Shout Out / If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device

Alfabusa and his team are certainly Pop-Cultured Badasses, going by the amount of references and Shout Outs in their works. For references to Warhammer 40,000 itself and other fan works, see Mythology Gag on the main page of the series.

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• One of the High Lords of Terra is an expy of Judge Dredd who even says his Catchphrase "I am the Law!". Unsurprising, considering he is the Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbites, an entire organization of Judge Dredd expies.
• In episode 10, the film Les Misérables (2012) is performed by a Magos and an Inquisitor, both of whom resemble Valjean and Javert respectively.
  • The Javert Inquisitor keeps appearing in both parts of episode 26 as a background character, still looking like Russell Crowe.
• In Episode 8, when Kitten is retelling how Marneus Calgar got his limbs ripped off by the Tyranids, the scene cuts to him bleeding from his lost arms and leg jumping at the Tyranid leader, only for it to rip Calgar's last leg and leaving, with Calgar saying "We'll call it a draw."
• In Episode 12.5: "Atrocious Answers," The Emperor sings (through his text to speech device), part of Simple Plan's song "Untitled (How could this happen to me?)"
• The opening of episode 15 has an extended reference to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
• The series makes a lot of references too Jojos Bizarre Adventure.
  • The three other Custodes take the appearance of the Pillar Men, to the point that Awaken is their leitmotif. Others in the background are modelled after Vanilla Ice, Narciso Anasui and Diavolo from the same manga.
  • Diavodes (the Diavolo Custode) has his own theme, a short riff from "21st Century Schizoid Man".
    • It goes even deeper because in his introduction he asks both Kitten and Magnus if they know who he is. After both say no, he seems oddly pleased about this and once they leave he screams to himself that he will become the new emperor. Obviously referencing the motives of Diavolo from part 5. And to top it all off he's voiced by Antfish! The creator of Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Abridged
  • Another quick reference to Jojo which is so subtle is almost doubles as a Funny Background Event, during the Emperor's lecture on galactic history, a pair of Eldar are seen freaking out over all the horrors running around after the War in Heaven. Their distress is vocalized using Old Man Joseph's famous "OHHH NOOOO!". It's rather hard to hear since Emps is talking while they're screaming.
  • In the Warp Hijinks special, when Leman presents the mugs of beer, they're briefly surrounded by JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's ゴゴゴ (GO GO GO) Unsound Effect.
  • In TTS Special 2, it's revealed that Lucius has his own version of Bites The Dust. Or rather, "BITES ZA DUSTO!" To elaborate, Little Billy ^note (The small kid wearing cardboard armor that looks like Alfa Legion-colored Space Marine armor.) is threatened by Lucius. After running away from the mad serial killer with the weird fetishes he meets another man and then reveals the madman's name in which the man almost immediately gets killed, and time is rewound shortly afterward.
  • Similarly, as the Emperor describes the Drukhari realm of Commorragh in Episode 26 Part 2, one can catch Killer Queen Bites the Dust hanging out in Xaf'trenneayi in the bottom-left hand corner.
  • Santodes is one giant reference to the Pillar Man Santana, particularly his first lines, which are delivered in a slow,
  • The Fabulous Custodes quite possibly have similar abilities to the Pillar Men. From Custodisi being able to use fire when fighting the enraged Magnus to Whammudes having lungs powerful enough to create hurricanes from a very deep exhales. The 2nd Vox-logs also shows that they have full controls of their bodies, being capable of crushing their bones and severing muscle fibers until they are capable of forcing themselves into very tight spaces, just like Santana.
• When the other Custodes finally make an appearance alongside Kitten when confronting Fyodor, they obviously are other Stripperiffic male characters such as Mr. Gold & Mr. Silver from God Hand, Voldo from Soul Series & actual figures of the Adeptus Custodes.
• In short "Kitten Gasping", the Custodian notices that his antics made him look like The Legend of Zelda's Link.
• The Emperor claims his early years were largely spent "Crushing my enemies, seeing them driven before me, and hearing the lamentations of their women." His puppet looks a fair bit like Conan the Barbarian too.
• Age of Strife-era Emperor dresses like Kenshiro.
• Upon hearing about Emperor's sex life, Magnus has the reaction you'd expect a child would have to hearing about the sex life of one of his parents while channelling Professor Farnsworth for a moment.
  LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR THIS, I DON'T WANT TO BE ON THIS PLANET ANYMORE!
