Shout Out / The Good Place

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Season 1

• The primary concept of the first season — particularly the twist — is heavily based off of the The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "A Nice Place To Visit".
• invoked The premise of Michael's carefully crafted Ironic Hell is incredibly similar to the Hell portrayed in No Exit by Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, where three unpleasant humans are locked in a room, each of them picked specifically to torment each other with each other's conflicting egos and complementary personalities, with Eleanor being Inès Serrano^note Both are nasty antisocial ladies who hit on their female companions and realize how they're being tortured, Chidi being Joseph Garcin^note Garcin feigns being an honest man mistakenly punished, and Chidi has no reason to believe, as a moral philosopher, that he would end up in the Bad Place; both men are also caught between the two women in their stories, Tahani being Estelle Rigault^note Both women are haughty socialites who don't realize how grating they areand Michael being the Valet^note Both are humble, unassuming afterlife employees administering a torture chamber. Word of God has explicitly noted that No Exit was a major inspiration for the series, making this clearly deliberate.
• In the series premiere "Everything is Fine," Eleanor initially mistakes Chidi's last name of "Anagonye" as "Ariana Grande". This later becomes a Brick Joke when "Break Free" plays during the third act chaos sequence.
  • invoked The "Everything Is Fine" logo on Michael's waiting room wall is a reference to the David Lynch film Eraserhead, in which one character sings a song that ironically proclaims "In Heaven everything is fine." It can also be seen as an allusion to the famous meme of the flaming dog from Gunshow saying "This is fine."
  • There's also a sneaky reference to The Leftovers that can be glimpsed in this episode — October 14th, the day that Doug Forcett went through a Mushroom Samba and managed to glimpse 92% of how the afterlife points system works, is the same day as the Day of Departure.
• In "What We Owe to Each Other", Michael watched Friends to learn about human friendship. In another episode, there is a coffee place named 'Celestial Perk', a parody of the Central Perk café the main characters frequented.
  • Michael also later references the theme song to The Golden Girls.
  • Jason thinks Tahani is a lot like Nala from The Lion King, and also has a poster of Ariana Grande on the wall of his "budhole".
  • Michael wins a Minion in a claw machine, calling it an "ugly toddler".
  • Eleanor once stood up her friend and neglected her dog-sitting duties to go to a Rihanna concert.
  • Eleanor thinks of Michael as an Orville Redenbacher kind of person.
• At one point, Eleanor describes Jason as "Tragic Mike".
• In "...Someone Like Me as a Member", when Trevor asks Michael what he is willing to offer in exchange for Eleanor staying in the Good Place, Michael tells him "You get nothing!"
  • Eleanor thinks Elton John is a jazz musician.
  • "Real" Eleanor/Vicky uses "yadda yadda" several times in conversation and then notes she learned English from watching Seinfeld.
  • Eleanor's roommate once invited her to go watch Spider-Man 2. Eleanor couldn't believe they made another Spider-Man movie.
• In "The Eternal Shriek," at one point during Janet's failsafe measure to prevent herself from being "killed", she conjures a supposed photograph of her children. When Eleanor freaks out and backs away from the button, Janet cheerily laughs it off and explains that she actually summoned a stock photo of the audience for the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.
• Flashbacks to when he was alive in "Chidi's Choice" show that Chidi had dinner with his friend Uzo at a restaurant named "Eating Nemo".
  • Tahani's panicked Love Confession to Chidi in this episode echoes the one in Notting Hill.
• During Shawn's time pretending to be the All-Knowing Judge in "Mindy St. Clair", him instantly cocooning himself whenever Chidi, Tahani, "Real" Eleanor, and Michael act emotional when arguing on "Fake" Eleanor's behalf is, according to the DVD Commentary, meant to be an allusion to an unspecified Monty Python sketch (possibly the "Argument Clinic" sketch) involving standing in a box and acting stoic that Michael Schur found to be hilarious.
  • Among the aspects of Mindy St. Clair's spectacularly mediocre Mundane Afterlife are her jukebox only containing live bootlegs of The Eagles (along with some deeply terrible spoken-word poetry from William Shatner), the two movies she can watch only being Cannonball Run II and The Making of... Cannonball Run II, and her books all consisting of either issues of People magazine or water-stained Anne Rice novels.
  • The Freeze-Frame Bonus showcasing several of Eleanor's sins has two specifically consist of "Showing a 9-year-old child The Shining" and "Brief Instagram flirtation with Kid Rock".
  • When trying to convince Jason to leave the Medium Place with her so they can save Tahani and Chidi, Eleanor says "We have to go back." Furthermore, the numerous Eyes Open introductory shots on characters are (according to Word of God) explicitly intended as an allusion to Lost.
  • Jason is terrified of going to the Bad Place since he thinks it'll be like Ratatouille and he'll have "rats living in my hair and pulling me around".
• The initial shot of all of the four humans standing side-by-side after the clown door to Eleanor's bedroom closes near the beginning of "Michael's Gambit" is an allusion to the poster showing the criminal line-up of possible suspects for The Usual Suspects. Additionally, Eleanor breaking down how Michael's been subtly arranging the humans into torturing one another complete with flashbacks showing how he encouraged and preyed upon their worst personality traits is meant to be a reference to the extended flashback speech near the end of The Usual Suspects revealing the identity of Keyser Söze.
  • After her Heel Realization, Tahani sheepishly admits that her only real goal in life was to make out with Ryan Gosling at the Met Ball... which she did, apparently a couple of times.
  • Eleanor's triumphant speech to Michael where she gives an unflattering summary of each of the four humans and then notes how each of them helped build each other up and make them improve as people was, according to Word of God, described as the "The Breakfast Club speech" in the writers' room, being specifically patterned after the speech closing out the end of the aforementioned film.
  • Chris Baker (Eleanor's "soulmate" in the second Neighborhood reboot) being from Teaneck, New Jersey is a reference to the hometown of Damon Lindelof, whose work on Lost and The Leftovers was a major influence on the show.

