Small Reference Pools / Western Animation

Tiny Reference Pools of Western Animation

• All Animation Is Disney, naturally. Concerned entirely with the adventures of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck, Goofy, Pluto the Pup, Scrooge McDuck and his nephews. Sometimes Jiminy Cricket and Tinker Bell, too. Chip 'n Dale ^note the names are a reference to the furniture designer, not the male strippers are more widely known since 1990 than they were previously, thanks mostly to Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. And, uh, wasn't there a horse ^note Horace Horsecollar? And a cow ^note Clarabelle?
  • Among those from generations Z (or at least the younger members of it) and Alpha, the classic Disney characters are far more associated with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse than anything else. Even the cow mentioned above is less obscure with her recurring role in said series.
• And if a cartoon is referenced, its style will be more typical of the Looney Tunes and Tex Avery cartoons.
  • Looney Tunes characters: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, the Tasmanian Devil, Marvin the Martian, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Maybe Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé Le Pew, Granny, and Speedy Gonzales. Anyone who can name a character other than that needs to get out more.
  • To millennials, the series would be more associated with Space Jam than the original shorts. Generation Z audiences who didn't see the reruns on Cartoon Network or The Looney Tunes Show likely just thinks of them as "the characters they have at Six Flags".
• Hanna-Barbera:
  • Hanna-Barbera series: The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo...That's pretty much it. Few will remember that Hanna-Barbera did Tom and Jerry and The Smurfs (1981), or live-action stuff like KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park.
  • Scooby-Doo is always Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and The Scooby-Doo Show (the latter for the popularity of its monsters/as a continuation of the original series). Maybe also The New Scooby-Doo Movies, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, and "whatever Scrappy was in." Anything else is unknown (Get A Clue? Mystery, Incorporated? What's New, Scooby-Doo? There were live-action movies?) unless they watched those incarnations as kids.
  • The Flintstones always has the "Meet the Flintstones" theme song, and assumed to be the original series or versions with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm present (and as toddlers).
  • The Jetsons is always the original 1960s episodes. Maybe a vague reference to Orbitty from the 1980s revival, plus the movie The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones.
  • Yogi Bear is always the original 1950s/1960s episodes. Maybe vague memories of Yogi's Treasure Hunt or the 1964 and 2010 theatrical films. Any other versions (the 1980s revival, Yogi's Space Race, etc.) will get blank stares.
  • A good portion of people may be able to recall The Huckleberry Hound Show, Top Cat, Jonny Quest, Magilla Gorilla, Josie and the Pussycats, Quick Draw McGraw, Hong Kong Phooey, and Wacky Races, but not all. The rest is pretty much nonexistent. Ask someone in public about Snooper and Blabber and see what kind of reaction you get.
• A short list of legendary animators whose mention will get you only a blank stare: Ralph Bakshi, David Silverman, Will Vinton, Richard Williams.
• Famous characters: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry.
• If Nickelodeon is mentioned, the show most likely referenced will be SpongeBob SquarePants, and, if they're on the ball, The Fairly OddParents!, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Rugrats, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, or The Ren & Stimpy Show, along with maybe The Loud House, Danny Phantom or Invader Zim as well. If a reference is made to a Nick Jr. show, it will probably be Dora the Explorer, its spinoff Go, Diego, Go!, PAW Patrol^note Which is actually an imported Canadian series from TVO., or Blue's Clues.
• Cartoon Network is only known within the mainstream for Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, Couragethe Cowardly Dog, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Fosters Homefor Imaginary Friends, The Grim Adventuresof Billyand Mandy, and Codename: Kids Next Door. As for modern shows, Ben 10, Adventure Time, Regular Show, The Amazing World of Gumball, and Steven Universe are the only ones that exist.
