Take That / Animated Films

• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm: The movie features a fight between Batman and the Joker in a dilapidated park that strongly resembles a cross between EPCOT and Tomorrowland of Disney World. During the course of their fight, it is completely demolished, finishing off with the huge sphere burning to cinders as it falls to the ground, just before the entire place blows up. Word of God says that it was directly inspired by the World's Fair, as it tied in well with the show's art deco-inspired style. It looks like Epcot because Epcot itself was also inspired by the 1939 fair.
• The trailer to the late 1990s canceled All-CGI Cartoon film Blue Planet features one at Pixar. It starts with parodies of Buzz from Toy Story and Flik from A Bug's Life. They talk about how the film is a happy family friendly story before they both get graphically stomped on by the film's protagonist. It's complete with a South Park Shout-Out: "Oh my god, they killed Lenny! You bastard!"
• Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie lobs several towards the education system. Krupp blowing money from the arts department on a high tech door, Ms. Ribble ordering students to memorize dates without any sort of reasoning as to why they're even important, and Poopypants' line after he picks up the shrunken school as a giant:
  Poopypants: Look at all the tiny students and the tiny teachers whose tiny paychecks reflect their size and the value society puts on education!
• Cars 2 has a jab at at critics who say that the eyes on the cars should be on their headlights like most cartoons with anthropomorphic cars, not their windshields. Pixar has stated the reason why is because putting them on the windshield makes them look nice and appealing, while putting the eyes on their headlights (at least in CGI) looks off-putting and creepy.
  (Mater, Finn McMissile and Holly Shiftwell are all driving into a black market inside a Paris alleyway. Mater turns toward one of the stands there)
  Mater: Uh, excuse me. What'cha selling here? (The salescar running the stand for some reason has a transparent windshield and windows, as opposed to eyed windshields and opaque windows like everyone else. She turns toward Mater and opens her eyes, which are located on her headlights)
  Headlight Vendor: Headlights, monsieur. Headlights!
  Mater: (horrified) Er, what the-? Aargh! (he speeds off to find Finn and Holly)
  Headlight Vendor: Two francs one! I give you good lights!
  Mater: No, thanks!
• Despicable Me has a truly spectacular joke that presumably none of the kids in the audience will get, where Gru visits a bank for supervillains that's listed on its front door as "The Bank of Evil - Formerly Lehman Brothers".
  • Despicable Me 3 had an brutal one in the first five minutes. A baby clownfish is swimming up to his daddy, when the Minions’ sea-pod zooms past. The father clownfish is sucked up by a turbine, leaving only a fin as his son looks on in horror.
• In Dumbo, which was made during the infamous Disney Animators' Strike, there is a straw-man illustration of the striking employees represented by greedy clowns who want to try and ring the circus master for a raise. Not one of Uncle Walt's finest moments, but fortunately too lost on most audiences to be distracting.
• In one of the shorts leading up to Justice League: Gods and Monsters, we're introduced to an Ax-Crazy version of Harley Quinn in a ludicrously Stripperiffic outfit who ends up killed by the film's version of Batman. Bruce Timm admitted that this was done as a jab against the Adaptational Skimpiness she'd been hit with in New 52 and derivative works.
• In Shrek virtually everything in the movie is a giant Take That! to the Disney Corporation, right down to the main villain's facial features being a caricature of Michael Eisner's. His name sounds like "fuckwad," which is apparently the filmmakers' opinion on Eisner as well. Even the theme music that plays when they enter Lord Farquaad's castle is a parody of "It's A Small World After All".
• One of The Simpsons Movie trailers has a really big jab towards CGI-animated films.
• As Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse begins, the film states that it was approved by The Comics Code Authority, a Censorship Bureau that the Spider-Man franchise had famously humiliated in the 70s. Needless to say, much of the film's content would not pass CCA restrictions. ^note Including but not limited to: causing the audience to feel any sympathy toward a villain, having the villain brutally kill a hero, having the hero divorce his wife, and profanity.
  • As Peter Parker describes his life, with references to moments from each of the Sam Raimi movies being shown, he admits that he's not too proud of what is implied to be the infamous dancing scene in Spider-Man 3.
  • The well-known Spider-Man popsicles with gumball eyes gets a jab from this film in the form of Peter Parker calling it "so-so," accompanied by a Real Life photo of a rather deformed one.
  • While fighting with the Green Goblin, Spidey says that he doesn't want Brooklyn to be swallowed up by a black hole. If you listen closely, he says, "Staten Island, maybe, but not Brooklyn."
• In The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water, the characters' disturbed reaction to Sandy when she becomes a realistic-looking squirrel might be a shot at how live-action movies unintentionally make beloved cartoon characters look creepy when they're rendered in elaborate CG.
• Superman: Doomsday has Toyman attacking a bus full of children with a huge toy spider. When Superman takes him out a man comments "Like we really needed him to fight a giant mechanical spider!". The bystander looks and in fact was voiced by Kevin Smith, who had previously worked on a Superman script where the producer forced him to add a fight with a giant spider.
• Cody's opening interview in Surf's Up has him being asked if he has other talents than surfing, like singing and dancing.
• In The Swan Princess 3, Zelda mentions the names of three other works' villainesses during her Villain Song "Bad Days Ahead": "Move over, Medusa; Cruella, get lost; take a hike, Wicked Witch of the West!"
• Toy Story 2: "You can't rush art!" seems to be a stab against the rushed production of the film.
• Wreck-It Ralph takes an affectionate shot at the Mario franchise and the number of games that haven't been finished by their scheduled release date.
  Felix: I'll bet that's Mario! Fashionably late, per the norm.
  • In fact, not only does Mario never actually make it to the party, but he never even appears in the movie period. While this is because the writers simply couldn't think of a suitable way to incorporate them, it actually works to this joke's favor because it implies Mario was so late he missed his entire chance at a cameo.
• Dreamworks has done a lot of it onto Disney. (It's even in the name.)

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