Inside Jokes on TV Shows

Cafe Society
#1

Tony Hale recently guest-starred on an episode of Up All Night. When he met Will Arnett’s character, he said, “What’s up, my brother?” – a reference to the fact that the two men played brothers on Arrested Development.

Similarly, Alicia Silverstone recently appeared on several episodes of Suburgatory. When Jeremy Sisto first meets her, he says he’s “clueless” about ordering smoothies while a Cranberries song plays in the background. Both of these are allusions to Clueless, which starred both Sisto and Silverstone.

Does anyone know other inside jokes like these? I know Arrested Development and 30 Rock indulged in them all the time, but I’m looking for other examples. I don’t mean jokes like Pixar’s A113, but rather gags that are specific to the actors or the situation.

There doesn’t seem to be a section for this on TV Tropes, but if I missed it, please let me know.

#2

When Dan Castellaneta guested on Veronia Mars, he muttered a “D’oh!” when he walked away from a team of students who had given an incorrect answer.

#3

On a first season ep of Justified, a character asked Raylan if he liked westerns. Drawled Olyphant, “Used to.”

Anti: When Maureen Lockhart guest-starred on B5, they completely avoided having her encounter Bill Mumy’s character.

#4

Castle has Nathan Filion dress as Mal Reynolds from Firefly for a costume party, though he called it a “space cowboy” costume.

Doctor Who had an episode, “Remembrance of the Daleks,” which was set a the time Doctor Who was first broadcast. In one scene, they show BBC-TV about to introduce the first episode of Doctor Who

#5

I remember. She played June Robinson on an earlier series with Mumy.

#6

I think you’re looking for Shout Out; my favorite is Richard Dean Anderson being told they’ve managed to MacGyver a solution on STARGATE, but Tom Wopat needing to slide through the window of a Dodge Charger on SMALLVILLE comes pretty close.

#7

Actor allusion would also apply.

#8

In Hamlet, Hamlet asks Polonius, when they’re talking about Polonius’ acting past, who he had played.

Polonius replies that he did enact Caesar. He was killed in the senate. Then he adds, “Brutus killed me.”

Richard Burbage would have certainly played both Hamlet and Brutus, and it’s pretty clear that whoever played Polonius was also Caesar in Shakespeare’s earlier play.

OK, I’ll play by the rules. When Robin Williams guest starred on Happy Days (the spinoff episode that launched Mork and Mindy), Mork watches The Andy Griffith Show on tee-vee. Mork wonders aloud about Opie - “Why would an earth boy have a Martian name?”

Oh, when Jay Leno guest-starred on Baywatch, in one scene he’s explaining to a puzzled David Hasselhoff about a show where “the car could talk to him.”

#9

On The Simpsons, they’ve referenced the voices of Sideshow Bob and his brother Cecil (and their father) to the Cranes on Frasier many times.

#10

I’m assuming this is a subtle joke LiS fans will appreciate? :dubious:

#11

John Lithgow on Third Rock from the Sun: “The same thing happened to meeeeeeee!”

If you don’t get it, the Big Giant Head showed up, played by William Shatner. He apologized for being late, saying there was a man on the wing of his airplane. Shatner was in the classic Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”. Lithgow starred in the segment of the Twilight Zone movie that remade that episode.

#12

On a recent episode of “Raising Hope”, when the family is visiting Hollywood, wacky mother Martha Plimpton (of “The Goonies”) is talking about how fleeting fame is and says, (words to the effect), “One day you can be starring in a Steven Spielberg movie and the next you’re playing a wacky mother in a sit com.”

#13

Not just that one - the show is filled with Firefly nods:

“Two by two, hands of blue” - Castle makes the gesture while wearing blue medical gloves

“You’ve never heard of Serenity?” - Long pause and a slow head turn

[Castle rattles of a long burst of Mandarin] “Semester abroad?” “No, just a show I used to love.”

In a nod to the supporting cast, one Halloween show had Ryan and Esposito dressed as a doctor and a soldier, since the actors were previously on General Hospital and Generation Kill.

#14

June Lockhart played Billy Mumy’s mother in Lost in Space.

#15

And her name was Maureen Robinson!

#16

One of the best lines ever on Frasier was when his ex-wife “Nanny G” said plaintively “Do you have any idea what it’s like to play the same character for twenty years?!” :frowning:

#17

On Rosanne when they switched actors for the older daughter there was a line like “We sent our daughter of to school and when she came we didn’t even recognize her”.

Also, the Arquette credits on Friends.

#18

Speaking of Firefly, Adam Baldwin was part of the cast of the hardly -seen -by -anybody -but -me procedural The Inside.

In one of the scenes he’s talking to a colleague: “So what did you do this weekend”- he says.
“Oh, we went to the movies.”
“Anything good”
“Nah, a western space opera”

Adam Baldin tries to contain a smile. Obviously the Serenity movie was playing in theaters at the time. Baldwin’s “you got me” reaction makes me believe that it was all an unrehearsed moment.

#19

On the first episode of “Raising Hope” a tv in the background is showing a news segment talking about a guy who made a list to right his past wrongs “and you’ll never believe how it ended” at which point the tv stops. A reference to “My Name Is Earl” which didn’t get a proper ending.

#20

Reminds me of the line in Poldark when the new Dr Ennis is reunited with his fiancee after being held for months in a French POW camp: “You don’t understand, Caroline. I … I’m not the same man who went away!”

I kept waiting for her to say “No, by Jove, I don’t think you are!” :dubious: