Shout Out / Poker Night 2

• In the teaser trailer, where the characters are huddled over Brock playing Season One of The Walking Dead, Claptrap recommends that he should have Lee buy a Conference Call, the Infinity+1 Gun of his game.
• Claptrap: "I'm making the international sign for LOSER on my forehead! ...Or maybe it's for Glee. Either way, it's pretty humiliating."
• Claptrap also describes the Inventory as looking like "very Boardwalk Empire meets Silence of the Lambs."
• When Claptrap asks what happened to Sam's voice, Sam mentions that his old voice sounded "Goofy". His original voice actor from Sam & Max Hit the Road was Bill Farmer, the long time voice actor for Goofy.
• Brock mentions that he was included as a unlockable character in a (fictional) Mortal Kombat knock-off without his permission. Claptrap says that that he had a "death smooch" fatality in that game (Sonya, Kitana and Tanya all had kissing fatalities at one point) and, parodying the eventual transformation of Midway Games Chicago into NetherRealm Studios, Brock adds that "the company went bankrupt... with extreme prejudice."
• Ash asked Claptrap about life on Pandora, which led to a discussion about a different Pandora, much to Claptrap's chagrin.
• If you listen closely during the introduction, you can hear the sounds of someone playing Johann Sebastian Joust from Sportsfriends right before Brock knocks the bandit out of the room. Evidently, the way to achieve surefire victory at Joust is by stabbing your opponent. However, Brock later claims to Winslow that he was playing mumblety-peg, the knife game.
• Change to the Sam & Max inventory for the first time, and Sam will exclaim: "Great gallifrey, Max! It looks like our past is spilling all over the Inventory!"
• Claptrap's bounty item is his Spike TV VGA 2012 Character of the Year trophy. The first time it's pulled out, GLaDOS claims that it looks familiar, which is perhaps because she also won a Spike TV award for Ellen McLain's portrayal of her in 2011.
• Brock mentions that when he heard he would be playing poker with "Ash Williams", he was expecting a girl. Ash says he's been getting a lot of that lately for some reason.
• This singing taunt from Claptrap
  "Here's my bet now, so call me maybe."
• There are smooth jazz versions of the Venture Bros. theme song, "No Vacancy" (it's a little difficult to recognize but it's there), "Short Change Hero" by The Heavy (the opening song for Borderlands 2), and even the title theme to Army of Darkness.
• When losing a showdown, Sam will sometimes shout "Shazbot!", "Belgium!" or, for a double Shout-Out, "Frakking Frell!"
• While pondering if he should play or fold, Ash may say "What would Chuck Finley do?"
  • He also mentions wearing a cowboy hat for a while during the 90's.
  • In another conversation, Brock asks Sam if he ever considered fighting with a blade. Sam mentions he did, with an axe, but that lead to confusion when people kept calling him "Sam Axe". Ash thinks that name is dumb.
• Ash's hand being possessed by ad execs and spelling out "DRINK MORE BANANG" in Morse Code may be a modified reference to A Christmas Story.
  • It's also not only a Call-Back to Sam & Max, but also to the previous installment of Poker Night in which Strong Bad claims to like banangs.
  • Banang makes appearances in almost all of Telltale's games, including the Sam and Max games and the Walking Dead
• If he wins a few times in a row, Claptrap asks if there's a glitch in the The Matrix, because he's getting deja vu.
• When commenting that his chainsaw is leaking, Sam sarcastically asks if Ash is preparing for an Attack of the Triffids. (Attack of the Triffids is a notoriously bad horror movie featuring what is widely considered the least threatening movie monsters in film history)
• A win may cause Claptrap to offer "Cool hand, Skywalker!"
  • Sam occasionally adds "Don't get cocky, kid." right after this.
  • Not to mention everyone uses the line, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
• Sam occasionally sings King of the Creatures, from Sam & Max Hit the Road when contemplating his move.