• When Emps relates how Horus has his "temper tantrum", the Primarch in question makes the Ed, Edd n Eddy "Sumo Noise". The other traitors immediately follow suit seconds later.
  • In Episode 26 part 1, some Tauroxes (Tauroxen?) honk their horns with the same sound that was used in Ed, Edd, n' Eddy for most vehicles. ^note  To be pedantically specific, their horns play the opening bars of "La Cucaracha".
• The Emperor constantly refers to Ultramarines as Smurfs and their Chapter Master as Papa Smurf.
• When dozens of Warp Storms explode over Terra, music in the background plays Ride of the Valkyries.
• After defeating the Ecclesiarch's last-ditch defence of the Imperial Palace for Fyodor, Lord Inquisitor Coteaz says he has to go, as he has 'a movie to shoot.'
• During the fight between Blaktoof and Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, there's a bunch of Ork titans and other such Ork stuff can be seen in the background, one of them is actually a Generation 1 Optimus Prime (Seen in the background as Ghazghkull makes the "rip off" joke).
  • To be more precise it is actually a fan-made model called "Orktimus Prime", a what-if, Ork-made Optimus Prime .
• When the Emperor learns of what happened to the Sensei and flies into a ground-shaking fury, the Centurion says "We should go. I should go. I better go. I'm Commander Shep-" *gets tackled by Magnus*
• The first half of Lucius's first scene is one to a short made by Eliphas, which itself is a reference to this, which in turn is an animation of this.
• The phrase "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is used.
• Episode 19 starts with a spoof of Alfabusa's own "Cooking With The Imperium" video.
• The museum portion of the Imperial palace that Kitten walks through has various xenos in stasis, including a xenomorph, E.T., and a squat.
• Magnus references (though without a name) Necoho, God of Atheism and Contradictions from Warhammer.
• The Emperor makes the "Toasty!" sound effect in reference to the Salamander's pyromania.
• TTS Short no 5 is a Whole-Plot Reference to Yu-Gi-Oh!, down to Emperor and Kitten playing the game itself to decide an absurdly important plot issue and pretty much every memetic line from the series being quoted at one point or another.
  • The episode title and many of the jokes are lifted from Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series. Of particular note is exclusively referring to the Egyptian God card, Winged Dragon of Ra, as "Mega Ultra Chicken," which in itself is a reference Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
• In Episode 21, Dark Angels Chaplain Asmodai demands that two battle brothers "REPENT, MOTHER FUCKER!"
• In episode 21, we get a flashback of Marneus Calgar unleashing a "bit of the old Ultraviolence" on some Necrons.
• We shortly see the Tyranid Hive Mind logging into the Warpchat portal. Its style of writing looks like Zalgo.
• When chasing after Kaldor Draigo in episode 21, Dominique sings Where in the Warp is Kaldor Draigo?.
• The opening of episode 22 is re-enacting the "Are we there yet?" scene from Shrek with Asmodai and Azrael as Donkey and Shrek.
  Azrael: FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR REFERENCES!
  • The above can also refer to The Simpsons where in one episode, Lisa and Bart constantly bother Homer with the question repeatedly. In another Simpsons shout out, Kaldor Draigo leaves Kitten before saying "I must go. My People need me.", referring to Poochie, the cartoon character from Itchy and Scratchy.
• Closing out episode 22 is a scene of Typhus reading an overly-sexual Troll Fic (specifically, "Squad Broken"). Typhus's voice actor is deliberately imitating Gilbert Gottfried, so the whole scene is probably a shout out to the Fifty Shades of Grey audio-book.
• When trying to convince Kitten to follow him, Magnus covers up his Freudian Slip with "MAKE THE IMPERIUM GREAT AGAIN!"
• The "Intermission" cards come from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
• One of the High-Lords of Terra inexplicably lament that there are "too many toasters" in episode 8.
• In Episode 24, the Emperor asks if Jaghatai used his fearsome velocity to become one with the Speed Force.
• Tzeench proclaims events are transpiring "Just as planned!".
  • In the same special Lucius's cheap set is the same from the The Eric Andre Show complete with one seat shared with the co-host and guest, something Miriael Sabathiel notes and disparages. The entire opening is also a reference, complete with Lucius wrecking the entire set and generally spreading utter chaos around the area before coming back, exhausted, to an entirely replaced set which he keeps wrecking later during the show (something that Rogal Dorn also notes and disparages) while his co-host Ahriman makes a very subdued entrace similar to Hannibal Buress.
