes "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "It's a Good Life", and "Living Doll". The narrator called it "The Zone Where Normal Things Don't Happen Very Often".
• Kid Cosmic: In the episode "Kid Cosmic and the Precognitive Cat", Jo dismisses an alien scroll as a cookbook.
• Muppet Babies (1984):
  • The episode "The Weirdo Zone" is a parody of the show.
  • In "Muppet Babies: The Next Generation", Kermit says "Are you sure this isn't the Twilight Zone?"
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Treehouse of Horror II", the story The Bart Zone was inspired by "It's a Good Life".
  • In "Treehouse of Horror III", the story Clown Without Pity was inspired by "Living Doll"
  • In "Treehouse of Horror IV", the story Terror at 5½ Feet is a spoof of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".
  • In "Treehouse of Horror VI", the story Homer3 was inspired by "Little Girl Lost". Homer comments "It's like something from that twilighty show about that zone."
  • In "Treehouse of Horror VII", the story The Genesis Tub was inspired by "The Little People".
  • In "New Kids on the Blecch", Homer announces that he'll be running the Springfield Marathon, and Marge retorts "You get exhausted watching the Twilight Zone marathon."
  • In "Treehouse of Horror XIV", the story Stop the World, I Want to Goof Off was inspired by "A Kind of Stopwatch".
  • In "Treehouse of Horror XV", the story The Ned Zone was inspired by "The Purple Testament".
  • Rod Serling appears in the opening of "Treehouse of Horror XXIV".
• Tiny Toon Adventures: The episodes "The Acme Acres Zone" and "The Return of the Acme Acres Zone" parody the series.