  • Likewise, in the Sam & Max 25th Anniversary room EVERYONE (even GLaDOS) will serenade the duo with a song about their adventure in Hit the Road.
• When Claptrap comments that Sam and Max's first official appearance was 26 years ago, Max shouts "NERRRRRRD!" while Sam explains that they always skip over 2004 when counting. A running gag in the Telltale Sam and Max game is that everyone tries to forget that year and the "particularly gruesome" case that took place that year (i.e. the same year the sequel to Hit the Road was unexpectedly cancelled by Lucasarts).
• If a game is going relatively quickly, Brock might say he might be able to get back in time for Downton.
• During a showdown Claptrap might say "No Whammies, No Whammies"
• Sometimes, when Claptrap is thinking, he'll hum the first part of the chorus for "Ain't No Rest For the Wicked", which was the opening song for Borderlands.
• After losing all his chips, Sam will mention spending all on his time looking at "funny Internet lists." The sample list Max mentions seems to describe the lists and articles on Cracked.
• The title card that appears when you win on the Venture Brothers Inventory is a reference to Romans 6:23.
  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
  • Brock also references Hosea 8:7 in one of his all-in call lines: "For they sow the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind."
• Brock mentions how Trans-dimensional phone coverage is the least of GLaDOS' secrets, prompting this.
  Claptrap: We're not talking "Crying Game" secrets, are we?
• A Shout Out, of all things, to Oscar Wilde. Or maybe Willy Wonka..
  Sam: The tension is nigh unbearable.
  Max: I hope it lasts!
• When Brock goes "in the tank" about whether to make or call a big bet, he recites the "litany against fear" from Dune.
  Brock: I must not fear, fear is the mind-killer, fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration...
• During the hilariously over-dramatic elimination scene of Claptrap in the Borderlands-themed table. Listen to the music, it's Death of DADgeresque. from Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. Looks like there is a Homestar Runner reference in the game after all.
• Ash having a nasty run-in with a mariachi band might be a Call-Back to Sam and Max: Freelance Police: Season 2, which featured a similarly evil mariachi band.
  • Additionally, when talking about a hispanic AI singing a song, Sam is asked if there were mariachis. Sam says it would be ridiculous if there were.
• Claptrap mentions to Ash that he fought the Nightmare King and The Immortal Hockey-Mask killer.
• Brock claiming that repeated checks make him "twitchy" may be a reference to the squirrel sidekick of another Patrick Warburton character, the wolf from Hoodwinked!.
  • Similarly, when Sam mentions that Brock reminds him of someone, Brock says he gets that a lot. Apparently a lot of people think he sounds like some guy they saw on TV, which is probably a reference to Warburton's most well-known role as David Puddy on Seinfeld.
• Claptrap mentions that 'one of these things is not like the others', a mention of a bit on Sesame Street.
• A malfunctioning Claptrap comments on how in the unlikely event of a firestorm, the salad bar can be used as a floatation device. This is a variation on a line spoken by similarly dopey A.I.s in Sam and Max: Season 3 and Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People.
• During one conversation about a computer made out of nachos Max quotes HAL 9000's famous line... in Spanish. GLaDOS comments that it "takes her back.
• While conversing about hats with Brock, Sam laments that he can't get Max to wear his beret anymore (a reference to a dress-up activity page found in the Sam and Max comic "On the Road," later adapted into an optional minigame in Sam & Max Hit the Road), when Max walks by wearing said beret and saying "ceci n'est pas un chapeau."^TranslationIn English, "this is not a hat." This phrase is likely a reference to the post-modern work "The Treachery of Images" by René Magritte.
• When going all in, sometimes Sam will say "Time to separate the cottons from the lacy unmentionables."
• The "Alien Invasion" subplot featuring Brock is very much a shout out to the Topps Trading Card Company's infamous Mars Attacks! trading card line. One especially telling (and somewhat tragic) parallel between the two lines is the respective creators' suicide by gunshot.