• Cegorach's Theme "Prime Clown", while sinister with the accordion playing ominously, ends with the popping bit from Seinfeld's own theme song.
  • His laugh when telling jokes to his "crowd" emulates the laugh of Pennywise the Clown. It's exactly as off putting and uncanny as the original, if not more so because of the mad god's phantom Laugh Track.
  • He also announces his (and others') punchlines by quoting Sheldon's notorious "Bazinga". Well, by having something quote it at the very least.
• Calgar tell's Sicarius to shut up by (mis)quoting Party Hard.
  Calgar: Shut your face, you shitgrill! I do what I want! And I like what I do.
• Corvus Corax's Beard of Sorrow makes him look a lot like John Wick or Season 5 Samurai Jack.
• Vulkan describes "brainghost" Ferrus as a skull-ghost or a "skost", if you will.
  • During a particular revolting segment of Ian Watson's rather distressing personal Author Appeal from Inquisitor, Whammudes calls the author a "sex pervert", a phrase likewise popularized by RedLetterMedia.
• In Short 7, the Emperor describes skeletons as being "agitating".
• In the first podcast, Dorn and Emps claim that eating The Taco on any day of one's choosing is "indefensible, reprehensible."
  • During the same tirade, Emps quotes the "Absolutely Disgusting" meme.
• Colonel Straken tells a guardsman named Conrad to tie his fucking laces.
• Corvus declares that "...[he] shall not die, no!" in precisely the same cadence as a certain incredibly bald Blood Ravens captain.
• Right before the credits of the Catachan episode:
  Catachan Fighter: If only Drill Instructor Barnes could see me now!
  • Earlier, you can hear another voiceclip being said by a Catachan having his arms ripped off by Slaaneshi daemonettes.
  Catachan Fighter: I've got a bad feeling about this mission.
• When reading about how Jaghatai Khan and his army were once caught in an avalanche, the Emperor starts to ask if it was fireworks-induced before getting cut off by Custodisi.
• During the Black Templars podcast, Boy makes a *Noot Noot* noise when laughing at Karstodes continuing illiteracy.
• During the battle at Khaine's Gate when Kairos casts Smite against a group of Grey Knights, his second head yells out a familiar Jerma catchphrase: "LIFE IS PAIN!!! I HATE-".
• After getting into Commoragh and getting caught into the first trap for intruders: A Inter-dimensional Mirror that leads directly to the sun. Kaldor Draigo is one of the many forces caught by it. His response? "NO SUN" in almost same pronunciation and animation style as Tigtone, and with similar effect.
• One particular face the Deceiver makes when angry looks quite close to the infamous "BUY IT AGAIN" photoshopped Todd Howard from related The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim memes.
• Episode 2 of Bro Trip 40,000 gets some mileage out of the Attilans' tendency to hollow out skulls to use as cups, complete with giving their leader a Sea Raider accent to pronounce "I WILL DRINK FROM YOUR SKULL" with.
• When Ecclesiarch Decius summons his guards to arrest Fyodor, when Fyodor has declared his intent to storm the Imperial Palace, the Sisters of Battle who arrive shout en mass "Stop! You violated the law!" Plus, in the Fantasy Roleplay special, the guards arriving to arrest the party after the death of Magnar Buckethead shout at them to "Stop right there, you criminal scum!" Both are the lines of guards from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
• Belisarius Cawl's manner of speech, abruptly shifting between a distinct calm, feminine and AGGRESSIVE tone even mid-sentence, is rather similar to how The Master communicates in the original Fallout.
• In turn, the Skitarii's unique manner of speaking and "Access Denied" reference the original Half-Life's VOX system, which had a similarly stilted way of speaking (every word being an individual soundfile that would be reused) and would deny Gordon access to several spots.
• At the beginning of the Fantasy Roleplay Special, when Whammudes attempts to run the game, his musk-choked setting is named the Quivering Isles.
• Episode 26 part 2 is titled Fear And Loathing In Commorragh.
• Jurgen, Cain's aide in the special Heroes of the 41st Millennium: Commissar Ciaphas Cain, speaks in a high-pitched voice similar to Baldrick of Blackadder. Fitting, since the Ciaphas Cain series is inspired by Blackadder.

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