Shout Out / Atop the Fourth Wall

This page covers Shout Outs found in Atop the Fourth Wall. As a webseries, there's a lot, usually several per episode. There's over 500 episodes.

Tropes A to D | Tropes E to P | Tropes Q to Z | Storyline Tropes | YMMV | Running Gags | Shout Outs

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• The current logo of Atop the Fourth Wall resembles that of Ace Attorney.
• The Time Warp plays whenever the continuity of a comic is all over the place.
• In his Let's Play of Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, to Spoony ("You're in my way, sir!") and SF Debris ("the magic meeting room").
  • Also, in the Let's Play, he refers to his weapon as; "Purple Deth", possible Homage to the 1944 Captain America Serial?
• He references this wiki relatively frequently, occasionally in Easter Eggs and Non Sequitur gags.
  "Oh my god! TV Tropes used one of my quotes!"
• Apparently, Spider-Man, Storm, and Cage gives Linkara BROOKLYN RAGE! (Yay, rhyming!)
  • In The Culling, Harvest has the voice of Paradox from the Bonds Beyond Time abridged movie. "My pwan is gweat!"
• He makes the occasional "I'm Batman... and I can breathe in space" joke and uses the famous "Whoreswhoreswhorewhores" page during the first Miller Time segment.
  • whoreswhoreswhoreswhoreswhoreswhoreswhoreswhoreswhores prostitutes
• In his Pitt #1 review he does montages of great quotes from cop movies and TV shows including Dirty Harry and others, the first ending with "I was frozen today!," (a Shout-Out to The Nostalgia Critic) and the second ending with a blatant version of Horatio Caine's Quip to Black one liners from CSI: Miami, complete with the trappings from CSI: Dramatic Pause, sunglasses pull, and the show's intro! YEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
• In the "Alt Endings" of Silent Hill: Dying Inside, in a section which is itself a Shout-Out to Spoony's review of Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, Pollo tells Linkara "Nine, This is nine. All your friends are dead. The disease will infect us all. Five, this is five...
• "Bored now."
• He is also aware of the existence of sesium-francolithic-mixi-alibidium-rixy-dixy-doxy-dexi-droxide.
• In his video for Amazons Attack! #5 and #6 he underscores one of (allegedly) Evil Genius Circe's hammy info dumps with a piece of music meant for a certain other scheming nutjob. One of the alternate-universe Insanos pulls out a Tennant-era sonic screwdriver and shoots another Insano with it in the Warrior 2 and 3 review. Linkara had Mechakara also quote the Dalek emperor "this is not of my design," has used Doctor Who music in other places, showing K9 on screen and talked about stealing the TARDIS in his homage to Ask That Guy.
• In a crossover/duel review of The Spirit with Film Brain, Film Brain not only locks the door with a sonic screwdriver but at the end Linkara delivers the Eleventh Doctor's Badass Boast from "Time of the Angels" almost verbatim.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Film Brain is British. Of course he has a Sonic Screwdriver.
• Linkara occasionally will impersonate Tommy Wiseau and greet someone with an "Oh hai". In the Warrior # 2-3 review, one of the mirror universes was one where both Linkara and Insano acted like Wiseau.
• Iron Liz has two scimitars named Twinkle and Icingdeath. Fitting, since the props used are actually licensed replicas of Drizzt's scimitars.
• In the Previously on… segment of the Action Comics #593 episode, a female Dr. Insano (played by Allison Pregler) threatens Linkara with the Tenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver. Linkara rises to the challenge by pulling out Eleven's.
• Linkara, in character as Quicksilver complains to his father that he wanted a Turboman doll, referencing Jingle All the Way.
• On at least two instances (Silent Hill: Dying Inside, NFL Superpro), he compared characters that have a tendency to swear excessively to The Angry Video Game Nerd.
• In part one of his review of Countdown, he used the phrase "because the plot says so!"
  • The title card for Countdown Part 1 looks like a Road Runner cartoon, complete with the pseudo-Latin species names for him.