• With Disney Television Animation, the only shows ever brought up by most people are Kim Possible, Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls, DuckTales (usually the original for older folks and the reboot for younger ones), Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles, Recess, Amphibia, and The Owl House. Disney Junior wise, your best bets are probably Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Doc Mcstuffins, and Sofia the First. Maybe PJ Masks^note a French cartoon distributed by Entertainment One and Bluey^note an Australian cartoon produced by Ludo Studio and The ABC and distributed by The BBC if you only associate them as Disney series.
• [adult swim]: As far as their original programs go, the block is more likely to be associated with Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, and/or Rick and Morty than anything else.
• PBS Kids - Arthur, The Magic School Bus, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Caillou, Curious George, and possibly Dragon Tales are the only cartoons that get brought up by most people, as their live-action programming come to mind more.
• The Simpsons: Ah, the all American yellow family.
• South Park: All animation for adults is South Park, not to mention gross…
• Rick and Morty and Futurama are the only science fiction comedy cartoons.
• The Disney Animated Canon is the only thing in Western Animation that has artistic merits. The only other animated features with any kind of artistic merit are Anime.
• If it's a Canadian cartoon, it's either Ed, Edd n Eddy, Johnny Test, Total Drama, 6teen, or one of Nelvana's preschool shows like Franklin or Little Bear (with most completely ignoring the fact that Nelvana also makes shows for older kids, such as Detentionaire or the aforementioned 6teen, and has even made cartoons for adults such as Clone High); My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic might get mentioned too, and maybe ReBoot if you're really lucky. Ironically, the first two (and MLP:FIM) are co-productions with the United States, and several other shows mentioned above are Canadian productions (like Caillou and PAW Patrol) or also Canadian-American (like Arthur and Dragon Tales). Due to the infamy of Johnny Test though, these Small Reference Pools also typically assume all other Canadian animated shows have the same kind of perceived low production/entertainment quality the show's vocal hatedom views it as having.
• With Australian cartoons, it’s Bluey, maybe The Koala Brothers^note Which is actually an Aussie-UK co-production. and pretty much nothing else.
• The only channels that air animated shows are Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Disney Channel (as well as their respective spinoff channels, like [adult swim] or Disney XD). Oh, and Fox, since The Simpsons and Family Guy exist, not to mention Comedy Central for South Park. The Hub might get mentioned too for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Every country only has international variants of these channels. Except Canada, which only has Teletoon and YTV (even though actual Canadian versions of their American counterparts have existed for over a decade there); Family Channel, CBC Kids, Treehouse TV? What are those?^note And due to the above-mentioned infamy of certain Canadian productions, don’t expect any mention of the Canadian channels to be positive.
• Strawberry Shortcake is always the original 80s specials or the DIC Entertainment series from the 2000s.
• The only Spanish cartoons are The World of David the Gnome, Around the World with Willy Fog, Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, Pocoyo and Jelly Jamm^note The latter 2 of which are actually Spanish-British
• French cartoons known to people outside of France: Miraculous Ladybug, Code Lyoko, Totally Spies!, Oggy and the Cockroaches, The Adventures of Tintin (1991), and maybe Wakfu. Madeline will also get lumped in just because it takes place in France, even though the cartoon is actually Canadian. W.I.T.C.H. may get a mention, even though its a French-American co-production (with the writing done in the US and the pre-lay recording being done in English). The only reason why anyone outside of France knows about Kaeloo is because of it being everywhere on this very wiki. British people may also name The Magic Roundabout, although it's arguably better associated with the UK.
• The only Italian-made animated productions are Winx Club and that Titanic movie with the rapping dog.
• All British cartoons (known to those outside of the UK) are for preschoolers or animated in stop motion: Thomas & Friends^note Thomas was not actually stop motion, but filmed with model trains, Bob the Builder, Postman Pat, Fireman Sam, Pingu^note Though the show was created in Switzerland, the later seasons were made in the UK, Peppa Pig (and by extension, Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom), The Octonauts. Horrid Henry and maybe Danger Mouse as examples of a show for all ages, as well as Hilda if you associate it as a British series, since it is a co-production with Canada. The Amazing World of Gumball was produced in the UK, but very few people know this fact, so it may not be mentioned when the topic of British cartoons comes up.
