Sometimes, shows will make a joke or a reference to something only people knowledgeable in a certain field will get. TV Tropes calls this, “Genius Bonus”.
What are such instances in shows?
Futurama has a bajillion of these for people knowledgeable in science, computers, sci-fi, etc. Bender’s brain has a 6502 on it (processor used in the 1977 Apple II computer), repeated uses of the number 1729, etc.
Lisa Simpson once noted that a joke written on Comic Book Guy’s shirt would only be understood by one person in a million, or, The Dennis Miller Ratio.
At the time, Dennis Miller was plenty popular and most people were aware of him. But if a teenager were to see that episode now, it’d be a twofer. They likely wouldn’t know Dennis Miller (or his style of comedy) and they almost certainly wouldn’t understand the joke. I don’t expect the average teen these days to have a working knowledge of DOS.
When William Shatner guest starred on Third Rock he arrived with a crazy story about being on a plane and seeing a gremlin on the wing. John Lithgow roared “You saw it too!!!” The joke being they played the same character on the Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet and the Twilight Zone: The Movie. If you didn’t know that, it was just a weird interaction between weird characters.
Nitpick: He said “The same thing happened to me!”
Thanks, I hate when I get details like that wrong.
On the TV program Community, someone says the name Beetlejuice once in one episode. A year later in another episode, someone says the name Beetlejuice again. Another year later in an episode, someone says the name Beetlejuice a third time. Behind the person saying that name during just that third time, barely visible through a window with some blinds in it, you can see the character Beetlejuice from the movie of that name walking by. This is a reference to the fact that in the movie Beetlejuice it’s stated that Beetlejuice appears whenever someone says that word three times.
In the Rick and Morty episode “Auto-Erotic Assimilation” - Rick is watching television with Unity, the avatar of the hive-mind controlling all of the aliens on the planet. What they are watching is the alien version of “Community” with characters clearly based on the the characters of that show (Dan Harmon created both programs) Community in Rick and Morty - YouTube
Speaking of jokes that probably age out of the population, on the Simpsons episode Deep Space Homer, Homer is in search of that favorite instant drink of astronauts, Tang. At some point he shouts “get President Clinton on the phone, he’ll know where to find some Tang!” Which for the right generations is obviously a play on Clinton’s sexual proclivities.
In a 1973 TV movie called Genesis II (produced and written by Gene Roddenberry), Mariette Hartley plays a mutant who has “a double circulatory system”, and two navels. This was Roddenberry’s reference to the original Star Trek, in which the network censors forbade the costumes to show a woman’s navel.
Would Howard Jarvis’ cameo in Airplane! count? Few people outside of California got the joke then, and almost nobody gets it now.
One for Doctor Who fans. In one episode during Jon Pertwee’s run it was stated that during the hunt for The Master they arrested a man who turned out to be the Spanish ambassador. About ten years before that episode, Roger Delgado had played Mendoza the Spanish ambassador in the TV Series Sir Francis Drake. Even at the time it was probably a fairly obscure in-joke.
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I think Frasier was full of this sort of thing, but I cannot remember any specific examples.
My go-to on this is always Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. When Charlie is watching the news broadcast about the Ecuadorian millionaire who supposedly found the fifth golden ticket, the photo used to portray said millionaire is actually a picture of Martin Bormann, the former head of the Chancellery for the government of Nazi Germany.
Bormann had disappeared at the end of WWII, and there had been persistent rumors over the succeeding two and a half decades that he had escaped to South America and was living there in hiding. The use of the photo was probably meant to be a sly reference to that.
It may not have been obscure at the time (at least not to British audiences), but it probably is now.
In the first Beatles movie, A Hard Day’s Night, everybody keeps saying that Paul’s grandfather is “a very clean old man.” It seems like just a bit of whimsy these days.
Paul’s grandfather was played by Wilfred Brambell, who was best known at the time for starring in the sitcom “Steptoe and Son.” In that sitcom, he was frequently called a “dirty old man.” The running gag of calling him a “clean old man” is a reference to that.
In two Maverick episodes subject of gunfighters handing out business cards comes up, a stab at Have Gun Will Travel.
This may be more of an Easter Egg, but in the Rick And Morty episode where they were on the train that was running around in circles, Rick had a map of the train. It was a very clear reference to Dan Harmon’s writing style. Circles would also pop up from time to time in the background chalkboard/whiteboard in the study room on Community as well.
Abed may have even drawn one and used it as a reference to explain something once.
I was watching that wreck of a show Holey Moley (The Sequel) just the other day. One of the contestants was a 60-something year old lady named Connie something.
Rob Riggle is commentating later on in the show, and says something like, “I sure am worried about Sweet, Sweet Connie!”.
I got a laugh from that.
Thank you for this!
I have always loved how Community had so much extra shit going on, almost like a silent movie playing in the background. For years now, I have wondered why the hell someone dressed as Beetlejuice just happened to walk by in the background of a random episode. I never would have guessed to count to number of name drops, especially across multiple seasons.
I never would have caught it even knowing about it and watching for it. I didn’t see it until I saw a youtube clip of it and knew to watch that one specific corner of the screen.
It’s like seeing Annie’s Boobs take pen in the bottle episode. You don’t even see Annie’s Boobs in the scene, you just see barely Annie’s Boob’s hand. Even then, if you aren’t told about it (like I was) you won’t see Annie’s Boobs at all.
Even better was when Abed assisted a women giving birth, an entire story that took place in the background.