  • From his Top 15 Worst Moments of Countdown, regarding Mary Marvel and the pole:
  This isn't band camp, Mary, put the pole down.
  • "Ray Palmer is the key. The key to what!? The Key to Gozer? The Key to Time?"
• The title card for the Top 15 Screw-Ups is modeled on Peachi's Persona 4 parody comic (specifically, Chie preparing to unleash the Trial of the Dragon on Yosuke).
• The control console Pollo fitted to Neutro is an NES Advantage a la Ghostbusters II.
• Linkara has a very Doctor Who style "Eureka!" Moment about how to defeat Lord Vyce.
• His initial punishment for Lord Vyce. Stranding him on a world with no technology or intelligent life, is very similar to how the villain The Smiling Man' was also punished in The Crossoverlord'. A multi, web-comic crossover that included Lightbringer, Linkara's own webcomic.
• "Oh my God!! What's wrong with your faaaace?!"
• From Chain Gang War #1, which was part of the "Linkara Lost" arc: "If you're watching this, it means either I'm missing or I'm dead.
• In Action Comics #592, the comic notes Big Barda took a right turn instead of a left.
  Linkara: Oh good one, Barda, now David Tennant is dead and the stars are going out!
• A stealthy shout-out to Dr. McNinja in his ASBAR review when he sees the Irish Black Canary kicking the crap out of people. "Do the Irish have hidden ninja skills I'm not aware of?"
• When a comic has someone saying "You Fool!", Linkara has taken to showing a scene from Spoony's Let's Play of SWAT 4, right when a flash grenade thrown by his own teammate blows up in his face (followed by Spoony shouting, "GAAAAAAAAAAAH! YOU FOOL!")
• In Sultry Teenage Super Foxes #2, he mentions, while pretending to be the titular team's liaison, that they could easily "roast me, toast me, and burn me to a crisp."
• His title card artist is a fan of the Persona series so when doing the screw-ups of Atop the Fourth Wall...TRIAL OF THE DOUCHY MCNICKPICK!!
• The Eldritch Abomination known as "The Entity" was heralded by a creepy poem that sounds extremely similar to the Ironic Nursery Tune from Zagreus. Linkara admitted that it was deliberate in a commentary.
  • And, in the Planet of the Symbiotes review, the Entity is revealed to be Missingno from Pokémon Red and Blue. (The above-mentioned poem even makes sense in retrospect!)
    • Not only that, but the Prophecy Twist is similar to the "The Earth shall turn to Ash" twist from Pokémon 2000
• In his review of The Electric Tale of Pikachu, when a Fearow attacks Ash, he says, "Unfortunately, Ash did not think to bring a coat hanger along on his journey."
• The Running Gag that he uses for particularly spectacular cases of Insane Troll Logic is a clip of a Cyberman saying, "There is logic in what he says".^From... the 6th Doctor episode "Attack of the Cybermen"
• Linkara's reaction to being made a giant by the Magic Coin is...well...it should sound familiar.
• When Batman notices gloves "humming with the promise of power", Linkara says in his Batman voice, "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad."
• In his Game Boy review, he makes a joke about the two kids being the first Digidestineds and the Game Boy is their Digivice.
• During the Rise of Arsenal review, he refers to Lian as a Zombie Goast and explicitly references Half-Life: Full Life Consequences.
• The Star Trek #2 review is one from start to finish, particularly to the Original Series episode "Mirror, Mirror", with Iron Liz being apparently swapped with her counterpart from a universe where, among other differences, Mirror Universe Linkara has an Evil Goatee, likes Rob Liefeld, and finds Crazy Steve's "goddamn Batman" line "genius" (and Dr. Insano is a Large Ham Champion of Science). The Mirror Universe opening credits even use the music from "In A Mirror, Darkly" (with a similar visual theme.)
• One of the Entity's messages is "I'm not that thin."
