Referenced By / The Wiz

Films — Live-Action

• Dirty Dancing: The 2017 ABC version begins with Baby attending a Dirty Dancing stage production, at a theater with posters promoting both Dirty Dancing and The Wiz.

Live-Action TV

• Saturday Night Live:
  • A Season 4 Weekend Update features Bill Murray interviewing Diana Ross (Garrett Morris) about the movie version of The Wiz. Among other inquiries, he asks her why Dorothy would want to return to a home as rough as Harlem, and requests she sing "Over the Rainbow" for him - despite her concerns that her producers would disapprove.
  • A Season 41 episode that aired two days after the NBC premiere of The Wiz Live! contained two references to the special:
    • Weekend Update co-anchor Michael Che reports, "On Thursday, a gang of Black people, who were allegedly under the influence of narcotics, murdered two high-ranking community leaders on live television..." then reveals that he was reading the Fox News Channel recap of The Wiz.
    • A crossover between The Wiz Live! and 1939's The Wizard of Oz features host Ryan Gosling as the '39 Scarecrow, who awakens from a train ride to find himself in "East Oz", the setting of The Wiz Live! A culture clash ensues when the "West Oz" denizen meets a 2015-minded Dorothy (Sasheer Zamata), her similarly modern friends (Michael Che as the Scarecrow, Jay Pharoah as the Tin Man, and Kenan Thompson as the Cowardly Lion), and the sassy Wiz herself (Leslie Jones).
• In Living Color!: A season 3 "Funky Finger Productions" sketch contains an excerpt of a movie described as "a cross between The Wiz and Flatliners", in which the Tin Man (Tommy Davidson) and Cowardly Lion (David Alan Grier) venture to ask the Wiz to give a dying Scarecrow "a brain and a heart...and a kidney and a liver and the whole nine yards".
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 12, Episode 1 has the Gang being electrocuted by a shorted-out electric heating blanket while watching The Wiz. Somehow, this results in them turning into African-Americans, and having to figure out how to turn back into their original selves while learning what it’s like to be black in America. And also singing a lot. The whole episode is ultimately revealed to have been a dream of Old Black Man.
• Orange Is the New Black: "Bunny, Skull, Bunny, Skull" has the inmates watch The Wiz for movie night. Suzanne says her favorite part comes when Glinda floats in with her giant bubble (which only occurs in "the white people version"), as an Actor Allusion to when Uzo Aduba played Glinda in The Wiz Live!
• Married... with Children: After Al and Griff are disgusted by a woman breastfeeding her baby in the shoe store, the latter tells the woman to "Ooze on down the road".
• Martin (1992): While auditioning to sing backup for Biggie Smalls, Pam dresses up as Patti LaBelle, calls herself Shawntina Turner and sings a spirited rendition of "Home".
• Mad TV: One skit of "Reality Check" had the girls mocking Diana Ross' then-recent DUI arrest, insisting that she must have also been drunk when she played Dorothy in the film.
• The Really Loud House: In "A Musical to Remember", Lynn Sr. mentions that he once played the Scarecrow in The Wiz. Rita points out he was technically the understudy.

Western Animation

• Black Dynamite: In the series finale "The Wizard of Watts" Black Dynamite briefly changes the channel to The Wiz movie playing on TV before being knocked unconscious and having a Whole-Plot Reference dream about Oz. He's greeted by James Brown in the role of the good witch who describes the place as "The black version of The Wiz" and when Broto the poodle points out that The Wiz is already black, he replies "Yeah, but not THIS black, this place makes The Wiz look like The Wizard of Oz!"
• The Cleveland Show: In the seventh episode of season 1, the congregation at the church sings a verse of "Ease On Down The Road", annoying Reverend Jenkins.
• Family Guy: In episode 8 of the 5th season when told that police have left the city, a bunch of (white) citizens unzip themselves to reveal African American people wearing yellow underwear who then begin to dance and sing to the song "Brand New Day". A reference to the film adaptation of The Wiz.
• Futurama: In the Off to See the Wizard segment of "Anthology of Interest II" Fry as the Scarecrow at one point says "I need to stop and take The Wiz!"
• The Proud Family: The second season episode "Hmm... Tastes Like..." features a rendition of "Believe in Yourself".