Season 2

• In "Dance Dance Resolution", Eleanor initially calls Janet "busty Alexa" when she's trying to summon her during Attempt #3 before she actually remembers Janet's name.
  • During one of her automatic attempts to beg for her life, Janet tells Michael that she had just gotten tickets to Hamilton.
  • A Freeze-Frame Bonus shows that among the list of failed plans that the humans have previously tried against Michael (or at least those that have been recorded by Mindy) are "Find Ray Donovan but an angel", "Indecent Proposal [Michael]", and "Shawshank our way out".
  • Both the episode title and Jason's dance crew on Earth are obvious spoofs of DanceDanceRevolution.
  • invoked As per Word of God, the episode was largely inspired by both Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow in terms of how it uses the "Groundhog Day" Loop in its story structure.
• In "Team Cockroach", Tahani claims she once found herself in a "similar situation" with Javier Bardem in Vanessa Redgrave's panic room.
• In "Existential Crisis", Michael grabs the sides of his face and wails while first contemplating the empty existence of the universe, making him look very similar to Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream.
  • During the flashback to her childhood where her mom tells her that the family dog Max has died, a young Eleanor is watching a cartoon that (from the sounds of the unseen TV) was basically a combination of both ThunderCats and Voltron called "Thunderbats".
• Michael's "opposite-torture" to Jason in "The Trolley Problem" is a Pikachu party balloon.
  • Chidi's initial assignment to Michael was to analyze the ethics of Les Misérables, which was unfortunately stymied by how apparently every character in the novel is destined for the Bad Place because they're French.
  • During the simulated trolley problem, a movie theater can be glimpsed in the background with its marquee claiming that "Strangers Under a Train" is now playing.
• In "Janet and Michael", a Bad Janet's failed attempt at pretending to be a Good Janet ultimately culminates in her melting like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (albeit with Bad Janet's clothes somehow standing upright). Eleanor also suggests Janet listen to No Doubt to get over her ex (Jason).
• In "Derek", Tahani describes Home Alone as a "horror film about two ex-convicts who try to rob and murder a neglected child."
  • Jason also yells out "Thor!" instead of "Fore" when playing his version of croquet with Tahani while on their camping trip.
  • Later in the episode, Jason claims that all of the best things happen on the beach, specifically citing both Jersey Shore and Saving Private Ryan.
• The (fake) hot air balloon Michael supposedly summons to take everyone off to the Good Place in "Best Self" is a pretty clear allusion to The Wizard of Oz and the hot air balloon that the Wizard was originally supposed to take Dorothy back home to Kansas in.
  • Jason's idea of what his Bad Place will likely be is going to a Skrillex concert... and having the bass never drop.
• In "Rhonda, Diana, Jake and Trent", when Tahani is pretending to be a demon torturer named "Rhonda", she claims that she once shoved a hot dog right down the throat of "the legendary John Wayne".
  • Eleanor also makes a brief reference to how she once went to go see The Chronicles of Riddick while her mother was in the hospital.
• Jason is a huge fan of Madden NFL, to the point where the Judge uses it as his test of character in "The Burrito".
  • The aforementioned episode also has Michael smugly noting to Shawn that most of his previous torture reports regarding his Neighborhood experiment being successful were all faked and cribbed almost directly from Stephen King novels and episodes of Pretty Little Liars.
• In the Season 2 finale "Somewhere Else", when Michael poses as a bartender to encourage Eleanor to become a good person again, he adopts some of the mannerisms of Sam Malone, Ted Danson's legendary character from Cheers. Additionally, the bar he's tending is briefly shown to be named "Sting's Desert Rosé".
  • During her drunken conversation with Michael, Eleanor conveys the entire plot of Kangaroo Jack. Eleanor also gets called "Erin Brockovich" in this episode.