  • And another one: "Silence will fall, but not today."
  • It gives quotes from Error and SHODAN as well.
  • And how he talks the Entity to death is very similar in style to the end of "Remembrance Of The Daleks". Considering Linkara is a Seven fan, there's no way this is a coincidence.
• After multiple shout outs to SF Debris, Linkara eventually stated in a Q&A with his fans that Chuck inspired him to focus more on thoughtful critique in his review style.
• In his Dr. Doom's Revenge review: "Verily, this show about ponies is quite entertaining!"
  • Snowflame also likes the show, and when a character in Battle for Blüdhaven made a joke about "the whole Justice League riding magic ponies" Linkara cut to a montage of just that.
• The beginning and ending segments of his The Invincible Four of Kung Fu & Ninja #1 review are a Shout-Out to another (although in this case, purposefully so) terrible ninja story.
  • Later, there's a monk that looks remarkably like Krillin from Dragon Ball. When he gets beaten: Krillin Owned Count: 1
• The title card for Battle for Bludhaven #1-2 shows the Red Pyro and Blue Demoman.
• "Transformers: Generation 2" title card shows Optimus Prime doing Iron Man's "Proton Cannon" super attack from Marvel vs. Capcom games.
• In one episode, his way to segue into the commercial break was to dress up in a hat, carry a bow and arrow, and mutter one about wankers letting the cart move back in an Australian accent. Hiya Sniper!
• The "Hell Lamp 2000" joke in his Future Shock #1 review uses the theme to Match Game as backing music.
• In his "Brave and the Bold #54" review, Linkara has Batman reading about "new petitions against tax", a stock phrase in movie newspapers that was the subject of a Running Gag on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
  • Many of the more recent reviews either have an MST3K or Rifftrax clip. The review of Marville 6-7, for instance, features "We didn't like these scenes the first time!"
  • Another example is "Our story so far: utter madness" from the Frankenstein Island Rifftrax.
• In the beginning of his "Archie Giant Series Magazine #452", the song that plays, while it's "Fly Me To The Moon", it's not the Frank Sinatra version. Instead, it's Covered Up, though you still might recognize the cover from a certain show. It's interesting to note that he's singing it in the tone of the Frank Sinatra version despite the song having a completely different melody.
• The Entire Harvey Finevoice Story arc is based around A Christmas Carol.
  • The final part, where he visits his son's grave, is a very well done shout out and/or homage to the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Emissary".
  • It's likely this storyline's Arc Words ("Where do you think you are right now?") were borrowed from an episode of Scrubs which involved dealing with loss, that bad things can happen to good people, and that sometimes there's nothing you can do about it. Quite relevant to Harvey's journey here.
• This from Kamandi at Earth's End #3:
  • "I wonder what's on t.v?" *Cut's to Static* "Oh man, it's my favorite show, Candle Cove!"
    • And from the credits of the same episode: "My favorite episode of Candle Cove was the screaming one. What people don't realize was that it was an error at the station - The Skin taker had revealed his latest scheme and it was supposed to cut to them screaming, but the tape accidentally kept skipping back to the screaming bit. It's sad too, since the episode actually has some of Pirate Percy's best lines ever."
  • He refers to Ben Boxer's flying warship as a "battleplate".
• In his review of the Star Trek: The Next Generation and X-Men crossover, while lamenting that the issue sadly does not contain an instance of dueling Patrick Stewarts, he suggests that Epic Rap Battles of History should supply one.
• His freakout over the plot holes in Tandy Computer Whiz Kids: A Deadly Choice, culminating in a Weedle suddenly appearing in his hands, is a shout out to Spoony's Highlander II: The Quickening review. ("Why am I in a Starfleet Uniform?!")
• Nimue sinking into madness is growing more and more familiar to SHODAN.
  • Similarly, Lord Vyce's reveal at the end of Spider-Man: Crossfire is a quote of SHODAN's Wham Line from System Shock 2.