  • The only Welsh cartoons are the aformentioned Fireman Sam and SuperTed.
• The only Irish-made animated productions are the works of Cartoon Saloon.
• The only animated productions ever made in Germany were the works of Dingo Pictures and Felidae; mention Bibi Blocksberg, Benjamin Blumchen or Unser Sandmännchen to somebody from outside Germany and expect to receive a blank stare. Simsala Grimm may get a very rare mention as well. Even in Germany itself, this trope is in play — modern generations assume the East German version of Sandmannchen (the aforementioned Unser Sandmännchen) was the only one made, the West German version (Das Sandmännchen) is pretty much forgotten unless you grew up in West Germany in the Cold War era.
• The only Belgium cartoons are The Smurfs (both the 1981 and 2021 incarnations and the Studio 100 remakes of Maya the Bee' and Heidi.
• Danish Animation = Anything based on Lego (although most Lego shows are actually American).
• The only Latin American cartoons are Doki ^note The character originated in Latin America, but the TV Series was made in Canada, El Chavo Animado, Villainous (Cartoon Network), Jorel's Brother, and Monica's Gang.
• The only Finnish cartoons are the addaptions of The Moomins (the most famous adaption of which was actually Japanese).
• The only Swiss cartoon is Pingu.
• If it's a Western Magical Girl cartoon, it's either Winx Club or W.I.T.C.H.; and maybe Mysticons or LoliRock as well, along with an extremely rare mention of Angel's Friends.

Notable exceptions and aversions of this trope from Western Animation shows

• Archer has continuous references that often require a good Wikipedia search just to decipher. In the first season Archer references Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" in a pretty accurate way.
• Family Guy, lowbrow show that it is, occasionally allows Brian and/or Stewie to show their considerable knowledge of the arts - Brian was once enraptured by an old woman's rendition of "Habanera" and Lois deplored Peter's jazzed-up version of The King and I. It's perhaps the only show where you can hear the characters talking about Matisse, then hear a fart joke.
  • Lampshaded when Peter makes a remark about Benjamin Disraeli, and we cut to a cartoon version of Disraeli writing for several seconds before turning to the audience and saying "You don't even know who I am!"
  • Further lampshaded when Peter says that Kathy Ireland has betrayed him "worse than Lady Macbeth betrayed Duncan" - cut to a bear fighting Lady Macbeth on a spaceship - Peter says "I uh, I don't know Shakespeare very well."
  • Or how about single-handedly making "Shipoopi" from The Music Man into a viral YouTube sensation... thanks to an excessive touchdown celebration?
  • "Tales of a Third Grade Nothing"
    Frank Sinatra Jr.: Hey, you girls thirsty? Could I interest you in a couple of Rob Roys?
    Woman: What's a Rob Roy?
    Frank Sinatra Jr.: Only the drink of Mr. Peter Lawford.
    Woman: Who's Peter Lawford?^note In fairness, he IS the member of the Rat Pack most likely to be listed as "... and that other guy, what was his name ..."
    Frank Sinatra Jr.: What, am I hitting on Lou Costello here?
    Woman: Who's Lou Costello?
  • The episode that had Chris working in a video store had him tell his coworker about a number of fairly obscure (but real) films that Chris remembers only because they had female nudity in them.
  • Bottom line, for all the references to huge pop culture phenomena like Star Wars that the show makes, it makes almost as many references to stuff that only a small portion of the audience would be familiar with, be it a forgotten old jazz musician or an obscure kids cartoon from the seventies.
• In Anastasia, the characters attend a ballet; the performance is Prokofiev's Cinderella. This was a good choice on the part of the writers—even if only a few audience members were familiar with Prokofiev's ballets, it was immediately obvious from the costumes and props what the story was. Also notable is that the act's closing scene parallels Anya and Dimitri's relationship at that point; such an effect is not as easy to pull off when this trope is played straight.
