- In Paramount+' "Mountain of Entertainment" entry "Storm", Number One spots storm clouds rolling in followed by a large bucket of water with the phrase "Flashdance Prop Dept.", leading Spock to groan "Not this again" as various other stars such as a NFL player and Bumblebee perform the dousing scene. The bucket ends up landing on Kenny, killing him, prompting Tim McGraw to ride by and bemoan "Oh, no. They killed Kenny. Bastards."
- In episode 25 of Jewelpet Sunshine, there is a scene showing Garnet working multiple jobs and then impressing the judges at an audition with an elaborate dance that is an almost perfect recreation of the dousing scene in Flashdance, complete with water being poured on Garnet.
- The film's iconic dousing scene is given a visual reference via Chika Fujiwara during Episode 10 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War while she was in an argument with Kaguya over how the Soran Bushi dance should be performed.
- Elvira, Mistress of the Dark directly references the film's Signature Scene, when Elvira does a dance number during the live film screening she's hosting and riffing. She drops back onto her couch and pulls a chain, intending to replicate the famous dousing...only to discover her rival had replaced the water with tar, leading to her getting tarred and feathered instead.
- Gremlins (1984): Parodied in the bar scene, where a Gremlin dressed like Alex starts dancing on the floor, set to the song "Mega Madness, Super Badness", which was also composed by Michael Sembello.
- Dogtooth: When the two daughters dance for their parents, one of them recreates Alex's climactic audition dance.
- In The Full Monty, the unemployed welders watch Flashdance to learn what they can about sexy dancing, but can’t help remark on how poor Alex’s welding is.
- In a promotional poster for Deadpool 2, Deadpool himself replicates the famous chair scene, but bullets rain down on him rather than water.
- In Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, Paige asks Gabe if he has "Flashdance" on his iPod. She finds it in a folder called '80s Crap. She plays the song and does the dance, which she learned so she can use it when they club.
- A trailer for the third season of Dance Moms, titled "Maniac", features a number of references to the film. The ALDC girls are seen practicing dressed in black leotards like Alex, with wigs reminiscent of her curly hair, and the trailer ends with Abby seemingly re-enacting the dousing scene by leaning back in a chair and pulling a chain...only for the dance moms to get water dumped on them instead.
- Jimmy Kimmel Live!: In the parody trailer "Movie: The Movie
", Christoph Waltz replaces Jennifer Beals in a random reenactment of the chair scene, although he quotes a line from Dirty Dancing. - David Brent's infamous dance routine in The Office (UK) is described by the man himself as a fusion of Flashdance and "MC Hammer shit".
- MAD parodied the movie as Flashdunce in a single set of spoofs of 1983 movie hits (the others were Trading Races and Raunchy Business). A few years later, an article imagining X Meets Y versions of recent movies included Splashdance, with Madison the mermaid performing the Signature Scene as a leering Allen and Freddie look on. (The spoof title was actually recycled from the one used for the magazine's direct parody of Splash.)
Music
- Jennifer Lopez's song "I'm Glad" is entirely a homage to Flashdance, with the music video especially being a Shot-for-Shot Remake of some of the film's most iconic scenes.
- In one episode of The Critic, Jay tries to recount his cooler younger days to Marty via a Flashback in which he's dancing and singing to "Maniac" in a disco, only to embarrass himself and be turned down by a pretty clubgoer. Present-day Jay feels so bad afterward that he promptly escapes into delusion and an idealized version of the Flashback — in which he's doing acrobatic feats and moonwalking — and has no problem appealing to the clubgoer ensues.
- Fanboy and Chum Chum: In "Moppy Dearest", Fanboy parodies the famous dousing scene at the end of his and Chum Chum's dance number, albeit only a single drop of water falls on him instead of an entire deluge.
- The 1984 Peanuts special It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown lightly parodies this film and the breakdancing craze in general by having Snoopy's latest trend-jumping persona be inspired by them. In fact, the movie's dance double Marine Jahan was hired to provide the "performance model" for his big dance number.
- The Simpsons: In "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiali-(Annoyed Grunt)-cious", Groundskeeper Willie is introduced dancing and singing to "Maniac" while playing a One-Man Band before dousing himself with water.
