Danny Glover had a cameo role in Maverick (the Mel Gibson Western) as a bank robber. As he was escaping, he said “I’m getting too old for this shit,” followed by a quick saxophone riff a la David Sanborn – a homage to his catch-phrase from Lethal Weapon, where Gibson and Glover played mismatched buddy cops.
Leslie Nielson in Airplane!: “I just wanted to tell you both good luck. We’re all counting on you.”
Leslie Nielson in Scary Movie 3: “I just wanted to tell you both good luck. We’re all counting on you.”
Not strict references, but interesting…
In The Hunt for Red October, Sam Neill’s character talks about how when he gets to America he wants to live in Montana, and when he’s shot his dying words are “I would have liked to have seen Montana.” At the beginning of Jurassic Park, his character is at a fossil dig in Montana.
In Blazing Saddles, Gene Wilder laments how his reputation as a gunfighter led everyone to want to test his mettle against him, until he was challenged to draw by a young boy. Three years earlier, in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, when he first meets Mike Teevee, Mike is dressed in a cowboy outfit and draws on him.
In some of his travel series for the BBC, Michael Palin has made references back to the Monty Python days, and to his characters in particular. In Africa, he explained why Rhodesia’s called “Rhodesia”; and at a lumberjack competition in British Columbia, he mentions that he hoped they wouldn’t hold that song against him.
At the end of The Royal Tenebaums, Owen Wilson (playing Eli) is twirling a lassoo and says, off-hand, “wind’s blowin’ up a gale today.” At the beginning of Behind Enemy Lines, Owen Wilson (playing Lt. Burnett) makes a bet with others on the air craft carrier as to whether he can catch a football launched off the front of the boat, and says, again, “wind’s blowin’ up a gale.”
IIRC, in the commentary to The Royal Tenenbaums Wes Anderson remarks that these were both unscripted additions inserted by Wilson as an inside joke.
I think this was one of the April Fools’ episodes, actually, where things are intentionally made wrong as part of a contest. Part of this scene was changed in syndication- the original airing had Drew working in a plug for when the movie was on. In syndication, this was changed to Drew explaining to his friends that after the movie was filmed, he kept following Drew around and calling him “Gepetto,” not realizing it was a movie. (I think this was also the April Fools’ episode in which Lewis grabbed an ABC logo and placed it in the bottom corner of the screen. In syndication, the ABC logo is replaced with a balloon for obvious reasons, which ruins the joke.)
In Platoon, Barnes says to John C. McGinley’s character “O’Neal. Tag 'em and bag 'em.” McGinley’s character uses the same phrase in Shakedown.
More John Lithgow: On the 3rd Rock when Tommy started a rock and roll band, Dick stood in front of a speaker and delivered the exact same sermon against rock and roll as Reverend Shaw Moore did in * Footloose*.
He also said it to the doctor in Twins. “If you’re lying to me…I’ll be back.”
Val Kilmer frequently twirls a coin between his fingers in his movies.
Speaking of Bruce Willis, he has mentioned “reindeer goat cheese pizza” in at least two movies, neither of which I can remember right now…
And of course there was the scene in Hot Shots Part Deux where Charlie Sheen’s boat passes Martin Sheen’s boat, still apparently stuck in Apocalypse Now. They look at each other and say in unison “I loved you in Wall Street!”