• The 80s children's stop-motion series Moschops had a variety of saurians, from Allosaurus to Icthyosaur. None of them ate each other, though Uncle Rex was a bit fierce.
  • And the main character was a Moschops? That is not a reptile anyone will have ever heard of without purposely doing the research.
• In The Simpsons, Lisa has previously mentioned the likes of Gore Vidal and Pablo Neruda.
  Lisa: Bart, Pablo Neruda said, "Laughter is the language of the soul."
  Bart: (irritably) I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.
  • One episode has Mr. Burns joking that the power plant's profit margins are "thinner than Louise Brooks' negligee". When Homer fails to respond, Burns is compelled to explain the reference. This is done, though, to show how much Burns is out of touch with recent pop culture.
• Futurama gets a lot of humor from Fry's 20th century background, so a lot of the jokes aren't exactly obscure. But many of them are much more subtle and academic. Examples include Klein Beer (guess what the bottle looked like) being sold in a store advertising free bags of ice-9 and the holophonor, a recurring plot device based on the Visi-Sonor from the Foundation series (extra points for being possibly the only Foundation reference in mainstream pop culture ever). Also made jokes about orders of infinity (a cinema called aleph-0-plex, likely meant to one up "The Googlplex" cinema in The Simpsons) and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle's "observer effect" (scientists change the result of a horse race by observing it).
  • More Genius Bonus: Bender advertises his computerized dating service as discreet and discrete. In one episode a closet contains two boxes, P and NP, and a robot planet named Chapek 9.
  • In the commentary on one of the movie DVDs, they talk about one of their favorite gags was to throw in as many obscure mathematical references as they could.
• Most if not all episodes of Animaniacs. One of the few shows designed to appeal to small children, big children, astronomy professors, professional historians, and so on. The checkable facts were well researched, much better than network or cable news shows for example, except where obvious humour was intended - and sometimes even then.
• Darkwing Duck managed to work in references to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. It also has a villain named Taurus Bullba, a gag on Taras Bulba, a fictional Ukrainian folk hero and film starring Yul Brynner ^note And the Nikolay Gogol novel, for crying out loud!.
  • How about the engines on the air pirates' ship in TaleSpin being modeled on the one from Master of the World starring Vincent Price? Or Sea-Duck using a version of the WWII-era overdrive system known as "war emergency power", in the multi-part pilot (Baloo burns it out, so they can have a cool scene without keeping around a potential story-breaker)?
  • Many of the episodes of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers are named after Golden Age films that children wouldn't be aware of, and often contain some Parental Bonuses that may go over the head of a few adults. One particular episode was full of obscure references, including a possible cameo by a young Franz Kafka (or an Expy) and a reference to Ronald Reagan's autobiography.
• Robot Chicken has so many pop-cultural references that it is bound to have at least a few obscure ones. It lampshaded a reference to Sleepaway Camp, followed by a person being shocked that someone actually remembered it to make a reference. It also featured an extended parody of Parappa The Rapper.
• The Tick features a character named "Die Fledermaus," a Batman pastiche dressed like a bat. The name doesn't make a lot of sense until you realize that it is German for "the Bat" and the name of a popular German operetta. Consequently, unless you speak German you need a working knowledge of light opera. And honestly, who can name a light opera not made by Gilbert and Sullivan? Not many, that's who.
  • The Batman 1960's TV series actually used a reference to Batman being called "Die Fledermaus-mensch" and helpfully explained what it meant, so no, you don't need to speak German or know opera to understand it.
  • Handy: "Even now, [the Tick] sulks like Achilles in his tent." [blank looks from everybody] "Achilles? The Iliad? It's Homer! READ a BOOK!"
• ReBoot is naturally filled with references to computer technologies, many of them antique when the episodes were made.
  Enzo * complaining about going to ancient language class instead of hanging out with Bob* :"COBOL? FORTRAN? They're dinosaurs!
