“Married With Children” At one point the family goes to the video store and a poster advertising “Dutch” starring Ed O’Neill is highlighted. Same show, different episode: after the dreadful season where the Bundy family took in the boy Seven as one of their own, the producers obviously realized that the character didn’t belong. In one of the episodes the following season, Bud has a milk carton out and the camera zooms in to show Seven’s picture as a missing child. No other reference was made to him.
In the movie “Urban Legend” Joshua Jackson (aka Pacey from “Dawson’s Creek”) gets in his car and starts the ignition. Apparently the radio had been left on and we hear the opening bars of the singer belting out “I don’t wanna’ wait–” prompting Jackson to roll his eyes skyward and change the station.
One episode of “The Lucy Show” has Lucille Ball ask a man a question. He turns around and it turns out be William Frawley (Fred Mertz from “I Love Lucy”). Frawley walks away and Lucy looks after him rather puzzled and says to Mary Jane “That man reminds me a lot of someone I used to know.”
“Beverly Hillbillies” Jed and Granny are discussing the possibility of signing Jethro up for ballroom dance lessons. Jed tells Granny that he used to be quite the dancer back in his day, and he does a little tap dance and asks Granny what she thinks. Granny sighs and says “Well ONE thing’s fer sure; you’re NO Buddy Ebsen.” Jed gives her a baffled look and says: “WHO?”
“227” Sherman Hemsley walks in the apartment and sees Marla Gibbs vacuuming and automatically assumes that she must be the maid.
Penny: How do girls usually break up with you?
Leonard: They usually say something like 'You’re a nice guy, but I want to see how things go with Mark."
Leonard is played by Johnny Galecki, who played nerd David with cool older brother named Mark on Roseanne.
Also on 30 Rock: Alan Alda guest-starred as Jack Donaghy’s biological father. He makes a joke about Tracy Jordan “crying about a chicken and a baby”, which is a reference to one of his scenes in the last episode of MAS*H.
Similarly, the Aaron Sorkin show Sports Night was about a fictional cable sports show called…wait for it…Sports Night. Both the real show and the fictional show were not getting a lot of love from the network (ABC in real life, CSC in the show). When the fictional show is in danger of cancellation, a mysterious buyer comes in and saves the show saying, “Anybody who can’t make money off of Sports Night, should get out of the money-making business.”
Summer of 1990: Roseanne Barr sets off a national firestorm when she butchers the National Anthem before a baseball game.
A couple months later, the season premiere of Roseanne airs. As I recall, the very first scene has Roseanne entering the kitchen and saying, “It’s such a beautiful morning I feel like singing!”
On Sons of Anarchy there was a scene where Jax asked Luanne to meet him in a warehouse. She gets there and it’s all empty and she starts freaking out thinking that Jax is going to whack her - Jax says “You thought I asked you here to Adrianna you?!”
It’s funny because the actress who played Adrianna (who got whacked) on the Sopranos - Drea de Matteo - plays Wendy on Sons of Anarchy. Only someone who has watched both those shows would get that reference.
I have NO idea why this one didn’t occur to me earlier. It’s the prize in-joke of recent dramas, IMHO, as dramas usually steer clear of such japes. Deadly setup and delivery, though.
Another Spin City one – on Michael J. Fox’s last episode, the idea was that his character was leaving to take some kind of job in Washington. At the end of the episode, he’s writing a letter or something in which he’s talking about his new job is going. He mentions that he’s running into trouble dealing with a junior Republican congressman from Ohio, named Alex P. Keaton.
(Alex P. Keaton was the character Fox played in Family Ties, who was famously a Republican. Family Ties was set in Ohio.)
There have been so many references to The Simpsons on Family Guy, it’s impossible to list them all here. One I had to explain to my daughter, though, was why Stewie was doing a commercial for a candy bar:
“Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger! D’oh!”
The joke, of course, was that one of the first Simpson “spinoffs” back in '89–'90 was Bart doing the same commercial. The “D’oh!” was a nice little added touch.
Three more from 3rd Rock (thought the Big Giant Head one is the absolute best):
Mary & Dick go to a scifi convention and pass a couple dressed up as Coneheads. Mary laughs and says “What some people won’t do.” Mary is played by Jane Curtain, one of SNL’s original Coneheads.
When Dick finds out Mary goes to a “women only” reading group, he dresses up as a woman to see what goes on there. John Lithgow, who plays Dick, played transsexual Roberta Muldoon in the Garp movie.
Tommy forms a rock group and is practicing in the garage when Dick comes in, stands behind a large speaker and starts ranting and raving about the evils of rock music…using the same speech and gestures as he did as Reverend Shaw Moore, behind the pulpit, in Footloose
Not positive this qualifies as an answer to the OP, but on a recent NCIS rerun, Ziva says her picture of American college life came from* Animal Farm*. Tim says, “Orwell?” She says, “No, the John Belushi film.” Tim says, “That was Animal HOUSE.”
The team screws up and gets in hot water with Leon, and much later in the episode, Abby asks someone in passing, “Are Tony and McGee still on double-secret probation?”
Which, of course, is what happened to Delta House. Makes me wonder if I missed other Animal House references in the episode. No worries-- it will be around again very soon, I’m sure.
Frasier asks Niles to fill in for him for a week on his radio show. Niles says:
“Me standing in for you? I’m sorry, Frasier. I couldn’t presume to fill those big floppy red shoes of yours.”
The joke, of course, is that not only is he belittling Frasier’s role as a pop psychiatrist, he’s referencing Frasier’s character of Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons (on which he also plays Bob’s younger brother, Cecil).
St. Elsewhere was full of these inside jokes. My favorite was a scene with Dr. Mark Craig and his wife. Craig was played by William Daniels, and was a surgeon. He’d broken some bones in his hand when, in a snit fit he rammed it into a wall.
So he travels to Philadelphia to visit a surgeon friend who specializes in hand work. As he’s walking along his wife asks, “Mark, why did we have to come to Philadelphia in the summer? It’s too damned hot.” He replies by starting to sing “It’s hot as Hell in Philadel…phia!”
The actor William Daniels also played John Adam in the musical 1776 and that song Dr. Craig was singing is out of the musical
and the Simpsons is full of inside jokes, both site and dialog, to itself as well as making jokes about the media (movie, tv) they are spoofing/inspired by or to the other roles of the guest stars.
in the Simpsons episode The Brother from Another Series
Sideshow Bob, “Mother had hopes of us becoming prominent psychologists, you know.”
I remember one where Craig and his wife had just finished getting it on, leaving him proudly satisfied (and his wife less so). He reaches for the TV remote control and says:
“Let’s see who’s on Carson tonight. Probably some stupid comic…” [Turns on bedroom TV set, frowns] “What’s that he’s wearing? A giant hand?!?”
The comic (whose routine you can clearly hear coming from the set) is Howie Mandel, who played Dr Wayne Fiscus on St Elsewhere. (As soon as Craig mentioned Carson, I knew what was coming!)
Not really an inside joke. He just played the character from his version. I suppose it is kind of inside for folks that don’t realize who David Brent is.
From the “Dick van Dyke” episode “The Man From Emperor”: The voice of Sam, Drew’s receptionist who announces Rob’s arrival over the intercom, was supplied by Mary Tyler Moore. On the series ‘Richard Diamond, Private Detective’, MTM played Sam, the answering service operator, whose full face was never seen.