Season 3

• According to a publicity event for Tahani's self-help book in "Everything is Bonzer!", her book is so good that it inspired both Malcolm Gladwell and Cormac McCarthy to quit writing since they felt that they'd never top it.
• In Season 3's "The Brainy Bunch", when Janet is trying to figure out if Trevor can be killed, she mentions dropping a steamroller on him.
  • The episode title, and Trevor's group nickname and sweatshirts, are one to The Brady Bunch.
  • Trevor mockingly compares Michael's getup to Dick Tracy.
  • When trying to act as a Toxic Friend Influence, Trevor asks the group if they think that Disney making more Star Wars sequels will eventually lead to a Spaceballs sequel.
  • Jason brings a spider to the MRI machine, thinking that the radiation will give him superpowers like Spider-Man.
  • Judge Gen complains that Michael's interference caused a ripple effect that caused The Greatest Showman to somehow make serious bank at the box office.
  • Among the pile of objects that Janet tried to summon in "The Brainy Bunch" is a "Paunch Burger" brand bucket of soda, a popular fast-food chain from Parks and Recreation.
• "Jeremy Bearimy" offers a few:
  • Eleanor goes to a bar named Drinking Nemo. According to the podcast, the names of the bank Tahani and Jason go to (FNB) and the grocery store Chidi goes to (BNG) are short for "Financing Nemo Bank" and "Bagging Nemo's Groceries" respectively.
  • Tahani asks Jason to be her bodyguard—like her friend Kevin Costner, who played a bodyguard, in The Bodyguard.
  • Eleanor complains about there being too many Spider-Man movies.
  • Chidi's song while making chili is set to the tune of Harry Nilsson's "Coconut."
  • Weirdly enough, Janet including a recipe for pizza dough cinnamon rolls in Michael’s manifesto is a direct reference to Mario Batali’s sexual harassment apology, which included a pizza dough cinnamon roll recipe.
  • Michael practically says that time in the afterlife is wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. Instead it's "Jeremy Bearimy."
• The café where Chidi and Simone meet in "The Ballad of Donkey Doug" is at the intersection of Thatsnota Street and Thisisa Street.
  • Eleanor asks to use the simulator to go to "a very specific Lenny Kravitz concert", referring to the time Kravitz accidentally split the front of his pants during a concert and exposed himself to his fans.
  • "If you love someone, set them free!"
• Kamilah's art exhibit in "A Fractured Inheritance" features her cooking food for her guests, similar to the exhibits of artist Rirkrit Tiravanija.
  • In the same episode, the fake sorority that Eleanor and her mother (who turns out to have faked her death) both supposedly went to is called "Kappa Zeta Jones." Additionally, Tahani is apparently good friends with both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
• According to Word of God, the opening scene of "Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By" is an extended reference to the opening of Lost's Season 2 premiere "Man of Science, Man of Faith": A man the audience has never seen before (in this case, Doug Forcett) is shown waking up and putting on a song by Mama Cass while preparing for the day via shots of objects in his room.
• In "Chidi Sees the Time Knife", when Jason describes a friend of his who had to work three jobs to take care of all four of his grandparents, he then directly namedrops Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory when comparing his friend's situation to that film.

Season 4

• Courtesy of "You've Changed, Man":
  • Judge Gen mentions that she's a big fan of Justified, and her lust for Timothy Olyphant's character Raylan Givens is used to help stall for more time on behalf of the Soul Squad.
  • Disco Janet temporarily distracts Gen by having them dance to "Ring My Bell" by Anita Ward.
• In "Mondays, Am I Right?", Eleanor calls Oskar Schindler "that list guy".
  • Jason says that he and Janet might end up like the Montagues and the Capulets. Chidi is impressed and asks how he knows that.
  • Michael indirectly compares his situation in the afterlife to that of Sisyphus from Classical Mythology.
• After seeing the ridiculous get-up Michael is dressed in during "Patty" after the Good Place Committee tricks him into gaining ownership of the Good Place, Eleanor asks him "What, did the Sorting Hat place you in Hufflepuff?"
  • Also, the Good Place apparently has lollipops that make you understand the true meaning of Twin Peaks.
• The new desk used by Jeff the Doorman in "Whenever You're Ready" is virtually identical to the "swivel desk" featured in the Parks and Recreation episode "The Bubble".
  • invoked The Judge has been re-watching The Leftovers and almost wiped out 2% of humanity out of anger that Carrie Coon never scored a prestigious award nomination.
  • When the Judge shows up without her robes to tell Michael the Afterlife Council has been disbanded due to the new system working perfectly, she's wearing an East Dillon High T-shirt.
  • Eleanor and Chidi mention off-hand that William Shakespeare eventually gained access to the Good Place, and eventually went through the Final Door after his attempted sequels to the plays he wrote on Earth suffered from Sequelitis (with one specific sequel to The Tempest being entitled "The Tempest 2: Here We Blow Again").
  • Some of the items on Tahani's To-Do List includes "Perform "Il dolce suono" from Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala", "Beat NBA Jam on All-Star", "Write 'Tahani Al-Jamil's Borges's Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote'", "Truly Nail the Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes Rap from 'Waterfalls'", and "Finish Infinite Jest".

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