• Although Daria, being an MTV show, kept a fair handle on pop culture jokes in general, the eponymous protagonist had a great habit of referencing obscure, deep, and intelligent literature in relation to her present circumstances, most of which went right over audiences' heads.
• Recess sneaks in a reference to The Dark is Rising by having Mikey mention a "Great Uncle Merry", who the characters in "Over Sea, Under Stone" visit.
• In an episode of Phineas and Ferb, Baljeet imagines himself as "Hanumanman", a superhero modelled after the Hindu monkey god Hanuman, who plays a major role in the Indian epic poem Ramayana. Hanuman is well known in India, but how many Western viewers had ever heard of him before?
  • If you saw the Sesame Street special in which Big Bird visits China, you'd recognize Hanuman as the Indian version of the Chinese "Monkey King."
• The Ren & Stimpy Show features plenty of classical musical cues, some of which are not very well-known, like Chopin's "Ballad in F-Minor Op. 52", or Josef Suk's "Asrael" symphony, or Claude Debussy's "Canope", or Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Francesca da Rimini".
• Definitely The Venture Bros. One major character is the Phantom Limb, who is named after a medical condition, dresses like The Phantom, and is a descendant of Fantômas. Who was a member of a Guild with Eugen Sandow, Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley, and Nikola Tesla. And who went on to recruit Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper, preventing them from getting on the doomed flight that killed them in real life. And the guild is now run by David Bowie and Brian Eno, and used to also include Iggy Pop and Klaus Nomi. And all that barely scratches the surface.
  • According to director commentary, the show frequently goes into this so hard that the writers have had to tone it down: the aforementioned Guild was, in earlier drafts, going to feature the Goncourt brothers, Sar Peladin, and Rudolf Steiner. Jackson Publick pointed out that most audiences would be lucky to recognize even one of those names, much less enough of them to understand the intended "alliance of the era's greatest geniuses" connotation.
  • In one episode Henchman #21 wants to say "Sic semper tyrannis," (translation: Thus always to tyrants) which is what Abraham Lincoln's assassin was alleged to have said. He actually says "Semper fidelis tyrannosaurus," (mixing the Marine Corps famous slogan "Always Faithful" with the dinosaur name, to produce "always faithful terrible lizard") but Killinger does tell him what the right quote was. 21 actually thinks the bad translation sounds pretty cool.
  • In another episode, we get a lampshading of the trope when Phantom Limb tries to sell a stolen Rembrandt to a dumb sounding mobster. He claims he wants the Mona Lisa, which causes Limb to frustratedly remark that just because a painting is better known, that doesn't make it better.
• Minor example, played mostly due to Rule of Funny. An episode of Duck Dodgers features a short appearance of a group of people referred to as the Presidents of the United States, consisting of the four LEAST known US presidents. Dodgers' reaction is understandable.
• The Critic is largely an Unintentional Period Piece for The '90s, but worked in a lot of parodies of/references to older films, largely to contrast Jay's ideals to the Lowest Common Denominator fare he was stuck reviewing. For instance...
  • He wasn't too happy to find that The Red Balloon 2: Revenge of the Balloon was an Actionized Sequel to a beloved French short film.
  • The formal name he gave a stray puppy he briefly housed? Un Chien Andalou.
  • Bill Cosby stars in a Rebel Without a Cause remake and suggests that his opponent in a knife fight swap out his weapon for a spoon to eat delicious Jell-O Pudding.
  • A less-idealistic critic takes a bribe in exchange for the rave "This movie makes Hud look like C.H.U.D., and I loved C.H.U.D.!"
• The Secret Saturdays: Rather than the usual Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, the show features numerous cryptids that only a cryptozoologist could recognize (Hibagon and Orang-pendek anyone?).
• Played for Laughs in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) where Michaelangelo only thinks of the past in terms of the last 100 years (specifically thinks the middle ages are the 1980's and the Stone Age was the 60's) and when finding himself in an alternate dimension thinks he's in Pittsburgh.

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