• Among NIMUE's ramblings are references to Allen Ginsberg's "Howl (1955)". ^note Such as "Moloch's love is oil and stone" in Brute Force #4. She can be heard faintly reciting the poem in the October 2013 trailer.
• In the review of Showcase #4 (the first appearance of Barry Allen, the second Flash, the title card has Kamen Rider Kabuto and Sonic the Hedgehog along with Flash.
• He ends his review of All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder #7 with a reference to Camelot. "Violence is not strength and compassion is not weakness, and the real Batman knows that!" He goes into Sincerity Mode during his review of Frank Miller's Holy Terror, and starts it by explaining why Camelot is his favorite musical.
• The title card for Tandy Computer Whiz Kids: A Deadly Choice features The Pusher from Clone High.
• In a similar vein to The Entity, the mask of the King of Worms is designed to resemble the face of the Ghost from Pokémon Red and Blue.
  • When the King enters Linkara's mind, Linkara's mind copy of Mechakara quotes The Gemini Killer from The Exorcist III.
• In Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #2, after seeing a character work with duct tape, he paraphrases one of the catch phrases from the title character of The Red Green Show: "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
• In his Freak Out during his review of Action Comics #252, Linkara asks, "Why aren't we allowed to go into the Dog Park?"
• In his review of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, the haunted house level sends him in a freaked out rant with multiple shout-outs in a row as he goes on a baseball bat rampage across the level:
  Linkara: Why am I in Freddy Krueger's boiler room? What is hurting me? I'm a goddamn vampire! I don't care how many lamps you throw at me, I'm not gonna review them! Okay, that's it! Screw this place! Screw your vases! Screw your credenza! Screw your falling elevator! Screw your stupid pictures you keep throwing at me! Screw your chandelier! Screw your pots and pans! Screw your weird-ass ghostly flashbacks, creepy laughing and creepy music! No, I'm not gonna get out! YOU'RE gonna get out!!! Come on Jack Torrence, come and get me! Who's Johnny now, asshole?!? I'm a goddamn vampire! I'm a vampire! I'm a vampire!!!
• In his Let's Plays of Pokémon Zeta and Omicron he names a Zebra-like pokemon Zecora in a desperate attempt to appease the My Little Pony Fans. This leads to an unintentionally humorous moment, after taking a closer look at the Pokemon and discovering that it's male, unlike the female character he's named after. Though Linkara is not bothered too much, as he felt Zecora could work as guy's name too.
• In Batman: A Word to the Wise, he (as Batman) asks the kid who climbed a dangerous fire escape if he saw all the signs, and if it opened up his eyes.
• During the recap on Planet Hulk at the start of World War Hulk, Linkara does a Hulk Speak version of the opening of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and when the caption's says that the Hulk never forgot "the real monsters", quipping they're Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm. And of course, given he's a well-established Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan, the reason the Illuminati shot the Hulk into space was so they could make him watch cheesy movies and monitor his mind.
• A lot of Dr. Crafty's^note formerly MasterTheCreater title cards for the series have shout-outs that aren't directly related to the content of the episode:
  • The title characters from Law and Order^note no, not that Law & Order #1 are doing the Caramelldansen. The dance returns in the title card for Chain Gang War #1, which features Iron Liz and the Ninja-Style Dancer performing it.
  • Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes #1 has Linkara as Edward Elric turning poop into gold.
  • JLA: Act of God #2 has Linkara and Superman recreating Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam", while #3 has the JLA recreating Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper".
  • Kamandi at Earth's End #1 features Kamandi fighting the Robot Chicken.
  • All-American Comics #16 has Alan Scott using his ring to toss barrels at Linkara.
  • For Spider-Man and Captain America in: Doctor Doom's Revenge, Doom is riding his own version of the Koopa Clown Car.
  • Catwoman: Guardian of Gotham #2 and Trouble (Marvel Comics) #3 both feature Linkara as Jerry Springer.
  • Power Pachyderms, instead of featuring the title characters (who are elephant parodies of three of the X-Men and Elektra), has five elephants dressed as the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers instead.
  • The Marvel 2099 title cards feature Linkara dressed as Marty McFly.
  • The first Comic Book Quickies title card is a shout-out to Cooking Mama.
  • The Thing from Another World: Climate of Fear #1 parodies Predator, while #2 parodies Attack on Titan.
  • The Jaime Reyes (pre-New 52) episode of "Blue Skying" pays homage to Abbey Road.
  • James Bond parodies abound in the Sci Spy title cards. Specific films referenced include Moonraker, Octopussy, and For Your Eyes Only (all, coincidentally, Roger Moore films, even though Linkara himself attempts to imitate Sean Connery when reading Starchild's lines).
  • The Batman/Superman Movie: World's Finest: "No, Batman, I didn't see you play with your Legos again!"
  • Part 2 of the Exiles retrospective features four alternate Wolverines performing "Bohemian Rhapsody".
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation (DC miniseries) #3, Thunderstrike #1 and the comic adaptation for Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth feature homages to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
  • Green Lantern #23.1 features Professor Farnsworth as Elgar.
  • Some of the Just Imagine... Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe title cards:
    • Batman is wrestling the Ultimate Warrior.
    • Wonder Woman is attempting to take her book from a temple pedestal and replace it with Amazons Attack!.
    • Green Lantern is a bald Jolly Green Giant.
  • Speaking of Amazons Attack, the title card for the episode for issues 5 and 6 features Grumpy Cat dressed as Linkara. The episode actually predates the birth of Tardar Sauce (the actual Grumpy Cat) by a couple of years; the card was created retroactively for the AT4W website in 2014.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #11-12 rips off the poster for Bachelor Party.
  • Expect Ultimate Iron Man to be represented by a red and gold Bender. Not as commonly used for mainstream Iron Man, who has so far only been represented once by Bender (an all-gold version) in The Avengers #1.
  • The Punisher #61-62 has Frank half-black, half-white, and dressed like Bele from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield".
  • The Trial of Peter Parker features another shout-out to Ace Attorney.
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street: Paranoid #2 has Linkara, Thing Tucker, and a character from the comic as The Dover Boys, with Freddy Krueger as Dan Backslide.
• The adaptation for Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth review:
  • While looking for what Copykara's origin might be, Linkara mentions he went to ask all his fellow former Channel Awesome reviewers. He briefly mentions Phelous asked if his family name was D1.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Mirrorkara sees one to both Camelot and Judd Winick's Outsiders (2003) run in Linkara mocking of Mirrorkara's plan: the former by quoting "Revenge, the most worthless of causes" and the latter with an homage to a similar line to Lex Luthor mocking the Joker's obsession with Batman, telling Mirrorkara he'll never take him to the prom.
  • Later in the episode, Moarte, just as he is about to kill Mirrorkara, gives him a Pre-Mortem One-Liner that is a nod to the beginning of Phantasm.
• Linkara and Viga's cats are named Starfire and Chieri.
• When Mirrorkara first meets Linkara in the Holy Terror review, Mirrorkara refers to Linkara as "Me, only less handsome", an inversion of Ace Rimmer's initial observation of Arnold Rimmer.
• In the review of the Comic-Book Adaptation for Revenge of the Sith, Linkara says "Count Dooku, old and busted. Anakin Skywalker, new hotness".
• In the review of The Dark Knight Returns, when discussing if Batman killed the Joker and is just deluding himself into believing he didn't, Linkara says that if Batman ever kills, he stops being Batman and just becomes "The Punisher in a silly hat".
• In the Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits review, Constantine gets to the door of his recently deceased friend Finn's house when he's met by "a certain figure".
  Linkara: Hope you guessed his name.
• Part 1 of the The Sandman (1989) Retrospective, when Queen Nada goes to visit the King of the Birds.
  Linkara: Who, Darius? I wouldn't talk to him, he's got that weird skull thing.

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